Install Alpine on Rackspace

Create a minimal rackspace server

Debian 7

512MB, 20GB

Copy settings from existing server into apkovl

The first step is to create Alpine configuration file with basic configuration of the host. We need the new box to start networking and ssh in the beginning so we can reconnect to it after reboot.

Create basic layout for the overlay:

mkdir overlay
cd overlay
mkdir -p etc/ssh etc/network etc/runlevels/{default,boot,sysinit,shutdown} root/.ssh etc/lbu etc/apk

If you want to keep the existing host identity (e.g. SSH key), you can copy them over:

cp -a /etc/{passwd,group,shadow,gshadow,hostname,resolv.conf,network/interfaces,ssh} etc/
cp /etc/network/interfaces etc/network

Copy over your ssh authorized_keys and make sure its included in future:

cp -a /root/.ssh/authorized_keys root/.ssh
echo "/root/.ssh" > etc/lbu/include

Edit etc/passwd and change bash to /bin/sh.

sed -i -e '/^root:/s:/bin/bash:/bin/sh:' etc/passwd

Note: If you don't do this, nobody (even with physical access) will be able to log into the machine.

Make sure there is no whitespace at end of lines in interfaces file. Busybox ifup is very picky.

sed -i -e 's/ *$//' etc/network/interfaces

Create the apk world (/etc/apk/world) with essential packages:

echo "alpine-base iproute2 openssh bash" > etc/apk/world

(bash is technically not needed, but include it in case you forgot to edit your etc/passwd file correctly)

Double check the IP configuration and ssh keys.

Finally, make the essential services start up automatically and create the overlay file:

ln -s /etc/init.d/{hwclock,modules,sysctl,hostname,bootmisc,syslog} etc/runlevels/boot/
ln -s /etc/init.d/{devfs,dmesg,mdev,hwdrivers} etc/runlevels/sysinit/
ln -s /etc/init.d/{networking,sshd} etc/runlevels/default/
ln -s /etc/init.d/{mount-ro,killprocs,savecache} etc/runlevels/shutdown/
tar czf ../host.apkovl.tar.gz *

Verify the overlay with "tar tzf" to see that it contains everything in proper places, and ensure it is in the / directory

tar tzvf ../host.apkovl.tar.gz
cp ../host.apkovl.tar.gz /

Install Alpine cd-rom image to hard disk

We need to copy over two sets of information: the boot kernel (kernel, initramdisk and boot configuration) and operating system boot data (overlay, apk packages and kernel modules).

Download an alpine iso and mount it; for example

 wget http://dl-4.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v2.6/releases/x86_64/alpine-2.6.2-x86_64.iso
 mkdir /cdrom
 mount alpine*.iso /cdrom -o loop

Copy the contents of cd-rom image to root of current installation, then setup grub:

cp -a /cdrom/* /

cat - >target/boot/grub/grub.conf <<EOF 
default=0
timeout=3
hiddenmenu

title Alpine Linux
root (hd0)
kernel /boot/grsec alpine_dev=xvda1:ext3 modules=loop,squashfs,sd-mod,ext3 console=hvc0 pax_nouderef BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/grsec
initrd /boot/grsec.gz
EOF

ln -sf ./grub.conf target/boot/grub/menu.lst

Reboot and check that all came back as expected.