An Arch Linux container image used for testing aurt and a ready to use alternative to building your own: https://github.com/Cody-Learner/aurt.aurutils.based
This is more of a VM alternative, complete, containerized Arch system, than a specialized minimal development environment.
arch-aurt<version>.tar.lrzis a ~ 96MB lrzip compressed, arch-aurt<version>.tar using lrzip -z <image-name> for a high compression ratio. The uncompressed filesystem comes in at ~ 431MB.
Decompress the image, boot into it, and follow the instructions on the screen to complete the set up, or for a step by step:
Get the image:
$ git clone https://github.com/Cody-Learner/Arch-Image.git
Decompress it:
$ lrzip -cd arch-aurt<version>.tar.lrz
Verify the checksums:
$ md5sum *
Point machinectl to the directory containing arch-aurt.tar:
$ sudo machinectl import-tar /<path>/<to>/arch-aurt<version>.tar
By default, machinectl will extract the archive and place it in /var/lib/machines:
$ sudo ls -l /var/lib/machines
- Alternatively, as of version 2018-05-13.09.18, you can run it from any user directory. Extract the .tar archive and run:
sudo systemd-nspawn -b
Start the container:
$ sudo systemd-nspawn -b -D /path/to/image
For shutdown run in container:
$ sudo poweroff
Login to root, no password. Use instructions upon login to complete setup.
Removed some packages from the image build script: nano file grep systemd-sysvcompat, to reduce the size. These packages will be installed upon running the 'finbld' script inside the container image.
After you boot the container image, you'll see this on initial root login only:
arch-aurt-2018-05-16 login: root
=======================================================================
This is a stripped down Arch container image. Use as is for
general testing, or modify to suite for any testing requirements.
Run: finbld
As root to set up user aurt, and prep image for aurt testing.
This message will run one time on first login.
To see it again, Run: /root/first-root-run
=======================================================================
When finbld finishes...
:: To have a more useable system at this stage:
:: Installed: expac file git grep nano sudo
:: Run 'slithery' for package status and info
:: setup user
:: setup sudo
:: non root user : aurt
:: aurt password : test
:: root password : test
:: Currently logged in as: aurt
...finbld 'switch user' to aurt, you'll see below on initial login only.
At this stage, you could use this image for anything. Run the 'slithery' script for some general info.
For testing aurt, run: aurt-setup-img
=======================================================================
To finish setup to test aurt, Run: aurt-setup-img
This will install missing base pkgs (minus linux and deps),
install the current version of aurt from github:
https://github.com/Cody-Learner/aurt.aurutils.based
and configure aurt and dependencies as required.
This message will run one time on first login.
To see it again, Run: ~/first-aurt-run
=======================================================================
[aurt@arch-aurt-2018-05-16 root]$
After the 'aurt-setup-img' script finishes, you'll see this:
========================================================================
Aurt setup has finished!
For a menu ............................. Run: aurt
To list all installed AUR packages ..... Run: aurt -la
To reinstall aurutils and cower *....... Run: aurt -S aurutils cower repoctl
* This will install the packages with aurt so that they get
properly registered and show up in the local aur repo database.
Note: Ignore the warning:
==> WARNING: No packages remain, creating empty database.
Translation: Install some AUR packages so it's not empty.
========================================================================
Some arch-aurt image details:
------------------------------------------------------
Users: Passwords:
aurt test
root test
------------------------------------------------------
# du -smc *
Image Size:
431 arch-aurt-2018-05-12.12.32.tar
96 arch-aurt-2018-05-12.12.32.tar.lrz
------------------------------------------------------
[root@test ~]# slithery
# Number of installed packages total and list: 95
acl device-mapper hwids libidn libtirpc pcre
archlinux-keyring dhcpcd iana-etc libidn2 libunistring pcre2
argon2 e2fsprogs iptables libksba libusb perl
attr expat json-c libldap libutil-linux pinentry
bash file kbd libmnl linux-api-headers popt
bzip2 filesystem keyutils libnftnl lz4 readline
ca-certificates findutils kmod libnghttp2 nano shadow
ca-certificates-cacert gcc-libs krb5 libnl ncurses sqlite
ca-certificates-mozilla gdbm libarchive libpcap nettle sudo
ca-certificates-utils glib2 libassuan libpsl npth systemd
coreutils glibc libcap libsasl openssl systemd-sysvcompat
cracklib gmp libcap-ng libseccomp p11-kit tzdata
cryptsetup gnupg libelf libsecret pacman util-linux
curl gnutls libffi libssh2 pacman-mirrorlist xz
db gpgme libgcrypt libsystemd pam zlib
dbus grep libgpg-error libtasn1 pambase
-----------------------------------------------------------
# Number of base group packages not installed and list: 40
diffutils iputils linux-firmware mkinitcpio-busybox psmisc thin-provisioning-tools
gawk jfsutils logrotate mpfr reiserfsprogs usbutils
gettext less lvm2 netctl s-nail vi
groff libaio man-db openresolv sed which
gzip libpipeline man-pages pciutils sysfsutils xfsprogs
inetutils licenses mdadm pcmciautils tar
iproute2 linux mkinitcpio procps-ng texinfo
-----------------------------------------------------------
# Number of non base group packages installed and list: 1
sudo
-----------------------------------------------------------
# pstree:
pstree NA
-----------------------------------------------------------
# Enabled systemd services:
autovt@.service enabled
console-getty.service enabled-runtime
getty@.service enabled
-----------------------------------------------------------
# Disk storage (ext4):
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda7 517G 219G 272G 45% /
-----------------------------------------------------------
# free:
free NA
Some info on lrzip compression. It saved 32MB on a 102MB tar archive compared to using:
export GZIP=-9 ; tar cvpzf <image-name>.tar.gz .
Special recomendation goes out to systemd-nspawn! If you're looking for an easy to use, fast to implement Linux container management tool, check it out. After working with Docker containers a bit, I find systemd-nspawn refreshingly KISS and a much better fit for my "cowboy coding".
Also want to give a shout out to Slithery on the Arch forums: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=236622
He offered a link to a nifty one liner he made up years ago. Need to log in for the link.... I've been using it in my images as a nice time saving tool. The package list above is part of it's output. I'll put it up here as the slithery script in the future.