Just a bare bone automated Arch install with network deployment instructions based on MAC-address.

Pre-built ISO's can be found here: https://hvornum.se/archiso/

In a live-cd environment, do:

# wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Torxed/archinstall/master/archinstall.py
# python3 archinstall.py --default

CAUTION: If no other parameters are given, it will devour the first disk in your system (Usually /dev/sda, /dev/nvme0n1 etc).

This will install a basic Arch Linux, without interaction, on the first drive it finds. Use --drive=/dev/sdb etc to change the desired destination, or skip --default if you want to get options for your installation.

NOTE: This assumes Python is installed on your ISO, follow ArchISO's guide on how to create your own ISO or use a pre-built guided ISO. Below is examples and a cheat sheet on how to create such a ISO (with different flavors).

• Unattended install of Arch Linux
• User guided install of Arch Linux (Like most other distros have)
• YubiKey support for disk and root password (next release)
• Profile / Template based installs
• Supports offline-installation of Arch Linux
• Full disk encryption, locale/region settings and customizable application selection
• Never creates post-install/service scripts (usually used to finalize databases etc)

This guides you on how to create a ISO that has Python and can run the arch installed in unattended mode.
We'll need to reconfigure the releng profile after it's been copied, to include Python etc.
To do so, we need to add some packages to packages.x86_64 and add some commands to customize_airootfs.sh.

# cd ~/archlive
# echo -e "git\npython\npython-psutil" >> packages.x86_64
# cat <<EOF >> ./airootfs/root/customize_airootfs.sh
cd /root
git clone https://github.com/Torxed/archinstall.git
chmod +x ~/archinstall/archinstall.py
EOF
# mkdir ./airootfs/etc/skel
# echo '[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]] && sh -c "~/archinstall/archinstall.py --default"' >> ./airootfs/etc/skel/.zprofile

Note: ~/archlive might be different on your system, see ArchISO#Setup for more info.

After all those commands are done, you can go ahead and run:

# rm -v work*; ./build.sh -v

Whenever this live-cd boots, from here on now - it'll run archinstall.py and attempt to unattendely install a default Arch Linux base OS with base base-devel as packages. Or - if successfull - a MAC-address matches a profile at /deployments for the machine to be installed.

CAUTION: If no parameters are given, it will devour the first disk in your system (Usually /dev/sda, /dev/nvme0n1 etc).

Everything in the steps above are the same, except for one line that needs to change to look like this:

# echo '[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]] && sh -c "~/archinstall/archinstall.py --profile=workstation"' >> ./airootfs/etc/skel/.zprofile

This will unattendely install the workstation profile.

Change the autostart line to match:

# echo '[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]] && sh -c "~/archinstall/archinstall.py"' >> ./airootfs/etc/skel/.zprofile

This will cause the script to halt and ask for a profile to install before proceeding. When asked, enter workstation for instance - to install based on the workstation template.

CAUTION: If a MAC-address matches under /deployments, that profile will forcefully be installed and have presidence over any other profile information.

Again, one line differs from the other install methods, change the following line:

# echo '[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]] && sh -c "~/archinstall/archinstall.py --profiles-path=http://example.com/profiles"' >> ./airootfs/etc/skel/.zprofile

This will cause the script to look at http://example.com/profiles/<profile>.json for instructions.

# umount -R /mnt; cryptsetup close /dev/mapper/luksdev
# python3 ./archinstall/archinstall.py

Note: This assumes --post=stay is set to avoid instant reboot at the end or if during any time a user pressed Ctrl-C and aborted the installation.

--drive=</dev/sdX>
  Which drive to install arch on, if absent, the first disk under /dev/ is used

--size=100% (Default)
  Sets the size of the root filesystem (btrfs)

--start=513MiB (Default)
  Sets the starting location of the root partition
  (TODO: /boot will take up space from 1MiB - <start>, make sure boot is no larger than 513MiB)

--password=0000 (Default)
  Which disk password to use,
    --password="<STDIN>" for prompt of password
    --password="<YUBIKEY>" for setting a unique password on the YubiKey and use that as a password
    (NOTE: This will wipe/replace slot 1 on the YubiKey)

--pwfile=/tmp/diskpw (Default)
  Which file to store the disk encryption password while sending it to cryptsetup

--hostname=Arcinstall (Default)
  Sets the hostname of the box

--country=SE (Default)
  Default mirror allocation for fetching packages.

--packages='' (Default)
  Which additional packages to install, defaults to none.
  (Space separated as it's passed unchanged to `pacstrap`

--user=<name>
  Adds an additional username to the system (default group Wheel)

--post=reboot (Default)
  After a successful install, reboots into the system. Use --post=stay to not reboot.

--default
  This parameter causes the installation script to install arch unattended on the first disk

--profile=<name>
  For instance, --profile=workstation will install the workstation profile.

--profiles-path=https://example.com/profiles
  Changes the default path the script looks for deployment profiles.
  The default path is 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Torxed/archinstall/master/deployments'

Deployment profile structs support all the above parameters and more, for instance, custom arguments with string formatting. See deployments/workstation.json for examples.