# Forklift Upgrade Arch Linux To A Dell Precision 3561 - Trent's Blog
Trent's blog of mostly technical documentations.

Skip to content

# Forklift Upgrade Arch Linux To A Dell Precision 3561

date: 2021-10-19

## Introduction

I fork-lift upgraded my luks-encrypted Arch Linux installation from a Lenovo T460 to a luks-encrypted, software raid1 mirror on a Dell Precision 3561.

It was relatively easy to do.

## The New Laptop

the Dell Precision 3561 runs Arch Linux flawlessly, btw

I ordered a new Dell Precision 3561 with the minimal ram and ssd configuration, running Ubuntu 20.04.

The plan was to transfer a luks-encrypted Arch Linux from my Lenovo T460 to a luks-encrypted thumbdrive. Then run Arch Linux from the thumbdrive on the new Precision 3561 for a few days while I waited for Amazon to deliver some 1tb Samsung 830 nvme ssds. And then finally to transfer the Arch installation from the thumbdrive onto an luks-encrypted software raid1 mirror on the new Precision 3561.

Everything went according to plan, with not a single stumble or mishap; and so I'm documenting here how it went down. The only thing left to do now is to order 64gb of ram, so I can run Android Studio, and continue working on my Android App (which needs some work). And of course update Arch Linux 5 times a day.

I use Arch Linux, btw!

## Creating a Rescue Disk

The transfer process I came up with involved two thumb drives: one to serve as a live disk to work from, and the other to temporarily run Arch on the new laptop.

So why would I not use an Arch install disk as a live disk? Because I cache Arch packages on my lan using an Nginx reverse-cacheing proxy, which makes it really fast to simply bootstrap (pacstrap) a new Arch installation onto a thumb drive, exactly as I would install Arch anywhere else.

## Transfering Arch to USB

I booted my old T460 from my rescue disk and also plugged the other thumb drive into a usb port.

### Formatting the Thumb Drive.

I opened the target thumbdrive in `gdisk` interactive partition tool, created a new gpt partition table by pressing `o`. Then created a 1GB efi partition, type ef00, and a single partition for the remainder of the 256gb thumb.

- I formatted the efi parition on the thumbdrive:
  - `mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sdc1`
- I luks-encrypted the other partition on the thumbdrive:
  - `luksFormat -y -v /dev/sdc2`
- Then I opened the new luks device:
  - `cryptsetup open /dev/sdc2 cryptroot`
- And formatted it:
  - `mkfs.xfs /dev/mapper/cryptroot`

### Copying the efi partition files to Thumb Drive

More specifically in a typical `systemd-boot` configuration the efi partition contains the entire `/boot` directory.

- I mounted the T460's efi partition for Arch Linux:
  - `mount /dev/sda5 /mnt2`
- I mounted the thumbdrive's efi partition:
  - `mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt`
- And then copied all the files over:
  - `cp -av /mnt2/* /mnt/`
- I then unmounted the efi partitions:
  - `umount /mnt2 ; umount /mnt`

### Copying the `/` partition files to the Thumb Drive

- I decrypted the Arch `/` device on the T460
  - `cryptsetup open /dev/sda6 cryptroot2`
- And then mounted it:
  - `mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot2 /mnt2`
- ...mounted the `/` device for the thumbdrive:
  - `mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt`
- And copied the files:
  - `rsync -aAXvPH /mnt2/ /mnt/`

## Rescuing The Thumb Drive via Chroot

- I unmounted the T460's `/` device:
  - `umount /mnt2`
- Mounted the thumbdrive's efi partition relative to `/mnt`
  - `mount /dev/sdc /mnt/boot`
- And entered chroot:
  - `arch-chroot /mnt`

### Updating `fstab` for the Thumb Drive

- I located the UUID of the thumbdrive's efi partition:
  - `blkid /dev/sdc1`
- I located the UUID of the luks device:
  - `blkid /dev/mapper/cryptroot`
- And updated `/etc/fstab` accordingly.

    # /etc/fstab
    # /dev/mapper/cryptroot
    UUID=391f6062-d8af-4266-a48c-186270d54ef3       /               xfs             rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,logbufs=8,logbsize=32k,noquota        0 1

    # /dev/sdc1
    UUID="FACA-0B61"        /boot           vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro       0 2
    ...

### Rebuilding the Initramfs for the Thumb Drive

Still inside chroot I ran the following command to rebuild the initramfs.

    mkinitcpio -P

### Updating the `systemd-boot` Entry for the Thumb Drive

- I located the UUID of `/dev/sdc2` with the following command:
  - `blkid /dev/sdc2`
- And updated `/boot/loader/entries/arch.conf` accordingly.

    # /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
    title   arch
    linux   /vmlinuz-linux
    initrd  /intel-ucode.img
    initrd  /initramfs-linux.img
    options cryptdevice=UUID=f8c5062a-849d-4c56-bc98-2c93da85090f:cryptroot root=/dev/mapper/cryptroot rw quiet loglevel=3

## Running Arch from USB

At this point Arch would boot and run flawlessly on the new Dell Precision 3561. I went ahead and changed the hostname, machine-id, ssh-keys, and host_ssh_keys to make it official.

While test-driving the new machine, I worked on my Ansible-KVM Router Lab. As configured, the mobile workstation gets great battery life under a light work-load of web browser and ssh terminal work.

Satisfied that the new system was going to work out, I ordered a pair of 1tb Samsung 830 nvme ssds, and installed them when they arrived.

## Transfering Arch to the New ssds

After installing new nvme ssds, I booted the Dell Precision 3561 from my rescue disk, and also plugged in the thumbdrive on which my Arch system was installed.

### Formatting The New NVME ssds

I opened each nvme ssd in `gdisk`, created a new gpt partition table, an 1GB efi partition (type ef00), and for the remainder of each disk created a Linux Raid Parition (type fd00).

- I formatted one of the efi partitions:
  - `mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/nvme0n1p1`
- I created a raid array:

      mdadm --create --verbose --level=1 --metadata=1.2 \
        --raid-devices=2 /dev/md0 /dev/nvme0n1p2 /dev/nvme1n1p2

- I luks-encrypted the new raid array:
  - `luksFormat -y -v /dev/md0`
- I opened the new luks device:
  - `cryptsetup open /dev/md0 cryptroot`
- And then Formatted it:
  - `mkfs.xfs /dev/mapper/cryptroot`

### Copying the efi partition files to NVME ssd

- I mounted the thumbdrive's efi partition:
  - `mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt2`
- Then I mounted the laptop's efi partition:
  - `mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt`
- And copied to files to the new efi partition:
  - `cp -av /mnt2/* /mnt/`
- And then I unmounted both efi partitions:
  - `umount /mnt2 ; umount /mnt`

### Copying the `/` partition files to the new NVME ssds

- First I opened the `/` luks device on the thumbdrive:
  - `cryptsetup open /dev/sdb2 cryptroot2`
- And then mounted it:
  - `mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot2 /mnt2`
- Then I mounted the laptop's `/` luks device:
  - `mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt`
- And `rsynced` the operating system files onto the new laptop:
  - `rsync -aAXvPH /mnt2/ /mnt/`

## Rescuing The New Laptop via Chroot

- First I unmounted the thumbdrive:
  - `umount /mnt2`
- Then I mounted the efi partition relative to `/mnt`:
  - `mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot`
- And entered chroot;
  - `arch-chroot /mnt`

### Updating `fstab` for The New Laptop

- I used to the following command to discover the UUID of the `/` device:
  - `blkid /dev/mapper/cryptroot`
- And a similar command to find the UUID of the efi partition:
  - `blkid /dev/nvme0n1p1`
- Then I editted `/etc/fstab` to describe the above two UUIDs.

    # /etc/fstab
    # /dev/mapper/cryptroot
    UUID=3486b7d1-ccc9-43dc-b8ab-abcf71aea90f       /               xfs             rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,logbufs=8,logbsize=32k,sunit=32,swidth=256,noquota    0 1

    # /dev/nvme0n1p1
    UUID=9FE0-2A98          /boot           vfat            rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=ascii,shortname=mixed,utf8,errors=remount-ro   0 2
    ...

### Updating `mdadm.conf` and `mkinitcpio.conf`

When I boot the laptop, the initramfs must assemble the raid array, which requires the following configuration details.

I appended a description of the raid array to the bottom of `/etc/mdadm.conf` by running the following command.

    mdadm --detail --scan >> /etc/mdadm.conf

Then I editted `/etc/mkinitcpio.conf` to require the mdadm_udev hook.

    # /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
    ...
    # change this
    HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block encrypt filesystems keyboard fsck)
    # to this
    HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block mdadm_udev encrypt filesystems keyboard fsck)
    ...

And then finally rebuilt the initramfs:

    mkinitcpio -P

### Updating the `systemd-boot` Entry for the New Laptop

The final step was to update `/boot/loader/entries/arch.conf`. As explained above, the initramfs assembles the raid device, so I just need to tell the kernel about it.

I used the following command to discover the UUID of the raid1 device:

- `blkid /dev/md0`

And then updated `/boot/loader/entries/arch.conf` accordingly.

    title   arch
    linux   /vmlinuz-linux
    initrd  /intel-ucode.img
    initrd  /initramfs-linux.img
    options cryptdevice=UUID=48f782a9-6c1b-4242-84f9-66b20ff27845:cryptroot root=/dev/mapper/cryptroot rw quiet loglevel=3