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AlpineLinux How-To's

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Deepak Devanand
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2 min read

Table of contents

Alpine Linux, the lightweight distribution is often preferred for the base image of containers. Its package repository provides, most if not all applications relative to other distros such as Ubuntu or Fedora.

What follows is a collection of typical Linux tasks, needing to be performed in Alpine Linux context.

Alpine Linux Installation

The setup-alpine command kickstarts the installation with interactive Q&A prompts, such as:

  • Initialize network interface and configure NTP

  • Set root user password

  • Create new user account

  • Install SSH server

  • Partition the disk (choose sys as type of partition)

setup-alpine

Package Repository Configuration

VERSION=$(cat /etc/*release* | grep -i version_id | awk -F'=' '{printf "v"$NF"\n"}' | sed -E 's/.0//g')

tee -a /etc/apk/repositories < END
/media/cdrom/apks
http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/$VERSION/main
http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/$VERSION/community
END

apk update

Docker Installation

apk update && \
apk add docker docker-cli-compose && \
/etc/init.d/docker start && \
rc-update add docker default

# add the non-privileged user to docker group
addgroup $USER docker

docker version
docker compose version

Note that docker-compose equivalent in Alpine Linux is docker compose.

New User Account

adduser -g "alpine" alpine #adduser -g "Full name" username

addgroup alpine wheel #addgroup username groupname

apk add doas

echo "permit persist :wheel" >> /etc/doas.d/doas.conf

SSH Installation

  • Set DHCP on the primary network interface

      #cat /etc/network/interfaces 
  auto eth0
  iface eth0 inet dhcp

      /etc/init.d/networking restart

  • Install OpenSSH-server package

      apk add openssh-server && \
  /etc/init.d/sshd start && \
  rc-update add sshd
AlpineLinuxsysadminDocker