Arch Linux

dentax_32

Member

Registered: 2017-09-11

Posts: 2

[Solved] Pacman-init.service fails to start on live USB

All,

I got the latest ISO (2017.09.01) from here: https://www.archlinux.org/download/ and confirmed it was valid with the .sig file.

I dded the iso to a USB disk, and I can successfully boot it on my Lenovo T470s.

However, I get the following error message during the boot sequence:

https://i.imgur.com/39UUXqv.jpg

Here's what "systemctl status pacman-init.service" gives me:

https://i.imgur.com/1BwRfCP.jpg

I spent 2-3 hours reading about similar issues, it seems that for many people, doing a pacman-key --init followed by a "--populate archlinux" works, but for me, I keep getting these "could not be locally signed" error.

Because of this, I can't use pacstrap and also can't do "pacman -Syu" because it tells me that certain public keys used to signed the packages I'm trying to install aren't known.

any help would be greatly appreciated

Mod note: Converted images to urls -- V1del

Last edited by dentax_32 (2017-09-15 05:51:31)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,657

Re: [Solved] Pacman-init.service fails to start on live USB

Please don't post huge images like these, convert them to thumbnails or URLs and if you have an internet connection posting text with a pastebin client would be even better.

That said I haven't used the install media in a while so I'm not quite sure what to make of this.

Last edited by V1del (2017-09-11 18:49:51)

dentax_32

Member

Registered: 2017-09-11

Posts: 2

Re: [Solved] Pacman-init.service fails to start on live USB

After reading through pacman-key and playing with gpg, I finally figured it out. Part of what populate_keyring() does is call lsign_keys to locally sign the keys at /usr/share/pacman/keyrings/archlinux.gpg.  I further troubleshoot this by directly going to gpg and doing a "gpg --homedir=/etc/pacman.d/gnupg --lsign-key 6AC6A4C2" which got me the following error:

"gpg: no default secret key: No public key"

I searched for that error but couldn't find, but then I tried the "default-key" parameters and used my "Pacman Keyring Master Key": "gpg --homedir=/etc/pacman.d/gnupg --default-key 8192BEEF --lsign-key 6AC6A4C2" and it worked as expected...

This is pretty odd to me since I can't figure out why this would only happen to me... Isn't it the case that every other live usb system are struggling with gpg not knowing what the default key should be? I verified the image signature was good and I did a simple dd to a USB stick. Then I plug and I can't use pacman at all since gpg doesn't know what default key to use...

If anyone else has this issue, simply adding "default-key 8192BEEF" (actually, whatever your "Pacman Keyring Master Key" short ID is) to /etc/pacman.d/gnupg/gpg.conf works perfectly. Maybe that should be done by one of the bootstrap action?

Polarina

Member

Registered: 2017-09-16

Posts: 2

Re: [Solved] Pacman-init.service fails to start on live USB

I encountered the same issue. Turns out that having a smart-card plugged in while booting the ISO interfers with GPG. In my case, I had a YubiKey 4 plugged in. Unplugged it and rebooted, and it now works.