Network-Reinstall-System-Modify wipes a VPS and reinstalls it over the network

The problem is provider templates and slow ISO mounts

The motivation is stated in three concrete complaints about how virtual machines usually arrive. First, the system template provided by a service provider may have built-in software that conflicts with what you are about to install, which causes the installation to fail. Second, ISO mounting is not a service every provider offers, and on some IPIM or KVM setups the transfer speed is so slow that installation efficiency is poor. Third, a Linux or Windows system may accumulate errors that cannot be diagnosed in use, and a clean reinstall is the pragmatic answer. So the tool is aimed at the gap between a bare provider image and a machine you actually want, and it fills that gap over the network rather than through a console.

A fork of MoeClub Vicer with additions

The lineage is stated directly: the project is forked from MoeClub Vicer, and after the modifications that add new functions and fix bugs, maintenance and support are provided by CXT, whose site is cxthhhhh.com. The two features the fork is described as adding are worth separating from the inherited ones. The inherited capability is reinstalling Linux and Windows and common operating systems through the internet, and the README names CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, Windows 2012R2, Windows Server 2019, Proxmox-VE and OpenWRT as examples, with the project description also listing Windows 2003, 7, 2008R2 and 2016 and noting that more are added continuously. The added capability is the bare metal system deployment platform, which mounts a network ISO image so that any system can be installed, and the documentation points to a separate tutorial for that mode rather than describing it in the README.

The repository is a small fraction of the distribution

This is the single most important operational fact about the project, and the FAQ explains it in detail. GitHub can only upload files smaller than 100MB, while the total content of the project was more than 50GB as of 2019-01-01 and over 130GB by 2021-04-16, with one passage citing 136GB. So only the script content and the smaller files are in the repository, and the auxiliary platform the author built cannot be uploaded there either. The top level of the repository reflects that split: it holds the main script `Network-Reinstall-System-Modify.sh`, a `CoreShell/` directory, a `CoreFiles/` directory, a `Tools/` directory, the `LICENSE`, the README and a `background/` folder of images. The bulk of the images and the helper platform live on the author's own site and an Open Disk CDN, which means the GitHub checkout alone is not a complete installation.

The default password is published and must be changed

The FAQ states the default password for the installed system, which is the website domain, and immediately says that to prevent brute force safety hazards you must change the default password immediately after installation and do a proper job of protecting it. The documentation is unusually direct about this, which is to its credit. The second answer covers what to expect next: because hardware configuration and network environment differ, installation takes between 10 and 60 minutes, and once it completes you connect over port 22 for Linux SSH or port 3389 for Windows RDP. So the practical sequence is start the reinstall, wait up to an hour, then connect and change the password before anything else, since a machine with a published password and a public IP is a target.

The two official channels and the community

The README separates the official release location, the tutorials and the community forum, and the distinction matters for a project distributed this way. The official release is on the author's own site rather than on GitHub releases, the tutorials are on the same site, and the community discussion happens on a forum at bbs.cxthhhhh.com. There is also a Telegram channel for more immediate contact. The FAQ says that submitting issues is possible but not immediate, and recommends the forum or the chat channels for support, with English and Chinese as the support languages and Chinese marked as preferred. The licence is GPL 3.0, and the release tags follow a naming scheme with a Stable_Version prefix, the most recent being Stable_Version-4.1.2 from 2021-04-16, while the release badge in the README points at 5.3.0.

The bare metal mode needs its own tutorial

The project distinguishes two very different operations, and it is careful to route the second one elsewhere. The one-click network reinstall is a single command that pulls an installation environment over the network and installs a supported system. The bare metal system deployment platform is described as a feature you can use to mount a network ISO image and install any system you want, and the FAQ answer to the question of how to use it says plainly that the process is hard to describe in one sentence, so you should visit the blog and follow the tutorial there. That is a reasonable division, since mounting a remote ISO on bare metal involves boot media, network drivers and a different failure surface, and none of that is described in the repository.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt this project if you run virtual machines and need a clean operating system image without a console or an ISO of your own, since it covers the common Linux and Windows targets and needs only network access. Do not adopt it for a machine you cannot afford to lose, because the whole point is to destroy the current installation, and the documentation itself notes that the installed system keeps a published default password until you change it. Verify first that your provider allows the boot media and network access the installer needs, that you can reach the machine afterwards over port 22 or port 3389, and that you understand the license terms of the operating system images you are downloading.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. License: GPL-3.0
2. MeowLove/Network-Reinstall-System-Modify on GitHub
3. Project website
4. README
5. Releases