I can't install over the network on my VPS

peracchi · 2023-06-03 19:47:29

I use a VPS for learning purposes and small PoC projects.

For more than a year I have been using Arch.

I have done severals reinstallations over this time and I had never got a single problem.

I think that recently, maybe less than two months, something changed in repos and/or install image and now I can't install Arch over the network on my VPS.

The problem can be related to the signature of the file airootfs.sfs.

Below I have copied almost all text that I saw over VNC while trying to reinstall my Arch:

     http://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/iso/latest/arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz-linux...
      ok
     http://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/iso/latest/arch/boot/x86_64/initramfs-linux.
     img... ok
     Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)... ok
     :: running early hook [udev]
     Starting systemd-udevd version 253.4-1-arch
     :: running early hook [archiso_pxe_nbd]
     :: running hook [udev]
     :: Triggering uevents...
     :: running hook [memdisk]
     :: running hook [archiso]
     :: running hook [archiso_loop_mnt]
     :: running hook [archiso_pxe_common]
     IP-Config: eth0 hardware address 00:00:00:00:00:00 mtu 1500 DHCP
     IP-Config: eth0 guessed broadcast address x.y.z.w
     IP-Config: eth0 complete (from x.y.z.w):
      address: x.y.z.w     broadcast: x.y.z.w    netmask: x.y.z.w
      gateway: x.y.z.w     dns0     : x.y.z.w    dns1   : x.y.z.w
      domain: vpsprovider.com
      rootserver: x.y.z.w rootpath:
      filename  : localboot
     :: running hook [archiso_pxe_nbd]
     :: running hook [archiso_pxe_http]
     :: running hook [archiso_pxe_nfs]
     :: Mounting /run/archiso/httpspace (tmpfs) filesystem, size='75%'
     :: Downloading 'http://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/iso/latest/arch/x86_64/airootfs.sfs'
...
     :: Downloading 'http://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/iso/latest/arch/x86_64/airootfs.sfs.sig'
...
     curl: (22) The requested URL returned error: 404
     ERROR: Downloading 'http://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/iso/latest/arch/x86_64/airootfs.sfs.sig'
        Falling back to interactive prompt
        You can try to fix the problem manually, log out when you are finished
     sh: can't access tty: job control turned off
     [rootfs ]#

Should be https://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/is … fs.cms.sig the correct file to download or there was some symbolic link?

The only thing I found on Google about this is at: https://t-me.translate.goog/v2ex_post/6 … _tr_pto=sc

ectospasm · 2023-06-05 02:21:04

My first reaction was,"Why are you reinstalling Arch so often?" But we don't have to get too deep into the "why."

How are you installing Arch? Are you setting up a bootable ISO through your VPS provider's management portal? Does the VPS provider officially support Arch? If so, it's possible there's a problem with their Arch ISO image.

If you're using your own ISO image, uploading it to the VPS provider's management website, be sure to verify the GnuPG signature before you upload it (and preferably, after it's been uploaded).

If you've done all this, and it's still failing, it looks like the mirror at kernel.org is missing that file. I recommend choosing another mirror if you can. In the ArchISO, you will probably want to run reflector to choose an up to date mirror (kernel.org is not guaranteed to be up to date).

tucuxi · 2023-06-05 06:04:07

The file airootfs.sfs.sig does not exist at the location. If you wish to use that mirror, you should probably follow up with the people who are running it. Alternatively, you could use a different mirror from /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.

Lone_Wolf · 2023-06-05 10:30:31

It's not a mirror issue, compare http://packages.oth-regensburg.de/archl … ch/x86_64/ and http://packages.oth-regensburg.de/archl … ch/x86_64/ .

The 2023.04 iso has that file, the 2023.05 (and 2023.6) don't .
Peracchi, verify which version of the image you are trying to install from .

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2023-06-05 10:30:43)

peracchi · 2023-06-05 13:55:34

ectospasm wrote:

"Why are you reinstalling Arch so often?"

Learning + OCD = many "starts from scratch"

ectospasm wrote:

it looks like the mirror at kernel.org is missing that file

Yes, 99% sure that this is the cause of the problem.

ectospasm wrote:

I recommend choosing another mirror if you can.

I can't. It's a boot image from my VPS provider that downloads Arch ISO and then boots it.
Appears that without that .sig file it aborts the process.

Lone_Wolf wrote:

It's not a mirror issue

I disagree. Look at https://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/is … ch/x86_64/
That isn't supposed to be a mirror?

peracchi · 2023-06-05 20:20:23

I sent an email to kernel.org

The answer:

On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 12:33:23PM -0300, Leandro Peracchi wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Maybe there is something wrong with mirror on address
> https://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/is … ch/x86_64/
>
> It redirects to
> https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/archlin … ch/x86_64/
>
> Appears to be missing the file *airootfs.sfs.sig* that is present in
> other mirrors.

It's missing because it is not present upstream.

$ rsync --list-only rsync://kernelorg@rsync.archlinux.org/kitchensink_auth/iso/latest/arch/x86_64/

drwxr-xr-x 94 2023/06/01 15:27:48 .
-rw-r--r-- 704,667,648 2023/06/01 15:27:46 airootfs.sfs
-rw-r--r-- 698 2023/06/01 15:27:48 airootfs.sfs.cms.sig
-rw-r--r-- 143 2023/06/01 15:27:46 airootfs.sha512

ectospasm · 2023-06-06 01:33:08

peracchi wrote:

I can't. It's a boot image from my VPS provider that downloads Arch ISO and then boots it.
Appears that without that .sig file it aborts the process.
Lone_Wolf wrote:
It's not a mirror issue
I disagree. Look at https://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/is … ch/x86_64/
That isn't supposed to be a mirror?

Read Lone_Wolf's comment again. Your VPS provider is downloading an old image. They need to download the latest image, for June, which does not refer to that signature file. The mirror link you show shows "latest", which is for June, not April (the image your VPS provider appears to be using).

peracchi · 2023-06-06 01:48:59

ectospasm wrote:

Read Lone_Wolf's comment again. Your VPS provider is downloading an old image. They need to download the latest image, for June, which does not refer to that signature file. The mirror link you show shows "latest", which is for June, not April (the image your VPS provider appears to be using).

Do you read the answer from the guy at kernel.org mirror?

ectospasm · 2023-06-06 02:27:42

peracchi wrote:

ectospasm wrote:
Read Lone_Wolf's comment again. Your VPS provider is downloading an old image. They need to download the latest image, for June, which does not refer to that signature file. The mirror link you show shows "latest", which is for June, not April (the image your VPS provider appears to be using).
Do you read the answer from the guy at kernel.org mirror?

Yes, the kernel.org maintainer is referring to the latest version of the mirror, not the April one. Your VPS provider appears to be linking to the wrong image, one that refers to that signature file. The image expects to be the latest, so the link with "latest" in it points to a newer version of the mirror, which doesn't have this file.

peracchi · 2023-06-06 14:39:36

ectospasm wrote:

Yes, the kernel.org maintainer is referring to the latest version of the mirror, not the April one. Your VPS provider appears to be linking to the wrong image, one that refers to that signature file. The image expects to be the latest, so the link with "latest" in it points to a newer version of the mirror, which doesn't have this file.

I'm really really lost here...

I thought that the VPS provider used a default boot image for installing Arch Linux and that this image would look for/download the files from a mirror (which in this case is kernel.org). Then I saw that the kernel.org mirror didn't have the "airootfs.sfs.sig" file but the other mirrors did. I concluded that the problem was on the kernel.org mirror and sent the email. The guy replied that the problem was in the upstream "rsync.archlinux.org/kitchensink_auth/iso/latest/arch/x86_64/". If upstream adds the file, wouldn't it go to the kernel.org mirror and the VPS provider image would work (as it was working until recently)?

Lone_Wolf · 2023-06-06 20:09:02

Taken from mirrors.edge.kernel.org and it will be exactly the same on all uptodate mirrrors

Index of /archlinux/iso/2023.04.01/arch/x86_64/

../
airootfs.sfs                                       01-Apr-2023 06:09    688M
airootfs.sfs.cms.sig                               01-Apr-2023 06:09     698
airootfs.sfs.sig                                   01-Apr-2023 06:09     471
airootfs.sha512                                    01-Apr-2023 06:09     143

Index of /archlinux/iso/2023.05.03/arch/x86_64/

../
airootfs.sfs                                       03-May-2023 17:23    694M
airootfs.sfs.cms.sig                               03-May-2023 17:23     698
airootfs.sha512                                    03-May-2023 17:23     143


Index of /archlinux/iso/2023.06.01/arch/x86_64/

../
airootfs.sfs                                       01-Jun-2023 15:27    672M
airootfs.sfs.cms.sig                               01-Jun-2023 15:27     698
airootfs.sha512                                    01-Jun-2023 15:27     143

Index of /archlinux/iso/latest/arch/x86_64/

../
airootfs.sfs                                       01-Jun-2023 15:27    672M
airootfs.sfs.cms.sig                               01-Jun-2023 15:27     698
airootfs.sha512                                    01-Jun-2023 15:27     143

That clearly shows the april iso had one file more then the may and june/latest iso.

The image provided by your VPS provider fails to install archlinux using latest .

Either archlinux releng team broke net install without anyone except you noticing it or your VPS provider uses an outdated image .
Which of those 2 do you think is more likely ?

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2023-06-06 20:10:49)

peracchi · 2023-06-06 20:48:35

Lone_Wolf wrote:

Either archlinux releng team broke net install without anyone except you noticing it or your VPS provider uses an outdated image .
Which of those 2 do you think is more likely ?

Option 2 is more likely.

Thank you all for your help and explanations.

I hope their support will soon provide the update and/or adaptation of net install for Arch Linux.

ectospasm · 2023-06-06 21:11:32

peracchi wrote:

ectospasm wrote:
Yes, the kernel.org maintainer is referring to the latest version of the mirror, not the April one. Your VPS provider appears to be linking to the wrong image, one that refers to that signature file. The image expects to be the latest, so the link with "latest" in it points to a newer version of the mirror, which doesn't have this file.
I'm really really lost here...
I thought that the VPS provider used a default boot image for installing Arch Linux and that this image would look for/download the files from a mirror (which in this case is kernel.org). Then I saw that the kernel.org mirror didn't have the "airootfs.sfs.sig" file but the other mirrors did. I concluded that the problem was on the kernel.org mirror and sent the email. The guy replied that the problem was in the upstream "rsync.archlinux.org/kitchensink_auth/iso/latest/arch/x86_64/". If upstream adds the file, wouldn't it go to the kernel.org mirror and the VPS provider image would work (as it was working until recently)?

I can see how this can be confusing. Here's what I think it is: your VPS provider seems to be using a link to the April 2023 Arch ISO image, which is now out of date. The "upstream" mirror doesn't contain the airootfs.sfs.sig anymore, not in the latest branch. The other mirrors you've looked into may be out of date, that's why they show the file existing. The kernel.org maintainer pointed upstream, because it doesn't exist in the latest branch on the primary Tier 0 Arch Linux mirror.

You'll need to have your VPS provider update their link. I'm not sure if Arch provides a permanent link to the latest ISO; it doesn't look like they do. Basically, Arch releases a new ISO in the first week of the month, and your VPS provider doesn't look like they updated their link to the image. The June Arch ISO was released today, but it doesn't look like your VPS provider updated it in May, either.

icanwalkonwater · 2023-09-15 17:49:37

I had the same problem and went digging through the commit history of the archiso and found this: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … 78d02026ab

TL;DR: airootfs.sfs.sig is deprecated and you need to use cms_verify=y instead of verify=y in the cmdline.

I managed to get a working PXE boot using pixiecore and a simple http file server on port 8080 but you can just use an official mirror.
I mounted the iso to the ./iso folder and used this:

sudo pixiecore boot \
	./iso/arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz-linux \
	./iso/arch/boot/x86_64/initramfs-linux.img \
	--cmdline 'archisobasedir=arch archiso_http_srv=http://192.168.1.65:8080/ ip=dhcp cms_verify=y net.ifnames=0' \
	--dhcp-no-bind \
	-d

Arch Linux

#1 2023-06-03 19:47:29

I can't install over the network on my VPS

#2 2023-06-05 02:21:04

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#3 2023-06-05 06:04:07

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#4 2023-06-05 10:30:31

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#5 2023-06-05 13:55:34

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#6 2023-06-05 20:20:23

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#7 2023-06-06 01:33:08

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#8 2023-06-06 01:48:59

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#9 2023-06-06 02:27:42

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#10 2023-06-06 14:39:36

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#11 2023-06-06 20:09:02

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#12 2023-06-06 20:48:35

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#13 2023-06-06 21:11:32

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

#14 2023-09-15 17:49:37

Re: I can't install over the network on my VPS

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