hashboot/arch_instructions.md

Install hashboot on Arch Linux

Clone repository

First, clone the git repository:

git clone https://github.com/tastytea/hashboot.git

Then distribute the files to the proper path on your drive.

• the hashboot script should go to /usr/bin
• everything in /init/systemd should go to /etc/systemd/system

Then make the hashboot script executable with the command:

sudo chmod a+x /usr/bin/hashboot

Then run this command once to generate the configuration file and initial files:

sudo hashboot index

Setting up systemd

Run the command:

systemctl enable hashboot.service

Setting up the post-install kernel hook

Pacman uses alpm hooks to facilitate triggering an operation after a file or package has been modified by pacman. The system hooks are stored in the /usr/share/libalpm/hooks directory.

Since hashboot index should be run after every kernel update (and after all other post-install actions have completed), create the file zzz-hashboot.hook in /usr/share/libalpm/hooks and give it the following contents:

[Trigger]
Operation = Install
Operation = Upgrade
Type = Package
Target = linux

[Action]
Description = Generating hashboot checksums of MBR and /boot...
When = PostTransaction
Exec = /usr/bin/hashboot index

Now when you update the kernel, hashboot will generate new files.

Making sure hashboot runs at boot

Immediately after booting, you can view the status of the hashboot service with the command

systemctl status hashboot.service

It should print something like:

* hashboot.service - Check for changes made to the boot partition since shutting down
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/hashboot.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: inactive (dead) since Sun 2019-05-12 09:27:48 PDT; 20s ago
  Process: 1292 ExecStart=/sbin/hashboot check (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 1292 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)>
 
May 12 09:27:47 hostname systemd[1]: Starting Check for changes made to the boot partition since shutting down...
May 12 09:27:48 hostname systemd[1]: hashboot.service: Succeeded.
May 12 09:27:48 hostname systemd[1]: Started Check for changes made to the boot partition since shutting down.