The main installation is slightly different in 24.06LTS, insert the Ubuntu Server (LTS 26.04LTS Live) installation CD/USB/DVD and follow the onscreen instructions. If you don’t understand the questions asked by the installer put the keyboard down and switch everything thing off and go back to being a user.

You will be asked.

Select Language - (English UK)
Select Keyboard Layout. - (English UK)
Select Ubuntu Server - not the minimized version.
Check the box for Third Party Drivers (to install things like NVIDIA drivers etc)
You can leave the Network Configuration as default - This will set up the network for DHCP (using IPv4 and IPV6) We will be modifying this later.
Proxy address if you have one.
(the install will check the mirror) - once it is on the network.

Use the entire disk for the OS when asked - it will create the relevent partitions.
Leave the checkbox for an LVM group - (no need to Encrypt)

Your name
Your servers name
Username of the Admin
Password (and confirmation)

Skip ubuntu pro option (we can do that later)

Install the SSH server when prompted so you can get remote access.

Install any third party drivers if required

When asked to install snaps do not select any.

===== Disk Partitioning ===== Move this up above Admin user

When prompted choose

Use An Entire Disk

This will configure the system disk, with automatic boot / root / swap partitions. You can specify extra disks later and mount them if needed. You can also enter manual mode and select other disks and choose your mount points. You may want to set up LV volumes if you want to resize partitions later.

If you want to be safe, disconnect all disks apart from the one on which you want the do the install, (then add them later)

root@solaris:/home/sysadmin# lsblk
NAME                    MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda                       8:0    0   3.6T  0 disk /srv/media
sdb                       8:16   0  12.7T  0 disk
├─vg--backup-lv--cctv   252:0    0     1T  0 lvm  /srv/cctv
└─vg--backup-lv--backup 252:1    0  11.7T  0 lvm  /srv/backup
sdc                       8:32   0   3.6T  0 disk
└─vg--data-lv--data     252:2    0     3T  0 lvm  /srv/data
sr0                      11:0    1  1024M  0 rom
nvme0n1                 259:0    0 465.8G  0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1             259:1    0     1G  0 part /boot/efi
└─nvme0n1p2             259:2    0 464.7G  0 part /

You can edit the disk partitions before submitting to add further disks at specific mount points. Mount points used were.. (which in this case were manually configured as I did not want to lose existing data)

Prolong the life of SSDs with

nano /etc/sysctl.d/local.conf

And add this line

vm.swappiness=20

Make live with

systemctl restart procps.service

You can check it is applied with

cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

nano /etc/sysctl.d/local.conf

Add the following line.

net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

Then to load this restart the procps service…

systemctl restart procps.service

Configure a network bridge to present a single interface to the world, this is handy for VMs / VPNs etc. as we only need to reference the bridge. (br0:) - and means we can swap the network interface out without changing all the apps. 26.04 uses netplan to configure its network configuration.

The following steps will set up a bridge with a static IP address. The interface is br0

Change to the netplan directory.

NOTE: You may need to set the DNS server to be the local router - until you have set up BIND, then you can go back and edit this again.

cd /etc/netplan
nano 00-solaris.yaml  (default netplan config)

Content of the 00-solaris.yaml

# This is the network config made for solaris
network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    en01: {}

  bridges:
    br0:
      critical: true
      dhcp4: false
      addresses: [ 10.3.200.1/16 ]
      routes:
       - to: default
         via: 10.3.1.1
      nameservers:
        search: [ scottworld.net ]
        addresses: [ 10.3.200.1 ]
      interfaces: [ en01 ]
      parameters:
        stp: false
      # Disable IPv6
      dhcp6: false
      accept-ra: no
      link-local: []

Disable the cloud network configuration.

touch /etc/cloud/cloud-init.disabled

You can check it with

cloud-init status

Update the permissions on the netplan config to remove the global r/w permissions

chomd 600 /etc/netplan/00-solaris.yaml

Apply the changes

netplan --debug apply

Reboot and check the network configuration with

ip addr

You should have an interface of br0: with the ip you specified.

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host noprefixroute
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp1s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast master br0 state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 52:54:00:eb:cb:22 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    altname enx525400ebcb22
3: br0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether e2:d0:4d:d7:1f:0d brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 10.3.200.10/16 brd 10.3.255.255 scope global br0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Edit the file

nano /etc/hosts

Comment out the entry for 127.0.1.1 and replace it with a Global server value.

10.3.200.1 solaris.scottworld.net solaris