Setting up Arch Linux on Linode

I was recently trying out Linode and I ran into some problems setting up my Arch Linux VPS.

I was getting errors like:

downloading required keys...
error: key "284FC34C8E4B1A25" could not be looked up remotely
error: key "7F2D434B9741E8AC" could not be looked up remotely
... snip ...

... and even after trying to import the keys, I got errors like this:

# pacman -Syu
... snip ...
(42/42) checking package integrity
error: attr: signature from "Thomas Bächler <thomas@archlinux.org>" is unknown trust
:: File /var/cache/pacman/pkg/attr-2.4.47-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz is corrupted (invalid or corrupted package (PGP signature)).
Do you want to delete it? [Y/n]
... snip ...

It turns out that you need to initialise the keychain correctly as part of the initial setup procedure. Surely this should be done automatically? Anyway, I haven't used Arch Linux much but it seems like an excellent distribution.

Here is ultimately what I did to setup my new VPS:

Enable the correct mirror for fast downloads (My VPS was in Tokyo):

# vim /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist 

Generate the keychain:

# haveged -w 1024 && pacman-key --init && pkill haveged

Import developer keys:

# pacman-key --populate archlinux && pacman-key --refresh-keys

Update and upgrade local packages:

# pacman -Syu

Finished!