Reinstalling Ubuntu 16 Xenial from within Linux

I have rented a KVM-based VPS from a provider and wanted to reinstall the templated Ubuntu 14.04 install that can with it. This is how I did it.

I basically remove the 4GB swap drive (/dev/vda2) and write the mini.iso on top of it. Then I tell the grub2 bootloader to boot using the partition, and then I reboot the machine. Enjoy!


# swapoff /dev/vda2
# sudo sed -i '/ swap / s/^/#/' /etc/fstab


# fdisk /dev/vda
( alternatively use the easier 'cfdisk /dev/vda')

press ‘d’ for delete
press ‘2’ for partition 2

press n for new partition
press p for primary
press 2
just fill in the defaults
press ‘w’ to write

This may display:
WARNING: Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy.
The kernel still uses the old table. The new table will be used at
the next reboot or after you run partprobe(8) or kpartx(8)
Syncing disks.


Alternative: Minimize wait and do it faster:

$ dd if=mini.iso of=/dev/vda3 bs=4MB;sync

cat <<EOF > /etc/grub.d/06_custom
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 \$0
menuentry "ISO" {
  set root=(hd0,3)
  set gfxpayload=keep
  linux    /linux -- quiet
  initrd    /initrd.gz
}
EOF


$ chmod a+x /etc/grub.d/06_custom
$ update-grub && reboot



After installation if the terminal does not show, then try and press CTRL+ALT+F1 (together with FN on a Mac)

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