by Despite following the installation guide, I encountered various issues when configuring archlinux (2021.12.01) recently.
I’m not sure if these were failures on my part, but in any case I documented my configuration steps below.
First step was to get a working internet connection.
My network interface is enp3s0 so all commands reference that:
Manually add an IP address and default route:
ip address add 192.168.1.199/24 dev enp3s0 ip route add 0.0.0.0/0 via 192.168.1.1 dev enp3s0
Add nameserver(s) to /etc/resolv.conf (insert your own nameserver addresses – if you have only one just add the one)
echo "nameserver 192.168.1.1" >> /etc/resolv.conf echo "nameserver 192.168.1.2" >> /etc/resolv.conf
Install netctl & ifplugd
pacman -S netctl pacman -S ifplugd
Configure the network interface.
Netctl config file is stored in /etc/netctl/your_interface_name (enp3s0 in my case)
(for DHCP)
Description='Local LAN' Interface=enp3s0 Connection=ethernet IP=dhcp
(for static IP)
Description='Local LAN'
Interface=enp3s0
Connection=ethernet
IP=static
Address=('192.168.1.199/24')
Gateway=('192.168.1.1')
DNS=('192.168.1.1' '192.168.1.2')
DNSDomain="your.domain"
DNSSearch="your.domain"
Install dhcpcd (not required for static IP)
pacman -S dhcpcd systemctl enable dhcpcd
Enable the interface after creating / editing network config file) (examples can be found in /etc/netctl/examples/)
netctl enable enp3s0
Install the grub bootloader
pacman -S grub
Create the grub directory under /boot
mkdir /boot/grub
Create the grub config
grub-mkconfig > /boot/grub/grub.cfg or grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Installing grub for EFI
Install efibootmgr
pacman -S efibootmgr
Install the grub boot loader (the EFI directory is /efi in this configuration)
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/efi --bootloader-id=grub
Install an editor:
pacman -S vim (or nano if preferred)
Set the correct locale
edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment your character set
For UK – en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8
vim /etc/locale.gen
Set the locale in /etc/locale.conf
LANG=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=C
Then run locale-gen
Install openssh
pacman -S openssh
No keys were generated during installation, so generate keys manually:
Generate SSH keys (dsa, rsa and ecdsa)
ssh-keygen -t dsa -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key ssh-keygen -t rsa -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key ssh-keygen -t ecdsa -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
Test the sshd config
sshd -t
Start sshd
systemctl start sshd systemctl enable sshd
Check the SSHD log for any errors
journalctl -u sshd |tail -100 or journalctl -u sshd -n 100
If you need to enable older RSA keys (to use key based authentication with older keys generated by PuTTY) add the following to /etc/ssh/sshd_config
PubkeyAuthentication yes PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes=+ssh-rsa
If you want a development environment
pacman -S --needed base-devel
Want to use the locate command? Install mlocate
pacman -S mlocate
updatedb
locate file_name
If using USB devices you might want the USB utilities (lsusb etc.)
pacman -S usbutils
Intalling MPD
I had issues with my MPD installation as I had specified ‘user=mpd’ and ‘group=audio’ in my /etc/mpd.conf – but this does not work with systemctl
If you are having problems starting mpd, then run the following, which will print any errors to the console
mpd --no-daemon --stdout --verbose
If your mpd starts ok, you can check output with the journalctl command
journalctl -u mpd
Install alsa utlities
pacman -S alsa-utils
Install lighttpd
pacman -S lighttpd
Set keyboard layout in /etc/vconsole.conf (my keyboard was UK yours may differ)
KEYMAP=uk
OR
echo "KEYMAP=uk" > /etc/vconsole.conf
Create /etc/hostname
add hostname to this file
echo "your_machine_hostname" > /etc/hostname
(re)create initramfs if required
mkinitcpio -P