You are not logged in.

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

Arnie97
Member
Registered: 2021-11-25
Posts: 5

pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

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)

Offline

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

levi
Moderator
From: Yorkshire, UK
Registered: 2018-06-16
Posts: 1,197

Re: pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

What did you have mounted on /mnt?


Architecture: pentium4, Testing repos: Yes, Hardware: EeePC 901+2GB RAM+OS half on the SD card.

Offline

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

Arnie97
Member
Registered: 2021-11-25
Posts: 5

Re: pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

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.

Offline

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

abaumann
Administrator
From: Zurich
Registered: 2019-11-14
Posts: 984
Website

Re: pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

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.

Offline

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

abaumann
Administrator
From: Zurich
Registered: 2019-11-14
Posts: 984
Website

Re: pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

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..

Offline

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

Arnie97
Member
Registered: 2021-11-25
Posts: 5

Re: pacstrap complaints "keyring is not writable"

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.

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB