Bootstrapping Alpine Linux

VPS

This section is to provide a means to bootstrap Alpine Linux on any VPS.

Process

Prepare

Download apk binary file for your architecture or boot from an Alpine live ISO.

Hint to download apk :

wget https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/api/v4/projects/5/packages/generic/v2.14.6/x86_64/apk.static

Install

Assuming your alpine rootfs is mounted in /tmp/target

sudo ./sbin/apk.static --arch $(arch) -X http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/latest-stable/main/ -U --allow-untrusted --root /tmp/target --initdb add alpine-base

• edit /tmp/target/etc/fstab
• edit /tmp/target/etc/inittab
• edit /tmp/target/etc/resolv.conf
• mount proc/sys/dev

for a in proc sys dev; do mount -o bind /$a /tmp/target/$a; done

• chroot into your new installation

chroot /tmp/target /bin/sh

• setup hostname

setup-hostname

• setup network

setup-interfaces

• setup repos

setup-apkrepos -f

• add a few base packages

apk update
apk add linux-lts linux-firmware-none acpi mkinitfs

• add services to boot

rc-update add acpid default
rc-update add bootmisc boot
rc-update add crond default
rc-update add devfs sysinit
rc-update add dmesg sysinit
rc-update add hostname boot
rc-update add hwclock boot
rc-update add hwdrivers sysinit
rc-update add killprocs shutdown
rc-update add mdev sysinit
rc-update add modules boot
rc-update add mount-ro shutdown
rc-update add networking boot
rc-update add savecache shutdown
rc-update add seedrng boot
rc-update add swap boot

Notes

If you have bootstrapped Alpine Linux from an existing system in a different partition and intend to boot into it, you should always include the root filesystem type (rootfstype) in the kernel parameter (bootloader option), since by default kernel does not automatically load any filesystem modules for root partition, unless specified. That way mount will not complain about being unable to mount root partition on /sysroot.

Example bootloader option:

root=UUID=AAAAAAAA-BBBB-CCCC-DDDD-EEEEEEEEEEEE rw rootfstype=ext4 vfat

References

• Running a Custom Linux Distribution on a Linode
• Run a Custom Compiled Kernel with PV-GRUB
• Replacing non-Alpine Linux with Alpine remotely
• Install Alpine on Amazon EC2
• Alpine setup scripts
• How do I chain boot from grub to syslinux?
• Alpine Linux on Linode
• Installing Alpine Linux in a chroot