System Installation

Table of Contents

Post installaion

Partition the disks:

for i in ${DISK}; do

# wipe flash-based storage device to improve
# performance.
# ALL DATA WILL BE LOST
# blkdiscard -f $i

sgdisk --zap-all $i

sgdisk -n1:1M:+1G -t1:EF00 $i

sgdisk -n2:0:+4G -t2:BE00 $i

sgdisk -n4:0:+${INST_PARTSIZE_SWAP}G -t4:8200 $i

if test -z $INST_PARTSIZE_RPOOL; then
    sgdisk -n3:0:0   -t3:BF00 $i
else
    sgdisk -n3:0:+${INST_PARTSIZE_RPOOL}G -t3:BF00 $i
fi

sgdisk -a1 -n5:24K:+1000K -t5:EF02 $i

sync && udevadm settle && sleep 3

cryptsetup open --type plain --key-file /dev/random $i-part4 ${i##*/}-part4
mkswap /dev/mapper/${i##*/}-part4
swapon /dev/mapper/${i##*/}-part4
done

Create boot pool:

zpool create -d \
    -o feature@async_destroy=enabled \
    -o feature@bookmarks=enabled \
    -o feature@embedded_data=enabled \
    -o feature@empty_bpobj=enabled \
    -o feature@enabled_txg=enabled \
    -o feature@extensible_dataset=enabled \
    -o feature@filesystem_limits=enabled \
    -o feature@hole_birth=enabled \
    -o feature@large_blocks=enabled \
    -o feature@lz4_compress=enabled \
    -o feature@spacemap_histogram=enabled \
    -o ashift=12 \
    -o autotrim=on \
    -O acltype=posixacl \
    -O canmount=off \
    -O compression=lz4 \
    -O devices=off \
    -O normalization=formD \
    -O relatime=on \
    -O xattr=sa \
    -O mountpoint=/boot \
    -R /mnt \
    bpool \
  mirror \
    $(for i in ${DISK}; do
       printf "$i-part2 ";
      done)

If not using a multi-disk setup, remove mirror.

You should not need to customize any of the options for the boot pool.

GRUB does not support all of the zpool features. See spa_feature_names in grub-core/fs/zfs/zfs.c. This step creates a separate boot pool for /boot with the features limited to only those that GRUB supports, allowing the root pool to use any/all features.

Features enabled with -o compatibility=grub2 can be seen here.

Create root pool:

zpool create \
    -o ashift=12 \
    -o autotrim=on \
    -R /mnt \
    -O acltype=posixacl \
    -O canmount=off \
    -O compression=zstd \
    -O dnodesize=auto \
    -O normalization=formD \
    -O relatime=on \
    -O xattr=sa \
    -O mountpoint=/ \
    rpool \
    mirror \
   $(for i in ${DISK}; do
      printf "$i-part3 ";
     done)

If not using a multi-disk setup, remove mirror.

Create root system container:

Unencrypted:

zfs create \
 -o canmount=off \
 -o mountpoint=none \
 rpool/alpinelinux

Encrypted:

Pick a strong password. Once compromised, changing password will not keep your data safe. See zfs-change-key(8) for more info:

zfs create \
 -o canmount=off \
 -o mountpoint=none \
 -o encryption=on \
 -o keylocation=prompt \
 -o keyformat=passphrase \
 rpool/alpinelinux

You can automate this step (insecure) with: echo POOLPASS | zfs create ....

Create system datasets, let Alpinelinux declaratively manage mountpoints with mountpoint=legacy:

zfs create -o mountpoint=/ -o canmount=noauto rpool/alpinelinux/root
zfs mount rpool/alpinelinux/root
zfs create -o mountpoint=legacy rpool/alpinelinux/home
mkdir /mnt/home
mount -t zfs rpool/alpinelinux/home /mnt/home
zfs create -o mountpoint=legacy  rpool/alpinelinux/var
zfs create -o mountpoint=legacy rpool/alpinelinux/var/lib
zfs create -o mountpoint=legacy rpool/alpinelinux/var/log
zfs create -o mountpoint=none bpool/alpinelinux
zfs create -o mountpoint=legacy bpool/alpinelinux/root
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount -t zfs bpool/alpinelinux/root /mnt/boot
mkdir -p /mnt/var/log
mkdir -p /mnt/var/lib
mount -t zfs rpool/alpinelinux/var/lib /mnt/var/lib
mount -t zfs rpool/alpinelinux/var/log /mnt/var/log

Format and mount ESP:

for i in ${DISK}; do
 mkfs.vfat -n EFI ${i}-part1
 mkdir -p /mnt/boot/efis/${i##*/}-part1
 mount -t vfat ${i}-part1 /mnt/boot/efis/${i##*/}-part1
done

mkdir -p /mnt/boot/efi
mount -t vfat $(echo $DISK | cut -f1 -d\ )-part1 /mnt/boot/efi

By default setup-disk command does not support zfs and will refuse to run, add zfs support:
```
sed -i 's|supported="ext|supported="zfs ext|g' /sbin/setup-disk
```
Workaround for GRUB to recognize predictable disk names:
```
export ZPOOL_VDEV_NAME_PATH=YES
```
Install system to disk:
```
BOOTLOADER=grub setup-disk -v /mnt
```
GRUB installation will fail and will be reinstalled later.

Allow EFI system partition to fail at boot:

sed -i "s|vfat.*rw|vfat rw,nofail|" /mnt/etc/fstab

Chroot:

m='/dev /proc /sys'
for i in $m; do mount --rbind $i /mnt/$i; done

chroot /mnt /usr/bin/env DISK="$DISK" sh

Rebuild initrd:

sed -i 's|zfs|nvme zfs|' /etc/mkinitfs/mkinitfs.conf
for directory in /lib/modules/*; do
  kernel_version=$(basename $directory)
  mkinitfs $kernel_version
done

Apply GRUB workaround:

echo 'export ZPOOL_VDEV_NAME_PATH=YES' >> /etc/profile.d/zpool_vdev_name_path.sh
source /etc/profile.d/zpool_vdev_name_path.sh

# GRUB fails to detect rpool name, hard code as "rpool"
sed -i "s|rpool=.*|rpool=rpool|"  /etc/grub.d/10_linux

# BusyBox stat does not recognize zfs, replace fs detection with ZFS
sed -i 's|stat -f -c %T /|echo zfs|' /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig

# grub-probe fails to identify fs mounted at /boot
sed -i "s|GRUB_DEVICE_BOOT=.*|GRUB_DEVICE_BOOT=$(echo $DISK | cut -f1 -d\ )-part2|"  /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig

This workaround needs to be applied for every GRUB update, as the update will overwrite the changes.

Install GRUB:

mkdir -p /boot/efi/alpine/grub-bootdir/i386-pc/
mkdir -p /boot/efi/alpine/grub-bootdir/x86_64-efi/
for i in ${DISK}; do
 grub-install --target=i386-pc --boot-directory \
     /boot/efi/alpine/grub-bootdir/i386-pc/  $i
done
grub-install --target x86_64-efi --boot-directory \
    /boot/efi/alpine/grub-bootdir/x86_64-efi/ --efi-directory \
    /boot/efi --bootloader-id alpine --removable

Generate GRUB menu:

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/alpine/grub-bootdir/x86_64-efi/grub/grub.cfg
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/alpine/grub-bootdir/i386-pc/grub/grub.cfg

For both legacy and EFI booting: mirror ESP content:

ESP_MIRROR=$(mktemp -d)
cp -r /boot/efi/EFI $ESP_MIRROR
for i in /boot/efis/*; do
 cp -r $ESP_MIRROR/EFI $i
done
rm -rf $ESP_MIRROR

Exit chroot:
```
exit
```

Unmount filesystems:

cut -f2 -d\  /proc/mounts | grep ^/mnt | tac | while read i; do umount -l $i; done
zpool export -a

Reboot:
```
reboot
```

Post installaion 

Setup graphical desktop:
```
setup-desktop
```
Configure swap.
You can create a snapshot of the newly installed system for later rollback, see this page.

System Installation

Post installaion

Post installaion 