Create a Bootable Device: Difference between revisions

From Alpine Linux
m (Sb1 moved page Create a Bootable USB to Create a Bootable Device: reducing unecessary duplication for usb/compact flash)
(add info from former CF card page)
Line 12: Line 12:


* An Alpine Linux CD-ROM or an .iso file containing the correct Alpine release ([https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/ Download]).
* An Alpine Linux CD-ROM or an .iso file containing the correct Alpine release ([https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/ Download]).
* A USB drive (flash, external HD, card reader, etc.)
* A device like an USB drive (flash, external HD, card reader, etc.) or a CF "CompactFlash", or SDcard.
 
{{Note|Some CF card readers have problems with the faster CF cards on the market. If you experience problems booting the CF card even after checking BIOS settings, you may need to use an older card.
 
Also, many CF card readers don't support DMA correctly, so you may need to add ''nodma'' to the ''append'' line of the syslinux.cfg file.}}
 


= Using setup-bootable  =
= Using setup-bootable  =

Revision as of 19:48, 12 May 2021

This page is about creating a customizable boot device. The creation (flashing) of a default (iso) installation media is covered on the Installation page.

A customizable Alpine Linux boot medium is basically an Alpine system installed to the device in diskless or data disk-mode.

As long as the device remains writable, the local configs (.apkovl) and the package cache may also be stored on the same device.


Requirements

In order to follow this document, you will need:

  • An Alpine Linux CD-ROM or an .iso file containing the correct Alpine release (Download).
  • A device like an USB drive (flash, external HD, card reader, etc.) or a CF "CompactFlash", or SDcard.
Note: Some CF card readers have problems with the faster CF cards on the market. If you experience problems booting the CF card even after checking BIOS settings, you may need to use an older card. Also, many CF card readers don't support DMA correctly, so you may need to add nodma to the append line of the syslinux.cfg file.


Using setup-bootable

The preferable method to create a custom bootable device now is to follow the Installation for a diskless or data mode system on the device, and use the setup-bootable script to make the device bootable.


Manually copying Alpine files

This process applies to Alpine Linux 1.9.0 or later.

This material is proposed for deletion ...

This include has become obsolete. It is completely unused on the wiki (Discuss)
Make sure no other pages link here and check the page's history before deleting.

Finishing installation

After one has booted the previously created Alpine Linux bootable USB medium, one has to prepare USB stick to hold local customizations and run setup-alpine to finish the installation.

First let's find out where is our just booted USB media mounted, the location could vary.

# mount | grep /media
/dev/sda1 on /media/sda1 type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=utf8,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)

Create local directory on USB media to hold local APK cache (see APK Local Cache for details).

# mount -o remount,rw /media/sda1
# mkdir /media/sda1/cache
# setup-apkcache /media/sda1/cache
# ls -l /etc/apk/cache
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            17 Oct 19 13:16 /etc/apk/cache -> /media/sda1/cache

Now run setup-alpine and proceed until a question about local disk selection - in diskless mode we won't use any disk (ie. our bootable media files is basically untouched) and we are going to use sda1 to hold our system customization.

# setup-alpine
...
Which disk(s) would you like to use? (or '?' for help or 'none') [none] 
Enter where to store configs ('floppy', 'sda1', 'usb' or 'none') [sda1]: 
Enter apk cache directory (or '?' or 'none') [/media/sda1/cache]:

After the installer finished you can see how many created/modified files are detected and will be added to the backup:

# lbu status
# lbu status | wc -l
59
# lbu commit
# ls -l /media/sda1/*apkovl.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root          9591 Oct 19 15:23 /media/sda1/foo.apkovl.tar.gz

Now all the customization are saved into the foo.apkovl.tar.gz compressed tarball on the USB stick itself.

Troubleshooting

Slow USB Devices

Specifying the 'waitusb=X' option at the end of the syslinux.cfg line might help with certain USB devices that take a bit longer to register. X stands for the amount of seconds kernel will wait before looking for the installation media.

append initrd=/boot/grsec.gz alpine_dev=usbdisk:vfat modules=loop,cramfs,sd-mod,usb-storage quiet waitusb=3

See Also

Alpine Linux has some special applications that helps you to use it in the way you want.
Some of the first scripts you are suggested to use is:

  • setup-alpine (Configures all basic things on your Alpine Linux)
  • setup-acf (was named setup-webconf before Alpine 1.9 beta 4) (Configures ACF (webconfiguration) so you can manage your box through https)
Note: Just type any of the above commands on your console and hit Enter to execute the script.

Other useful pages