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doc: Reviews partitioning instructions to use parted.

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The tests in <nixos/tests/installer.nix> are using `parted`, so they are
bound to be better tested than `fdisk`.

This is brought on by a couple issues, plus reports on IRC that the
`fdisk` instructions didn't work as expected.

 * #39354
 * #46309
 * #39942
 * #45478

Care was taken so that the other documented steps did not need changes.

In all this kerfufle, a slight re-organization of the Chapter has been
made, allowing better deep linking.
This commit is contained in:
Samuel Dionne-Riel 2018-10-01 23:57:10 -04:00
parent 8467dc857b
commit 6cfbf403ca
1 changed files with 410 additions and 299 deletions
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343
nixos/doc/manual/installation/installing.xml
View File

@ -4,60 +4,46 @@
version="5.0"
xml:id="sec-installation">
<title>Installing NixOS</title>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-booting">
<title>Booting the system</title>
<para>
NixOS can be installed on BIOS or UEFI systems. The procedure for a UEFI
installation is by and large the same as a BIOS installation. The differences
are mentioned in the steps that follow.
installation is by and large the same as a BIOS installation. The
differences are mentioned in the steps that follow.
</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Boot from the CD.
The installation media can be burned to a CD, or now more commonly, "burned"
to a USB drive (see <xref linkend="sec-booting-from-usb"/>).
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
UEFI systems
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
You should boot the live CD in UEFI mode (consult your specific
hardware's documentation for instructions). You may find the
<link xlink:href="http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind">rEFInd boot
manager</link> useful.
The installation media contains a basic NixOS installation. When it’s
finished booting, it should have detected most of your hardware.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The CD contains a basic NixOS installation. (It also contains Memtest86+,
useful if you want to test new hardware). When it’s finished booting, it
should have detected most of your hardware.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The NixOS manual is available on virtual console 8 (press Alt+F8 to access)
or by running <command>nixos-help</command>.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
You get logged in as <literal>root</literal> (with empty password).
You are logged-in automatically as <literal>root</literal>. (The
<literal>root</literal> user account has an empty password.)
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
If you downloaded the graphical ISO image, you can run <command>systemctl
start display-manager</command> to start KDE. If you want to continue on
the terminal, you can use <command>loadkeys</command> to switch to your
start display-manager</command> to start KDE. If you want to continue on the
terminal, you can use <command>loadkeys</command> to switch to your
preferred keyboard layout. (We even provide neo2 via <command>loadkeys de
neo</command>!)
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-booting-networking">
<title>Networking in the installer</title>
<para>
The boot process should have brought up networking (check <command>ip
a</command>). Networking is necessary for the installer, since it will
@ -65,58 +51,165 @@
binaries). It’s best if you have a DHCP server on your network. Otherwise
configure networking manually using <command>ifconfig</command>.
</para>
<para>
To manually configure the network on the graphical installer, first disable
network-manager with <command>systemctl stop network-manager</command>.
</para>
<para>
To manually configure the wifi on the minimal installer, run
<command>wpa_supplicant -B -i interface -c &lt;(wpa_passphrase 'SSID'
'key')</command>.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
If you would like to continue the installation from a different machine you
need to activate the SSH daemon via <literal>systemctl start
sshd</literal>. In order to be able to login you also need to set a
password for <literal>root</literal> using <literal>passwd</literal>.
</para>
</listitem>
</section>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning">
<title>Partitioning and formatting</title>
<para>
The NixOS installer doesn’t do any partitioning or formatting, so you need
to do that yourself.
</para>
<para>
The NixOS installer ships with multiple partitioning tools. The examples
below use <command>parted</command>, but also provides
<command>fdisk</command>, <command>gdisk</command>,
<command>cfdisk</command>, and <command>cgdisk</command>.
</para>
<para>
The recommended partition scheme differs depending if the computer uses
<emphasis>Legacy Boot</emphasis> or <emphasis>UEFI</emphasis>.
</para>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning-UEFI">
<title>UEFI (GPT)</title>
<para>
Here's an example partition scheme for UEFI, using
<filename>/dev/sda</filename> as the device.
<note>
<para>
You can safely ignore <command>parted</command>'s informational message
about needing to update /etc/fstab.
</para>
</note>
</para>
<para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
The NixOS installer doesn’t do any partitioning or formatting yet, so you
need to do that yourself. Use the following commands:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
For partitioning: <command>fdisk</command>.
<screen>
# fdisk /dev/sda # <lineannotation>(or whatever device you want to install on)</lineannotation>
-- for UEFI systems only
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /boot)</lineannotation>
> 3 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 3)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> +512M # <lineannotation>(the size of the UEFI boot partition)</lineannotation>
> t # <lineannotation>(change the partition type ...)</lineannotation>
> 3 # <lineannotation>(... of the boot partition ...)</lineannotation>
> 1 # <lineannotation>(... to 'UEFI System')</lineannotation>
-- for BIOS or UEFI systems
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /swap)</lineannotation>
> 2 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 2)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> +8G # <lineannotation>(the size of the swap partition, set to whatever you like)</lineannotation>
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /)</lineannotation>
> 1 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 1)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default and use the rest of the remaining space)</lineannotation>
> a # <lineannotation>(make the partition bootable)</lineannotation>
> x # <lineannotation>(enter expert mode)</lineannotation>
> f # <lineannotation>(fix up the partition ordering)</lineannotation>
> r # <lineannotation>(exit expert mode)</lineannotation>
> w # <lineannotation>(write the partition table to disk and exit)</lineannotation></screen>
Create a <emphasis>GPT</emphasis> partition table.
<screen language="commands"># parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Add a <emphasis>swap</emphasis> partition. The size required will vary
according to needs, here a 8GiB one is created. The space left in front
(512MiB) will be used by the boot partition.
<screen language="commands"># parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap 512MiB 8.5GiB</screen>
<note>
<para>
The swap partition size rules are no different than for other Linux
distributions.
</para>
</note>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Next, add the <emphasis>root</emphasis> partition. This will fill the
remainder ending part of the disk.
<screen language="commands"># parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 8.5GiB -1MiB</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Finally, the <emphasis>boot</emphasis> partition. NixOS by default uses
the ESP (EFI system partition) as its <emphasis>/boot</emphasis>
partition. It uses the initially reserved 512MiB at the start of the
disk.
<screen language="commands"># parted /dev/sda -- mkpart ESP fat32 1M 512MiB
# parted /dev/sda -- set 3 boot on</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</para>
<para>
Once complete, you can follow with
<xref linkend="sec-installation-partitioning-formatting"/>.
</para>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning-MBR">
<title>Legacy Boot (MBR)</title>
<para>
Here's an example partition scheme for Legacy Boot, using
<filename>/dev/sda</filename> as the device.
<note>
<para>
You can safely ignore <command>parted</command>'s informational message
about needing to update /etc/fstab.
</para>
</note>
</para>
<para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Create a <emphasis>MBR</emphasis> partition table.
<screen language="commands"># parted /dev/sda -- mklabel msdos</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Add a <emphasis>swap</emphasis> partition. The size required will vary
according to needs, here a 8GiB one is created.
<screen language="commands"># parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap 1M 8GiB</screen>
<note>
<para>
The swap partition size rules are no different than for other Linux
distributions.
</para>
</note>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Finally, add the <emphasis>root</emphasis> partition. This will fill the
remainder of the disk.
<screen language="commands"># parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 8GiB -1s</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</para>
<para>
Once complete, you can follow with
<xref linkend="sec-installation-partitioning-formatting"/>.
</para>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning-formatting">
<title>Formatting</title>
<para>
Use the following commands:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
For initialising Ext4 partitions: <command>mkfs.ext4</command>. It is
@ -169,7 +262,12 @@
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</listitem>
</section>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-installing">
<title>Installing</title>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Mount the target file system on which NixOS should be installed on
@ -201,9 +299,9 @@
<para>
If your machine has a limited amount of memory, you may want to activate
swap devices now (<command>swapon
<replaceable>device</replaceable></command>). The installer (or rather, the
build actions that it may spawn) may need quite a bit of RAM, depending on
your configuration.
<replaceable>device</replaceable></command>). The installer (or rather,
the build actions that it may spawn) may need quite a bit of RAM,
depending on your configuration.
<screen>
# swapon /dev/sda2</screen>
</para>
@ -216,8 +314,8 @@
<emphasis>declarative</emphasis> configuration model: you create or edit a
description of the desired configuration of your system, and then NixOS
takes care of making it happen. The syntax of the NixOS configuration file
is described in <xref linkend="sec-configuration-syntax"/>, while a list of
available configuration options appears in
is described in <xref linkend="sec-configuration-syntax"/>, while a list
of available configuration options appears in
<xref
linkend="ch-options"/>. A minimal example is shown in
<xref
@ -259,8 +357,9 @@
<para>
You <emphasis>must</emphasis> set the option
<xref linkend="opt-boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable"/> to
<literal>true</literal>. <command>nixos-generate-config</command> should
do this automatically for new configurations when booted in UEFI mode.
<literal>true</literal>. <command>nixos-generate-config</command>
should do this automatically for new configurations when booted in UEFI
mode.
</para>
<para>
You may want to look at the options starting with
@ -296,8 +395,8 @@
need to set the option <option>boot.initrd.kernelModules</option> to
include the kernel modules that are necessary for mounting the root file
system, otherwise the installed system will not be able to boot. (If this
happens, boot from the CD again, mount the target file system on
<filename>/mnt</filename>, fix
happens, boot from the installation media again, mount the target file
system on <filename>/mnt</filename>, fix
<filename>/mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix</filename> and rerun
<filename>nixos-install</filename>.) In most cases,
<command>nixos-generate-config</command> will figure out the required
@ -311,8 +410,8 @@
<screen>
# nixos-install</screen>
Cross fingers. If this fails due to a temporary problem (such as a network
issue while downloading binaries from the NixOS binary cache), you can just
re-run <command>nixos-install</command>. Otherwise, fix your
issue while downloading binaries from the NixOS binary cache), you can
just re-run <command>nixos-install</command>. Otherwise, fix your
<filename>configuration.nix</filename> and then re-run
<command>nixos-install</command>.
</para>
@ -322,13 +421,12 @@
<screen>
setting root password...
Enter new UNIX password: ***
Retype new UNIX password: ***
</screen>
Retype new UNIX password: ***</screen>
<note>
<para>
For unattended installations, it is possible to use
<command>nixos-install --no-root-passwd</command> in order to disable the
password prompt entirely.
<command>nixos-install --no-root-passwd</command> in order to disable
the password prompt entirely.
</para>
</note>
</para>
@ -337,14 +435,14 @@ Retype new UNIX password: ***
<para>
If everything went well:
<screen>
# reboot</screen>
# reboot</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
You should now be able to boot into the installed NixOS. The GRUB boot menu
shows a list of <emphasis>available configurations</emphasis> (initially
just one). Every time you change the NixOS configuration (see
You should now be able to boot into the installed NixOS. The GRUB boot
menu shows a list of <emphasis>available configurations</emphasis>
(initially just one). Every time you change the NixOS configuration (see
<link
linkend="sec-changing-config">Changing Configuration</link>
), a new item is added to the menu. This allows you to easily roll back to
@ -372,39 +470,41 @@ $ nix-env -i w3m</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-summary">
<title>Installation summary</title>
<para>
To summarise, <xref linkend="ex-install-sequence" /> shows a typical sequence
of commands for installing NixOS on an empty hard drive (here
To summarise, <xref linkend="ex-install-sequence" /> shows a typical
sequence of commands for installing NixOS on an empty hard drive (here
<filename>/dev/sda</filename>). <xref linkend="ex-config"
/> shows a
corresponding configuration Nix expression.
</para>
<example xml:id='ex-install-sequence'>
<example xml:id="ex-partition-scheme-MBR">
<title>Example partition schemes for NixOS on <filename>/dev/sda</filename> (MBR)</title>
<screen language="commands">
# parted /dev/sda -- mklabel msdos
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap 1M 8GiB
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 8GiB -1s</screen>
</example>
<example xml:id="ex-partition-scheme-UEFI">
<title>Example partition schemes for NixOS on <filename>/dev/sda</filename> (UEFI)</title>
<screen language="commands">
# parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap 512MiB 8.5GiB
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 8.5GiB -1MiB
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart ESP fat32 1M 512MiB
# parted /dev/sda -- set 3 boot on</screen>
</example>
<example xml:id="ex-install-sequence">
<title>Commands for Installing NixOS on <filename>/dev/sda</filename></title>
<screen>
# fdisk /dev/sda # <lineannotation>(or whatever device you want to install on)</lineannotation>
-- for UEFI systems only
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /boot)</lineannotation>
> 3 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 3)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> +512M # <lineannotation>(the size of the UEFI boot partition)</lineannotation>
> t # <lineannotation>(change the partition type ...)</lineannotation>
> 3 # <lineannotation>(... of the boot partition ...)</lineannotation>
> 1 # <lineannotation>(... to 'UEFI System')</lineannotation>
-- for BIOS or UEFI systems
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /swap)</lineannotation>
> 2 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 2)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> +8G # <lineannotation>(the size of the swap partition)</lineannotation>
> n # <lineannotation>(create a new partition for /)</lineannotation>
> 1 # <lineannotation>(make it a partition number 1)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default)</lineannotation>
> # <lineannotation>(press enter to accept the default and use the rest of the remaining space)</lineannotation>
> a # <lineannotation>(make the partition bootable)</lineannotation>
> x # <lineannotation>(enter expert mode)</lineannotation>
> f # <lineannotation>(fix up the partition ordering)</lineannotation>
> r # <lineannotation>(exit expert mode)</lineannotation>
> w # <lineannotation>(write the partition table to disk and exit)</lineannotation>
<para>
With a partitioned disk.
<screen language="commands">
# mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/sda1
# mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
# swapon /dev/sda2
@ -416,7 +516,9 @@ $ nix-env -i w3m</screen>
# nano /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
# nixos-install
# reboot</screen>
</para>
</example>
<example xml:id='ex-config'>
<title>NixOS Configuration</title>
<screen>
@ -439,9 +541,18 @@ $ nix-env -i w3m</screen>
}
</screen>
</example>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-additional-notes">
<title>Additional installation notes</title>
<xi:include href="installing-usb.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-pxe.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-virtualbox-guest.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-from-other-distro.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-behind-a-proxy.xml" />
</section>
</chapter>