Arch Simple Install

• Three Partitions, ESP (Bootloader), Swap and Root
• No encryption
• Serve to experiment with more exotic configurations later

First create a (UEFI) VM and give the VM's disk a unique ID.

This can be done with virt-manager by going to the disk and giving it a serial number here we made it

9123456789

.

After booting into the live ISO we can get the IP address from the NIC in

virt-manager

or in the terminal of the VM with

ip addr

ssh [email protected] -o "UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null" -o "StrictHostKeychecking=no"

Clean the disk.

export DISK=/dev/disk/by-id/virtio-9123456789
wipefs -a $DISK
blkdiscard -f $DISK
sgdisk --zap-all $DISK

We can see partition types with the following.

sgdisk --list-types

# ESP (EFI System Partition)
sgdisk     -n1:1M:+2GB   -t1:EF00 $DISK
# Swap
sgdisk     -n2:0:+1G    -t2:8200 $DISK
# Root
sgdisk     -n3:0:0        -t3:8304 $DISK

Creating the filesystems on the partitions

# Make the ESP Filesystem
mkfs.fat -F 32 ${DISK}-part1
# Swap
mkswap ${DISK}-part2
# Root file system
mkfs.ext4 ${DISK}-part3

Mount the partitions under

/mnt

mount --mkdir ${DISK}-part1 /mnt/esp
swapon ${DISK}-part2
mount ${DISK}-part3 /mnt

Install the Operating System to

/mnt

pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware

Generate the

fstab

file which tells linux how to mount the various file systems early in the booting process.

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Chroot into the operating system, this is how you can get into the file system from another operating system during recovery procedures as well.

arch-chroot /mnt

Sync the hardware clock

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc

Set Lang and Local

# This uncomments en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 from /etc/locale.gen
sed -i '/#en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8/s/^#//' /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen

Set a hostname

echo "archvm" > /etc/hostname

Install a network manager

pacman -S networkmanager
systemctl enable NetworkManager.service

Install OpenSSH Server

pacman -S openssh
systemctl enable sshd.service

Set the password with

passwd

or

chpasswd

# passwd
printf 'root:arch' | chpasswd

We can save some time during boot by decompressing the images now.

sed -i '/#MODULES_DECOMPRESS="yes"/s/^#//' /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
# Speed boot up by disabling compressed Unikernal
sed -i '/^HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf kms keyboard keymap consolefont block filesystems fsck)/s/udev/systemd/' /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

We are going to replace the default mkinitcpio linux preset with one that creates a unikernal and mounts to the ESP partition

mkdir -p /esp/EFI/Linux
cat << 'EOF' > /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset
# mkinitcpio preset file for the 'linux' package

#ALL_config="/etc/mkinitcpio.conf"
ALL_kver="/boot/vmlinuz-linux"
ALL_microcode=(/boot/*-ucode.img)

PRESETS=('default' 'fallback')

#default_config="/etc/mkinitcpio.conf"
default_uki="/esp/EFI/Linux/arch-linux.efi"
default_options="--splash=/usr/share/systemd/bootctl/splash-arch.bmp"

fallback_uki="/esp/EFI/Linux/arch-linux-fallback.efi"
fallback_options="-S autodetect"
EOF

Regenerate

mkinitcpio -P

pacman -S efibootmgr
efibootmgr --create --disk ${DISK} --part 1 --label "Arch Linux" --loader '\EFI\Linux\arch-linux.efi' --unicode
efibootmgr --create --disk ${DISK} --part 1 --label "Arch Linux Fallback" --loader '\EFI\Linux\arch-linux-fallback.efi' --unicode

exit
umount -R /mnt
reboot now

---

Recovery

export DISK=/dev/disk/by-id/virtio-9123456789
sleep 1
mount --mkdir ${DISK}-part1 /mnt/esp
sleep 1
swapon ${DISK}-part2
sleep 1
mount ${DISK}-part3 /mnt
arch-chroot /mnt