Arch Linux installation guide

A long time ago I wrote a blog post about installing Arch Linux:

I’m aware of the fact that there isn’t one definitive guide for installing it. This highly depends on your hardware, your use case for the system and for the desired software. Nevertheless I thought I update my previous article, because:

• that’s an easy topic to get back to blogging!
• I’m lazy and like to have a copy and paste script :P

Assumptions

• We install a headless server that’s accessible via DHCP/SSH
• It’s booted via BIOS mode, no UEFI
• the OS will be stored as /dev/sda

Bootstrap the base system

# clean old partition tables / filesystem information
wipefs --all /dev/sda
# create a fresh GPT partition table
parted /dev/sda --script mklabel gpt
# parted won't format partitions, you've to specify any filesystem
# but the attribute will be ignore
# bios boot partition
parted /dev/sda --script mkpart primary ext3 2048s 4095s
# /boot
parted /dev/sda --script mkpart primary ext3 4096s 1953791s
# rest for LVM
parted /dev/sda --script mkpart primary ext3 1953792s 100%
parted /dev/sda --script set 1 bios_grub on
# setup LVM
pvcreate /dev/sda3
vgcreate vg0 /dev/sda3
lvcreate --size 50G --name root vg0
mkfs.ext4 -v /dev/sda2
mkfs.ext4 -v /dev/mapper/vg0-root
mount /dev/mapper/vg0-root /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot
# use own mirror with aur repository
echo 'Server = http://mirror.virtapi.org/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch/' > /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
# update local repository cache
pacman -Syy
# install base OS
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel vim htop grub openssh linux-hardened linux-hardened-docs linux-hardened-headers linux linux-docs linux-firmware linux-headers linux-lts linux-lts-headers linux-lts-docs lvm2 inetutils man
# generate fstab
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

chroot into the new system

arch-chroot /mnt
# setup you most favourite hostname
echo myawesomebox.mylocaltld > /etc/hostname
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
echo "en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8" > /etc/locale.gen
locale-gen
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
echo KEYMAP=de > /etc/vconsole.conf
# setup a sane list of hooks
sed -i 's/^HOOKS=.*/HOOKS=(base systemd keyboard sd-vconsole autodetect modconf block sd-lvm2 filesystems fsck)/' /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
# you can omit the virtio* modules if this isn't a VM
sed -i 's/^MODULES=.*/MODULES=(ext4 vfat usbhid hid igb virtio_balloon virtio_console virtio_scsi virtio_net virtio_pci virtio_ring virtio ne2k_pci)/' /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
# regenerate initrds with all hooks + modules
mkinitcpio --allpresets
# start basic systemd services after first boot
systemctl enable sshd systemd-networkd systemd-resolved systemd-networkd-wait-online
# install grub + create grub config
grub-install /dev/sda
sed -i 's/quiet/quiet nomodeset/' /etc/default/grub
sed -i 's/.*GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID.*/GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=false/' /etc/default/grub
echo 'GRUB_DISABLE_SUBMENU=y' >> /etc/default/grub
sed -i 's/^GRUB_TIMEOUT=.*/GRUB_TIMEOUT=10/' /etc/default/grub 
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
# setup ssh login
sed -i 's/#PermitRoot.*/PermitRootLogin prohibit-password/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config
mkdir /root/.ssh
curl https://github.com/bastelfreak.keys --silent > /root/.ssh/authorized_keys
sed -i 's/^/no-port-forwarding,no-X11-forwarding,no-agent-forwarding /g' /root/.ssh/authorized_keys
# change root password
echo 'root:YOURNEWPASSWORD' | chpasswd
# create a networkd config with DHCP
dev=$(ip route show default | awk '/default/ {print $5}')
mac=$(cat "/sys/class/net/${dev}/address")
{
echo '[Match]'
echo "MACAddress=${mac}"
echo ''
echo '[Network]'
echo 'DHCP=yes'
} > /etc/systemd/network/wired.network
# Add AUR repository
{
echo ''
echo '[aur]'
echo 'SigLevel = Optional TrustAll'
echo 'Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist'
} >>  /etc/pacman.conf
# Done \o/
exit
umount /mnt/boot
umount /mnt
sync
reboot

I hope that this basic setup might be useful for at least a few people. There isn’t anything special about it, but I tried to automate all the interactive parts away. You might like this for your own scripts.