Preparations

Aug 21, 2022 2 minutes to read

Create a File System

Although the LUKS partition has been initialized, it does not contain a file system yet. Either a new file system needs to be created, or, if an existing Gentoo installation is being encrypted, the full system backup is restored to recreate the original file system on the LUKS partition.

The exact procedure to create or restore the file system depends on which file system is going to be used and/or the backup’s format (if applicable). The following are just some examples:

Create a single ext4 file system:
```
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/gentoo
```
Create a Btrfs volume:
```
# mkfs.btrfs /dev/mapper/gentoo
```
Create an LVM physical volume:
```
# pvcreate /dev/mapper/gentoo
```

For more information about file system creation, please feel free to consult the relevant section in the Handbook.

Then, unless an LVM physical volume was created, the file system on the LUKS partition can be mounted normally as it was not on a LUKS partition:

# mount /dev/mapper/gentoo /mnt/gentoo

Readers who choose to use LVM on the LUKS partition need to undertake more steps so that one or more logical volumes are created, and then the logical volumes that will store the system files for Gentoo can be mounted under /mnt/gentoo.

Readers who are restoring a full system backup should also mount the restored file system to /mnt/gentoo for subsequent steps.

New Installation Only: Unpack stage3

If a new Gentoo installation is being performed, then please follow the Handbook’s instructions to unpack stage3 to the new file system.

Chroot

Please follow the related steps listed in the Handbook to enter the system on the LUKS partition via chroot.

Please do not continue to the Configure Portage step after the Chrooting step in the manual yet.