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Arch Linux Installation

with UEFI, full disk encryption using LUKS and LVM2 for volume managament.

Prepare your bootable USB drive

Download Arch Linux and dd it onto your USB drive

# /dev/sdX - replace with your USB Flash Drive letter (lsblk; fdisk -l)
sudo dd bs=4M if=/archlinux-2024.04.01-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdX && sync

Installation

Check if you have network connectivity and sync your system clock

ping -c 3 google.com
timedatectl set-ntp true

Disk partitioning

Confirm your storage layout and note the drive you will be installing to

fdisk -l # or
lsblk
# /dev/nvme0n1

Partition the drive to have a 1GB partition for boot and then the rest do Linux Filesystem (as we will be encrypting it)

cfdisk /dev/nvme0n1

# Select Label Type: GPT
# 1G Partition /boot TYPE=EFI
# 100%FREE /root TYPE=LINUX_86_64

You should now have two /dev/nvme0n1p1 & /dev/nvme0n1p2 partitions

Format the first 1G partition to VFAT32

mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1

And now we can encrypt and setup the our partition

Disk Encryption

Encrypt the full partition

cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/nvme0n1p2
# You will have to type "YES" to confirm formatting

After that succeeds we can open that encrypted partition to work with it

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/nvme0n1p2 cryptroot
# You can change "cryptroot" to whatever you like, but you will have to
# remember and use your name instead of cryptroot for the rest of the install

LVM Creation

A logical volume needs a volume group which in turn needs a physical volume. So lets set those up

# Create your physical volume
pvcreate /dev/mapper/cryptroot

# Create a volume group (I will call it "vg0")
vgcreate vg0 /dev/mapper/cryptroot

# Create the logical volumes (root, home, swap)
# Notice -L and -l, one is for fixed size, the other is percentage
lvcreate -L 32G vg0 -n swap # If you plan to use hybernation - set the same size as your RAM
lvcreate -L 120G vg0 -n root # Modify "120G" to what ever size you think fits your root setup
lvcreate -l 100%FREE vg0 -n home # Fill the rest of the volume group for home

Format and mount the newly created volumes

mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg0-root
mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/vg0-home
mkswap /dev/mapper/vg0-swap

mount /dev/mapper/vg0-root /mnt

mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/mapper/vg0-home /mnt/home

mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot

swapon -s /dev/mapper/vg0-swap

Install the system

Installs linux kernel, base dependencies and text editor

pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel linux linux-firmware lvm2 vim

I usually install other required packages now rather than after chroot'ing into the system

pacstrap -i /mnt networkmanager zsh git curl openssh sysstat intel-ucode
# If you're on AMD replace "intel-ucode" with "amd-ucode"

Generate fstab

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Check if swap was written also

cat /mnt/etc/fstab

And if not find your vg0-swap UUID with blkid /dev/mapper/vg0-swap and add it at the end of the fstab

UUID=SWAP_UUID none swap defaults 0 0

Chroot into your new system

arch-chroot /mnt

Setup the bootloader (systemd-boot)

bootctl --path=/boot install

Get the partition UUID which the bootloader will need to load (it should be the partition you encrypted and not the actual LVM)

# We write it to a file to have it on hand when writing the bootloader entry
blkid /dev/nvme0n1p2 > /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf

Edit the entry file and add the required info

# vim /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
# replace intel-ucode with amd-ucode if AMD
# replace PARTITION_ID with the UUID that we entered here with blkid in the previous step
title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /intel-ucode.img
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
options cryptdevice=UUID=PARTITION_ID:vg0 root=/dev/mapper/vg0-root quiet splash rw

Save and exit with :wq and update bootloader

bootctl update

Add modules to mkinitpcio

vim /etc/mkinitpcio.conf Update HOOKS to have encrypt lvm2 between keymap filesystems

HOOKS=(base udev autodetect microcode modconf kms keyboard keymap consolefont block encrypt lvm2 filesystems fsck)

If you have an NVME drive like in this tutorial add it to modules

MODULES=(nvme)

Save the file with :wq and update initramfs

mkinitpcio -p linux

Miscellaneous configuration

Enable NetworkManager

systemctl enable NetworkManager

Change your region and localtime, sync clock

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/REGION/CITY /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc
# Edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and other needed locales. Generate the locales by running:
locale-gen

echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf

Setup your hostname

echo Archlinux > /etc/hostname

Setup root password:

passwd

Exit chroot, unmount partitions and reboot

exit #(ctrl+d)
umount -R /mnt
reboot

After Booting up

Just in case, update everything:

pacman -Syy
pacman -Syu

Create another user (DO NOT USE ROOT FOR DAILY USE!)

visudo
# Find where it says "root ALL=(ALL) ALL".
# Type "o" to insert a new line below it.
# Now type what you want to insert, eg "username ALL=(ALL) ALL".
# Hit esc to exit insert-mode.
# Type ":x" to save and exit.
useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash USERNAME
passwd USERNAME

Setup SSH

# Whenever changing the configuration, use sshd in test mode before restarting the service to ensure it will be able to start cleanly. Valid configurations produce no output.
# use: sshd -t

Setup SSH Welcome Banner:

sudo vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
# Uncomment # Banner /etc/issue
# :wq
sudo vim /etc/issue
# Add a welcome message
# :wq
sudo systemctl start sshd
sudo systemctl enable sshd