Rebuild Macbook Air - Potentially the Last Repave

[scottmuc]

Yay for Repaving!

As much as possible is documented inline in this issue template. In case of problems you may find help by viewing all the previous repave issues. Have fun!

Things to do with the existing build

• [x] Create USB stick with latest macOS

  Instructions

  • Format a USB (> 16GB) stick and name it UNTITLED
  • Fetch the latest version of macos from the App Store
  • Run the following

  $ sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/UNTITLED --nointeraction
  Password:
  Erasing disk: 0%... 10%... 20%... 30%... 100%
  Copying to disk: 0%... 10%... 20%... 30%... 40%... 50%... 60%... 70%... 80%... 90%... 100%
  Making disk bootable...
  Install media now available at "/Volumes/Install macOS Big Sur"

• [x] Create credentials for the rebuild

  Instructions

  Run create-repave-secrets with an argument that follows the naming convention of:

  machine.<month name>.air

• [x] Backup anything worth keeping

  Instructions

  Generally, this means look at the following directories for things that I might want to carry over to the fresh install or possibly consider saving to a cloud service:

  • Desktop
  • Documents
  • Downloads

Rebuild steps

• [x] Reboot to load installer

  Instructions

  Hold down the Option key to trigger the boot selection menu.

• [x] Use Disk Utility to wipe existing partition and make a new one (new name, new encryption key)

• [x] Install the OS

Post OS install steps

• [x] Install git, clone this repo, and run coalese_this_machine

  Instructions

  git # this will trigger the XCode installer which brings git along with it
  mkdir ~/workspace
  git clone https://github.com/scottmuc/infrastructure.git ~/workspace/infrastructure
  ~/workspace/infrastructure/homedirs/osx/coalesce_this_machine

• [x] Launch and configure 1 Password

• [x] Initialise 1 Password CLI

• [x] Map capslock to control

• [x] Launch shiftit and follow all the accessiblity setting instructions (looking at alternatives)

note to speed things up, some of the steps above can be done while coalese_this_machine is running.

Done When

• [x] Make a tiny DNS change and run terraform

  Instructions

  # Initialize and log into the 1 Password CLI
  initialize-1password
  eval $(op signin my)
  # Unlock the repo in order to access values in ./secrets dir
  cd ~/workspace/infrastructure
  ./scripts/locksmith unlock
  # Initialize Terraform and apply
  ./scripts/terraform init dns
  ./scripts/terraform_apply

• [x] Make a signed commit mentioning this issue (exercises gpg_op)

  Instructions

  # Initialize and log into the 1 Password CLI
  initialize-1password
  eval $(op signin my)
  gpg_op restore -e "scott@scottmuc.com"

• [x] Be able to push the commit (exercises ssh_op_agent)

• [x] Log into GitHub in Brave (exercises 1 Password browser extension)

• [x] Old keys and credentials are deleted (GitHub and 1Password)

• [x] Make this template slightly better

[scottmuc]

This is likely my last repave. I plan on selling this old laptop that served me well for 8 years!

I already know that none of my 1Password scripting works with v2.0.0 of the 1password-cli so I'll use this repave to update those scripts.

[scottmuc]

To initiliaze 1password CLI:

op account add --address my.1password.com --email <redacted> --<redacted>

[scottmuc]

~/workspace/infrastructure/dns ? dig txt graffiti.scottmuc.com +short
...
"Macbook air repaved, for probably the last time, on Apr 10 2022"
...

[scottmuc]

create-repave-secrets is sort of becoming obsolete. Need to review how to change direction with it. Mainly because my repaves don't require so much security sophistication.

[scottmuc]

This was a painless repave despite needing to updating all my scripts for the new 1Password CLI. Very happy with the changes they made. Didn't take much time (30-45min) to update my scripts and test them.