The archiso project features scripts and configuration templates to build installation media (.iso images and *.tar bootstrap images) as well as netboot artifacts for BIOS and UEFI based systems on the x86_64 architecture. Currently creating the images is only supported on Arch Linux but may work on other operating systems as well.

The following packages need to be installed to be able to create an image with the included scripts:

• arch-install-scripts
• awk
• dosfstools
• e2fsprogs
• erofs-utils (optional)
• findutils
• grub
• gzip
• libarchive
• libisoburn
• mtools
• openssl
• pacman
• sed
• squashfs-tools

For running the images in a virtualized test environment the following packages are required:

• edk2-ovmf
• qemu

For linting the shell scripts the following package is required:

• shellcheck

For generating the man pages:

• python-docutils

Archiso comes with two profiles: baseline and releng. While both can serve as starting points for creating custom live media, releng is used to create the monthly installation medium. They can be found below configs/baseline/ and configs/releng/ (respectively). Both profiles are defined by files to be placed into overlays (e.g. airootfs ‎→‎ the image's /).

Read README.profile.rst to learn more about how to create profiles.

Usually the archiso tools are installed as a package. However, it is also possible to clone this repository and create images without installing archiso system-wide.

As filesystems are created and various mount actions have to be done when creating an image, root is required to run the scripts.

When archiso is installed system-wide and the modification of a profile is desired, it is necessary to copy it to a writeable location, as /usr/share/archiso is tracked by the package manager and only writeable by root (changes will be lost on update).

The examples below will assume an unmodified profile in a system location (unless noted otherwise).

It is advised to consult the help output of mkarchiso:

mkarchiso -h

mkarchiso -w path/to/work_dir -o path/to/out_dir path/to/profile

Clone this repository and run:

./archiso/mkarchiso -w path/to/work_dir -o path/to/out_dir path/to/profile

The convenience script run_archiso is provided to boot into the medium using qemu. It is advised to consult its help output:

run_archiso -h

Run the following to boot the iso using BIOS:

run_archiso -i path/to/an/arch.iso

Run the following to boot the iso using UEFI:

run_archiso -u -i path/to/an/arch.iso

The script can of course also be executed from this repository:

./scripts/run_archiso.sh -i path/to/an/arch.iso

To install archiso system-wide use the included Makefile:

make install

Optional features

The iso image contains a GRUB environment block holding the iso name and version. This allows to boot the iso image from GRUB with a version specific cow directory to mitigate overlay clashes.

loopback loop archlinux.iso
load_env -f (loop)/boot/grub/grubenv
linux (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz-linux ... \
    cow_directory=${NAME}/${VERSION} ...
initrd (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/initramfs-linux-lts.img

Development of archiso takes place on Arch Linux' Gitlab: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/archiso.

Please read our distribution-wide Code of Conduct before contributing, to understand what actions will and will not be tolerated.

Read our contributing guide to learn more about how to provide fixes or improvements for the code base.

Discussion around archiso takes place on the arch-releng mailing list and in #archlinux-releng on Libera Chat.

All past and present authors of archiso are listed in AUTHORS.

Releases of archiso are created by their current maintainers

• David Runge (991F6E3F0765CF6295888586139B09DA5BF0D338)
• nl6720 (BB8E6F1B81CF0BB301D74D1CBF425A01E68B38EF)

Tags are signed using respective PGP keys.

To verify a tag, first import the relevant PGP key(s):

gpg --auto-key-locate wkd --search-keys dvzrv@archlinux.org

or

gpg --auto-key-locate keyserver --recv-keys BB8E6F1B81CF0BB301D74D1CBF425A01E68B38EF

Afterwards a tag can be verified from a clone of this repository:

git verify-tag <tag>

Archiso is licensed under the terms of the GPL-3.0-or-later (see LICENSE).