Alpine setup scripts

Feature descriptions for available Alpine Linux setup scripts (/sbin/setup-*).

(Some particular example usages can be seen at Alpine for new users install manuals.)

setup-alpine

This is the main Alpine configuration and installation script.

The script interactively walks the user through executing several auxiliary setup-* scripts, in the order shown below. The bracketed options represent example configuration choices, formatted as they may be supplied when manually calling the auxiliary setup scripts, or with an "answer file" to setup-alpine itself.

1. setup-keymap [us us]
2. setup-hostname [-n alpine-test]
3. setup-interfaces [-i < interfaces-file]
4. /etc/init.d/networking --quiet start &
5. if none of the networking interfaces were configured using dhcp, then: setup-dns [-d example.com -n "192.168.0.1 [...]"]
6. set the root password
7. if not in quick mode, then: setup-timezone [-z UTC | -z America/New_York | -p EST+5]
8. enable the new hostname (/etc/init.d/hostname --quiet restart)
9. add networking and urandom to the boot rc level, and acpid and cron to the default rc level, and start the boot and default rc services
10. extract the fully-qualified domain name and hostname from /etc/resolv.conf and hostname, and update /etc/hosts
11. setup-proxy [-q "http://webproxy:8080"], and activate proxy if it was configured
12. setup-apkrepos [-r (to select a mirror randomly)]
13. if not in quick mode, then: setup-sshd [-c openssh | dropbear | none]
14. if not in quick mode, then: setup-ntp [-c chrony | openntpd | busybox | none]
15. if not in quick mode, then: DEFAULT_DISK=none setup-disk -q [-m data /dev/sda]
16. if installation mode selected during setup-disk was "data" instead of "sys", then: setup-lbu [/media/sdb1]
17. if installation mode selected during setup-disk was "data" instead of "sys", then: setup-apkcache [/media/sdb1/cache | none]

setup-alpine itself accepts the following command-line switches

-h

Shows the up-to-date usage help message.

-a

Create an overlay file: this creates a temporary directory and saves its location in ROOT; however, the script doesn't export this variable so I think this feature isn't currently functional.

-c answerfile

Create a new "answerfile", with default choices. You can edit the file and then invoke setup-alpine -f answerfile.

-f answerfile

Use an existing "answerfile", which may override some or all of the interactive prompts.

-q

Run in "quick mode".

Setup modes

When performs an installation alpine-setup will askfor a disk mode:

Note that setup-alpine supports to configure the system to boot into one of three general Alpinelinux runtime modes:

diskless mode

This is the default boot mode of the .iso images. setup-alpine configures this if selecting to install to "disk=none", and it means that the whole operating system and the applications run extremely fast from within RAM (saving unnecessary disk spin-ups, power and wear). A customized configuration and package selection may still be completely preserved on permanent storage media by using the "local backup utility" lbu and a local package cache. [Fixme: setup-alpine still needs this detour to prepare a partition for this:] In setup-alpine, select to store configs and the package cache on a partition. (That mounted partition may later also be used by configuring some important applications to keep their data on it.)

data mode

This mode is still accelerated by running the system from RAM, however swap storage and the whole /var directory tree gets mounted from a persistent storage device (two newly created partitions). This location holds e.g. all log files, mailspools, databases, etc., as well as lbu backup commits and the package cache. The mode is useful for having RAM accelerated servers with amounts of variable user-data that exceed the available RAM size, and to let the entire current system state (not just the boot state) survive a system crash according to the particular filesystem's guarantees. [Fixme: Storing lbu configs to disk is not auto-configured after configuring the data partition, one still has to select saving configs to "none" first (the new data partition is not listed), and to manually set e.g. LBU_MEDIA=sda2 in /etc/lbu/lbu.conf and echo "/dev/sda2 /media/sda2 vfat rw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab afterwards.] The boot device may remain to be the one initially used, and can even be immutable (read-only).

sys mode

This is a traditional hard-disk install. If this mode is selected, the setup-alpine script defaults to create three partitions on the selected storage device, /boot, swap and / (the filesystem root). This mode may be used for generic desktop and development machines

setup-hostname

setup-hostname [-h] [-n hostname]

Options:

-h Show help

-n Specify hostname

This script allows quick and easy setup of the system hostname by writing it to /etc/hostname. The script prevents you from writing an invalid hostname (such as one that used invalid characters or starts with a '-' or is too long). The script can be invoked manually or is called as part of the setup-alpine script.

setup-interfaces

setup-interfaces [-i < interfaces-file]

Note that the contents of interfaces-file has to be supplied as stdin, rather than naming the file as an additional argument. The contents should have the format of /etc/network/interfaces, such as:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
    hostname alpine-test

setup-dns

setup-dns [-h] [-d domain name] [-n name server]

Options:

-h Show help

-d specify search domain name

-n name server IP

The setup-dns script is stored in /sbin/setup-dns and allows quick and simple setup of DNS servers (and a DNS search domain if required). Simply running setup-dns will allow interactive use of the script, or the options can be specified.

The information fed to this script is written to /etc/resolv.conf

Example usage:

setup-dns -d example.org -n 8.8.8.8

Example /etc/resolv.conf:

search example.org
nameserver 8.8.8.8

It can be run manually but is also invoked in the setup-alpine script unless interfaces are configured for DHCP.

setup-timezone

setup-timezone [-z UTC | -z America/New_York | -p EST+5]

Can pre-select the timezone using either of these switches:

-z subfolder of /usr/share/zoneinfo

-p POSIX TZ format

setup-proxy

setup-proxy [-hq] [PROXYURL]

Options:

-h Show help

-q Quiet mode prevents changes from taking effect until after reboot

This script requests the system proxy to use in the form http://<proxyurl>:<port> for example: http://10.0.0.1:8080

To set no system proxy use none. This script exports the following environmental variables:

http_proxy=$proxyurl

https_proxy=$proxyurl

ftp_proxy=$proxyurl

where $proxyurl is the value input. If none was chosen then the value it is set to a blank value (and so no proxy is used).

setup-sshd

setup-sshd [-h] [-c choice of SSH daemon]

Options:

-h Show help

-c SSH daemon where SSH daemon can be one of the following:

openssh install the openSSH daemon

dropbear install the dropbear daemon

none Do not install an SSH daemon

Example usage:

setup-sshd -c dropbear

The setup-sshd script is stored in /sbin/setup-sshd and allows quick and simple setup of either the OpenSSH or Dropbear SSH daemon & client. It can be run manually but is also invoked in the setup-alpine script.

setup-apkrepos

setup-apkrepos [-fhr] [REPO...]

Setup apk repositories.

options:

-f Detect and add fastest mirror

-r Add a random mirror and do not prompt

-1 Add first mirror on the list (normally a CDN)

This is run as part of the setup-alpine script.

setup-disk

DEFAULT_DISK=none setup-disk -q [-m data | sys] [mountpoint directory | /dev/sda ...]

In "sys" mode, it's an installer, it permanently installs Alpine on the disk, in "data" mode, it provides a larger and persistent /var volume.

This script accepts the following command-line switches:

-k kernel flavor

-o apkovl file

Restore system from apkovl file

-m data | sys

Don't prompt for installation mode. With -m data, the supplied devices are formatted to use as a /var volume.

-r

Use RAID1 with a single disk (degraded mode)

-L

Create and use volumes in a LVM group

-s swap size in MB

Use 0 to disable swap

-q

Exit quietly if no disks are found

-v

Verbose mode

The script also honors the following environment variables:

BOOT_SIZE

Size of the boot partition in MB; defaults to 100. Only used if -m sys is specified or interactively selected.

SWAP_SIZE

Size of the swap volume in MB; set to 0 to disable swap. If not specified, will default to twice RAM, up to 4096, but won't be more than 1/3 the size of the smallest disk, and if less than 64 will just be 0. Only used if -m sys is specified or interactively selected.

ROOTFS

Filesystem to use for the / volume; defaults to ext4. Only used if -m sys is specified or interactively selected. Supported filesystems are: ext2 ext3 ext4 btrfs xfs.

BOOTFS

Filesystem to use for the /boot volume; defaults to ext4. Only used if -m sys is specified or interactively selected. Supported filesystems are: ext2 ext3 ext4 btrfs xfs.

VARFS

Filesystem to use for the /var volume; defaults to ext4. Only used if -m data is specified or interactively selected. Supported filesystems are: ext2 ext3 ext4 btrfs xfs.

SYSROOT

Mountpoint to use when creating volumes and doing traditional disk install (-m sys). Defaults to /mnt.

MBR

Path of MBR binary code, defaults to /usr/share/syslinux/mbr.bin.

BOOTLOADER

Bootloader to use, defaults to syslinux. Supported bootloaders are: grub syslinux zipl.

DISKLABEL

Disklabel to use, defaults to dos. Supported disklabels are: dos gpt eckd.

Partitioning

If you have complex partitioning needs, you can partition, format, and mount your volumes manually, then just supply the root mountpoint to setup-disk. Doing so implicitly behaves as though -m sys had also been specified.

See Setting up disks manually for more information.

RAID

setup-disk will automatically build a RAID array if you supply the -r switch, or if you specify more than one device. The array will always be RAID1 (and --metadata=0.90) for the /boot volumes, but will be RAID5 (and --metadata=1.2 for non-boot volumes when 3 or more devices are supplied.

If you instead want to build your RAID array manually, see Setting up a software RAID array. Then format and mount the disks, and supply the root mountpoint to setup-disk.

LVM

setup-disk will automatically build and use volumes in a LVM group if you supply the -L switch. The group and volumes created by the script will have the following names:

• volume group: vg0
• swap volume: lv_swap (only created when swap size > 0)
• root volume: lv_root (only created when -m sys is specified or interactively selected)
• var volume: lv_var (only created when -m data is specified or interactively selected)

The lv_var or lv_root volumes are created to occupy all remaining space in the volume group.

If you need to change any of these settings, you can use vgrename, lvrename, lvreduce or lvresize.

If you instead want to build your LVM system manually, see Setting up Logical Volumes with LVM. Then format and mount the disks, and supply the root mountpoint to setup-disk.

setup-lbu

This script will only be invoked for by setup-alpine when installing data installation types (ramdisk)

In the previous step, we set up the disk used for the swap partition and for mounting /var. Here we set up where lbu commit will store its backup configuration. See Alpine local backup for more information.

When started, setup-lbu will prompt where to store your data. The options it will prompt for will be taken from the directories found in /media (except for cdrom). [not sure how these are mounted: are they automatically mounted by setup-lbu? Does the user have to manually mount using another tty?]

setup-apkcache

This script will only be invoked for by setup-alpine when installing data installation types (ramdisk)

In the previous steps, we setup the disk partitions, and told Alpine where it can save its configuration for ramdisk installations. Here we tell Alpine where to save the apk files that you will want to persist across boots. The apkcache is where apk stores cached packages, such that the system does not need to download them at each boot, and doesn't have to depend on the network. See Local APK cache for a detailed explanation.

You should be able to use a partition that you set up in the previous steps.

setup-bootable

This is a standalone script; it's not invoked by setup-alpine but must be run manually.

Its purpose is to create media that boots into tmpfs by copying the contents of an ISO onto a USB key, CF, or similar media.

For a higher-level walkthrough, see Creating a bootable Alpine Linux USB Stick from the command line.

This script accepts the following arguments and command-line switches (you can run setup-bootable -h to see a usage message).

setup-bootable source [dest]

The argument source can be a directory or an ISO (will be mounted to MNT or /mnt) or a URL (will be downloaded with WGET or wget). The argument dest can be a directory mountpoint, or will default to /media/usb if not supplied.

-k

Keep alpine_dev in syslinux.cfg; otherwise, replace with UUID.

-u

Upgrade mode: keep existing syslinux.cfg and don't run syslinux

-f

Overwrite syslinux.cfg even if -u was specified.

-s

Force the running of syslinux even if -u was specified.

-v

Verbose mode

The script will ensure that source and dest are available; will copy the contents of source to dest, ensuring first that there's enough space; and unless -u was specified, will make dest bootable.

setup-xorg-base

This is a standalone script; it's not invoked by setup-alpine but must be run manually.

Installs a basic xorg configuration, e.g. among other packages: xorg-server xf86-video-vesa xf86-input-evdev xf86-input-mouse xf86-input-keyboard udev.

Additional packages may be supplied as arguments to setup-xorg-base. You might need, for example, some of: xf86-input-synaptics xf86-video-something xinit. For Qemu, see Qemu. For Intel GPUs, see Intel Video.

Documentation needed

setup-gparted-desktop

Uses openbox.

This is a standalone script; it's not invoked by setup-alpine but must be run manually.

setup-mta

Uses ssmtp.

This is a standalone script; it's not invoked by setup-alpine but must be run manually.

setup-acf

This is a standalone script; it's not invoked by setup-alpine but must be run manually.

This script was named setup-webconf before Alpine 1.9 beta 4.

See ACF pages for more information.

• beta.docs.alpinelinux.org