This is an extract from my blog
Hello, this is my second blog post. In this blog i will be giving a tutorial on how to install ArchLinux. What im going to do is create a bash shell script with all the nessasary commands needed to install arch, then i will test and trouble shoot it using a virtual mashine until it works smoothly. I will mostly follow the pecedure layed out by Archlinux installation guide wehn creating this script. I will do my best to make it as simple as possible, I also plan on making a youtube video explaining everything typed here.
I would recommend creating a directory(folder) or a git repo for this project. If you are in linux and want to create a directory use the following command, just replace "my_new_directory" with what you want to call it.
# example
mkdir my_new_directory
The file layout for this project is as follows, Just create these files.
base.sh
post.sh
NOTE: make sure that your text editor of choice is set to LF (unix line endings) and UTF-8 this will mostly not be a problem if your writing this on linux, however if your using Windows to write this I'd recommend using Atom or Notepad ++.
Open both base.sh and post.sh to initialise the script using a Shebang as follows, i will also add set -e this option makes the shell script error out whenever a command errors out. It's generally a good idea to have it enabled most of the time. but this is optional.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e
Just to give a bit more explaining on the shebang above which is the #!, this tells the script where to find the bash interpreter, typically people use #!/bin/bash but using #!/usr/bin/env bash lends you some extra flexibility on different systems.
we need to guarantee that the system is in UEFI mode as the rest of this script depends on it. If the archiso is ran in UEFI there will be a efi directory in the /sys/firmware, example the following path must be true for it to me UEFI,
/sys/firmware/efi/
To test this in our script we can use the operator -d to test if it exists and use an IF statmemt to allow to program to run or not. You can just copy the following piece of code and add it on to the base.sh,
# this checks if the system is uefi
if [ ! -d "/sys/firmware/efi/" ]; then
echo "This script only works in UEFI"
exit 1
fi
Lets now continue editing the base.sh and create a few variables. in case you don't know hwo to crate a variable in bash it works like the following,
# example
VARIABLE="items"
# and to use the variable
mkdir ${VARIABLE}
So the variables we will need to add to the base.sh are as follows,
# set a root password
ROOTPASSWORD="password"
# set a username for your user
USERNAME="user"
# set a password for your user
USERPASSWORD="userpassword"
# set a hostname for the system
HOSTNAME="computer"
# set the drive to install on (more on that in a moment)
DRIVE="/dev/sda"
# set keymap for the keyboard
KEYMAP="uk"
# set up what packages need to be installed (also more on this below)
PKG="base base-devel grub wireless_tools nfs-utils ntfs-3g openssh pkgfile pacman-contrib mlocate mlocate alsa-utils bash-completion rsync"
In the above variables you can set them all to suit your own preference. This in IMPORTANT, the DRIVE variable has being assigned to "/dev/sda" above, you can change this if you want, but i recommend not, although the script that we are making will wipe all the contents on the "/dev/sda" drive, i would also recommend disconnecting any other drives in the computer when doing this install, no need to worrie about that just yet, the following will show you how you can see what drives are which.
# example, to check drives in your system
lsblk
Heres an example of the output of the lsblk command.
I will also give a closer look at the PKG variable, all the packages that assigned are optional, i have picked these as they are what i wanted, you can check out your options here, if you dont understand this dont worry too much, just use what i have provided above.
We must set up a few last things before moving on to step three, now lets sync the clocks to the systems local time using the following commands,
# clocks
# this enables the time controller
echo "Setting local time"
timedatectl set-ntp true
# this syncs with the system clock
hwclock --systohc --utc
Also we must set up the keyboard to match the variable up above, its done as simple as this,
# keyboard
# this loads the keyboard depending on your country as set in the variables
echo "Loading Uk Keymap for the keyboard"
loadkeys ${KEYMAP}
We will create three Partitions out of the DRIVE,
- efi
- Swap
- Root
I am going to use a tool called sgdisk. First we must wipe the drive and reformate it using the following,
# this wipes and formates the drive
echo "# Wriping Drive and segergating"
sgdisk -Z ${DRIVE}
And now segergste the drive,
# this optimumises the partition
sgdisk -a 2048 -o ${DRIVE}
# this makes the EFI partition
echo "Setup UEFI Boot Partition"
sgdisk -n 1:0:+512M -t 1:ef00 -c 1:"EFI System Partition" ${DRIVE}
# this makes the EFI partition a vfat filesystem
mkfs.vfat ${DRIVE}1
# this create the swap partition
echo "Setup Swap"
sgdisk -n 2:0:+2G -t 2:8200 -c 2:"Swap Partition" ${DRIVE}
# this makes the ROOT partition
echo "Setup Root"
sgdisk -n 3:0:0 -t 3:8300 -c 3:"Linux / Partition" ${DRIVE}
# this sets the ROOT partitions file system to ext4
mkfs.ext4 ${DRIVE}3
So that might be alot to take in at first so ill give little explaination on how sgdisk works, operators im using and what they do,
Zap all, this is used to destroy GPT and MBR data stuctures and then exit, basically wipping and formatting the disk
-Z
set alignment, aligns the start of the partitions to sectors that are multiples of this value, this allows obtain optimum performance with SSD drives
-a
clear, Clears out all Partition data
-o
typecode, change a single partitions typecode, uses two-byte hexadecimal number
-t
new partition, Create a new partition, you enter a partition number, starting sector, and an ending sector
-n
change name, changes the GPT name of a partition, this is encoded as a UTF-16,
-c
Also after the EFI and ROOT partitions i use the command mkfs.fs which means make file system and then tell it what file system you want to make e.g ext4 for stangered partitions like root or if you wanted to make home a seperate partition to root, only use vfat for the EFI partition
before we move onto the next part we must mount the partions to there relevant locations as follows,
# this mounts the ROOT partition
echo "# Mounting Partitions"
mount ${DRIVE}3 /mnt
# this creates a /boot/efi directory
mkdir -pv /mnt/boot/efi
# this mounts the EFI
mount ${DRIVE}1 /mnt/boot/efi
# this makes the swap
echo "Enable Swap Partition"
mkswap ${DRIVE}2
# this mounts the swap
swapon ${DRIVE}2
Notice how the ROOT and EFI partitions are mounted to /mnt, this is short for mount, this allows you to use the tools on the existing system to setup the file structure for the new system before using it. Also you have to manually create the /mnt/boot/efi as seen above.
First we will install reflector, this will allow us to download from the most efficient mirrors for the fastest download,
# ths installs reflector
echo "Downloading and Install reflector installation requirements"
pacman -Sy --noconfirm --needed reflector
# this downloads and sort Mirrors List from Archlinux.org
echo "Downloading and Ranking mirrors"
reflector --verbose --protocol http --latest 200 --number 20 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
# this updates the database
pacman -Syy
Also in ArchLinux the default package manager is Pacman as seen above. Now its time to install the main system,
# this installs all the packages that we have in our PKG variable
echo "# Installing Main System"
pacstrap /mnt ${PKG}
The most important package to install is the base, we have that in the PKG variable up above. Now lets create the Fstab, which is what tell arch what drives to mount when it starts up, installing fstab is done by the following,
# this imstalls the Fstab
echo "# Creating Fstab Entrys"
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
To finish off the base.sh script we must do some configurations and then arch-chroot (this means change root) to the new root ROOT directory we created, But now we must configure the network settings,
# this configures the network
echo "Configuring Network"
rm /mnt/etc/resolv.conf
ln -sf "/run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf" /mnt/etc/resolv.conf
cat > /mnt/etc/systemd/network/20-wired.network <<NET_EOF
[Match]
Name=en*
[Network]
DHCP=ipv4
NET_EOF
Now we must set a console keymap by adding youe KEYMAP settings to /mnt/etc/vconsole.conf,
# this sets the console keymap
echo "Setting KEYMAP"
echo "KEYMAP=$KEYMAP" >> /mnt/etc/vconsole.conf
We can set the hostname now by adding the HOSTNAME variable to the /mnt/etc/hostname,
# this sets Hostname
echo "Setting Hostname"
echo "${HOSTNAME}" > /mnt/etc/hostname
To set the loaction to your own country you will have to follow my example, it come defaultly set to US but im my example i show how to change it to ireland, its the same for everyother country, im using a editor called sed in this and using the operator -i to insert text,
# this sets the location to ireland
echo "Setting Locale to en_IE"
# this changes the locale to
sed -i 's/^en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/' /etc/locale.gen
sed -i 's/^#en_IE.UTF-8/en_IE.UTF-8/' /etc/locale.gen
# this sets the language to english
echo "LANG=en_IE.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf
export LANG=en_IE.UTF-8
locale-gen
echo ""
To learn more about locale go here Now to set the time zone, this example used ireland again,
# this sets Timezone
echo "Setting Timezone"
ln -sf "/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Dublin" /mnt/etc/localtime
Next i will enable the network services with systemctl to that it starts on startup,
# this enables required services for the network
echo "Setting up Systemd Services"
arch-chroot /mnt systemctl enable systemd-networkd.service systemd-resolved.service
We must also install grub with the following,
# this installs grub
arch-chroot /mnt grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=esp --bootloader-id=Archlinux
# this configures grub
arch-chroot /mnt grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Lets now go a head and add in the arch-chroot and make it run post.sh and we must aslso copy these files over to the new ROOT,
# this copys the post.sh to the new ROOT and runs it
cp post.sh /mnt/root/
arch-chroot /mnt sh /root/post.sh ${ROOTPASSWORD} ${USERNAME} ${USERPASSWORD}
rm /mnt/root/post.sh
In the post.sh we will be configuring the root password and username and password so thats why we are carrying these variables over. Now to finish off the base.sh we must unmount our drives and give a finnishing note to tell the user that they are to restart there pc.
# this unmounts all the mounted drives
echo "Unmounting Drive Partitions"
# this unmounts the Swap
swapoff ${DRIVE}2
# this unmounts the EFI
umount /mnt/boot/efi
# this unmounts the ROOT
umount /mnt
And now for a simple finishing note,
echo ""
echo "Finised Core Install"
echo
echo
echo
echo "After reboot login as your user"
Finally, we have the base.sh script finished.
Now open your post.sh that you have make earlyier and aslready initialised, first we must take in the variables we sent to it in the base.sh, make sure to have them at the same order that your put them in, like this,
# this gives the script the variables
ROOTPASSWORD=$1
USERNAME=$2
USERPASSWORD=$3
Lets do some updating,
# this basically updates all the following
echo "updating"
locale-gen
hwclock --systohc
pacman-key --populate archlinux
pacman-key --init
updatedb
pkgfile --update
Add this to give a splash of colour,
# this adds colour
echo "adding colour"
sed -i 's/#Color/Color/' /etc/pacman.conf
Now we will set up the user details and passwords for both user and root,
# this sets up the root password
echo "creating Root password"
echo -e "${ROOTPASSWORD}\n${ROOTPASSWORD}" | passwd root
# this sets up the user
useradd -m -G wheel,users -s /bin/bash ${USERNAME}
# this sets up the user password
echo -e "${USERPASSWORD}\n${USERPASSWORD}" | passwd ${USERNAME}
# this adds the the user to group for sudo
echo '%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL' > /etc/sudoers.d/10_wheel
chmod 640 /etc/sudoers.d/10_wheel
Add this for creating missing directorys,
# this creates any missing directories
mkdir -p /etc/pacman.d/hooks
Now lets give user sudo access,
# Change sudoers to allow nobody user access to sudo without password
echo 'nobody ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL' > /etc/sudoers.d/99_nobody
Next build directorys and set there permissions, the chmod is used to set permissions, the chgrp is used to change the group and setfacl modifies the access control list (ACL),the operator -m modifies the ACL specified by the EntryOrFile,
# this creates directorys and set permissions
mkdir /tmp/build
chgrp nobody /tmp/build
chmod g+ws /tmp/build
setfacl -m u::rwx,g::rwx /tmp/build
setfacl -d --set u::rwx,g::rwx,o::- /tmp/build
cd /tmp/build/
Now lets create the AUR helper, I will be using yay, this is written in GO, if you install this it can be your one and only packet manager.
# Install Yay AUR Helper
sudo -u nobody curl -SLO https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/yay.tar.gz
sudo -u nobody tar -zxvf yay.tar.gz
cd yay
sudo -u nobody makepkg -s -i --noconfirm
cd ../..
rm -r build
Finally we will edit the sudoers.d again and allow wheel group access to sudo with password,
# Change sudoers to allow wheel group access to sudo with password
rm /etc/sudoers.d/99_nobody
Yay!! we have just finished creating the scripts needed to install ArchLinux, now just upload it to github