nanawel / alarmpi-installer

This tool aims to ease the creation of an Archlinux ARM storage media for Raspberry Pi devices.

Archlinux ARM Pi Installer

This tool aims to ease the creation of an Archlinux ARM storage media for Raspberry Pi devices.

In a nutshell it can:

• partition an SD card according to a given configuration ("profile")
• format said partitions
• mount partitions in local directories
• download official ArchlinuxARM Pi images and extract their content to the right partitions
• update device's /etc/fstab after extraction to reflect the partitions structure

It also provides an easy way to create raw image files that can then be used with QEMU.

See examples below and in the profiles/ directory.

Note: Only Raspberry Pi 1, 2 and 4 are supported at the moment but new profiles can easily be created in the dedicated folder profiles/, as long as the steps stay similar.

Requirements

• Linux system
• PHP 7+ with the xml extension

  # On Debian-like
  sudo apt install php-cli php-xml

• bsdtar command

  # On Debian-like (not needed on Archlinux as it's already present by default)
  sudo apt install libarchive-tools

• Robo task runner

  sudo wget https://robo.li/robo.phar -O /usr/local/bin/robo.phar
  sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/robo.phar
  sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/robo.phar /usr/local/bin/robo
  

For the rest, run robo requirements:check to validate your environment.

Usage

Synopsis

$ robo
Robo 1.4.10

Usage:
  command [options] [arguments]

Options:
  -h, --help                           Display this help message
  -q, --quiet                          Do not output any message
  -V, --version                        Display this application version
      --ansi                           Force ANSI output
      --no-ansi                        Disable ANSI output
  -n, --no-interaction                 Do not ask any interactive question
      --simulate                       Run in simulated mode (show what would have happened).
      --progress-delay=PROGRESS-DELAY  Number of seconds before progress bar is displayed in long-running task collections. Default: 2s. [default: 2]
  -D, --define=DEFINE                  Define a configuration item value. (multiple values allowed)
  -v|vv|vvv, --verbose                 Increase the verbosity of messages: 1 for normal output, 2 for more verbose output and 3 for debug

Available commands:
  build                       Build an image using the provided <profile>
  cleanup                     Cleanup environment for given <profile> (unmount all and delete Alarm image only after confirmation)
  help                        Displays help for a command
  list                        Lists commands
 config
  config:dump                 Dump configuration for given <profile>
 image
  image:download              Download Alarm image for given <profile> (if needed)
  image:extract               Extract Alarm image content to target storage for given <profile>
  image:extract-post          Performs post-extract tasks for given <profile> (update target /etc/fstab)
 requirements
  requirements:check          Check requirements
 self
  self:update                 [update] Updates Robo to the latest version.
 storage
  storage:device-init         Create partitions on device for given <profile>
  storage:format              Format partitions on target storage for given <profile>
  storage:image-init          Initialize the raw image used as storage for given <profile> (if any)
  storage:image-loop-mount    Mount image file on loop device for given <profile>
  storage:image-loop-unmount  Unmount image from loop device for given <profile>
  storage:mount               Mount all storage partitions to local directories for given <profile>
  storage:unmount             Unmount all storage partitions from local directories for given <profile>

Examples

Create a Raspberry Pi 1 SD card with 2 partitions (/boot and /)

1. Copy the file profiles/rpi1-device.sample.yml to profiles/my-rpi1.yml (optional: you might want to tweak other settings too)
2. Insert the SD card into your reader
3. Run dmesg | tail (or lsblk at your convenience) and retrieve the name of the newly added device
4. Edit the configuration and set device to the name of your device on the system
5. Run build to prepare the SD card:

   robo build my-rpi1

6. Eject your SD card safely

   eject /dev/sdX

7. You can now insert it into your Raspberry Pi 1 and boot it

Create a Raspberry Pi 1 QEMU raw-image with 3 partitions (/boot, /home and /)

1. Copy the file profiles/rpi1-rawfile.sample2.yml to profiles/my-qemu-rpi1.yml (optional: you might want to tweak other settings too)
2. Run build to prepare the image:

   robo build my-qemu-rpi1

3. You can now start your Raspberry Pi 1 QEMU emulator using this raw image

Usage of a raw Raspberry Pi image with QEMU is not covered here.

Check out https://github.com/paulden/raspbian-on-qemu-armv7 to learn more