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Forklift Upgrade Arch Linux To A Dell Precision 3561

date: 2021-10-19

Introduction

I fork-lift upgraded my luks-encrypted Arch Linux installation from a Lenovo T460 to a luks-encrypted, software raid1 mirror on a Dell Precision 3561.

It was relatively easy to do.

The New Laptop

the Dell Precision 3561 runs Arch Linux flawlessly, btw

I ordered a new Dell Precision 3561 with the minimal ram and ssd configuration, running Ubuntu 20.04.

The plan was to transfer a luks-encrypted Arch Linux from my Lenovo T460 to a luks-encrypted thumbdrive. Then run Arch Linux from the thumbdrive on the new Precision 3561 for a few days while I waited for Amazon to deliver some 1tb Samsung 830 nvme ssds. And then finally to transfer the Arch installation from the thumbdrive onto an luks-encrypted software raid1 mirror on the new Precision 3561.

Everything went according to plan, with not a single stumble or mishap; and so I'm documenting here how it went down. The only thing left to do now is to order 64gb of ram, so I can run Android Studio, and continue working on my Android App (which needs some work). And of course update Arch Linux 5 times a day.

I use Arch Linux, btw!

Creating a Rescue Disk

The transfer process I came up with involved two thumb drives: one to serve as a live disk to work from, and the other to temporarily run Arch on the new laptop.

So why would I not use an Arch install disk as a live disk? Because I cache Arch packages on my lan using an Nginx reverse-cacheing proxy, which makes it really fast to simply bootstrap (pacstrap) a new Arch installation onto a thumb drive, exactly as I would install Arch anywhere else.

Transfering Arch to USB

I booted my old T460 from my rescue disk and also plugged the other thumb drive into a usb port.

Formatting the Thumb Drive.

I opened the target thumbdrive in gdisk interactive partition tool, created a new gpt partition table by pressing o. Then created a 1GB efi partition, type ef00, and a single partition for the remainder of the 256gb thumb.

  • I formatted the efi parition on the thumbdrive:
    • mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sdc1
  • I luks-encrypted the other partition on the thumbdrive:
    • luksFormat -y -v /dev/sdc2
  • Then I opened the new luks device:
    • cryptsetup open /dev/sdc2 cryptroot
  • And formatted it:
    • mkfs.xfs /dev/mapper/cryptroot

Copying the efi partition files to Thumb Drive

More specifically in a typical systemd-boot configuration the efi partition contains the entire /boot directory.

  • I mounted the T460's efi partition for Arch Linux:
    • mount /dev/sda5 /mnt2
  • I mounted the thumbdrive's efi partition:
    • mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt
  • And then copied all the files over:
    • cp -av /mnt2/* /mnt/
  • I then unmounted the efi partitions:
    • umount /mnt2 ; umount /mnt

Copying the / partition files to the Thumb Drive

  • I decrypted the Arch / device on the T460
    • cryptsetup open /dev/sda6 cryptroot2
  • And then mounted it:
    • mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot2 /mnt2
  • ...mounted the / device for the thumbdrive:
    • mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt
  • And copied the files:
    • rsync -aAXvPH /mnt2/ /mnt/

Rescuing The Thumb Drive via Chroot

  • I unmounted the T460's / device:
    • umount /mnt2
  • Mounted the thumbdrive's efi partition relative to /mnt
    • mount /dev/sdc /mnt/boot
  • And entered chroot:
    • arch-chroot /mnt

Updating fstab for the Thumb Drive

  • I located the UUID of the thumbdrive's efi partition:
    • blkid /dev/sdc1
  • I located the UUID of the luks device:
    • blkid /dev/mapper/cryptroot
  • And updated /etc/fstab accordingly.
# /etc/fstab
# /dev/mapper/cryptroot
UUID=391f6062-d8af-4266-a48c-186270d54ef3       /               xfs             rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,logbufs=8,logbsize=32k,noquota        0 1

# /dev/sdc1
UUID="FACA-0B61"        /boot           vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro       0 2
...

Rebuilding the Initramfs for the Thumb Drive

Still inside chroot I ran the following command to rebuild the initramfs. 

mkinitcpio -P

Updating the systemd-boot Entry for the Thumb Drive

  • I located the UUID of /dev/sdc2 with the following command:
    • blkid /dev/sdc2
  • And updated /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf accordingly.
# /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
title   arch
linux   /vmlinuz-linux
initrd  /intel-ucode.img
initrd  /initramfs-linux.img
options cryptdevice=UUID=f8c5062a-849d-4c56-bc98-2c93da85090f:cryptroot root=/dev/mapper/cryptroot rw quiet loglevel=3

Running Arch from USB

At this point Arch would boot and run flawlessly on the new Dell Precision 3561. I went ahead and changed the hostname, machine-id, ssh-keys, and host_ssh_keys to make it official.

While test-driving the new machine, I worked on my Ansible-KVM Router Lab. As configured, the mobile workstation gets great battery life under a light work-load of web browser and ssh terminal work.

Satisfied that the new system was going to work out, I ordered a pair of 1tb Samsung 830 nvme ssds, and installed them when they arrived.

Transfering Arch to the New ssds

After installing new nvme ssds, I booted the Dell Precision 3561 from my rescue disk, and also plugged in the thumbdrive on which my Arch system was installed.

Formatting The New NVME ssds

I opened each nvme ssd in gdisk, created a new gpt partition table, an 1GB efi partition (type ef00), and for the remainder of each disk created a Linux Raid Parition (type fd00).

  • I formatted one of the efi partitions:
    • mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1
  • I created a raid array: 
    mdadm --create --verbose --level=1 --metadata=1.2 \ 
  --raid-devices=2 /dev/md0 /dev/nvme0n1p2 /dev/nvme1n1p2
  • I luks-encrypted the new raid array:
    • luksFormat -y -v /dev/md0
  • I opened the new luks device:
    • cryptsetup open /dev/md0 cryptroot
  • And then Formatted it:
    • mkfs.xfs /dev/mapper/cryptroot

Copying the efi partition files to NVME ssd

  • I mounted the thumbdrive's efi partition:
    • mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt2
  • Then I mounted the laptop's efi partition:
    • mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt
  • And copied to files to the new efi partition:
    • cp -av /mnt2/* /mnt/
  • And then I unmounted both efi partitions:
    • umount /mnt2 ; umount /mnt

Copying the / partition files to the new NVME ssds

  • First I opened the / luks device on the thumbdrive:
    • cryptsetup open /dev/sdb2 cryptroot2
  • And then mounted it:
    • mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot2 /mnt2
  • Then I mounted the laptop's / luks device:
    • mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt
  • And rsynced the operating system files onto the new laptop:
    • rsync -aAXvPH /mnt2/ /mnt/

Rescuing The New Laptop via Chroot

  • First I unmounted the thumbdrive:
    • umount /mnt2
  • Then I mounted the efi partition relative to /mnt:
    • mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot
  • And entered chroot;
    • arch-chroot /mnt

Updating fstab for The New Laptop

  • I used to the following command to discover the UUID of the / device:
    • blkid /dev/mapper/cryptroot
  • And a similar command to find the UUID of the efi partition:
    • blkid /dev/nvme0n1p1
  • Then I editted /etc/fstab to describe the above two UUIDs.
# /etc/fstab
# /dev/mapper/cryptroot
UUID=3486b7d1-ccc9-43dc-b8ab-abcf71aea90f       /               xfs             rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,logbufs=8,logbsize=32k,sunit=32,swidth=256,noquota    0 1

# /dev/nvme0n1p1
UUID=9FE0-2A98          /boot           vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro   0 2
...

Updating mdadm.conf and mkinitcpio.conf

When I boot the laptop, the initramfs must assemble the raid array, which requires the following configuration details.

I appended a description of the raid array to the bottom of /etc/mdadm.conf by running the following command. 

mdadm --detail --scan >> /etc/mdadm.conf

Then I editted /etc/mkinitcpio.conf to require the mdadm_udev hook. 

# /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
...
# change this
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block encrypt filesystems keyboard fsck)
# to this
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block mdadm_udev encrypt filesystems keyboard fsck)
...
And then finally rebuilt the initramfs: 
mkinitcpio -P

Updating the systemd-boot Entry for the New Laptop

The final step was to update /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf. As explained above, the initramfs assembles the raid device, so I just need to tell the kernel about it.

I used the following command to discover the UUID of the raid1 device:

  • blkid /dev/md0

And then updated /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf accordingly. 

title   arch
linux   /vmlinuz-linux
initrd  /intel-ucode.img
initrd  /initramfs-linux.img
options cryptdevice=UUID=48f782a9-6c1b-4242-84f9-66b20ff27845:cryptroot root=/dev/mapper/cryptroot rw quiet loglevel=3