Archboot

• Image files are released to archboot home.
• Source packages with archboot repository are located at archboot source packages.
• Latest news about the package itself, are posted at the archboot reddit blog

• Installs the Arch Linux port of Arch Linux ARM aarch64
• Supports Apple Mac M1 and higher for virtual machines eg. Parallels Desktop and VMware

• If you have a fast internet connection with LAN connection and you have a running DHCP server, go for the "latest" image.
• If you will not have an internet connection for installation, you should use the "local" image. It includes a local package repository for installation.

• For PXE booting add the kernel,initrds and microcode to your TFTP setup, add rootfstype=ramfs to your kernel cmdline and you will get a running installation/rescue system.
• For Rescue booting add an entry to your bootloader pointing to the kernel, initrds, microcode and add rootfstype=ramfs to your kernel cmdline.

• It supports GRUB's iso loopback support.

variables used (below for example):

iso_loop_dev=PARTUUID=12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789ABC

iso_loop_path=/dirname/<basename of archboot.iso>

With GPT, the PARTUUID can be obtained from the line of the command output.

Hybrid image file is a standard CD-burnable image and also a raw disk image.

• Can be burned to CD(RW) media using most CD Burning utilities.
• Can be raw-written to a drive using 'dd' or similar utilities. This method is intended for use with USB thumb drives.

'dd if=<imagefile> of=/dev/<yourdevice> bs=1M'

• Caveat:
  • This method is intended to use for dual booting with Windows, without losing the Secure Boot benefits for Windows.
  • This method will not make your system more secure.
  • It installs a bootloader which is not controlled by Arch Linux and breaks the concept of Secure Boot as is.
• Please read this guide first for initial shim setup.
• In order to boot in Secure Boot mode on first boot:
  • you need to add the hash of /EFI/BOOT/grubx64.efi to the MOK
  • you need to add the hash of /EFI/BOOT/vmlinuz_x86_64 to the MOK
• Tools included for key management: KeyTool, HashTool, mokutil, sbsigntools, sbctl and mkkeys.sh
• setup script supports the following Secure Boot layout:
  • shim from fedora is copied
  • creating new keys is supported
  • using existing keys from /etc/secureboot/keys in layout secureboot-keys.sh produces
  • MOK setup is done with keys
  • adding pacman hook for automatic signing
  • On first reboot you need to enroll the used keys to the MOK then your installed system is dual boot ready.
• It has a support script for creating your own keys and backup the existing keys, which already include the 2 needed Microsoft certificates:

• During boot all network interfaces will try to obtain an IP address through dhcpcd.
• root password is not set by default! If you need privacy during installation set a password.

'ssh root@<yourip>'

You can run each point for doing the mentioned task. If you do a fresh install, it is recommended to run each point in the order as presented.

• Your keymap and console fonts will be set by km script.

• Your network will be configured by netctl.

• Local mode:
  • Local package database is autodetected
• Online mode:
  • Latest pacman mirrors will be synced and you have to select your favourite mirror.
  • You will be asked if you want to activate the testing repository.
  • You can decide to load the latest archboot environment and cache packages for installation.

• You set your timezone and date with the tz script.

• You setup your storage drive, filesystems and define your mountpoints.
• auto-prepare mode, manual partitioning, GUID (gpt) support, MBR (bios) support, Advanced Format 4k sector drive support etc.
• Creation of software RAID/RAID partitions, LVM devices and LUKS encrypted devices
• Supports standard linux,RAID/RAID_partitions,dmraid/fakeraid,LVM and LUKS encrypted devices
• Filesystem support: ext2/ext3/ext4, btrfs, F2FS, nilfs2, XFS, JFS, VFAT
• Persistent block device naming support: PARTUUID, PARTLABEL, UUID, LABEL and KERNEL

• You can modify the packages to install in /etc/archboot/defaults.
• Pacman will install the packages for the first boot to your storage drive.

• hwdetect script is used for preconfiguration
• Auto/Preconfiguration of fstab, KMS mode, SSD, mkinitcpio.conf, systemd, crypttab and mdadm.conf
• You will be asked to copy the pacman GPG keyring to the installed system
• Configuration of basic system files: hostname,Linux console,locale.conf,fstab,mkinitcpio.conf,modprobe.conf,resolv.conf,hosts,Locale,mirrors,pacman.conf
• Setting root password

• You setup your preferred bootloader from this menu point.
• GPT UEFI supported bootloaders: GRUB, refind-efi, systemd-boot
• MBR BIOS supported bootloaders: GRUB
• Secure Boot supports only shim signed by fedora with GRUB
• The selected bootloader will be installed to your system and you can modify the configuration file afterwards.

• This script is for experts, who assemble the filesystems first and mount them in a directory.
• quickinst will autodetect the packages to install for a minimal system.

• You can always bump your image to latest available possibilities.

Archboot provides 2 additional scripts for doing those tasks.

• internal backup / copying you can use:

• internal or external backup / copying with rsync you can use:

rsync-backup.sh

• When you have used the .iso image to create an USB installer, your USB stick is no longer useful for anything else.
• Any remaining space on the stick (supposing you used a larger-than the .img file) is inaccessible.
• Fortunately, it is easy to re-create a FAT32 partition on the stick so that the USB stick again becomes available for carrying around your data.
• Take care about which device actually is your USB stick. The next command will render all data on <device> inaccessible:

• Please check the forum threads for posted fixes and workarounds.
• Please run this script to get latest fixes from git:

• Package XYZ is missing in archboot environment.

Install missing package with:

• Why screen stays blank or other weird screen issues happen?

Some hardware does not like the KMS activation, use radeon.modeset=0, i915.modeset=0, amdgpu.modeset=0 or nouveau.modeset=0 on boot prompt.

• Your system hangs during the boot process?

Any combinations of the boot options: "noapic nolapic acpi=off pci=routeirq nosmp nomsi" may be useful.

• Why is archinstall not included in default environment?

Reason: It needs python3 which is a huge depend.

Fix: If you need archinstall run: pacman -Sy python3 archinstall

• dmraid/fakeraid might be broken on some boards, support is not perfect here.

The reason is there are so many different hardware components out there. At the moment 1.0.0rc16 is included, with latest fedora patchset, development has been stopped.

mdadm supports some isw and ddf fakeraid chipsets, but assembling during boot is deactivated in /etc/mdadm.conf!

• GRUB cannot detect correct bios boot order:

It may happen that hd(x,x) entries are not correct, thus first reboot may not work.

Reason: grub cannot detect bios boot order.

Fix: Either change bios boot order or change menu.lst to correct entries after successful boot. This cannot be fixed it is a restriction in grub2!

• efibootmgr setup entries are not working:

It may happen that UEFI boot entries are not correct, thus first reboot may not work eg. Ovmf UEFI is affected by this.

Reason: The UEFI implementation does not support how setup created the efibootmgr entries.

Fix: Add manual entries and delete wrong entries from your UEFI implementation.

• Redisplay the Welcome to Arch Linux message:

Reason: The Welcome to Arch Linux (archboot environment) message is displayed once, before the user takes any action.

Fix: Switch to a virtual console [ALT+ F(1-6)] you have not used so far or run from within a shell prompt.

• How much RAM is needed to boot?

It's an initramdisk which includes everything. Calculated size to boot the image:

initramdisk+kernelimage+unpackedinitramdisk=minimum RAM to boot

• What is the difference to the archiso install image?

Take a look at the archboot screenhot gallery.

GIT repository can be found at Arch Linux Gitlab or Github .

Arch Linux Bugtracker

• Install the package on x86_64 hardware.
• Install the package on aarch64 hardware.
• If you want to build aarch64 images replace x86_64 with aarch64 in the commands and files below.
• You can build aarch64 images on x86_64 hardware. The qemu helper needs to be installed archboot-qemu-aarch64 package.

• ~ 3GB free space on disk

This script creates every installation media with latest available core/extra packages and boot/ directory with kernel and initrds.

• Run as root:

• Finished you get the images and boot/ files in <directory>.

• Run as root:

• Finished you get the rebuild image and boot/ files in <directory>.

Explanation of the archboot image tools.

This script will create an archboot container for image creation.

• Run as root:

• You get an archboot container in directory.
• To enter the container run as root:

Modify your container to your needs. Then run archboot-x86_64-iso.sh for image creation in container.

• Script for image creation from running system or for use in archboot container.
• For normal image creation run as root:

• Latest image: add -p=x86_64-latest to command above.
• Local image: add -p=x86_64-local to command above.

There are the following configuration files for ISO creation:

• The default configuration file for packages, bootloader config and server setup.

/etc/archboot/defaults

• The preset configuration files for the images, defines which kernel and mkinitcpio.conf is used.

• These main configuration files contain the HOOKS, which are used for the initramdisks.

/etc/archboot/defaults

• You need to configure all your settings in the configuration file.

• You have a normal user, which has access to a working gpg setup with own signature.
• You have a normal user with ssh access to the server, on which the images should upload.
• Add the directories on the remote server, you want to upload to.

• Simple run:

• You have to skip the tarball creation step, on aarch64 hardware.
• Install the archboot-qemu-aarch64 package, for building on x86_64 hardware.
• On first time setup you need to create the pacman-aarch64-chroot tarball on x86_64 hardware.

archboot-pacman-aarch64-chroot.sh <build-directory>

• Afterwards you only have to run for each release:

• The /etc/archboot/defaults file sets purging of old images after 3 months.

• Copy OVMF_VARS.secboot.fd to a place the user has access to it.
• The file already includes a basic set of keys from fedora ovmf package.

• Replace the bios option, with the following additional commands:

• You can test how much RAM is needed to bootup, eg. -m 1024 for 1GB RAM usage.

-m <memory>

• KVM virtio network for tap0:

• KVM virtio harddisk:

• normal harddisk:

• virtio graphic card

• serial console only

-vga none