Installation of Alpine Standard 3.22.1¶

Media and Operating System Download¶

To create the desktop, we need the Alpine ISO, which can be found on its official website: https://www.alpinelinux.org/downloads/

Go to the Alpine website and look for the standard version and the ISO for the x86_64 architecture. Copy the URL and download the ISO in IsardVDI (Media creation guide).

The version used in this guide is: alpine-standard-3.22.1-x86_64.iso (the latest at the time of writing this documentation: Released Jul 15, 2025)

Create a desktop with these characteristics:

vCPUs: 1
Memory (GB): 0.5 GB
Disk size (GB): 40 GB
Video: Default
Boot: CD/DVD
Networks: Default, WireGuardVPN
Hardware profile: debian12

Once the desktop is created, add the created media.

OS Installation¶

Once the desktop is powered on, boot information and the login screen appear:

Before installation, the keyboard layout will be English.

If you are using a Spanish keyboard layout, you can try pressing the single quote ' to type a dash (-), or use tab to autocomplete, so you can type setup-alpine.

To start the installation, run setup-alpine and follow the steps of the assistant to configure network, timezone, etc.

Keymap: choose the keyboard layout.
Hostname: set the device name.
Interface: a form will appear asking how you want to configure each interface.
- Accept the default configuration by pressing Enter for all questions.
Root Password: set a password for the administrator user.
- In this case, use the usual password: pirineus
Timezone: specify the timezone.
Proxy: here you can add the proxy URL if needed.
- In this case, press Enter to set the default value: none.
APK Mirror: choose which Alpine package server to use. There are several servers in different parts of the world to better distribute the load and offer more speed, filtering by region. The easiest is to press the default option, which compares and finds the best package server for the system: the 'f' option.
User: here, create a user called isard with the usual password pirineus.
Disk & Install: indicate which disk to install the operating system on.
- Choose the one that appears, typing its name ('vda'). Then it asks how you want to use the selected disk.
- To check the disk usage method and installation type, type a question mark (?):
- Choose the traditional installation, which creates two partitions: one for boot information (/boot) and another for the system (/).
- Type the option 'sys', and a confirmation question will appear to erase the disk content and partition, to mount the two partitions.
Reboot by running:
```
reboot
```
Shut down the desktop.
Remove the media and set the Boot parameter to Hard Disk.

Now you can power on the desktop and use Alpine Linux.

Essential Configuration for Use¶

Add the created user to the administrators group.

# Run the following command to operate as administrator; it will ask for the password.
su -

# Step 1: Configure official repositories
echo "https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.22/main" > /etc/apk/repositories
echo "https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.22/community" >> /etc/apk/repositories

# Step 2: Update apk
apk update

# Step 3: Install sudo
apk add sudo

# Step 4: Add user 'isard' to group 'wheel'
addgroup isard wheel

# Step 5: Allow 'wheel' group to use sudo
# Uncomment the line in sudoers if not already
sed -i 's/^# %wheel/%wheel/' /etc/sudoers

# Step 6: Switch back to user isard and check running a command with special permissions.
su - isard
sudo apk update

Prepare the desktop for SSH connection via WireGuardVPN.
- If you want to access the system from your PC, you can follow this guide: How to establish the user VPN tunnel
To make it work, you need to run some commands inside the machine:
- To access via SSH, turn on the eth1 interface and set it to get IP via DHCP:
```
ip link set eth1 up
udhcpc -i eth1
ip route add 10.0.0.0/14 via 10.2.0.1
```
- To allow root login, configure /etc/ssh/sshd_config, modifying the line:
```
PermitRootLogin yes
```

Alpine as a Router¶

For Alpine Router configuration, you can follow this guide: Router based on Alpine Linux