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Manual Steps to Build a Linode-Compatible Ubuntu Image

This guide walks you step-by-step through the manual creation of a minimal Ubuntu image for Linode, with full root access, SSH, Python, and networking via Netplan.

🧱 Image Creation & Mounting

# Create a 6GB blank image file
dd if=/dev/zero of=linode-fixed.img bs=1M count=6144

# Format it with ext4 filesystem
mkfs.ext4 linode-fixed.img

# Create a mount point and mount the image
mkdir /mnt/linode-fixed
sudo mount -o loop linode-fixed.img /mnt/linode-fixed

🐧 Bootstrap Ubuntu Filesystem

# Use debootstrap to install a minimal Ubuntu base system (Jammy Jellyfish)
sudo debootstrap --arch=amd64 jammy /mnt/linode-fixed http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu

🔗 Bind system directories

# Bind essential virtual filesystems for chrooted environment
sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/linode-fixed/dev
sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/linode-fixed/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/linode-fixed/sys

🚪 Enter chroot

sudo chroot /mnt/linode-fixed

Now you're inside the chroot and can configure the OS manually.

⚙️ Basic System Setup (inside chroot)

# Set root password
passwd

# Set hostname
echo "cryptovm" > /etc/hostname

# Basic fstab
echo "/dev/sda  /  ext4  defaults  0 1" > /etc/fstab

🌐 Network Configuration (Netplan)

# Create Netplan config with eth0 as default interface
mkdir -p /etc/netplan

cat <<EOF > /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml
network:
  version: 2
  ethernets:
    eth0:
      dhcp4: true
EOF

# Generate Netplan config (ignore errors in chroot)
netplan generate
netplan try || true

📦 Install essential packages

apt update
apt install -y systemd systemd-sysv openssh-server netplan.io python3
apt install -y curl git nano vim htop

👤 Create user and enable SSH

systemctl enable ssh
useradd -m -s /bin/bash cryptouser
passwd cryptouser

🔚 Exit chroot

exit

📁 Inject user files (outside chroot)

# Option 1: Copy specific folder
cp -r /root/myfiles /mnt/linode-fixed/root/

# Option 2: rsync while excluding system files
rsync -av --exclude="*.img" --exclude="*.img.gz" --exclude=".cache/" /root/ /mnt/linode-fixed/root/

# Option 3: exclude hidden files too
rsync -av --exclude="*.img" --exclude="*.img.gz" --exclude=".cache/" --exclude=".*" /root/ /mnt/linode-fixed/root/

🔻 Unmount system directories

sudo umount /mnt/linode-fixed/dev
sudo umount /mnt/linode-fixed/proc
sudo umount /mnt/linode-fixed/sys
sudo umount /mnt/linode-fixed

📦 Compress image

# Option 1: Overwrite original image
gzip -9 linode-fixed.img

# Option 2: Keep both
gzip -c linode-fixed.img > linode-fixed.img.gz

🖥️ Linode Post-Boot (LISH Console)

1. Networking Fix (if no IP):

ip a  # Find the correct interface (e.g. enp0s4)

cat <<EOF > /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml
network:
  version: 2
  ethernets:
    enp0s4:
      dhcp4: true
EOF

netplan generate
netplan apply
ip link set enp0s4 up

2. SSH Permission Fix (if login fails):

cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config | grep -iE 'PermitRootLogin|PasswordAuthentication'

sed -i 's/#\?PermitRootLogin.*/PermitRootLogin yes/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
sed -i 's/#\?PasswordAuthentication.*/PasswordAuthentication yes/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config

# Add them manually if they don't exist
echo "PermitRootLogin yes" >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config
echo "PasswordAuthentication yes" >> /etc/ssh/sshd_config

systemctl restart ssh

✅ Your image is now fully bootable, network-ready, and accessible via SSH!