Wiki » Making a bootable Mageia network install USB drive

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Synopsis: This page describes how to configure a Mageia bootable network install USB drive.

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Benefits

The Mageia network install bootable USB drive is a very useful tool to help Installing Mageia Linux.

It provides different ways to install: via network connection, from an ISO image on disk, or CDrom.

About the Mageia network install ISO

As the name suggests, it has an option for installing Mageia via a network connection but it also enables installing via other methods.

#	installation method
1	NFS server
2	FTP server
3	HTTP server
4	CDROM drive
5	Hard disk
6	Load third party modules

As of December 2020, the Mageia network install ISO is about 120mb in size. So, an older smaller USB 2 drive can be used to configure a bootable Mageia netinstall USB.

More details about Mageia netinstall ISO here: Mageia Netinstall ISO (Boot.iso)

An example of installing Mageia from ISO images stored on Hard disk: Installing Mageia from ISO images on disk using grub2

Overview

1. Download Mageia network install ISO image
2. Download checksum file for ISO file
3. Verify ISO file using checksum
4. Write ISO to USB drive

Hardware needed

One USB drive with capacity 128mb or larger (for the Mageia 8 netinstall ISO).

Depending on what your computers support in their USB ports, it can be useful to use an older USB 2.0 type drive for compatibility with older computers. For newer ones, USB 3.0 or higher has the advantage of better speed.

It can also be helpful to use a USB drive with a read/write activity LED so there is some visual confirmation access is working.

Preparation

sudo

This page documents making a bootable Mageia netinstall USB drive using sudo where needed.

Check that you have sudo installed and configured as described here: Configuring_sudo

Steps

TL;DR

"Too long; didn't read"?

If you just want the quick version:

1. Go to Appendix-1 (below). Copy and paste the script example to a shell to download and verify the Mageia network install ISO
2. Follow steps: Step-4, Step-5, Step-6, Step-7 below to write the ISO image to USB drive

Step-1: Download Mageia netinstall ISO

Here, three options are presented for downloading the Mageia network install ISO image:

1. option-a: with web browser
2. option-b: using wget
3. option-c: using rsync

Step-1, option-a: using web browser

The Mageia network install ISO image can be downloaded from: https://www.mageia.org/en/downloads/

Example:

^ Select appropriate network install ISO image for download. In this example: Mageia 8, non-free, 64 bit.

Step-1, option-b: alternatively, download using wget on command line

cd ~/Downloads && wget https://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images/Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso

^ Commands to download netinstall ISO. In this example: the nonfree 64bit version. Here using the URL found in the web browser access (see above).

Example:

[user@localhost ~]$ cd ~/Downloads && wget https://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images/Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso --2021-02-02 15:19:41-- https://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images/Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso Resolving www.mirrorservice.org (www.mirrorservice.org)... 212.219.56.184, 2001:630:341:12::184 Connecting to www.mirrorservice.org (www.mirrorservice.org)|212.219.56.184|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 125829120 (120M) [application/x-iso9660-image] Saving to: ‘Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso’ Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso 100%[=========================================================>] 120.00M 8.77MB/s in 14s 2021-02-02 15:19:54 (8.76 MB/s) - ‘Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso’ saved [125829120/125829120]

Example of downloading netinstall ISO

Step-1, option-c: alternatively, download using rsync on command line

rsync_server=www.mirrorservice.org rsync_server_path=/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images iso=Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso rsync -av rsync://${rsync_server}${rsync_server_path}/${iso} ~/Downloads/

^ Commands to download netinstall ISO using rsync. In this example: the nonfree 64bit version.

Example:

[user@localhost ~]$ rsync_server=www.mirrorservice.org [user@localhost ~]$ rsync_server_path=/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images [user@localhost ~]$ iso=Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso [user@localhost ~]$ duration "rsync -av rsync://${rsync_server}${rsync_server_path}/${iso} ~/Downloads/" 2021_05_08_at_15:25:25 duration: commenced: rsync -av rsync://www.mirrorservice.org/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images/Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso ~/Downloads/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the University of Kent's UK Mirror Service. More information can be found at our web site: https://www.mirrorservice.org/ Please send comments or questions to help@mirrorservice.org. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- receiving incremental file list Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso sent 43 bytes received 125,859,969 bytes 8,120,000.77 bytes/sec total size is 125,829,120 speedup is 1.00 2021_05_08_at_15:25:40 duration: completed 2021_05_08_at_15:25:40 duration: total duration: 15 seconds [user@localhost ~]$ ls -lh ~/Downloads/${iso} -rw-r--r-- 1 user user 120M Feb 18 11:48 /home/user/Downloads/Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso

Example of downloading netinstall ISO using rsync

Step-2: Download the checksum file for netinstall ISO file

Step-2, option a: copy and paste sha512 checksum file from web brower

Example:

^ Copy and paste the SHA512 checksum (highlighted in green (above)). In this example, checksum for: sha512sum Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso.

Save the copy buffer together with the name of the ISO file into a local checksum file:

#Use ctrl-v to paste the long sha512 checksum into an echo command to save as a local file like this: #NB the 2 spaces (shown as " ") between the checksum and the ISO filename are required. iso=Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso echo f250775a1ebf9d3315854debee5e3fc2d330a05f78d396b63c46abdafb649825d7c62592356139f09e67bf237f5f38dc87bdf20cf39285fbda183f9549edf9df" "${iso} > ~/Downloads/${iso}.sha512

^ Using echo to paste sha512 checksum file, two spaces, and the ISO filename into local checksum file

Step-2, option-b: alternatively, download checksum file using wget

cd ~/Downloads && wget https://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images/Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso.sha512

^ Using wget to download sha512 checksum file for netinstall ISO

Example:

[user@localhost ~]$ cd ~/Downloads && wget https://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images/Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso.sha512 --2021-02-02 15:22:53-- https://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images/Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso.sha512 Resolving www.mirrorservice.org (www.mirrorservice.org)... 212.219.56.184, 2001:630:341:12::184 Connecting to www.mirrorservice.org (www.mirrorservice.org)|212.219.56.184|:443... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 169 [application/x-iso9660-image] Saving to: ‘Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso.sha512’ Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso.sha512 100%[===================================================================>] 169 --.-KB/s in 0s 2021-02-02 15:22:53 (7.96 MB/s) - ‘Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso.sha512’ saved [169/169]

Example of using wget to download sha512 checksum file for netinstall ISO

Step-2, option-c: alternatively, download checksum file using rsync

rsync_server=www.mirrorservice.org rsync_server_path=/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images iso=Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso rsync -av rsync://${rsync_server}${rsync_server_path}/${iso}.sha512 ~/Downloads/

^ Download sha512 checksum file for netinstall ISO using rsync

Example:

[user@localhost ~]$ rsync_server=www.mirrorservice.org [user@localhost ~]$ rsync_server_path=/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images [user@localhost ~]$ iso=Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso [user@localhost ~]$ duration "rsync -av rsync://${rsync_server}${rsync_server_path}/${iso}.sha512 ~/Downloads/" 2021_05_08_at_17:05:49 duration: commenced: rsync -av rsync://www.mirrorservice.org/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/8/x86_64/install/images/Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso.sha512 ~/Downloads/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the University of Kent's UK Mirror Service. More information can be found at our web site: https://www.mirrorservice.org/ Please send comments or questions to help@mirrorservice.org. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- receiving incremental file list Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso.sha512 sent 43 bytes received 312 bytes 710.00 bytes/sec total size is 169 speedup is 0.48 2021_05_08_at_17:05:49 duration: completed 2021_05_08_at_17:05:49 duration: total duration: zero seconds

Example of using rsync to download sha512 checksum file for netinstall ISO

Step-3: Verify the downloaded ISO file with sha512sum

cd ~/Downloads && sha512sum -c Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso.sha512

^ Using sha512sum to verify the netinstall ISO against the sha512 checksum file

Example:

[user@localhost Downloads]$ cd ~/Downloads && sha512sum -c Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso.sha512 Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso: OK

Example of using sha512sum to verify the netinstall ISO against the sha512 checksum file. The "OK" shows the computed checksum of the ISO matches the checksum file.

Step-4: Identify the correct device name for the network install USB device

Step-4.1: open a terminal and run the following command to display the system log (updated in real time)

journalctl -fa

^ Command to display system journal in real time

Step-4.2: Insert the USB stick to use for netinstall ISO and observe the output from journalctl -fa

Example:

Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost kernel: usb 3-1.1: new SuperSpeed Gen 1 USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost kernel: usb 3-1.1: New USB device found, idVendor=090c, idProduct=1000, bcdDevice=11.00 Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost kernel: usb 3-1.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3 Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost kernel: usb 3-1.1: Product: Flash Drive Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost kernel: usb 3-1.1: Manufacturer: Samsung Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost kernel: usb 3-1.1: SerialNumber: 0372220010045572 Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost mtp-probe[22791]: checking bus 3, device 3: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:1c:00.0/usb3/3-1/3-1.1" Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost mtp-probe[22791]: bus: 3, device: 3 was not an MTP device Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost kernel: usb-storage 3-1.1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost kernel: usb-storage 3-1.1:1.0: Quirks match for vid 090c pid 1000: 400 Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost kernel: scsi host6: usb-storage 3-1.1:1.0 Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver uas Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost mtp-probe[22800]: checking bus 3, device 3: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:1c:00.0/usb3/3-1/3-1.1" Feb 15 16:05:45 localhost mtp-probe[22800]: bus: 3, device: 3 was not an MTP device Feb 15 16:05:46 localhost kernel: scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access Samsung Flash Drive 1100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6 Feb 15 16:05:46 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 250626566 512-byte logical blocks: (128 GB/120 GiB) Feb 15 16:05:46 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off Feb 15 16:05:46 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00 Feb 15 16:05:46 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA Feb 15 16:05:46 localhost kernel: sdb: sdb1 sdb2 < sdb5 sdb6 sdb7 sdb8 sdb9 > Feb 15 16:05:46 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk Feb 15 16:05:47 localhost kernel: EXT4-fs (sdb5): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null) Feb 15 16:05:47 localhost kernel: ext4 filesystem being mounted at /run/media/user/BOOT supports timestamps until 2038 (0x7fffffff) Feb 15 16:05:47 localhost udisksd[1749]: Mounted /dev/sdb5 at /run/media/user/BOOT on behalf of uid 1000 Feb 15 16:05:47 localhost kernel: EXT4-fs (sdb6): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null) Feb 15 16:05:47 localhost udisksd[1749]: Mounted /dev/sdb6 at /run/media/user/INSTALL-ISO on behalf of uid 1000 Feb 15 16:05:59 localhost udisksd[1749]: Unlocked device /dev/sdb9 as /dev/dm-4 Feb 15 16:05:59 localhost kernel: EXT4-fs (dm-4): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null) Feb 15 16:05:59 localhost udisksd[1749]: Mounted /dev/dm-4 at /run/media/user/HOME on behalf of uid 1000 Feb 15 16:06:11 localhost udisksd[1749]: Unlocked device /dev/sdb8 as /dev/dm-5 Feb 15 16:06:11 localhost udisksd[1749]: Mounted /dev/dm-5 at /run/media/user/ROOT on behalf of uid 1000 Feb 15 16:06:11 localhost kernel: EXT4-fs (dm-5): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null) Feb 15 16:06:21 localhost udisksd[1749]: Unlocked device /dev/sdb7 as /dev/dm-6

^ Display of system journal when USB inserted. NB from "kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb]" the USB device name here is sdb. So: memory_stick=/dev/sdb

Step-4.2: Save the USB device name in shell variable: memory_stick

memory_stick=/dev/sdb

^ Setting shell variable memory_stick to the device name identified from journalctl -fa

Step-5: Determine size in MB of netinstall ISO image

ls -lh Mageia-8-netinstall*.iso

^ Command to display size of Mageia network install ISO in MB

Example:

[user@localhost ~/Downloads]$ ls -lh Mageia-8-netinstall*.iso -rw-r--r-- 1 user user 120M Feb 2 10:16 Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso

Example: size of netinstall ISO shown as 120 MB

Step-6: Write netinstall ISO to USB memory stick

WARNING: take care to ensure you have the correct device name for your USB memory stick

NB It is worth double checking that you have the correct device name for USB memory stick on which you will write the netinstall ISO.
If you get it wrong you could overwrite the device on which the operating system has been installed and this would trash your installed running system.

Step-6, option-a: using dd command

/bin/sudo dd if=~/Downloads/Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso of=${memory_stick} bs=120MB status=progress

^ Command to write netinstall ISO to USB device named via shell variable ${memory_stick} with image size 120 MB. By defining the block size ("bs=") for dd as the image size it can be written in a single write operation.

[user@localhost ~]$ /bin/sudo dd if=~/Downloads/Mageia-8-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=120MB status=progress 1+1 records in 1+1 records out 125829120 bytes (126 MB, 120 MiB) copied, 24.2834 s, 5.2 MB/s

Example of writing netinstall ISO to USB on /dev/sdb with block size 120 mb (whole image)

Step-6, option-b: using isodumper command

Mageia's IsoDumper command is a tool for working with USB drives. One of it's functions is to write ISO images to USB.

Read more about IsoDumper here: IsoDumper Writing ISO images on USB sticks

Is isodumper installed?

rpm -q isodumper > /dev/null && echo isodumper is installed || echo isodumper is *not* installed. Install with: /bin/sudo urpmi isodumper

^ Check if isodumper RPM is installed. If not show how to install with urpmi.

Example of IsoDumper:

^ isodumper screenshot

Here is the wiki page for IsoDumper_Writing_ISO_images_on_USB_sticks.

Step-7: Test the netinstall USB bootable memory stick

Check that the Mageia netinstall bootable USB works by inserting in USB slot and selecting USB as boot device.
For example: on HP systems, tapping the <escape> key while powering up will display the BIOS monitor where the boot device can be selected using <f9> key.

If the bootable netinstall USB is working then when you boot with it something like the following should be seen:

^ Mageia 8 netinstall boot screen

Step-8: (Optional) label Mageia netinstall USB stick

Having created and tested the Mageia netinstall USB it is useful to put some kind of label on the stick for reference and so it can quickly be identified.

There are many ways to do this. Here is one example:

^ Example labelled Mageia 8 netinstall USB. Key information: Mageia version 8, 64bit, network install image

Appendix-1: script to download Mageia netinstall ISO using rsync and verify using sha512sum

One of the advantages of using rsync is that it will replace the local copy with the latest from the server while using wget will rename new download so you end up with two copies locally.
The rsync command also checksums each block of the files as they are transferred.

Copy and paste the following commands to download the Mageia 64bit nonfree netinstall ISO image and the sha512 checksum file and verify the whole ISO file against the checksum.

# # Script to rsync download Mageia network install ISO with checksum file and verify with sha512sum # This example for: Mageia 9, non-free, 64 bit version of netinstall ISO # (copy & paste, run as non-root): # ( mageia_version=9 # set mageia version here dst=~/Downloads/mageia${mageia_version}-netinstall mkdir -p ${dst} 2>&1 && echo created ${dst} cd ${dst} iso=Mageia-${mageia_version}-netinstall-nonfree-x86_64.iso rsync_server=www.mirrorservice.org rsync_server_path=/mageia.org/pub/mageia/distrib/${mageia_version}/x86_64/install/images/ # download checksum file echo; echo rsync -avP rsync://${rsync_server}${rsync_server_path}/${iso}.sha512 . rsync -avP rsync://${rsync_server}${rsync_server_path}/${iso}.sha512 . # download ISO echo; echo rsync -avP rsync://${rsync_server}${rsync_server_path}/${iso} . rsync -avP rsync://${rsync_server}${rsync_server_path}/${iso} . # verify downloaded ISO echo; echo sha512sum -c ${iso}.sha512 sha512sum -c ${iso}.sha512 && echo Downloaded ISO verified with checksum || echo Failed checksum verification >&2 echo; echo ls -lh ${dst}/${iso}* ls -lh ${dst}/${iso}* ) # # (end copy & paste)

^ Script to download Mageia network install ISO and checksum files using rsync and verify with sha512sum

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