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Install the OS manually from your own image

You can manually install an OS from a custom image on a dedicated server. If you do not have specific requirements for the OS, we recommend using standard images — from them you can install the OS via autoinstall or manually.

  1. Boot the server in Rescue mode.
  2. Optional: if you are connecting to the server from Windows OS, install the OpenSSH client.
  3. Install the OS from a custom image.
  4. Optional: configure the network interface.
  5. Change the boot template.

1. Boot the server in Rescue mode

  1. In the Control panel, in the top menu, click Products and select Dedicated Servers.

  2. In the Servers section, open the server page → Operating system tab.

  3. Click Change boot template.

  4. In the Boot template field, select Boot to Rescue.

  5. Click Save and reboot. The server will be rebooted.

2. Optional: install OpenSSH Client

If you are connecting to the server from a non-Windows OS, skip this step.

To connect via SSH from Windows OS, you must install OpenSSH Client. For more information about working with OpenSSH, see the Get started with OpenSSH for Windows article in Microsoft documentation.

  1. Run PowerShell as an administrator.

  2. Check if OpenSSH Client is installed on your Windows OS:

    Get-WindowsCapability -Online | Where-Object Name -like 'OpenSSH.Client'

    The response will show the name and status of OpenSSH components. For example:

    Name  : OpenSSH.Client~~~~0.0.1.0
    State : Installed

    Here State is the component status:

    • Installed — the component is installed in the OS;
    • NotPresent — the component is not installed in the OS.

  3. If the value in the State field in the response in step 2 is NotPresent, the OpenSSH components are not installed. Install OpenSSH Client:

    Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Client~~~~0.0.1.0

    Response example:

    Path          :
    Online        : True
    RestartNeeded : False

  4. If the value in the RestartNeeded field in the response in step 3 is True, restart your computer.

3. Install the OS from your own image

To install the OS from a custom image, the qemu-iso script is used. The script downloads the ISO image to the server, starts a VNC server, and initiates the OS installation process.

You can load the OS image onto the server:

  • using the image URL hosted on a publicly accessible resource. The qemu-iso script will load the OS image into the server RAM;
  • or manually from your local computer to a disk or the server RAM.

  1. Install a VNC client on your local computer. For a list of VNC clients for various OSs, see the Connect via VNC subsection of the Connect to server instructions.

  2. Open CLI. On a local computer running Windows, use PowerShell.

  3. Connect to the server via SSH forwarding the standard port for VNC — 5900:

    ssh -L 5900:localhost:5900 root@<ip_address>

    Specify <ip_address> — the public IP address of the server. You can copy it in the Control panel: in the top menu, click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → server page → Operating system tab → in the IP field, click .

  4. Copy the URL of the OS image you intend to install. The image must be hosted on a publicly accessible resource, and its size must be at least 2 GB smaller than the server's RAM.

    To make the image download faster, we recommend placing the image in Servercore S3 — for more information, see the Upload object instructions.

  5. Run the qemu-iso script. The script will download the installation files to the server, start a VNC server, and initiate the OS installation process:

    qemu-iso <url>

    Specify:

    • <url> — the path to the OS image that you copied in step 4;
    • optional: -nic_type <virtual_network_adapter> — the type of network device to emulate in the virtual machine. For example, to install VMware ESXi, change the virtual network adapter to vmxnet3. A full list of supported virtual network adapters can be viewed using the command qemu-system-x86_64 -device help.

  6. Wait for the message stating that the OS image has been uploaded to the server and the VNC server is running:

    VM has been created!

  7. Open the VNC client on your local computer.

  8. Connect to the server. The connection process depends on the VNC client you choose. Connection parameters:

    • IP address — localhost:5900;
    • password — leave the field empty.

  9. Complete all OS installation steps.

  10. In the Rescue console, press Ctrl + C to terminate the qemu-iso process.

  11. Optional: without exiting Rescue mode, configure the network interface. We recommend configuring the network interface right after installing the OS; otherwise, the server may become unreachable over the network.

4. Configure the network interface

After manual OS installation, the network configuration file may specify the interface name used in the virtual environment, for example eth0. After rebooting on a physical server, the network interface may receive a different name, for example enp1s0. Because of this mismatch, the server may be unreachable over the network until the network interface name is updated to the actual one. We recommend updating the name right after installing the OS, without exiting Rescue mode.

You can also configure the network interface and synchronize time with an external NTP server later. Additional OS settings depend on the configuration of the image you are installing.

  1. In the Rescue console, view the network interface name by displaying network interface information:

    ip a

    In the response, find the interface in the UP state that has a public IP address. Note or copy the network interface name in the altname field. For example:

      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: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
          link/ether 00:0c:00:0f:0:f0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
          altname enp1s0
          inet 203.0.113.0/24 brd 203.0.113.255 scope global eth0
            valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
          inet6 fe00::000c:00ff:fe0f:00f0/64 scope link proto kernel_ll
            valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

    Here enp1s0 is the name of the required network interface.

  2. Connect to the OS installed on the server; to do this, run the qemu-iso script without specifying an image:

    qemu-iso

  3. Open the netplan utility configuration file using the vi text editor:

    vi /etc/netplan/00-installer-config.yaml

  4. Change the parameter values. You can view the correct values in the Control panel: in the top menu, click Products → Dedicated Servers → server page → Network tab → click the required subnet.

    network:
      ethernets:
        <eth_name>:
          addresses:
            - <ip_address>/<mask>
          gateway4: <gateway>
        renderer: networkd
        version: 2

    Specify:

    • <eth_name> — the name of the public network interface, the value from the altname field that you obtained in step 1;
    • Specify <ip_address> — the public IP address of the server. You can copy it in the Control panel: in the top menu, click Products → Dedicated Servers → Servers → server page → Operating system tab → in the IP field, click ;
    • <mask> — subnet mask;
    • <gateway> — default gateway.

  5. Press ESC.

  6. Exit the vi text editor, saving the changes:

    :wq

  7. Apply the configuration:

    netplan apply

  8. Synchronize time with an external NTP server.

5. Change the boot template

Restore the previous server boot template or reboot the server from the OS. When rebooting the server from the OS, the boot template will automatically change to the one that was set before booting the server in Rescue mode.