Linux-Ottawa (OCLUG) Wiki

User Tools

Site Tools

Trace: • 73
livedistro:scottmurphy20170321

Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

Link to this comparison view

Both sides previous revisionPrevious revision
livedistro:scottmurphy20170321 [2024/03/31 19:34] – removed - external edit (Unknown date) 127.0.0.1livedistro:scottmurphy20170321 [2024/03/31 19:34] (current) – ↷ Page name changed from livedistro:smurphy170321 to livedistro:scottmurphy20170321 scott5
Line 1: Line 1:
 +===== Investigation of EFI boot (Scott Murphy) =====
 +
 +==== Arch Installation Notes ====
 +
 +Scott Murphy <scott.murphy@arrow-eye.com>
 +  * version: 1.0
 +  * keywords: VMWare, Arch Linux, macOS, UEFI
 +  * 2017-03-21
 +
 +==== Getting started ====
 +
 +First, the Arch documentation is very good. You can get all of this directly
 +from it, however it makes a few assumptions that might trip you up if you are
 +new to arch, UEFI and running under VMWare.
 +
 +I'm using VMWare for my Arch install, so this is specific to installing under
 +VMWare Fusion 8 on macOS. This probably translates pretty much directly to other
 +installs if you leave out the VMWare items. The other thing is that my install
 +is the 64-bit install. I don't have a 32-bit system and was not interested in
 +trying it out in VMWare at this time. Maybe in a update.
 +
 +==== Get a copy of Arch ====
 +
 +You can find the Arch distro links on the [https://www.archlinux.org|Arch Linux
 +website], in the https://www.archlinux.org/download/[Download] section. Select a
 +mirror or bittorrent link and get started. I selected the
 +https://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/archlinux/iso/2017.03.01/[CS Club mirror] at
 +the university of Waterloo. I picked the
 +https://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/archlinux/iso/2017.03.01/archlinux-2017.03.01-dual.iso[2017-03-01]
 +image. Once it is downloaded, You can use the iso in whatever way you want. I'm
 +using it as is, in a virtual DVD drive.
 +
 +You can burn it to a DVD if you have something sufficiently old, however if your
 +device supports booting for USB, I'd go that route.
 +
 +NOTE: Add a link to the create a USB version instructions
 +
 +==== Create your VMWare VMX file ====
 +
 +Create a new VMWare machine by selecting `New -> Create a custom virtual
 +machine` in the VMWare Library. Go through the full creation up to the point
 +where you start the VM to get the install going. My VM has 
 +
 +   * A 20GB disk
 +   * 1024MB RAM
 +   * A single processor
 +
 +==== Forcing UEFI Boot ====
 +
 +In order to use UEFI, you need to edit the VMX file. Assuming you called the
 +machine `New Arch VM`, you would find the vmx file in the `~/Documents/Virtual
 +Machines.localized/New Arch WM.vmwarevm` directory. In this case, the file will
 +be called `New Arch VM.vmx`.  If there is an additional file with the same name
 +and a .lck extansion, the library has the file open. Make sure you have the
 +startup window closed. If there is no `.lck` file, then all you need to do is
 +edit the file and add the following line to it.
 +
 +<code>
 +    firmware = "efi"
 +</code>
 +
 +That was pretty straightforward. This will tell VMWare to use UEFI as the boot
 +method instead of legacy BIOS.
 +
 +==== The actual installation ====
 +
 +This will go more like a series of steps. There will only be extra info where it
 +gets somewhat odd.
 +
 +Now that you have the blank VM created and the VMX file modified, it is time to
 +get started.
 +
 +   * Mount the DVD image and connect it to the VM
 +   * Power on the VM. It should autoboot into a root shell
 +   * Verify that you are in UEFI mode
 +
 +    ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
 +
 +   * Make sure you can see the internet (The system should have dhcp'd an address)
 +
 +   ping archlinux.org
 +
 +
 +   * Enable network time protocol
 +
 +   timedatectl set-ntp true
 +   timedatectl status
 +
 +
 +   * Partition your disk. In this instance, you need to create at least three partitions:
 +       * Boot (512M, fat32)
 +       * Swap (I usually use 256M and hope I never start swapping)
 +      * / (The bulk of the disk)
 +
 +   * you can use `sgdisk` to create your partitions with the following commands, assuming your disk is /dev/sda:
 +
 +   sgdisk -p /dev/sda
 +   sgdisk --new=0:0:+512M /dev/sda
 +   sgdisk --new=0:0:+256M /dev/sda
 +   sgdisk --new=0:0:0 /dev/sda
 +   sgdisk --typecode=1:EF00 /dev/sda
 +   sgdisk --typecode=2:8200 /dev/sda
 +   sgdisk --change-name=1:"EFI System" /dev/sda
 +   sgdisk --change-name=2:"Linux swap" /dev/sda
 +   sgdisk --change-name=3:"Linux filesystem" /dev/sda
 +   sgdisk -p /dev/sda
 +
 +
 +That should first show you a disk with no partition table, and then the disk with all
 +three partitions, something like this:
 +
 +   Disk /dev/sda: 41943040 sectors, 20.0 GiB
 +   Logical sector size: 512 bytes
 +   Disk identifier (GUID): 9E17A0DA-9DED-4E62-BAE7-076E1522C21B
 +   Partition table holds up to 128 entries
 +   First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 41943006
 +   Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
 +   Total free space is 4061 sectors (2.0 MiB)
 +
 +   Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
 +      1            2048         1048576   511.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System
 +      2         1050624         1574911   256.0 MiB   8200  Linux swap
 +      3         1574912        41943006   19.2 GiB    8300  Linux filesystem
 +
 +
 +Now that the disk is properly partitioned, you will format the partitions:
 +
 +   mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
 +   mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
 +   mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
 +
 +
 +NOTE: UEFI partitions are FAT32 formatted and the UEFI BIOS can read FAT32 partitions to locate
 +the correct `.efi` file to boot. This also makes it easy to mount that partition
 +to make fixes.
 +
 +What are we going todo?
 +
 +   . Mount the root partition on /mnt
 +   . Create a new directory to mount the boot partition on and mount it there
 +   . Use the pacstrap program to install the base operating system
 +   . Create a new fstab that reflects the mounted disks
 +   . Chroot to the newly installed OS so initial changes could be made 
 +   . Set the timezone
 +   . Set the hardware clock to the running OS
 +   . Enable the en_US locakle and set the system language to en_US UTF8
 +   . Give the system a hostname
 +   . Let the system refer to itself in a zeroconf (bonjour) way
 +
 +In order to acomplish this, enter the following commands:
 +
 +   mount /dev/sda3 /mnt
 +   mkdir /mnt/boot
 +   mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot
 +   pacstrap /mnt/base
 +   genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
 +   arch-chroot /mnt
 +   ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Toronto /etc/localtime
 +   hwclock --systohc
 +   sed -i 's/#en_US/en_US/' /etc/locale.gen
 +   locale-gen
 +   echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf
 +   echo "myhostname" > /etc/hostname
 +   echo "127.0.0.1     myhostname.localdomain myhostname" >> /etc/hosts
 +
 +
 +==== Intel based System====
 +
 +If this is an Intel based system, you will need to add the ability to perform
 +cpu microcode updates. I don't know if this even works under VMWare, but if I
 +have to install on a physical system, then I want to remember this part.
 +
 +You enable the updates that by adding the intel microcode package:
 +
 +   pacman -S intel-ucode
 +
 +
 +NOTE: Need to check this out on a test system. I'm not sure you need to perform
 +this step if you are not using grub. I'm not, so this might be useless. I
 +happen to like having grub in place, so this is not wasted documentation, just
 +potentially unused.
 +
 +In order to fix the bootloader to use the intel microcode upadtes, we need to
 +install the grub utilities and update the configuration:
 +
 +   pacman -S grub
 +   grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
 +
 +
 +or you might need to do it inside the EFI setup. That will ne noted in the /boot
 +secting below.
 +
 +Now you should set the root password: 
 +
 +   passwd
 +
 +
 +Congratulations, the system has been installed. Unfortunately, it will not boot
 +just yet.
 +
 +==== The /boot Partition ====
 +
 +This is where it tends to get a little harder to follow. At this point, you can
 +unmount the disks and reboot - you will not have a bootable system, but you will
 +have a fully functional system if it could only boot. If you mess
 +around enough, it will boot, but you may not know what you did or why it works.
 +I like to compare this to the first time you use grub or PXE boot a system. You
 +are not sure what is happening under the hood, even though you edited those
 +files.
 +
 +If you rebooted, you will need to boot from your install media again. Don't
 +bother with the selection 'Boot from Installed System' or whatever version it
 +offers, it will not boot.
 +
 +If you reboot, you need to mount the disks again and chroot again. Once that has
 +happened, you can continue on and make a bootable system.
 +
 +You are going to need some more tools installed, so fire up `pacman`
 +
 +   pacman -S efibootmgr efitools
 +
 +You can check to see if the system is effectively ready for this by running the
 +`efivar` command and seeing the output
 +
 +   efivar -l
 +
 +This should give you a list of "things" that look like a bunch of GUIDs followed
 +by a readable word. If so, everything you need is in place.
 +
 +This is the secret sauce for making the system bootable:
 +
 +   efibootmgr -d /dev/sda -p 1 -c -L "Arch Linux" -l '\vmlinuz-linux' -u "root=/dev/sda3 rw initrd=/initramfs-linux.img"
 +
 +
 +NOTE: Intel microcode updates may require the previous line to include two
 +`initrd=` sections, so the previous line would have `-u "root=/dev/sda3 rw initrd=/intel-ucode.img initrd=/initramfs-linux.img"`
 +
 +==== Enabling the network ====
 +
 +This is for a wired connection, however the procedure is similar for wireless.
 +Look at this first and then check out the wireless section of the networking
 +reference below.
 +
 +The legacy `net-utils` have been fully deprecated in the current version of Arch,
 +so you will be using the `ip` command
 +
 +Get the name of the wired interface. It will not be eth0.
 +
 +   ip link
 +
 +
 +The output will be like:
 +
 +   1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
 +    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
 +   2: ens33: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
 +    link/ether 00:0c:29:dc:56:64 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
 +
 +The wired interface is **ens33**.
 +
 +Assuming you will be using dhcp for your networking, this is how you get it
 +working. Enter the following commands:
 +
 +<code>
 +cd /etc/systemd/network
 +echo > local.network<<EOF
 +[Match]
 +Name=ens33
 +
 +[Network]
 +DHCP=ipv4
 +EOF
 +systemctl enable systemd-networkd.service
 +ip a
 +</code>
 +
 +If this is a system you rebooted before you configured the network, you can
 +enable the networking using the command:
 +
 +    systemctl start systemd-networkd.service
 +
 +
 +The final command, `ip a`, should show that you now have an address on your
 +local network. This should come up after a reboot.
 +
 +==== Final Steps ====
 +
 +At this point, you should be golden. exit from the chrooted system by typing
 +`exit` and then unmount the disk partitions using the command `umount -R /mnt`
 +and then enter `reboot`
 +
 +==== TODO ====
 +
 +  * X11 Setup
 +  * Window Manager installation
 +  * TBD
 +
 +==== References ====
 +
 +The following pages (mostly from the Arch Wiki) were used to make these notes.
 +
 +  * [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide|Installation guide - ArchWiki]]
 +  * [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface|Unified Extensible Firmware Interface - ArchWiki]]
 +  * [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EFI_System_Partition | EFI System Partition - ArchWiki]]
 +  * [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Talk:EFISTUB#ESP_mount_points | Talk:EFISTUB - ArchWiki]]
 +  * [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EFISTUB | EFISTUB - ArchWiki]]
 +  * [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Network_configuration#Check_the_connection | Network configuration - ArchWiki]]
 +  * [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microcode#Enabling_Intel_microcode_updates | Microcode - ArchWiki]]
 +  * [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd-networkd#Basic_DHCP_network | systemd-networkd - ArchWiki]]
 +  * [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VMware/Installing_Arch_as_a_guest#VMware_Tools_versus_Open-VM-Tools | VMware/Installing Arch as a guest - ArchWiki]]
 +  * [[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_User_Repository | Arch User Repository - ArchWiki]]
 +
 +Also looked at:
 +
 +  * [[https://blog.uncooperative.org/blog/2014/02/06/the-efi-system-partition/ | The EFI System Partition and the Default Boot Behavior - The Uncoöperative Organization]]
 +  * [[https://github.com/rasa/vmware-tools-patches | rasa/vmware-tools-patches: Patch and build VMware tools automatically]]
 +  * [[http://planetvm.net/blog/?p=2730 | Boot via EFI firmware - PlanetVM]]
 +
 +For creating that USB stick, you can use the traditional `dd` method or try out
 +[[https://etcher.io/ | Etcher]] if you are command line weary.
 +
 +==== Extra Information ====
 +
 +Of course if you would prefer to do the install, including the GUI desktop and
 +software selection the easy way, there are two projects of note that can help you out.
 +
 +They are:
 +
 +  * [[https://arch-anywhere.org | ArchAnywhere]]
 +  * [[https://sourceforge.net/projects/revenge-installer | Revenge Installer]]
 +