Looking for some troubleshooting help, if possible.

Attempting to install Arch using the linux-zen kernel. Planning to encrypt root using dm-crypt.

Early on, after running

parted /dev/vda --script mklabel gpt

parted -a optimal /dev/vda --script mkpart "ptn-boot" fat32 2048s 1024MiB

parted -a optimal /dev/vda --script mkpart "ptn-root" btrfs 1024MiB 100%

on the disk.

i then enter

modprobe dm-crypt

modprobe dm-mod

I’ve done this procedure a lot of times before, but I think I’m missing something, bc when I run modprobe dm-crypt, i get

modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'dm_crypt': Invalid argument

I don’t get an error with modprobe dm-mod.

In /lib/modules/7.1.3-zen1-2-zen/kernel/drivers/md/, i have dm-crypt.ko.zst and dm-mod.ko.zst.

  • egsaqmojz@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
    1·
    5 hours ago

    yeah, i’ve built an iso using archiso (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Archiso, https://github.com/archlinux/archiso). i’m running the 2 modprobe commands while booted into that iso (the live environment).

    i have the following packages installed on the live iso when building that image:

    • arch-install-scripts
    • base
    • base-devel
    • bind
    • btrfs-progs
    • cryptsetup
    • dosfstools
    • dracut
    • edk2-shell
    • efibootmgr
    • git
    • gptfdisk
    • inetutils
    • libfido2
    • linux-firmware
    • linux-zen
    • linux-zen-headers
    • lvm2
    • man
    • memtest86+
    • memtest86±efi
    • net-tools
    • parted
    • thin-provisioning-tools
    • usbutils
    • util-linux
    • vim
    • wge

    my next steps would normally be

    cryptsetup -v luksFormat /dev/vda2

    which asks for a passphrase, creates a key in slot 0, and seems to succeed in encrypting the partition.

    cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/vda2 map-root

    this asks for the passphrase to unlock, but gives the following response:

    device-mapper: reload ioctl on map-root (253:0) failed: Invalid argument

    and then my formatting step

    mkfs.btrfs -f -L "fs-root-btrfs" /dev/mapper/map-root

    clearly doesn’t work.

    “pacman -Q cryptsetup” yields “cryptsetup 2.8.6-1”

    “uname -a” yields

    Linux larch.domain.net 7.1.3-zen1-2-zen #1 ZEN SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu, 09 Jul 2026 20:39:38 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    i initially tried this on my laptop, bc i didn’t expect any trouble. but i’m working with a libvirt virtual machine now until i figure out the issue.