5.4 KiB
Installation
To install the Alpine Linux distribution on the system, the encrypted partition and the efi partition have to be mounted to the main system.
# mount /dev/vg<n>/alp_root /mnt -t ext4
# mkdir /mnt/efi -p
# mount /dev/<disk1> /mnt/efi -t vfat
Then set up the base system using setup-disk:
# setup-disk -m sys /mnt
This will also add grub as bootloader which will be replaced but for now it will reside on the boot partition.
To make it possible to chroot into the system, mount the other directories:
# for i in dev proc sys run; do
> mount --rbind --make-rslave /$i /mnt/$i
> done
# chroot /mnt
The other setup scripts can be used to configure key aspects of the system. Besides that a few necessary services have to be activated.
# setup-hostname <hostname>
# setup-keymap us us-euro
# setup-timezone -i <area>/<subarea>
# setup-ntp openntpd
# rc-update add acpid default
# rc-update add lvm boot
# rc-update add seedrng boot
# rm -rf /var/tmp ; ln -s /tmp /var/tmp
# passwd root
The root password does not really matter because it is going to be locked after a user has been created.
Set the hwclock to use UTC in /etc/conf.d/hwclock and disable writing the time to hardware. Running a NTP negates its usability.
clock="UTC"
clock_hctosys="NO"
clock_systohc="NO"
Edit /etc/fstab for correct mounts:
/dev/disk/by-label/efi /efi vfat defaults,nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 2
/dev/vg<n>/alp_root / ext4 defaults,noatime 0 1
/dev/vg<n>/alp_home /home ext4 defaults,noatime,nosuid,nodev 0 2
/dev/vg<n>/alp_var /var ext4 defaults,nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 2
/dev/vg<n>/alp_nix /nix ext4 defaults,noatime,nodev,nosuid 0 2
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs rw,size=4G,nr_inodes=5k,noexec,nodev,nosuid,mode=1777 0 0
proc /proc proc nosuid,nodev,noexec,hidepid=2 0 0
By default Alpine Linux uses mkinitfs to create initramfs, although it is minimal that also means that it lacks some functionality which is needed for a proper setup. Because of this mkinitfs and grub-efi will be replaced with booster and secureboot-hook.
# apk add booster secureboot-hook sbctl
# apk del mkinitfs grub-efi
To configure booster edit /etc/booster.yaml:
busybox: false
modules: vfat,nls_cp437,nls_iso8859_1
enable_lvm: true
The most important step is the creation of a UKI using secureboot-hook which also automatically signs them. First the hook itself will have to be tweaked to use booster instead of mkinitfs, edit /etc/kernel-hooks.d/50-secureboot.hook and change the line:
/sbin/mkinitfs -o "$tmpdir"/initramfs "$NEW_VERSION-$FLAVOR"
to:
/usr/bin/booster build "$tmpdir"/initramfs --kernel-version "$NEW_VERSION-$FLAVOR"
and configure /etc/kernel-hooks.d/secureboot.conf for cmdline and secureboot.
cmdline="rw rd.luks.name=<uuid>=luks root=/dev/vg<n>/alp_root modules=ext4 quiet splash rd.lvm.vg=vg<n>"
signing_cert="/usr/share/secureboot/keys/db/db.pem"
signing_key="/usr/share/secureboot/keys/db/db.key"
output_dir="/efi/EFI/Linux"
output_name="alpine-linux-{flavor}.efi"
Here <uuid> has to be replaced with the uuid of the partition which contains the volume group:
# blkid /dev/<disk2> >> /etc/kernel-hooks.d/secureboot.conf
Use sbctl to create secureboot keys and sign them.
# sbctl create-keys
# sbctl enroll-keys
...
Whilst enrolling the keys it might be necessary to add the
--microsoftflag if you are unable to use custom keys.
Now to see if everything went succesfully run:
# apk fix kernel-hooks
And it should give no warnings if done properly.
As discussed earlier grub will be replaced, install gummiboot as a bootloader.
# apk add gummiboot
# gummiboot install --path=/efi
# sbctl sign -s /efi/EFI/gummiboot/gummibootx64.efi
# sbctl sign -s /efi/EFI/Boot/BOOTX64.EFI
And also remove some remnants of grub.
# rm -rf /efi/EFI/alpine
# rm -rf /efi/grub
# rm -rf /etc/default
# cd /boot && unlink boot
gummiboot can be configured with the file /efi/loader/loader.conf with which the timeout and the default OS can be specified.
default alpine-linux-lts.efi
timeout 2
editor no
Before finishing the installation networkmanager will be installed for networking. Also install networkmanager-wifi and wpa_supplicant for wifi functionality.
# apk add networkmanager networkmanager-wifi wpa_supplicant
# setup-devd udev
# rc-update add networkmanager default
Wifi will not yet work. For wifi configuration see the network section.
If internet does not work after reboot create the config file as described in the network section and restart the service.
Now exit the chroot and you should be able to reboot into a working Alpine system.
# exit
# umount -lf /mnt
# reboot
When booting up your screen might appear blank, this is the encryption prompt. Enter the encryption key and press enter to boot.
Do note that "Linux Boot Manager" will have to be set to load first in your bios.