What's this

Mkosi configs and files for Arch Linux systemd-nspawn images.

Expected to be used in Arch Linux box.

How to use

1. Install base-devel, git
2. Install mkosi (or mkosi-git in AUR)
3. Clone this repository

After cloning it, you can do the followings:

Simple way

Run update-nspawn-images as root:

update-nspawn-images CONTAINER [OTHER_CONTAINER ...]

where CONTAINER or OTHER_CONTAINER are nspawn container name in this repository.

update-nspawn-images will do below:

1. Build specified nspawn image
2. Remove existing image (nspawn container will be terminated)
3. Install new image and config

Complicated way

Create container image

cd CONTAINER/
sudo make

Import built image

• Import container image via machinectl
• Install nspawn config to /etc/systemd/nspawn/ as CONTAINER.nspawn

cd CONTAINER/
sudo make install

Remove container image

• Remove container image via machinectl
• Delete nspawn config installed as /etc/systemd/nspawn/CONTAINER.nspawn

cd CONTAINER/
sudo make uninstall

Clean built files

Delete container image and mkosi.default in CONTAINER/

cd CONTAINER/
sudo make clean

Containers on this repository

• corespawn/: Basic Arch LInux container
• mstdnspawn/: Configuable Mastodon instance
• guispawn/: Packaging GUI apps. Currently only web browsers (Tor browser & Chromium)
• tlspawn/: Packaging Tex Live utilities
• torspawn/: Running Tor proxy (Tor + Privoxy; tcp:8118 opened)
• sngskspawn/: Web app run as sngsk.info

Notes

Communicating outside container with VirtualEthernet=yes

See this comment.

Using guispawn

Some environment variables are required to run X apps. Use below snippet:

machinectl shell \
    --setenv=display=:0 \
    --setenv=xauthority="\${HOME}/.xauthority" \
    --setenv=pulse_server=unix:/run/user/host/pulse/native \
    gui@guispawn /usr/bin/COMMAND ARGUMENTS

Or you can use script launch-app-in-container like below:

launch-app-in-container COMMAND ARGUMENTS

This will do same thing of above snippet.