VoidLinuxInstaller script

The VoidLinuxInstaller script is an attempt to make my gist an interactive bash script.

As stated in the gist, this script provides:

• Full Disk Encryption (including /boot) with LUKS;
• Logic Volume Management (LVM);
• Separated /home partition;
• BTRFS as filesystem.
• Trim on SSD;

To know how the script works in details, please jump to the How does it work? section!

To know how to run the script, please jump to the How to run it? section!

This script comes from my need to automate my gist as much as I can, and also as a way to learn Bash scripting as well. This is my first Bash script ever created so bugs, errors and really ugly code are expected!

I've tried this script a lot with virtual machines and following every step always brought me to a functional system, so there should be no problem from this point of view!

Pull requests are absolutely welcome!

How to run it?

First update xbps package:

xbps-install -Sy xbps

then install wget or curl package:

# For wget
xbps-install -Sy wget

# For curl
xbps-install -Sy curl

then use wget to download the needed file:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Le0xFF/VoidLinuxInstaller/main/VoidLinuxInstaller.sh -O $HOME/VoidLinuxInstaller.sh

or curl if you prefer:

curl -o $HOME/VoidLinuxInstaller.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Le0xFF/VoidLinuxInstaller/main/VoidLinuxInstaller.sh

then make it executable:

chmod +x $HOME/VoidLinuxInstaller.sh

and finally run it:

bash $HOME/VoidLinuxInstaller.sh

How does it work?

Here is documented how the script works in details and what will ask to the user in each different step. It will:

1. prompt the user to eventually change their keyboard layout from a list of all the different available layouts.
2. check internet connection and eventually guide the user to connect to the internet;
3. wipe a user choosen drive and that drive will be the one also selected for partitioning;
4. partition a user choosen drive:
   • if the previous drive was not the right one, it will ask the user if they want to change it eventually;
   • check the Suggested partition layout to follow the script workflow;
5. encrypt a user choosen partition for Full Disk Encryption:
   • it will ask for a mountpoint name, so that the encrypted partition will be mounted as
     /dev/mapper/<encrypted_name>;
6. apply Logical Volume Management to the previous encrypted partition, to have the flexibility to resize / and /home partitions without too much hassle:
   • it will ask for a Volume Group name, so that will be mounted as
     /dev/mapper/<volume_group>;
   • it will ask for a Logical Volume name for root partition, and also for its size, so that will be mounted as
     /dev/mapper/<volume_group>-<root_name>;
   • it will ask for a Logical Volume name for home partition; the remaining free space will be used for it and it will be mounted as
     /dev/mapper/<volume_group>-<home_name>
   • check the Final partitioning result to get an overview of what the outcome will be;
7. Formatting partitions to proper filesystems:
   • it will prompt user to select which partition to use as boot partition and to choose its label; it will be formatted as FAT32 and mounted as
     /boot/efi;
   • it will prompt user to select a label for the root logical partition, that will be formatted as BTRFS;
   • it will prompt user to select a label for the home logical partition, that will be formatted as BTRFS;
8. create BTRFS subvolumes with specific fstab mount options; if user wants to change them, please edit the script looking for create_btrfs_subvolumes function (BTRFS mount options official documentation):
   • BTRFS mounting options:
     • rw,noatime,ssd,compress=zstd,space_cache=v2,commit=120
   • BTRFS subvolumes that will be created:
     • /@
     • /@snapshots
     • /home/@home
     • /var/cache/xbps
     • /var/tmp
     • /var/log
9. install base system:
   • It will ask user to choose between x86_64 and x86_64-musl;
10. chroot:
    • set root password and / permissions;
    • create proper /etc/fstab file;
    • generate random key to avoid typing password two times at boot;
    • create proper dracut configuration and initramfs;
    • install grub;
    • enable internet at first boot with NetworkManager.

Suggested partition layout

To have a smooth script workflow, the following is the suggested disk layout:

• GPT as disk label type for UEFI systems, also because this script will only works on UEFI systems;
• Less than 1 GB for /boot/efi as first partition, as EFI System type;
• Rest of the disk for the Volume Group, that will be logically partitioned with LVM (/ and /home), as second partition as Linux filesystem.

Those two will be physical partition.
You don't need to create a /home partition now because it will be created later as a logical one with LVM.

Final partitioning result

Following the script, at the very end your drive will end up being like the following:

/dev/nvme0n1                                 259:0    0 953,9G  0 disk  
├─/dev/nvme0n1p1                             259:1    0     1G  0 part  /boot/efi
├─/dev/nvme0n1p2                             259:2    0 942,9G  0 part  
│ └─/dev/mapper/<encrypted_name>             254:0    0 942,9G  0 crypt 
│   └─/dev/mapper/<volume_group>-<root_name> 254:1    0 942,9G  0 lvm   /.snapshots
|   |                                                                   /
│   └─/dev/mapper/<volume_group>-<home_name> 254:1    0 942,9G  0 lvm   /home

Notes

• If you are going to use snapper and snapper-gui, it probably will complain about /.snapshots folder already present.
  To avoid that, please use this reference from the Arch Wiki.
• To speed up decryption at boot you could lower the number of iteration for each key as described on the Arch Wiki, but keep in mind that this comes with its own security concerns.
• I DON'T RECOMMEND FOLLOWING THIS, IT'S HERE ONLY AS REFERENCE:
  • https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB/Tips_and_tricks#Manual_configuration_of_core_image_for_early_boot
  • https://cryptsetup-team.pages.debian.net/cryptsetup/encrypted-boot.html#using-a-custom-keyboard-layout

Resources

[1] https://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/index.html

[2] https://gist.github.com/tobi-wan-kenobi/bff3af81eac27e210e1dc88ba660596e

[3] https://gist.github.com/gbrlsnchs/9c9dc55cd0beb26e141ee3ea59f26e21

[4] https://unixsheikh.com/tutorials/real-full-disk-encryption-using-grub-on-void-linux-for-bios.html