Installation

• Base System
• Time Zone & Locale
• Network
• Root Password
• sudo
• zsh
• Add User
• AUR Helper
• initramfs
• zram
• Secure Boot
• Boot Loader

Base System

Setting up mirrors

The Arch installation environment comes with reflector, a tool that generates mirror lists for pacman. At boot time, reflector is executed once to include the most recently synced mirrors and sorts them by download rate. This file will be copied to the installation destination later on.

reflector allows for a few filtering options:

To have reflector generate a list of mirrors from Germany, which synced in the past 12 hours and use HTTPS for transfer:

reflector --country Germany --age 12 --protocol https --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Parallel downloads

By default, pacman downloads packages one-by-one. If you have a fast internet connection, you can configure pacman to download packages in parallel, which can speed up installation significantly.

Open /etc/pacman.conf, uncomment the line #ParallelDownloads = 5 and set it to a value of your preference:

...
# Misc options
#UseSyslog
#Color
#NoProgressBar
CheckSpace
#VerbosePkgLists
ParallelDownloads = 10
#DisableSandbox
...

Alternatively, replace the settings directly with sed (e.g. setting 10 parallel downloads at a time):

sed -i "/etc/pacman.conf" -e "s|^#ParallelDownloads.*|&\nParallelDownloads = 10|"

Installing base packages

The absolute minimum set of packages required to install Arch Linux onto a machine is as follows:

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware

However, this selection lacks the tooling required for file systems, RAID, LVM, special firmware for devices not included with linux-firmware, networking software, a text editor or packages necessary to access documentation. It also lacks CPU microcode packages with stability and security updates.

The following table contains additional packages you most likely want to append to the above pacstrap command:

CAUTION: If you have an AMD CPU, include the amd-ucode package. If you have an Intel CPU, include the intel-ucode package!

ATTENTION: Include the cryptsetup package if you've encrypted your disks!

A desireable selection of packages for a base system with an AMD CPU, btrfs filesystem, UEFI ESP, LUKS disk encryption, a basic text editor, a network manager and tools for system maintenance as regular user would look something like this:

pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware amd-ucode btrfs-progs dosfstools cryptsetup nano networkmanager sudo

Generate the fstab containing information about which storage devices should be mounted at boot:

# Generate fstab referencing UUIDs of devices/partitions
genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Switch into the newly installed system with arch-chroot and continue setting it up:

arch-chroot /mnt

Time Zone & Locale

Time zone

Create a symbolic link to your local time zone at /etc/localtime and sync the time with the local hardware clock:

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Berlin /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc

Localization

Edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and other desired locales (prefer UTF-8):

nano /etc/locale.gen

NOTE: You can search in nano using CTRL + W.

Generate the locales by running:

locale-gen

Set which locales and keyboard layout the system should use for messages and documentation (man pages):

echo "LANG=de_DE.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf
echo "KEYMAP=de-latin1" > /etc/vconsole.conf

Network

Set up the default host name of the machine as well as localhost:

NOTE: sebin-desktop is used as an example here. Set $HOSTNAME to whatever you like.

# Define an environment variable containing the desired hostname
export HOSTNAME='sebin-desktop'

# Set the hostname of the machine
echo "$HOSTNAME" > /etc/hostname

# Set localhost to resolve to the machine's loopback address
echo "127.0.0.1	localhost" >> /etc/hosts
echo "::1		localhost" >> /etc/hosts
echo "127.0.1.1	$HOSTNAME.localdomain	$HOSTNAME" >> /etc/hosts

Set wireless region

If your machine has Wi-Fi it is advisable to set the region for wireless radio waves to comply with local regulations:

# Install crda
pacman -S iw

# Set the wireless region, e.g. Germany
iw reg set DE

Network manager

Previously we installed NetworkManager as our default network mangaging software. GNOME and KDE have out of the box support for managing network connections in their settings dialogs in a graphical manner. Both rely on NetworkManager.

Enable NetworkManager to start at boot:

systemctl enable NetworkManager

Using iwd as the Wi-Fi backend (optional)

By default NetworkManager uses wpa_supplicant for managing Wi-Fi connections.

iwd (iNet wireless daemon) is a wireless daemon for Linux written by Intel. The core goal of the project is to optimize resource utilization by not depending on any external libraries and instead utilizing features provided by the Linux Kernel to the maximum extent possible.

To enable the experimental iwd backend, first install iwd and then create the following configuration file:

mkdir /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d
nano /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf

With the following contents:

[device]
wifi.backend=iwd

systemd-resolved for DNS name resolution

systemd-resolved is a systemd service that provides network name resolution to local applications via a D-Bus interface, the resolve NSS service, and a local DNS stub listener on 127.0.0.53.

Benefits of using systemd-resolved include:

• resolvectl as the primary single command for interfacing with the network name resolver service
• A system-wide DNS cache for speeding up subsequent name resolution requests
• Split DNS when using VPNs, which can help in preventing DNS leaks when connecting to multiple VPNs (See Fedora Wiki for a detailed explenation why this is important)
• Integrated DNSSEC capabilities to verify the authenticity and integrity of name resolution requests, e.g. to prevent cache poisoning/DNS hijacking
• DNS over TLS for further securing name resolution requests by encrypting them, improving privacy (not to be confused with DNS over HTTPS)

To use systemd-resolved enable the respective unit:

systemctl enable systemd-resolved

To provide domain name resolution for software that reads /etc/resolv.conf directly, such as web browsers and GnuPG, systemd-resolved has four different modes for handling the file

• stub
• static
• uplink
• foreign

The recommende mode is stub, which uses /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf, and contains the local stub 127.0.0.53 as the only DNS server and a list of search domains.

This propagates the systemd-resolved managed configuration to all clients. To use it, replace /etc/resolv.conf with a symbolic link to it:

ln -sf ../run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf

When set up this way, NetworkManager automatically picks up systemd-resolved for network name resolution.

Fallback DNS servers

If systemd-resolved does not receive DNS server addresses from the network manager and no DNS servers are configured manually then systemd-resolved falls back to the fallback DNS addresses to ensure that DNS resolution always works.

The fallback order is:

1. Cloudflare
2. Quad9 (without filtering and without DNSSEC)
3. Google

ATTENTION: Depending on your use-case, you might not want to route all your DNS traffic through the pre-determined fallback servers for privacy reasons. Do your own research on fallback DNS servers that you want to trust.

Fallback addresses can be manually set in a drop-in config file, e.g. /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/fallback_dns.conf:

[Resolve]
FallbackDNS=127.0.0.1 ::1

To disable the fallback DNS functionality set the FallbackDNS option without specifying any addresses:

[Resolve]
FallbackDNS=

DNSSEC

WARNING: DNSSEC support in systemd-resolved is considered experimental and incomplete.

DNSSEC is a suite of extensions to the DNS system. Benefits of utilizing DNSSEC include authentication and data integrity, but not encryption. For actually encrypting your DNS traffic, see the section below.

systemd-resolved can be configured to use DNSSEC for validation of DNS requests. It can be configured in three modes:

Set up DNSSEC in a drop-in config file, e.g. /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/dnssec.conf:

[Resolve]
DNSSEC=allow-downgrade

DNS over TLS

DNS over TLS is a security protocol for encrypting DNS queries and responses via Transport Layer Security (TLS), thereby increasing privacy and security by preventing eavesdropping and manipulation of DNS requests in man-in-the-middle attack scenarios.

DNS over TLS in systemd-resolved is disabled by default. To enable validation of your DNS provider's server certificate, include their hostname in the DNS setting in the format ip_address#hostname and set DNSOverTLS to one of three modes:

ATTENTION: When setting DNSOverTLS=opportunistic systemd-resolved will try to use DNS over TLS and if the server does not support it fall back to regular DNS. Note, however, that this opens you to "downgrade" attacks, where an attacker might be able to trigger a downgrade to non-encrypted mode by synthesizinig a response that suggests DNS over TLS was not supported.

WARNING: If setting DNSOverTLS=yes and the server provided in DNS= does not support DNS over TLS all DNS requests will fail!

Set up DNS over TLS in a drop-in config file, e.g. /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/dns_over_tls.conf:

[Resolve]
DNS=9.9.9.9#dns.quad9.net 149.112.112.112#dns.quad9.net [2620:fe::fe]#dns.quad9.net [2620:fe::9]#dns.quad9.net
DNSOverTLS=yes

Multicast DNS

systemd-resolved is capable of working as a multicast DNS (mDNS) resolver and responder. The resolver provides hostname resolution using a "hostname.local" naming scheme.

mDNS support in systemd-resolved is enabled by default. For a given connection, mDNS will only be activated if both mDNS in systemd-resolved is enabled, and if the configuration for the currently active network manager enables mDNS for the connection.

The MulticastDNS setting in systemd-resolved can be set to one of the following:

To enable mDNS for a connection managed by NetworkManager tell nmcli to modify an existing connection:

nmcli connection modify CONNECTION_NAME connection.mdns yes

[connection]
connection.mdns=2

Avahi

Avahi implements zero-configuration networking (zeroconf), allowing for multicast DNS/DNS-SD service discovery. This enables programs to publish and discover services and hosts running on a local network, e.g. network file sharing servers, remote audio devices, network printers, etc.

Some desktop environments pull in the avahi package as a dependency. It enables their file manager to scan the network for services and make them easily accessible.

Avahi provides local hostname resolution using a "hostname.local" naming scheme. To use it, install the avahi and nss-mdns package and enable Avahi:

pacman -S avahi nss-mdns
systemctl enable avahi-daemon

Then, edit the file /etc/nsswitch.conf and change the hosts line to include mdns_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] before resolve and dns:

hosts: mymachines mdns_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] files myhostname dns

To discover services running in your local network:

avahi-browse --all --ignore-local --resolve --terminate

To query a specific host for the services it advertises:

avahi-resolve-host-name hostname.local

Avahi also includes the avahi-discover graphical utility that lists the various services on your network.

Root Password

Set the password for the root user:

passwd

This password schould differ from the regular user password for security reasons.

In the case of system recovery operations the root user comes into play, e.g. when the kernel fails to mount the root file system or system maintenance via chroot is needed.

sudo

sudo is the standard tool for gaining temporary system administrator privileges on Linux to perform administrative tasks. This eliminates the need to change the current user to root to perform these tasks.

To allow regular users to execute commands with elevated privileges, the configuration for sudo needs to be modified to allow this.

sudo supports configuration drop-in files in /etc/sudoers.d/. Using these makes it easy to modularize the configuration and remove offending files, if something goes wrong.

TIP: File names starting with . or ~ will get ignored. Use this to turn off certain configuration settings if you need to.

WARNING: Drop-in files are just as fragile as /etc/sudoers! It is therefore strongly advised to always use visudo when creating or editing sudo config files, as it will check for syntax errors. Failing to do so will risk rendering sudo inoperable!

Create a new drop-in file at:

EDITOR=nano visudo /etc/sudoers.d/01_wheel

The contents of the drop-in file are as follows:

## Allow members of group wheel to execute any command
%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Save and exit.

Now every user who is in the wheel user group is allowed to run any command as root.

zsh

zsh is a modern shell with lots of customizability and features. Install the following packages:

pacman -S zsh zsh-autosuggestions zsh-completions zsh-history-substring-search zsh-syntax-highlighting

Add User

It is advised to add a regular user account for day to day usage.

Add a new user, create a home directory, add them to the wheel group, set their default shell to zsh:

useradd -mG wheel -s /bin/zsh sebin

Set a password for the new user:

passwd sebin

AUR Helper

An AUR helper is a tool that automates the process of installing packages from the Arch User Repository.

It does this by automating the following tasks:

• search the AUR for published packages
• resolve dependencies for AUR packages
• retrieval and build of AUR packages
• show user comments
• submission of AUR packages

AUR packages are distributed in the form of PKGBUILDs that contain information on how the package needs to be built, what dependencies is needs and all the usual metadata associated with every other Arch Linux package.

Arch Wiki has a list of AUR helpers with comparison tables

Installation

The installation procedure for any AUR helper is largely the same, as they are all published on the AUR itself.

Building packages from the AUR manually will at minimum require the base-devel and git packages:

pacman -S base-devel git

ATTENTION: If you'rere currently logged in as the root user, you need to switch to a regular user profile with su username, as makepkg will not allow you to run it as root.

Change to a temporary directory, clone the AUR helper of your choice with git, change into the newly created directory and call makepkg to build and install it, e.g. yay:

cd /tmp
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay
cd yay
makepkg -si

makepkg -si will prompt you to install any missing dependencies for your chosen AUR helper, i.e. go for yay, rust for paru, etc. and call pacman to install the helper for you after the build has finished.

Configuration

makepkg can be configured to make better use of available system resources, improving build times and efficiency.

One of these optimizations is instructing makepkg to pass specific options to compilers. You can either edit the main configuration file of makepkg at /etc/makepkg.conf or supply a drop-in config file in /etc/makepkg.conf.d/*.conf — the latter is recommended in case building starts to act strangely and you want to quickly be able to revert changes by deleting drop-in config files.

Optimizing builds

By default, makepkg is configured to produce generic builds of software packages. Since makepkg will mostly be used to build packages for your own personal machine, compiler options can be tweaked to produce optimized builds for the machine they're getting built on.

For example, create a drop-in config file /etc/makepkg.conf.d/cflags.conf with the following contents:

CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fno-plt -fexceptions \
        -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=3 -Wformat -Werror=format-security \
        -fstack-clash-protection -fcf-protection \
        -fno-omit-frame-pointer -mno-omit-leaf-frame-pointer"

This will cause GCC to automatically detect and enable safe architecture-specific optimizations.

The same thing can be applied to the Rust compiler. There is already a drop-in config file at /etc/makepkg.conf.d/rust.conf that can be edited:

RUSTFLAGS="-C opt-level=2 -C target-cpu=native"

The opt-level parameter can be set to different values ranging in different levels of optimizations that will have an impact on build time. See the Rust docs for details.

Additionally, the make build system can also be optimized with the MAKEFLAGS variable. One such optimization is to increase the number of jobs that can run simultaneously.

Create a drop-in config file /etc/makepkg.conf.d/make.conf with the following contents:

MAKEFLAGS="--jobs=$(nproc)"

This will prompt make to utilize the maximum number of CPU cores to run build jobs.

ATTENTION: Some PKGBUILDs specifically override this with -j1, because of race conditions in certain versions or simply because it is not supported in the first place. If a package fails to build you should report this to the package maintainer.

Prevent build of -debug packages

By default, makepkg is configured to also generate debug symbol packages. This affects all AUR helpers. To turn this behavior off, modify the OPTIONS array by either removing the debug option or disabling it with a ! in front of it:

OPTIONS=(strip docs !libtool !staticlibs emptydirs zipman purge !debug lto)

Using the mold linker

mold is a drop-in replacement for ld/lld linkers, which claims to be significantly faster.

To use mold, append -fuse-ld=mold to LDFLAGS:

LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--sort-common -Wl,--as-needed -Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now \
         -Wl,-z,pack-relative-relocs -fuse-ld=mold"

This also needs to be passed to RUSTFLAGS:

RUSTFLAGS="-C opt-level=2 -C target-cpu=native -C link-arg=-fuse-ld=mold"

Compression options

By default, makepkg will compress built packages with zstd. This is controlled by the PKGEXT variable. The compression algorithm used is inferred from the archive extension. To speed up the packaging process, you might consider turning off the compression at the expense of increased storage usage in the package cache:

PKGEXT='.pkg.tar'

If you need to conserve space, consider keeping compression enabled, but increasing the number of utilized cores by telling zstd to count logical cores instead of physical ones with --auto-threads=logical:

COMPRESSZST=(zstd -c -T0 --auto-threads=logical -)

You can also increase the level of compression applied at the expense of longer packaging time, ranging from 1 (weakest) to 19 (strongest), default is 3:

COMPRESSZST=(zstd -c -T0 -19 --auto-threads=logical -)

Or use the LZ4 algorithm, which is optimized for speed:

PKGEXT='.pkg.tar.lz4'

Build entirely in RAM

You can pass makepkg a different directory for building packages. Since building causes a lot of rapid small file access, performance could be improved by moving this process to a tmpfs location that is held entirely in RAM. The variable BUILDDIR can be used to instruct makepkg to build packages in another location:

BUILDDIR=/tmp/makepkg

Since /tmp is such a tmpfs files in this directory are held in RAM. Building packages completely in RAM can therefore speed up data access and help preserve the durability of flash-based storage mediums like SSDs.

initramfs

The initramfs contains all the necessary programs and config files needed to bring up the machine, mount the root file system and hand off the rest of the boot process to the installed system. It can be further customized with additional modules, binaries, files and hooks for special use cases and hardware.

Usage

Automated image generation

Every kernel in Arch Linux comes with its own .preset file stored in /etc/mkinitcpio.d/ with configuration presets for mkinitcpio. Pacman hooks build a new image after every kernel upgrade or installation of a new kernel.

Manual image generation

To manually generate a Linux kernel image issue the following command:

mkinitcpio -p linux

This will generate a new kernel image with the settings of the preset file /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset.

To generate kernel images with every preset available, pass the -P argument:

mkinitcpio -P

Configuration

To customize your initramfs, place drop-in configuration files into /etc/mkinitcpio.conf.d/. They will override the settings in the main configuration file at /etc/mkinitcpio.conf.

An overview of the settings you can customize:

WARNING: Do not use the COMPRESSION_OPTIONS setting, unless you know exactly what you are doing. Misuse can produce unbootable images!

MODULES

The MODULES array is used to specify modules to load before anything else is done.

Here you can specify additional kernel modules needed in early userspace, e.g. file system modules (ext2, reiser4, btrfs), keyboard drivers (usbhid, hid_apple, etc.), USB 3 hubs (xhci_hcd) or "out-of-tree" modules which are not part of the Linux kernel (mainly NVIDIA GPU drivers). It is also needed to add modules for hardware devices that are not always connected but you would like to be operational from the very start if they are connected during boot.

*-usb:2
             description: USB controller
             product: Tiger Lake-LP USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 xHCI Host Controller
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 14
             bus info: pci@0000:00:14.0
             version: 20
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: xhci bus_master cap_list
         ->  configuration: driver=xhci_hcd latency=0
             resources: iomemory:600-5ff irq:163 memory:603f260000-603f26ffff

Example of a MODULES array that adds two modules to the generated image needed for keyboard input, if the keyboard is connected to a USB 3 hub, e.g. a docking station:

MODULES=(xhci_hcd usbhid)

CAUTION: Keep in mind that adding to the initramfs increases the size of the resulting image on disk. Unless you have created your boot partition (more specifically the EFI System partition at either /efi, /boot or /boot/efi) with generous space, you should limit yourself to modules strictly needed for your system. The autodetect hook tries to detect all currently loaded modules of the running system to determine the needed modules to include by default. Only include additional modules if something doesn't work as expected.

MODULES=(nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm)

BINARIES

The BINARIES array holds the name of extra executables needed to boot the system. It can also be used to replace binaries provided by HOOKS. The executable names are sourced from the PATH evironment variable, associated libraries are added as well.

Example of a BINARIES array that adds the kexec binary:

BINARIES=(kexec)

This option usually only needs to be set for special use cases, e.g. when there's a binary you need included that is not already part of a member in the HOOKS array.

FILES

The FILES array holds the full path to arbitrary files for inclusion in the image.

Example of a module configuration file to be included in the image, containting the names of modules to auto-load and optional module parameters:

FILES=(/etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf)

This option usually only needs to be set for special use cases.

HOOKS

The HOOKS array is the most important setting in the file. Hooks are small scripts which describe what will be added to the image. Hooks are referred to by their name, and executed in the order they are listed in the HOOKS array.

mkinitcpio -L

mkinitcpio -H hook_name

The default HOOKS line in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf is as follows:

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

This creates a basic image suitable for most single disk systems.

A quick overview of the hooks and their meaning:

busybox

By default, mkinitcpio will generate a busybox-based initramfs. It starts an init script that scans the filesystem of the initramfs for scripts to execute and bring up the system and hand over the remaining boot process to systemd once the root file system is mounted. This is fine for most use-cases.

For special cases some additional hooks may be required for busybox to bring up the machine properly:

One such special case is encryption, which would result in a HOOKS array that looks like this:

ATTENTION: The order in which hooks are placed in the array is important!

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

ATTENTION: In some cases it might be necessary to place the keyboard hook before the autodetect hook to be able to enter the passphrase to unlock the encrypted file systems, e.g. when using different keyboards requiring a different module from the one in use at the time of building the initramfs.

systemd

If you wish, you can also make systemd bring the whole system up start to finish. In this case bootup will be handled by systemd unit files instead of scripts.

The benefit of this is faster boot times and some additional features not available to a busybox-based intiramfs, e.g. unlocking LUKS encrypted file systems with a TPM or FIDO2 token and automatic detection and mounting of partitions with the appropriate GUID Partition Table (GPT) UUIDs (see: Discoverable Partition Specification).

To instruct mkinitcpio to build a systemd-based initramfs:

• replace the udev hook with the systemd hook
• replace the keymap and consolefont hooks with the sd-vconsole hook

The resulting HOOKS array should look something like this:

HOOKS=(base systemd autodetect microcode modconf kms keyboard sd-vconsole block filesystems fsck)

For special cases some additional hooks may be required for systemd to bring up the machine properly:

One such special case is encryption, which would result in a HOOKS array that looks like this:

ATTENTION: The order in which hooks are placed in the array is important!

HOOKS=(base systemd autodetect microcode modconf kms keyboard sd-vconsole block sd-encrypt filesystems fsck)

ATTENTION: In some cases it might be necessary to place the keyboard hook before the autodetect hook to be able to enter the passphrase to unlock the encrypted file systems, e.g. when using different keyboards requiring a different module from the one in use at the time of building the initramfs.

COMPRESSION

The COMPRESSION option instructs mkinitcpio to compress the resulting images to save on space on the EFI System Partition or /boot partition. This can be especially important if you include a lot of modules and hooks and the size of the image grows.

Compressing the initramfs is a tradeoff between:

• time it takes to compress the image
• space saved
• time it takes the kernel to decompress the image during boot

Which one you choose is something you have to decide on the constraints you're working with (slow/fast CPU, available cores, RAM usage, disk space), but generally speaking the default zstd compression strikes a good balance.

NOTE: See this article for a comprehensive comparison between compression algorithms.

COMPRESSION_OPTIONS

WARNING: Misuse of this option may lead to an unbootable system if the kernel is unable to unpack the resultant archive. Do not set this option unless you're absolutely sure that you have to!

The COMPRESSION_OPTIONS setting allows you to pass additional parameters for the compression tool. Available parameters depend on the algorithm chosen for the COMPRESSION option. Refer to the tool's manual for available options. If left empty mkinitcpio will make sure it always produces a working image.

zram

The zram kernel module provides a compressed block device in RAM. If you use it as swap device, the RAM can hold much more information but uses more CPU. Still, it is much quicker than swapping to a hard drive. If a system often falls back to swap, this could improve responsiveness. Using zram is also a good way to reduce disk read/write cycles due to swap on SSDs.

Install the zram-generator package and copy the example configuration:

pacman -S zram-generator
cp /usr/share/doc/zram-generator/zram-generator.conf.example /etc/systemd/zram-generator.conf

Edit the copy of the example configuration to your liking. Comments explain what each setting does.

Secure Boot

Secure Boot is a security feature found in the UEFI standard, designed to add a layer of protection to the pre-boot process: by maintaining a cryptographically signed list of binaries authorized or forbidden to run at boot, it helps in improving the confidence that the machine core boot components (boot manager, kernel, initramfs) have not been tampered with.

ATTENTION: When using Secure Boot it's imperative to use it with disk encryption. If the storage device that stores the keys is not encrypted, anybody can read the keys and use them to sign bootable images, thereby defeating the purpose of using Secure Boot at all. Therefore, this guide will assume disk encryption is being used.

Preparations

To determine the current state of Secure Boot execute:

bootctl status

The output looks something like this:

System:
      Firmware: UEFI 2.70 (American Megatrends 5.17)
 Firmware Arch: x64
   Secure Boot: enabled (user)
  TPM2 Support: yes
  Measured UKI: yes
  Boot into FW: supported

...

In order to proceed you need to set your firmware's Secure Boot mode into "setup" mode. This can usually be achieved by wiping the key store of the firmware. Refer to your mainboard's user manual on how to do this.

Installation

For the most straight-forward Secure Boot toolchain install sbctl:

pacman -S sbctl

It tremendously simplifies generating Secure Boot keys, loading keys into firmware and signing kernel images.

Generating keys

SEE ALSO: The Meaning of all the UEFI Keys

Secure Boot implementations use these keys:

To generate new keys and store them under /var/lib/sbctl/keys:

sbctl create-keys

Unified Kernel Image

A unified kernel image (UKI) combines an EFI stub image, CPU microcode, kernel command line and an initramfs into a single file that can be read and executed by the machine's UEFI firmware. It also makes it easier to sign for secure boot as there will be only a single file to sign.

Starting with v31, mkinitcpio is able to create UKIs out-of-the-box. The maintainers of sbctl also recommend using the system's initramfs generation tool instead of sbctl bundle. Additionally, sbctl comes with mkinitcpio hooks that sign kernel images automatically when they are generated during a rebuild.

Starting with v39, mkinitcpio will use systemd-ukify if it is installed. This is the preferred way of generating UKIs. As systemd-ukify is not part of the systemd package, you'll have to install it manually:

pacman -S systemd-ukify

To make mkinitcpio generate UKIs, edit the appropriate *.preset file for your kernel in /etc/mkinitcpio.d/:

• comment out the default_image and fallback_image lines (as they won't be needed)
• uncomment the default_uki and fallback_uki lines (prompts mkinitcpio to switch to UKI generation)
• point the file path to somewhere on your EFI System Partition (e.g. /efi)

NOTE: mkinitcpio will automatically source command line parameters from files in /etc/cmdline.d/*.conf or a complete single command line specified in /etc/kernel/cmdline. If you need different images to use different kernel command line parameters, the *_options line in the *.preset allows you to pass additional arguments to mkinitcpio, i.e. the --cmdline argument to point it to a different file containing a different set of kernel command line parameters.

NOTE: Placing the UKI under /efi/EFI/Linux/ allows systemd-boot to automatically detect images and list them without having to specifically create boot entries for them.

WARNING: If there are no options specified in either /etc/kernel/cmdline or a drop-in file in /etc/cmdline.d/*.conf, then mkinitcpio will fallback to reading the command line for the currently booted system from /proc/cmdline. If you're booted into the Arch installation environment, this will most likely leave you with an unbootable system. Set at least one command line option in one of the above locations!

A *.preset file edited for UKI generation could look something like this:

# mkinitcpio preset file for the 'linux' package

#ALL_config="/etc/mkinitcpio.conf"
ALL_kver="/boot/vmlinuz-linux"

PRESETS=('default' 'fallback')

#default_config="/etc/mkinitcpio.conf"
#default_image="/boot/initramfs-linux.img"
default_uki="/efi/EFI/Linux/arch-linux.efi"
#default_options="--splash /usr/share/systemd/bootctl/splash-arch.bmp"

#fallback_config="/etc/mkinitcpio.conf"
#fallback_image="/boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img"
fallback_uki="/efi/EFI/Linux/arch-linux-fallback.efi"
fallback_options="-S autodetect --cmdline /etc/kernel/cmdline_fallback"

Kernel Command Line Parameters

mkinitcpio automatically looks for kernel command line parameters specified in /etc/cmdline.d/*.conf as drop-in files or /etc/kernel/cmdline as a single file.

WARNING: If there are no options specified in either /etc/kernel/cmdline or a drop-in file in /etc/cmdline.d/*.conf, then mkinitcpio will fallback to reading the command line for the currently booted system from /proc/cmdline. If you're booted into the Arch installation environment, this will most likely leave you with an unbootable system. Set at least one command line option in one of the above locations!

First create the directory and open a new file in there:

mkdir /etc/cmdline.d
nano /etc/cmdline.d/root.conf

The parameters to include depend on the kind of initramfs used. You can use any of the persistent block device naming schemes to pass the device. You also need to specify a mapper name under which the decrypted root file system should be made available for mounting.

You can obtain the block device identifier for the LUKS container, e.g. its UUID, with blkid (using /dev/nvme0n1p3 as an example):

NOTE: Pressing Ctrl + T inside nano allows you to paste the result of a command at the current cursor position.

blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/nvme0n1p3

Continue to specify additional kernel command line parameters you need. At minimum it should look like this:

• busybox:

  cryptdevice=UUID=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX:root root=/dev/mapper/root rw
  

• systemd:

  rd.luks.name=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX=root root=/dev/mapper/root rw
  

# <name>    <device>                                     <passphrase>    <options>
root        UUID=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX

root=/dev/mapper/root rw

ATTENTION: Keep the specialties of your chosen root file system in mind, e.g. if using btrfs you also need to supply the subvolume that should be mounted: rootflags=subvol=@.

Enroll keys in firmware

WARNING: Replacing the platform keys with your own can end up bricking your machine, making it impossible to get into the UEFI/BIOS settings to rectify the situation. This is due to the fact that some device firmware (OpROMs, e.g. GPU firmware), that gets executed during boot, may be signed using Microsoft's keys. Run sbctl enroll-keys --microsoft if you're unsure if this applies to you (enrolling Microsoft's Secure Boot keys alongside your own custom ones) or include the TPM Event Log with sbctl enroll-keys --tpm-eventlog (if your machine has a TPM and you don't need or want Microsoft's keys) to prevent bricking your machine.

ATTENTION: Make sure your firmware's Secure Boot mode is set to setup mode! You can do this by going into your firmware settings and wiping the factory default keys. Additionally, keep an eye out for any setting that auto-restores the default keys on system start.

TIP: If you plan to dual-boot Windows, run sbctl enroll-keys --microsoft to enroll Microsoft's Secure Boot keys along with your own custom keys.

To enroll your keys, simply:

sbctl enroll-keys

Automated signing of UKIs

sbctl comes with a hook for mkinitcpio which runs after it has rebuilt an image. Manually specifying images to sign is therefore entirely optional.

Signing the Bootloader

NOTE: This is the manual method. If you also want to automate the bootloader update process, skip to the section below.

If you plan on using a boot loader, you will also need to add its *.efi executable(s) to the sbctl database, e.g. systemd-boot:

sbctl sign --save /efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI
sbctl sign --save /efi/EFI/systemd/systemd-bootx64.efi

Upon system upgrades, pacman will call sbctl to sign the files listed in the sbctl database.

Automate systemd-boot updates and signing

systemd comes with a systemd-boot-update.service unit file to automate updating the bootloader whenever systemd is updated. However, it only updates the bootloader after a reboot, by which time sbctl has already run the signing process. This would necessitate manual intervention.

Recent versions of bootctl look for a .efi.signed file before a regular .efi file when copying bootloader files during install and update operations. So to integrate better with the auto-update functionality of systemd-boot-update.service, the bootloader needs to be signed ahead of time.

sbctl sign --save \
  -o /usr/lib/systemd/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi.signed \
  /usr/lib/systemd/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi

This will add the source and target file paths to sbctl's database. The pacman hook included with sbctl will trigger whenever a file in usr/lib/**/efi/*.efi* changes, which will be the case when systemd is updated and a new version of the unsigned bootloader is written to disk at /usr/lib/systemd/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi.

Finally, enable the systemd-boot-update.service unit:

systemctl enable systemd-boot-update

Now when systemd is updated the signed version of the systemd-bootx64.efi booloader will be copied to the ESP after a reboot, completely automating the bootloader update and signing process!

Boot Loader

systemd-boot

systemd comes with systemd-boot already, so no additional packages need to be installed.

Install

ATTENTION: By default, systemd-boot will install itself to either of the well-known ESP locations, e.g. /efi, /boot, or (discouraged) /boot/efi. If your ESP is mounted somewhere else pass the localtion with the --esp-path parameter.

To install systemd-boot to your EFI System Partition and create a boot loader entry named "Linux Boot Manager" in your firmware:

bootctl install

This will copy /usr/lib/systemd/boot/efi/systemd-bootx64.efi to $ESP/EFI/systemd/systemd-bootx64.efi and $ESP/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI.

NOTE: If a signed version of systemd-bootx64.efi exists as systemd-bootx64.efi.signed in the same directory, bootctl copies the signed file instead.

NOTE: bootctl may complain about your ESP's mount point and the random seed file as being "world accessible". This is to let you know your ESP's current file system permissions are too open. To solve this, change the fmask and dmask mount options for your ESP in /etc/fstab from 0022 to 0077. Changes apply on next boot. See also: mount(8) $ Mount options for fat

Configure

systemd-boot has two kinds of configs:

• $ESP/loader/loader.conf: Configuration file for the boot loader itself
• $ESP/loader/entries/*.conf: Configuration files for individual boot entries

Boot loader config

NOTE: For a full list of options and their explanation refer to loader.conf(5) § OPTIONS

An example loader configuration could look something like this:

ATTENTION: Only spaces are accepted as white-space characters for indentation, do not use tabs!

default         arch    # pre-selects entry from $ESP/loader/entries/arch.conf
timeout         3       # 3 seconds before the default entry is booted
auto-entries    1       # shows boot entries which were auto-detected
auto-firmware   1       # shows entry "Reboot into firmware"
console-mode    max     # picks the highest-numbered mode available

Boot entry config

SEE ALSO: The Boot Loader Specification for a comprehensive overview of what systemd-boot implements.

Available parameters in boot entry config files:

Type 1 (text file based)

NOTE: As of mkinitramfs v38, the CPU microcode is embedded in the initramfs and it is no longer necessary to specify CPU microcode images on a separate initrd line before the actual initramfs.

Type 1 entries specify their parameters in *.conf files under §ESP/loader/entries/.

All paths in these configs are relative to the ESP, e.g. if the ESP is mounted at /boot a boot loader entry located at $ESP/loader/entries/arch.conf would look like this:

title	Arch Linux
linux	/vmlinuz-linux
initrd	/initramfs-linux.img
options	rd.luks.name=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX=cryptroot root=/dev/mapper/cryptroot rw

Type 2 (EFI executable)

When using a unified kernel image, any image ending with *.efi placed under $ESP/EFI/Linux/ will be automatically picked up by systemd-boot along with the metadata embedded in that image (e.g. title, version, etc.)

If your UKIs are stored somewhere else, you will need a loader entry *.conf file with an efi key pointing systemd-boot to the location of the *.efi file on the ESP:

title	Arch Linux
efi     /EFI/Arch/linux.efi

EFISTUB

EFISTUB is a method of booting the kernel directly as an EFI executable by the firmware without the need to use a boot loader. This can be useful in cases where you want to reduce the attack surface a boot loader can introduce, or you intend to only ever boot one image. However, some UEFI firmware implementations can be flaky, so this isn't always practical.

Install

To be able to manipulate EFI boot variables install efibootmgr:

pacman -S efibootmgr

Configure

efibootmgr

efibootmgr -Bb XXXX

To create a new entry efibootmgr needs to know the disk and partition where the kernel image resides on the ESP.

In this example, the ESP is the first partition of the block device /dev/nvme0n1. Kernel parameters are part of the -u option. The partition that holds your root file system needs to be passed as a persistent block device name.

NOTE: If you use LVM or LUKS, you can supply the device mapper name since that already is persistent.

You can get the persistent block device identifier of a file system with the blkid command, i.e. to get the UUID of the root file system:

# /dev/nvme0n1p1 is the ESP, hence /dev/nvme0n1p2 is the root fs
blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/nvme0n1p2

For ease of scriptability, save the values to environment variables:

export ROOT=$(blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/nvme0n1p2)
export CMDL="root=UUID=$ROOT rw add_efi_memmap initrd=\\\initramfs-linux.img"

Then create the boot entry using efibootmgr:

efibootmgr -c -L "Arch Linux" -d /dev/nvme0n1 -p 1 -l /vmlinuz-linux -u $CMDL -v

Unified kernel image

When using a unified kernel image you can instead just point to the UKI without needing to specify any kernel parameters via the -u option (as these will be part of the UKI already):

ATTENTION: If Secure Boot is enabled and the command line parameters are embedded in the UKI, the embedded command line parameters will always take precedence, even if you pass additional parameters with the -u option.

efibootmgr -c -L "Arch Linux" -d /dev/nvme0n1 -p 1 -l "EFI\Linux\archlinux-linux.efi" -v