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Arch Linux BTRFS installation and utility scripts

Introduction

This is my fork of Arch-Setup-Script, a collection of scripts made in order to boostrap a basic Arch Linux environment with automated snapshots with Snapper, recommended security measures, and optional encryption with LUKS.

This fork focuses on editing, in order to create a system that suits your needs. (Feel free to fork and edit the repo; before cloning to the installation media.)

Furthermore, I added some common utility scripts.

How does it work?

  1. Download an Arch Linux ISO from here
  2. Flash the ISO onto an USB Flash Drive.
  3. Boot the live environment.
  4. Connect to the internet. (You may need to rfkill unblock wifi or rfkill unblock all.)
  5. pacman -Syy git && cd /tmp && git clone -b grub --depth=1 https://github.com/patarapolw/arch-btrfs/
    • If pacman mirrors are dead, run man reflector, and type the first example (probably reflect --latest 5 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist)
  6. cd arch-btrfs/install && ls
  7. Run the *.sh one by one, according to your needs.
  8. You may have to git clone again, after arch-chroot.

Snapper behavior

The partition layout I use allows us to replicate the behavior found in openSUSE 🦎

  1. Snapper rollback works! You will no longer need to manually rollback from a live USB like you would with the @ and @home layout suggested in the Arch Wiki.
  2. You can boot into a readonly snapshot! display-manager, NetworkManager and other services will start normally so you can get in and verify that everything works before rolling back.
  3. Automatic snapshots on pacman install/update operations
  4. Directories such as /boot, /boot/efi, /var/log, /var/crash, /var/tmp, /var/spool, /var/lib/libvirt/images, /var/lib/docker are excluded from the snapshots as they either should be persistent or are just temporary files. /cryptkey is excluded as we do not want the encryption key to be included in the snapshots, which could be sent to another device as a backup.
  5. GRUB will boot into the default BTRFS snapshot set by snapper. Like on OpenSUSE, your running system will always be a read-write snapshot in @/.snapshots/X/snapshot.

Changes to the original project

  1. Separated scripts. Aimed to be editable and customizable.
  2. Encryption is optional. Simply skip ./install/*-encrypt.sh
  3. Desktop environment by your choice.
    • Tested:
      • GNOME
      • KDE Plasma
      • LXQt
      • MATE
      • Cinnamon
      • XFCE
  4. Home folder snapshots. However, this is experimental and might not be perfect. As well as, you cannot rollback home folder directly. (See openSUSE/snapper#664)
  5. Post-installation utilities and how-tos.

Partitions layout

Partition/Subvolume Label Mountpoint Notes
1 ESP /boot/efi Unencrypted FAT32
2 @/.snapshots/X/snapshot / Encrypted BTRFS
3 @/boot /boot/ Encrypted BTRFS
4 @/root /root Encrypted BTRFS
5 @/home /home Encrypted BTRFS
6 @/.snapshots /.snapshots Encrypted BTRFS
7 @/srv /srv Encrypted BTRFS
8 @/var_log /var/log Encrypted BTRFS
9 @/var_crash /var/crash Encrypted BTRFS
10 @/var_cache /var/cache Encrypted BTRFS (nodatacow)
11 @/var_tmp /var/tmp Encrypted BTRFS (nodatacow)
12 @/var_spool /var/spool Encrypted BTRFS
13 @/var_lib_libvirt_images /var/lib/libvirt/images Encrypted BTRFS (nodatacow)
14 @/var_lib_docker /var/lib/docker Encrypted BTRFS
15 @/var_lib_containers /var/lib/containers Encrypted BTRFS

Also, these subfolders in $HOME (~/xxx) will be subvolumed, to enable $HOME snapshoting.

COW_PATHS=(
    ".var"
    ".local/share/Steam"
    ".local/share/containers"
    # "Downloads"
    # ".local/share/Trash"
)

NOCOW_PATHS=(
    ".cache"
    "VirtualBox VMs"
)

Testing in VM

virt-manager / qemu

As far as I have tested, UEFI needs to be enabled. Also, installing spice-vdagent is helpful, but may not work in some DE's.

VirtualBox

Of course you can use VirtualBox guest addition ISO, but you will also need to systemctl enable vboxservice.