pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

Arnie97 · 2021-11-25 20:08:59

Hi all, I'm looking for a modern distro for my Vortex86EX board, which lacks CMOV* instructions (i.e. i586).
Much to my surprise, there is still a well-maintained i486 fork after Arch Linux dropped i686 support for years.
Thanks to everyone who has supported this great project!

I downloaded the latest i486 snapshot archlinux32-2021.07.16-i486.iso to test it in QEMU, and the live CD booted smoothly on an emulated 486DX.
However, the pacstrap process was not straightforward:

# pacstrap /mnt base linux

=> Creating install root at /mnt
=> Installing packages to /mnt

...

(113/113) checking keys in keyring
downloading required keys...
error: keyring is not writable
error: keyring is not writable
error: required key is missing from keyring
error: failed to commit transaction (unexpected error)
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.
=> ERROR: Failed to install packages to new root

After some trail and error, I managed to workaround the readonly iso9660 filesystem with an overlayfs:

# mkdir /tmp/upperdir /tmp/workdir
# mount -t overlay overlay -o lowerdir=/etc/pacman.d/gnupg,upperdir=/tmp/upperdir,workdir=/tmp/workdir /etc/pacman.d/gnupg
# pacstrap /mnt base linux

I once installed the (upstream amd64) Arch Linux on my PC with the live CD, and did not meet similar problems.
I'm still feeling puzzled. Could this be an archlinux32-specific issue?

Last edited by Arnie97 (2021-11-25 20:10:32)

levi · 2021-11-25 22:04:41

What did you have mounted on /mnt?

Arnie97 · 2021-11-25 22:22:33

levi wrote:

What did you have mounted on /mnt?

/mnt was a writable ext4 partition:

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1
# mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

After applying the overlayfs workaround, I could install Arch Linux 32 to /mnt and boot from it without problems.

abaumann · 2021-11-27 08:40:09

The 486 ISO is quite limited and alpha and deviates heavily from the upstream iso (so that it fits into much less RAM than the standard ISO).
See https://git.archlinux32.org/archi486/.

You can always boot a 686 ISO and use i486 in Architecture in /etc/pacman.conf to do the pacstrap.

Also installing from another machine might be the better option than to boot the i486 ISO on the real thing.

abaumann · 2021-11-27 08:51:38

Yeah, I think, I'll make a new 486 ISO, the current one has an old keyring on it.
The 486 ISO is not a memory filesystem, it IS the CDROM (thus read/only), so you cannot update
the keyring on the ISO.
You can always install with disabled GPG checks, but that's not recommended for security reasons..

Arnie97 · 2021-11-27 16:39:47

Thanks, I got it. It makes sense to boot directly from the CD-ROM, the memory would be very limited if not installing from another machine.

Arch Linux

#1 2021-11-25 20:08:59

pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

#2 2021-11-25 22:04:41

Re: pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

#3 2021-11-25 22:22:33

Re: pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

#4 2021-11-27 08:40:09

Re: pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

#5 2021-11-27 08:51:38

Re: pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

#6 2021-11-27 16:39:47

Re: pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

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