There has to be an easier way…

Boot up into the installer, grab a vty2. (ALT-F2)
anna-install network-console (installs ssh)
network-console-menu (set password)
nano /etc/passwd (set shell to /bin/ash for installer user)

now you can ssh in as installer. if you don’t use network console and just install openssh-server-udeb, you don’t get hostkeys and config files. network-console-menu generates the hostkeys for you. if you don’t change the shell you’ll get dumped into the network-console menu when you ssh in, which is okay if that’s what you want.

all this just to: ‘tar -cvf – . | ssh installer@w.x.y.z tar -xf -C /target’ meh.