Installing Arch Linux in a Cloud Environment

Arch Linux is a lightweight and flexible Linux distribution that provides users with extensive opportunities for customizing and optimizing their systems. It includes a minimal amount of preinstalled software and offers a console-based interface. In most cases, it is used by experienced users: professional developers, system administrators, or hackers. This is due to the complexity of its installation and subsequent configuration, which involves adding the required packages and components to the system. However, these difficulties are justified, because in the end the user gets exactly the system and services they need.

In this article, we will explain how to install Arch Linux on your cloud server and perform its basic configuration.

Advantages of Arch Linux

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It is worth noting that Arch Linux is ideally suited as an OS for a cloud server due to its low resource requirements. This distribution also has several other advantages:

• System Updates
  Arch Linux updates automatically when a new OS version is released.

• Software Installation
  Packages can be downloaded both over the network and from a local disk. In addition, the installed software does not need to be specifically compatible with Arch Linux.

• Rich Repositories
  Arch Linux offers a wide variety of packages. Today, there are over 12,000 packages in the official repositories alone. In the community repository, there are even more — over 83,000.

• Up-to-date Documentation
  The official Arch Linux documentation is actively updated to reflect the latest changes and innovations. This ensures accurate and relevant system information.

• Active Community
  This distribution has an active user community ready to help and share their experience. There are many forums, wikis, and repositories where you can find detailed instructions and guides for installation, configuration, and troubleshooting.

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1. Preparing for Installation

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To follow this guide and install Arch Linux, you will need:

• A cloud server with any operating system (in our case, Debian 11);
• A link to the Arch Linux image from an official source;
• An additional disk, which you can attach under the Plan tab in the control panel.

Step 1. To install Arch Linux on the server, you must first upload its installation image from an official source in .iso format. For example:

wget https://mirror.rackspace.com/archlinux/iso/2025.06.01/archlinux-2025.06.01-x86_64.iso

Step 2. Next, add a new disk where the installation image will be stored. It will appear in the system as /dev/sdb. You can specify the minimum disk size.

Step 3. Write the installation image to the new disk:

dd if=archlinux-2025.06.01-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdb

The writing process will take some time. When finished, verify it with the following command:

fdisk -l

In the output, you will see that the installation image has been written to the new disk, creating two necessary partitions.

Step 4. After writing the installation image, proceed to boot from it. To do this, go to the Access tab and boot the server from the recovery disk. Open the console in the control panel. 

Step 5. In the console window, go to the Boot existing OS menu item and press Tab on your keyboard. This will allow you to edit the text at the bottom of the screen. Here, you need to manually replace hd0 with hd1, as shown in the figure below.

After that, press Enter to launch the installation program.

Step 6. In the system bootloader that appears, select the first option.

2. Partitioning the Disk

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Now we can partition the main disk (sda). In our case, there will be 3 partitions: a 300 MB UEFI partition (type EFI), a 700 MB swap partition (type Linux swap), and a main filesystem partition taking up all remaining space (type Linux). In your own installation, the number and size of partitions may differ depending on your requirements.

Step 1. First, check whether there are any files on the disk you need to save:

lsblk

The screenshot below shows the list. For creating the described partitions, we will use a 25 GB disk — sda. It currently has Debian 11 installed, which does not contain important files.

Step 2. To partition the disk, enter the following command:

cfdisk /dev/sda

Step 3. In the window that opens, you need to delete all existing partitions. To do this, select a partition and use the Delete button in the lower menu.

Step 4. Next, select the New button in the lower menu to create a new partition.

Step 5. Then specify the size of the partition to be created. In our case, this is 300 MB for UEFI.

Step 6. In the next window, choose Primary.

Step 7. The partition is now created, and you need to specify its type. Go to the Type menu and select EFI.

Step 8. Now move to the Free space and create 2 more partitions, repeating steps 4 through 7. Partition details were listed at the beginning of this chapter.

Step 9. Once all partitions have been created, go to the Write button and select it. To confirm, type yes in the field that appears.

Step 10. Partitioning is now complete. To exit the tool, select the Quit button in the lower menu.

Step 11. You can verify your work using the lsblk command again.

Check in the output that all changes have been successfully applied.

3. Formatting and Mounting the Created Partitions

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Step 1. For the first partition, format it using the following command:

mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1

This command will create a FAT32 filesystem, which is the recommended format for the UEFI partition.

Step 2. Next, assign it a mount point:

mkdir /mnt/efi
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/efi

Step 3. For the second partition, perform special formatting:

mkswap /dev/sda2

Step 4. Then activate the swap partition:

swapon /dev/sda2

Step 5. Finally, format the system’s root partition:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3

Step 6. After formatting, create its mount point:

mount /dev/sda3 /mnt

After completing the formatting and mounting, your partitions will be ready for installing and configuring Arch Linux and its main components.

4. Installing the Main Arch Linux Components

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Step 1. First, let’s install the OS and its core components:

pacstrap /mnt base linux grub openssh nano dhcpcd

Step 2. Once the installation finishes, you need to generate the fstab file:

genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab

Generating the fstab file makes partition mounting management easier and ensures automatic and consistent mounting at system startup.

5. System Configuration

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Step 1. To configure Arch Linux after installation, you need to chroot into the OS without rebooting:

arch-chroot /mnt

Step 2. First, install the nano text editor:

pacman -S nano

Step 3. Uncomment the encoding for English in the relevant file (you would edit locale.gen):

nano /etc/locale.gen

Uncomment the line for en_US.UTF-8.

After this, save the changes and exit nano, then generate the locales:

locale-gen

To enable the English language, execute:

echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf

Step 4. At this step, set up the system clock. For example: 

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Nicosia /etc/localtime

The region is set. Now synchronize the hardware clock:

hwclock --systohc

Step 5. Next, set the hostname for your system:

echo "hostname" > /etc/hostname

Step 6. As the second-to-last step, set the root password. Run:

passwd

You will be prompted to enter and confirm the password.

Step 7. Lastly, set up the previously installed GRUB bootloader to boot the server:

grub-install --target=i386-pc /dev/sda

Then create the GRUB configuration file:

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

This command will automatically configure GRUB.

Step 8. Arch Linux is now successfully installed. Exit the chroot:

exit

Then go to the Access tab in your control panel and switch the server to standard boot mode. After that, click Save and Reboot.

You can remove the additional disk after this step.

Step 9. The system will boot, but it is not ready for use yet. First, connect to the server and enable the DHCP client daemon:

systemctl enable dhcpcd

Then start it:

systemctl start dhcpcd

Make sure the service shows the status active (running).

Step 10. Next, configure the SSH connection. First, create a backup of the sshd configuration:

cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/ssh/backup.sshdconf

Then set PermitRootLogin to Yes in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file:

nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Finally, enable the SSH daemon:

systemctl enable sshd

And start it:

systemctl start sshd

When checking with systemctl status sshd, the service should show active (running) status.

Don’t forget to add and configure SSH keys before connecting to the server.

6. Additional Configuration

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The installation is complete, but you can also perform additional system configuration by reviewing the official Arch Linux setup documentation.

To install packages, use the command:

pacman -S package_name

To update the system, use:

pacman -Suy

Conclusion

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In this guide, we reviewed the process of installing Arch Linux on your cloud server and performed its basic configuration. We used a temporary Debian 11 OS and an additional disk for the installation image. By following these steps, you can create a powerful and flexible virtual environment for developing, testing, and running applications based on Arch Linux. To use more, you can try our object storage.

Don't forget to check it yourself with our virtual servers.