.Dd December 25, 2015
.Dt INSTALLATION 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm installation
.Nd operating system installation instructions
.Sh DESCRIPTION
This document describes how to install Sortix on a computer from a cdrom
release.
Please read it through carefully before beginning the installation so you know
what to expect and things you need to keep in mind.
The
.Xr upgrade 7
manual page covers upgrading an existing installation.
.Ss Prerequisites
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
A
.Pa sortix-x.y-arch.iso
release for your architecture.
.It
A cdrom onto which the release has been burned, or USB portable storage onto
which the release has been placed at the first byte and onwards.
.It
A computer meeting the system requirements.
.El
.Ss System Requirements
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
32-bit x86 CPU (i686 release) or 64-bit x86 CPU (x86_64 release).
.It
1 GiB RAM (recommended) to run iso live environment (including installer) with
all ports loaded, or significantly less if unimportant ports are not loaded.
An installation on a harddisk will require very little RAM to run after
installation.
.It
ATA or AHCI harddisk with at least 1 GiB of unpartitioned space.
.It
BIOS or EFI firmware.
.It
PS/2 keyboard/mouse firmware emulation to use those devices.
.It
If you wish to dual boot, you need an existing operating system with a multiboot
compliant bootloader such as GRUB.
.El
.Ss Preparation
Read this document through before beginning the installation.
The installation process is designed to be reasonable, but you need to patient
and in an emotionally stable place.
It is important you understand the current limitations of the system and
carefully consider whether you want to go through with the installation at this
time.
.Pp
Before installing any operating system, be sure to have backed up local data in
the event something goes wrong.
This operating system comes without any warranty at all (see the license).
.Pp
Consider the partitioning scheme and whether you wish to dual boot.
Consult the partitioning instructions below.
If dual-booting and there isn't enough unpartitioned space, use the native
partition editor of the existing operating system to shrink its installation.
.Pp
Determine how the target machine will boot the release.
If the firmware supports usb-iso hybrid images, you can use
.Xr rw 1
or
.Xr dd 1
to copy the release physically onto a USB portable storage device.
If the target machine has a cdrom drive, you can burn the release to a cdrom.
Insert the installation medium in the computer and power it on.
If you have EFI firmware, you need to disable secure boot.
EFI boot is preferred over the legacy BIOS boot, but you can use whatever method
you prefer if your firmware supports it.
If needed, change the boot order in the firmware to prefer the installation
medium over any existing operating system installations.
.Pp
After the installation is complete, remove the installation medium and restore
the firmware boot order to prioritize the local harddisk.
Then power the computer on normally to run the new operating system.
.Ss Release .iso Modification
Optionally, you might want to modify a release .iso to meet your custom needs
per the instructions in
.Xr release-iso-modification 7 .
.Pp
If you want to ssh into your installation, it's recommended to amend the
installation .iso with your public key, pregenerate the server keys and obtain
fingerprints, and seed randomness using this procedure.
.Pp
The release modification procedure lets you customize aspects such as the
default bootloader menu option and timeout, the default hostname, the default
keyboard layout, the default graphics resolution, adding files of your choice to
the live environment, control which drivers are loaded by default, control which
live environment daemons are started by default, deploy ssh keys so secure shell
connections are trusted on the first connection, configure automatic
installation and upgrading, and so on.
.Pp
Warning: The live environment does not come with any random entropy and it will
take some time and system usage before enough entropy is collected for secure
random number generation.
To keep your system secure, it is recommended to use the release modification
procedure to add a
.Pa /boot/random.seed
file to the release .iso in order to securely seed the cryptographically secure
pseudorandom number generator.
.Ss Qemu
Virtual machines are a well-supported installation target.
For instance, to prepare a 1 GiB harddisk and install the operating system onto
it, run something
like:
.Bd -literal
qemu-img create sortix.raw 1G
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 1024 -vga std -cdrom sortix.iso \\
                   -drive file=sortix.raw,format=raw
.Ed
.Pp
After the installation is complete, power off the computer and remove the
.Ar -cdrom
.Pa sortix.iso
option.
.Ss Bootloader Menu
Booting the release will present you with a GRUB bootloader menu.
You have three primary options:
.Pp
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
Running a fully-featured temporary live environment.
.It
Running the operating system installer
.Xr ( sysinstall 8 ) .
.It
Upgrading an existing installation to this release
.Xr ( sysupgrade 8 ) .
.El
.Pp
Each of these options are a live environment running exclusively in RAM.
The difference is only what program is run after the system has booted.
The bootloader will load the whole operating system and ports into memory from
the installation medium.
This may take a moment.
You need enough memory to store the whole system and the runtime usage.
If the system memory is really insufficient, then the bootloader may have
strange behavior, take a really long time to load, or not complete the boot at
all.
.Ss Bootloader Advanced Options
The bootloader advanced options menu lets you customize the live environment by
making one-time adjustments to the boot process.
These decisions will not carry over to the final installed system, which you
instead will need to configure to have the same effects.
.Pp
You can configure which ports gets loaded using the bootloader menu.
The base system is rather lean and can be made quite small.
You need some ports to complete an installation.
Only the selected ports are loaded into the live environment and installed onto
the new installation.
If upgrading an existing installation, then any ports not loaded will be removed
from the installation being upgraded.
.Pp
Ports can additionally be loaded as binary packages in the
.Pa /repository
directory by navigating to the advanced menu and then the select binary packages
submenu and then selecting which ports.
.Pp
The
.Xr display 1
graphical user interface and desktop environment can be disabled by navigating
to the advanced menu and selecting
.Sy Disable GUI ,
which will instead boot to a plain
.Pa /dev/tty1
terminal.
.Pp
The network drivers can be disabled by navigating to the advanced menu and
selecting
.Sy Disable network drivers .
It can be useful to disable the network drivers if it's undesirable to put the
system on the network for security reasons.
You will be asked later if you'd like to save this choice in the kernel
options.
.Pp
By default
.Xr dhclient 8
will automatically configure
.Xr ether 4
network interfaces with DHCP and bring up network connectivity.
The DHCP client can be disabled by navigating to the advanced menu and selecting
.Sy Disable DHCP client ,
which is useful if you want to manually configure the network or not expose the
system until you are ready.
.Ss Installer
This guide assumes you selected the operating system installation option in the
bootloader.
If not, you can run the installer by running the
.Xr sysinstall 8
command.
.Pp
You will boot into the
.Xr display 1
graphical user interface and desktop environment by default.
A single
.Xr terminal 1
window will open by default.
More terminals can be opened by pressing Control + Alt + T.
See
.Xr display 1
for the available shortcuts.
.Pp
The installer is an interactive command line program that asks you questions and
you answer them.
It provides useful information you shouldn't accidentally overlook.
Before answering any question, read all output since your last answer.
.Pp
You should have this installation guide ready at all times.
You can view this
.Xr installation 7
page during the installation by answering
.Sy '!man'
to any regular prompt (excluding password prompts).
Likewise you can answer
.Sy '!'
to get an interactive shell.
Upon completion, you will be asked the question again.
.Ss Keyboard Layout
You need to choose the applicable keyboard layout.
By default, a standard US keyboard layout is used.
You can view a list of keyboard layouts if you wish.
This layout is then loaded and the preference will be stored in
.Xr kblayout 5 .
.Ss Display Resolution
If a driver exists for your graphics card, then you will be asked for your
preferred display resolution by
.Xr chvideomode 1 .
The display will then use this resolution and your preference will be stored in
.Xr videomode 5 .
.Ss Bootloader
The
.Xr kernel 7
is a multiboot compatible binary that can be loaded by any multiboot
specification compatible bootloader such as GRUB.
You need to use such a bootloader to boot the operating system.
You will be offered the choice of installing GRUB as the bootloader.
Note however that this GRUB is not able to detect other operating systems and
you will have to configure it manually if you wish to use it in a dual boot
scheme.
The answer will default to yes if no existing partitions are found, or if an
existing Sortix installation is found that uses the provided bootloader; and
will otherwise default to no.
.Pp
On
.Sy EFI ,
the bootloader will be installed onto the EFI System Partition that you
mount as
.Pa /boot/efi .
EFI installations should accept the bootloader and then pick the default
bootloader through the firmware.
TODO: The bootloader is currently installed as the fallback
.Pa EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI
or
.Pa EFI/BOOT/BOOTIA32.EFI
paths which doesn't dual-boot very well with other operating systems.
.Pp
On
.Sy BIOS,
the bootloader will be installed on the boot harddisk, which is the
harddisk containing the
.Pa /boot
partition if any, and otherwise the harddisk containing the root filesystem.
Single-boot BIOS configurations should use the offered bootloader.
Dual-boot BIOS configurations should refuse it and arrange for bootloading by
other means.
The installer will generate
.Pa /etc/default/grub.d/10_sortix.cache
which is a fragment of GRUB configuration that offers the menu option of running
Sortix.
You can splice that into
.Pa /etc/grub.d/40_custom
of an existing GRUB installation and run
.Xr update-grub 8
to add it as a boot option.
.Pp
If you accept the bootloader, you will be asked if you wish to password protect
the bootloader.
If you don't, anyone able to use the keyboard during system bootloading will be
trivially able to gain root access using the bootloader command line.
If you use this, you should also password protect the firmware and prohibit it
from booting from anything but the harddisk.
An attacker will then need to tamper with the computer itself physically.
The password will be hashed and stored in
.Xr grubpw 5
and is inserted into the GRUB configuration when
.Xr update-grub 8
is run.
.Pp
If the
.Xr kernel 7
was booted with explicit options via the advanced bootloader menu, then you
will be asked if you'd like to make these changes permanent via the
.Sy GRUB_CMDLINE_SORTIX
variable in the
.Pa /etc/grub
configuration file.
Run
.Xr update-grub 8
to apply the changes if you edit this file.
.Ss Partitioning
You will now need to set up a partition for the root filesystem and other
filesystems you wish to use.
The installer will give you instructions and run the
.Xr disked 8
partitioning program.
You can view its man page by typing
.Sy man
and you can view this man page by typing
.Sy man 7 installation .
.Pp
.Nm disked
defaults to the first detected harddisk as the current harddisk.
You can switch to another harddisk using the
.Sy device Ar device-name
command.
You can view all devices with the
.Sy devices
command.
.Pp
If the current device does not already have a partition table, you can create a
.Xr gpt 7
or
.Xr mbr 7
partition table using the
.Sy mktable
command.
.Xr gpt 7
is the preferred choice for new partition tables as
.Xr mbr 7 has unfortunate limitations.
EFI installations should use
.Xr gpt 7 .
If you are dissatisfied with the current partition table, you can use
the
.Sy rmtable
command which will destroy the partition table and effectively delete all data
on the harddisk.
.Pp
The
.Sy ls
command lists all partitions and unused space on the current device.
The
.Sy mkpart
command creates a partition.
You will be asked interactive questions to determine its location.
You will be asked if you wish to format a filesystem.
.Nm ext2
is the native filesystem.
If applicable, you will be asked if you wish to create a mountpoint for it in
.Xr fstab 5 .
The
.Sy rmpart Ar partition-number
command removes a partition table entry and effectively deletes all data on the
partition.
.Pp
If you accepted the included bootloader:
.Bl -bullet
.It
On
.Sy EFI
you need an
.Sy EFI System Partition
mounted at
.Pa /boot/efi .
It should be at least 16 MB to provide room for growth in future versions of the
operating system.
The partition is shared with other operating systems, enlargen it as required
if you wish to dual-boot other operating systems.
The minimum size is 1 MB, however this size is unsupported for operating system
upgrades and doesn't leave room for other operating systems.
.It
On
.Sy BIOS
with
.Sy GPT
you need a
.Sy biosboot
partition on the harddisk containing the
.Pa /boot
directory.
It should be at the start of the boot harddisk and a size of 1 MiB will be more
than sufficient.
.It
On
.Sy BIOS
with
.Sy MBR
you don't need any bootloader partition.
However, the bootloader will be installed unprotected in the unpartitioned
space before the first partition on the harddisk containing the
.Pa /boot
directory.
.El
.Pp
You need to make a partition containing the root filesystem mounted at
.Pa / .
A size of 1 GiB will be comfortable for the base system and ports and basic
usage.
There is no inherent need for a
.Pa /boot
or a
.Pa /home
partition, so you are encouraged to make the root filesystem as large as you
wish.
Operating systems upgrades will preserve the root filesystem and the installer
handles installing on top of an existing installation and preserves user files
and local configuration.
.Pp
Type
.Sy exit
when you are done to continue the installation.
If the installer detects a problem with your partitioning, it will offer to run
.Xr disked 8
again.
.Ss Installation
The installer will show its installation intentions and ask you to confirm the
installation.
If you answer yes, then the installation will begin.
.Pp
The installer will copy the live environment into the target root filesystem
according to the file lists in
.Pa /tix/manifest
and create configuration files matching your earlier choices.
It will write 256 bytes of randomness to
.Pa /boot/random.seed .
It will generate an initrd that locates and boots the root filesystem.
It will install the bootloader if desired.
The installation will take a moment.
.Ss Configuration
After the installation is complete, a bare system is installed but it lacks
crucial configuration files and it will refuse to start when booted.
.Ss Hostname
You will be asked for the hostname of the new system which be stored in
.Xr hostname 5 .
This question is skipped if the file already exits.
.Ss Root
You will be asked for the root password.
A root account is made in
.Xr passwd 5
and
.Xr group 5 .
This question is skipped if the root account already exists.
If the live environment's root user has ssh keys and configuration, you will be
asked whether you'd like to copy the files to the new installation.
.Ss Users
You will be asked in a loop if you wish to make another user.
Answer
.Sy no
when you are done.
Otherwise enter the name of the new account.
If you wish to create an account by the name of
.Li no
then simply add a space in front as leading spaces are trimmed.
.Pp
You will then be asked for the full name and the password for the new user.
A user directory will be made in
.Pa /home .
The new user is added to
.Xr passwd 5
and
.Xr group 5 .
.Pp
Please note that Sortix is not currently secure as a multi-user system and
filesystem permissions are not enforced.
.Ss Graphical User Interface
You will be asked if you want to enable the graphical user interface.
If you answer yes, then the system-wide default
.Xr session 5
is configured to run
.Xr display 1
upon login.
Otherwise the user's preferred shell will be run upon login.
.Ss Network Time
You will be asked if you want to enable the Network Time Protocol client
.Xr ntpd 8 ,
which will automatically synchronize the current time with the internet.
Although it's recommended to use network time to avoid clock drift, it does come
with potential privacy implications.
.Pp
Privacy notice: If enabled, the default configuration will obtain time from
various internet servers and the installer will inform you which ones they are.
You are encouraged to answer
.Sy man
to read the
.Xr ntpd.conf 5
manual and then answer
.Sy edit
to edit the configuration with your preferences.
.Ss SSH Server
You will be asked if you want to enable a
.Xr sshd 8
server for remotely logging into this machine over a secure cryptographic
channel.
Answer no if in doubt as anyone who obtains your credentials will be able to
connect to your computer and log in as you.
Password authentication is disabled by default as public key cryptography should
be used for security, but if you have a very strong password, you could enable
it when asked.
It's recommended to securely bootstrap ssh authentication using the
.Xr release-iso-modification 7
procedure to amend the installation medium with your public key, pregenerated
server private keys, and a random seed.
You are using a bad workflow if you encounter a ssh server fingerprint check.
If the installer environment contains a
.Xr sshd_config
or private sshd keys, then you will be asked if you want to copy the files into
the new installation.
.Ss Completion
This will complete the operating system installation.
Upon reboot, the new system will start normally.
After powering off your system, you need to remove the installation medium and
(if applicable) restore boot priorities in your firmware.
If you did not accept the bootloader, you will need to manually configure a
bootloader to boot the new operating system.
.Pp
You will be given the choice of directly booting into the new system without a
reboot, powering off the system, rebooting the system, halting the system, or
chrooting into the new system.
All of these options (except the
.Xr chroot 2 )
will destroy the live environment and all files within it will be lost.
.Pp
This is a last chance to make modifications before the new system boots for the
first time.
If you want to make final modifications to the system (examples are below), you
can answer
.Sy '!'
to escape to a shell in the live environment inside the subdirectory where the
new system is mounted.
You can then run
.Sy "chroot -d ."
to enter a shell within the new installation.
.Pp
Upon boot of the new system it will be configured in multi-user mode and you
will be presented with a login screen.
Authenticate as one of the local users and you will be given a shell.
.Pp
To power off the computer login as user
.Sy poweroff
or run
.Xr poweroff 8
after logging in.
To reboot the computer login as user
.Sy reboot
or run
.Xr reboot 8
after logging in.
.Pp
The
.Xr user-guide 7
manual page is a basic overview of the system for new users.
.Pp
Congratulations on your new Sortix system.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chkblayout 1 ,
.Xr chvideomode 1 ,
.Xr display 1 ,
.Xr man 1 ,
.Xr fstab 5 ,
.Xr group 5 ,
.Xr grubpw 5 ,
.Xr kblayout 5 ,
.Xr passwd 5 ,
.Xr videomode 5 ,
.Xr development 7 ,
.Xr gpt 7 ,
.Xr initrd 7 ,
.Xr kernel 7 ,
.Xr mbr 7 ,
.Xr release-iso-modification 7 ,
.Xr upgrade 7 ,
.Xr user-guide 7 ,
.Xr disked 8 ,
.Xr fsck 8 ,
.Xr init 8 ,
.Xr sysinstall 8 ,
.Xr sysupgrade 8 ,
.Xr update-grub 8 ,
.Xr update-initrd 8