Gentoo on Integricloud

Integricloud gave me access to their infrastructure to track some issues on ppc64 and ppc64le.

Since some of the issues are related to the compilers, I obviously installed Gentoo on it and in the process I started to fix some issues with catalyst to get a working install media, but that’s for another blogpost.

Today I’m just giving a walk-through on how to get a ppc64le (and ppc64 soon) VM up and running.

Preparation

Read this and get your install media available to your instance.

Install Media

I’m using the Gentoo installcd I’m currently refining.

Booting

You have to append console=hvc0 to your boot command, the boot process might figure it out for you on newer install medias (I still have to send patches to update livecd-tools)

Network configuration

You have to manually setup the network.
You can use ifconfig and route or ip as you like, refer to your instance setup for the parameters.

ifconfig enp0s0 ${ip}/16
route add -net default gw ${gw}
echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" > /etc/resolv.conf

ip a add ${ip}/16 dev enp0s0
ip l set enp0s0 up
ip r add default via ${gw}
echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" > /etc/resolv.conf

Disk Setup

OpenFirmware seems to like gpt much better:

parted /dev/sda mklabel gpt

You may use fdisk to create:
– a PowerPC PrEP boot partition of 8M
– root partition with the remaining space

Device     Start      End  Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1   2048    18431    16384   8M PowerPC PReP boot
/dev/sda2  18432 33554654 33536223  16G Linux filesystem

I’m using btrfs and zstd-compress /usr/portage and /usr/src/.

mkfs.btrfs /dev/sda2

Initial setup

It is pretty much the usual.

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/gentoo
cd /mnt/gentoo
wget https://dev.gentoo.org/~mattst88/ppc-stages/stage3-ppc64le-20180810.tar.xz
tar -xpf stage3-ppc64le-20180810.tar.xz
mount -o bind /dev dev
mount -t devpts devpts dev/pts
mount -t proc proc proc
mount -t sysfs sys sys
cp /etc/resolv.conf etc
chroot .

You just have to emerge grub and gentoo-sources, I diverge from the defconfig by making btrfs builtin.

My /etc/portage/make.conf:

CFLAGS="-O3 -mcpu=power9 -pipe"
# WARNING: Changing your CHOST is not something that should be done lightly.
# Please consult https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Changing_the_CHOST_variable beforee
 changing.
CHOST="powerpc64le-unknown-linux-gnu"

# NOTE: This stage was built with the bindist Use flag enabled
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"

USE="ibm altivec vsx"

# This sets the language of build output to English.
# Please keep this setting intact when reporting bugs.
LC_MESSAGES=C
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=~ppc64

MAKEOPTS="-j4 -l6"
EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--jobs 10 --load-average 6 "

My minimal set of packages I need before booting:

emerge grub gentoo-sources vim btrfs-progs openssh

NOTE: You want to emerge again openssh and make sure bindist is not in your USE.

Kernel & Bootloader

cd /usr/src/linux
make defconfig
make menuconfig # I want btrfs builtin so I can avoid a initrd
make -j 10 all && make install && make modules_install
grub-install /dev/sda1
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

NOTE: make sure you pass /dev/sda1 otherwise grub will happily assume OpenFirmware knows about btrfs and just point it to your directory.
That’s not the case unfortunately.

Networking

I’m using netifrc and I’m using the eth0-naming-convention.

touch /etc/udev/rules.d/80-net-name-slot.rules
ln -sf /etc/init.d/net.{lo,eth0}
echo -e "config_eth0=\"${ip}/16\"\nroutes_eth0="default via ${gw}\"\ndns_servers_eth0=\"8.8.8.8\"" > /etc/conf.d/net

Password and SSH

Even if the mticlient is quite nice, you would rather use ssh as much as you could.

passwd 
rc-update add sshd default

Finishing touches

Right now sysvinit does not add the hvc0 console as it should due to a profile quirk, for now check /etc/inittab and in case add:

echo 'hvc0:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L 9600 hvc0' >> /etc/inittab

Add your user and add your ssh key and you are ready to use your new system!