I like my Linux installs heavily customized and security hardened, to the extent that copying over /home won’t cut it, but not so much that it breaks when updating Debian. Whenever someone mentions reinstalling Linux, I am instinctively nervous thinking about the work it would take for me to get from a vanilla install to my current configuration.

It started a couple of years ago, when dreading the work of configuring Debian to my taste on a new laptop, I decided to instead just shrink my existing install to match the new laptop’s drive and dd it over. I later made a VM from my install, stripped out personal files and obvious junk, and condensed it to a 30 GB raw disk image, which I then deployed on the rest of my machines.

That was still a bit too janky, so once my configuration and installed packages stabilized, I bit the bullet, spun up a new VM, and painstakingly replicated my configuration from a fresh copy of Debian. I finished with a 24 GB raw disk image, which I can now deploy as a “fresh” yet pre-configured install, whether to prepare new machines, make new VMs, fix broken installs, or just because I want to.

All that needs to be done after dd’ing the image to a new disk is:

  • Some machines: boot grubx64.efi/shimx64.efi from Ventoy and “bless” the new install with grub-install and update-grub
  • Reencrypt LUKS root partition with new password
  • Configure user and GRUB passwords
  • Set hostname
  • Install updates and drivers as needed
  • Configure for high DPI if needed

I’m interested to hear if any of you have a similar workflow or any feedback on mine.

  • Lichtblitz
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    2 months ago

    Ansible playbook is perfect for this. All your configuration is repeatable, whether on a running system or a new one. Plus you can start with a completely fresh newest version image and apply from there, instead of starting from a soon-to-be outdated custom image.