Server Installation — Max Chernoff

Preliminaries

This guide is mainly intended for myself in case I ever need to rebuild the server, but I'm making it public in case it's useful to others.
I've provided the exact IP addresses and usernames for my server; if you're following along, you'll want to replace these with the appropriate values for your own server.
Commands that start with $ are ran as the max user on the server, while commands that start with % are ran as some other user.
This guide was tested with Fedora IoT versions 40–41.

Pre-installation

Download the Fedora IoT .iso installer. In the unlikely scenario that your hosting provider offers Fedora IoT images, you can skip until step 4.
Upload and attach the .iso installer to the virtual machine.
Configure the VM for UEFI boot.

Installation

Start the installer.
Disable the root account and create an administrator max.
Partition as follows:

Index Mount Point Size Type

1 /boot/efi 500M EFI

2 /boot 4G ext4

3 [SWAP] 8G swap

4 / remaining btrfs

4.1 /home/ — subvol
Install the system.
Reboot into the installed system.

Index	Mount Point	Size	Type
1	`/boot/efi`	500M	EFI
2	`/boot`	4G	ext4
3	`[SWAP]`	8G	swap
4	`/`	remaining	btrfs
4.1	`/home/`	—	subvol

Install your SSH key:

% ssh-copy-id max@maxchernoff.ca  # From your local machine

Log in to the server:
```
% ssh max@maxchernoff.ca
```
Reboot.
```
$ sudo systemctl reboot
```

Post-installation

Install the needed packages:

$ sudo rpm-ostree install borgbackup fish git-core htop perl-File-Find python3-pystemd qemu-guest-agent snapper vim

Switch shell to fish:
```
$ chsh -s /usr/bin/fish
```
Fix /etc/fstab:

Change the options for / to defaults,compress=zstd:1,noatime.
Fix /etc/passwd: If not done, podman will complain about a mismatched home location.

Change the home for max to /var/home/max.
Disable authselect:
```
$ sudo authselect opt-out
```

Downloading the repository

Create the repo user:

$ sudo useradd --create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin repo

Switch to the repo user:

$ sudo machinectl shell repo@ /usr/bin/fish

Generate a new SSH key:
```
% ssh-keygen -t ed25519
```
Add this new key as a single-repo deploy key on GitHub.

Clone the repositories:

% git clone https://github.com/gucci-on-fleek/maxchernoff.ca.git
% git clone --no-checkout \
>     git@github.com:gucci-on-fleek/maxchernoff.ca-credentials.git \
>     credentials

Decrypt the credentials' repository:

% cd credentials/
% echo 'PRIVATE-KEY' > .git/git-encrypt.private-key
% echo > .git/config <<EOF
[filter "git-encrypt"]
    clean = git-encrypt encrypt %f
    smudge = git-encrypt decrypt %f
    required
EOF
% git checkout master

Installing TeX Live

Create the tex user:

$ sudo useradd --create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin tex
$ sudo loginctl enable-linger tex

Switch to the tex user:

$ sudo machinectl shell tex@ /usr/bin/fish

Create the necessary directories:

% mkdir -p ~/texlive  # As the `tex` user

Download the installer:

% cd $(mktemp -d)
% curl -O 'https://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/ctan/tex-archive/systems/texlive/tlnet/install-tl-unx.tar.gz'
% tar xf install-tl-unx.tar.gz

Install TeX Live:

% ./install-tl-*/install-tl \
>     --repository=https://ftp.math.utah.edu/pub/ctan/tex-archive/systems/texlive/tlnet \
>     --texdir=/var/home/tex/texlive --scheme=full --paper=letter

Download and run the ConTeXt installer:

% mkdir -p ~/context-installer
% cd ~/context-installer
% curl -O 'https://lmtx.pragma-ade.com/install-lmtx/context-linux-64.zip'
% busybox unzip context-linux-64.zip
% chmod a+x install.sh
% ./install.sh
% ln -s ~/context-installer/tex ~/context

Install the ConTeXt modules:

% cd ~/context
% ./texmf-linux-64/bin/mtxrun --script install-modules --install --all

Web Server

Create the web user:

$ sudo useradd --create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin web

Allow the web user to run services:
```
$ sudo loginctl enable-linger web
```
Reboot to make sure everything starts correctly.

Once all the containers have been built, switch to bootc:

$ sudo bootc switch maxchernoff.ca/fedora-iot:latest
$ reboot

Woodpecker CI

Create the woodpecker user:

$ sudo useradd --create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin woodpecker
$ sudo loginctl enable-linger woodpecker

Container Builders

Sometimes there aren't any pre-built containers for the software that you want to run, so we'll need to add a container builder.

Create the builder user:

$ sudo useradd --create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin builder
$ sudo loginctl enable-linger builder

That's pretty much it.

Snapshots

Create subvolumes for the .local and .cache directories for every user:
```
$ btrfs subvolume create {.local,.cache}
```

Mount the snapshot directory:

# /etc/fstab
# This line was here originally
UUID={uuid}  /home/            btrfs  subvol={subvol},compress=zstd:1,noatime             0  0
# Add this line
UUID={uuid}  /home/.snapshots  btrfs  subvol={subvol}/.snapshots,compress=zstd:1,noatime  0  0

$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo mount -av

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