Sysadmin-Devops

For a semi-{data,diskless} setup you need to modify the standard ‘setup-alpine’ procedure. Here we provide the details.

Once you are sure everything is correct for the initial boot into your configured system, commit (store) your changes.

The following are not part of the base install, but either can be essential to system function (like adding boot entropy for some headless systems like the Raspberry Pi) or are widely accepted best practices (like creating a non-root admin user and limiting time spent as root).

Some systems might take an excessively long time to boot when no peripherals are attached (not only with the Pi series). In those cases it may be useful to add the rng-tools package to speed up the gathering of entropy.

It is generally considered an administrative best practise to avoid logging in and/or operating with elevated privileges, to the extent reasonable to do so. Therefore one needs a user that is not root for performing most operations, but which can gain elevated access when required. In addition if, as recommended, one prevents root login over SSH one needs a user than one can SSH into and gain temporary elevated privileges. (Assuming a remotely accessed system, of course).