The archiso project features scripts and configuration templates to build installation media (.iso images and .tar.gz 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
- 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
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 -hmkarchiso -w path/to/work_dir -o path/to/out_dir path/to/profileClone this repository and run:
./archiso/mkarchiso -w path/to/work_dir -o path/to/out_dir path/to/profileThe convenience script run_archiso is provided to boot into the medium using qemu. It is advised to consult its help output:
run_archiso -hRun the following to boot the iso using BIOS:
run_archiso -i path/to/an/arch.isoRun the following to boot the iso using UEFI:
run_archiso -u -i path/to/an/arch.isoThe script can of course also be executed from this repository:
./scripts/run_archiso.sh -i path/to/an/arch.isoTo install archiso system-wide use the included Makefile:
make installOptional 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)/arch/grubenv
linux (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz-linux ... \
cow_directory=${NAME}/${VERSION} ...
initrd (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/initramfs-linux-lts.imgDevelopment 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 its current maintainer
David Runge. Tags are signed using the PGP key with the ID
C7E7849466FE2358343588377258734B41C31549.
To verify a tag, first import the relevant PGP key:
gpg --auto-key-locate wkd --search-keys dvzrv@archlinux.orgAfterwards 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).