Install Alpine on Amazon EC2

This material is work-in-progress ... Do not follow instructions here until this notice is removed. (Last edited by Larena on 3 Jun 2016.)

The goal here is to have a "1GB" (the smallest possible) EBS 'virtual usb stick' that can boot and run Alpine Linux.

Create an EBS backed Alpine Linux AMI

Note: You need to do this process at least once in each availability region. EBS can't be shared between Ireland and California, for instance.

• Create an Amazon instance in the desired availability region. A micro instance is fine - we will need it only long enough to create our EBS usb stick.
• Create a new 1GB EBS volume
• Attach the new volume to the running instance
• The new volume will have a name like /dev/xvdf or such
• Format the volume as ext4

  mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/xvdf

  Do not partition it - just format the whole volume
• wget a x86_64 iso and extract it to the new volume. 32bit will not work.

wget http://dl-4.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v2.4/releases/x86_64/alpine-2.4.5-x86_64.iso
mkdir target
mkdir source
mount /dev/xvdf target
mount -o loop alpine-2.4.5-x86_64.iso source
cp -av source/boot target
cp -av source/apks target
umount source

• Create a grub.conf on the new partition.

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

title Alpine Linux
root (hd0)
kernel /boot/virtgrsec alpine_dev=xvda1:ext4 modules=loop,squashfs,sd-mod,ext4 console=hvc0 pax_nouderef BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-grsec
initrd /boot/initramfs-grsec
EOF

• Syslinux automatically adds BOOT_IMAGE to the kernel command line; grub does not, so make sure you specify it in the grub.conf
• You do not need any other grub files - just boot.conf

• symlink the grub.conf to menu.lst

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

• Create an amazon.apkovl.tar.gz file to put on the target
  • This is probably easiest on a local alpine linux instance. Make sure the following are configured:
    • eth0 uses dhcp
    • networking is set to autostart
    • sshd is installed and set to autostart
    • Your ssh public key is in /root/.ssh/authorized_keys
    • The root password is set to something
    • lbu include root/.ssh
    • (optional) - Delete the /etc/ssh/*key* files, so they are created on the new box

  • lbu package amazon.apkovl.tar.gz

    

    Warning: If you are packaging on a 32bit box, manually delete etc/apk/arch from the apkovl.tar.gz file
    
    
  • Copy amazon.apkovl.tar.gz to target/
• Unmount target
• Do the following from the Amazon web interface
  • Detach the new volume
  • Make note of the volume ID
  • Launch NEW instance. Use defaults, amazon linux, micro; we are going to canibalize it in a bit, so defaults are fine here.
  • Once the instance starts, stop but do not terminate the instance.
  • Under EBS, detach the existing volume, and attach the alpine linux volume as /dev/sda1 (note the 1 at the end)
  • Restart the instance
• Log in and make sure it works
• Do any final cleanups necessary, and if necessary lbu ci
  • Only make configs that are appropriate for an AMI, we are going to snapshot this instance and create an AMI out of it
• Again from the Amazon web interface
  • Delete the 8GB volume that is no longer needed
  • Stop but do not terminate the instance
  • Right click the stopped instance and choose 'Create Image (EBS AMI)'
    • Image name should be unique for the image - example AlpineLinux-2.4.5
    • Description can be anything - example 'Base AlpineLinux Installation - no services'
• Done.