path: root/debootstrap.8

.TH DEBOOTSTRAP 8 2001-04-27 "Debian Project" "Debian GNU/Linux manual"
.SH NAME
debootstrap \- Bootstrap a basic Debian system
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B debootstrap
.RB [ OPTION\&.\&.\&. ]
.I SUITE TARGET
.RI [ MIRROR
.RI [ SCRIPT ]]

.B debootstrap
.RB [ OPTION\&.\&.\&. ]
\-\-second\-stage
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B debootstrap
bootstraps a basic Debian system of
.I SUITE
(eg, sarge, etch, lenny, sid) into
.I TARGET
from
.I MIRROR
by running
.IR SCRIPT .
.I MIRROR
can be an http:// URL, a file:/// URL, or an ssh:/// URL.
Notice that file:/ URLs are translated to file:/// (correct scheme as
described in RFC1738 for local filenames), and file:// will \fBnot\fR work.
ssh://USER@HOST/PATH URLs are retrieved using
.BR scp ;
use of
.B ssh\-agent
or similar is strongly recommended.
.PP
\fBDebootstrap\fR can be used to install Debian in a system without using an
installation disk but can also be used to run a different Debian flavor in a \fBchroot\fR
environment.
This way you can create a full (minimal) Debian installation which
can be used for testing purposes (see the \fBEXAMPLES\fR section). 
If you are looking for a chroot system to build packages please take a look at 
\fBpbuilder\fR.
.SH "OPTIONS"
.PP
.IP "\fB\-\-arch=ARCH\fP"
Set the target architecture (use if dpkg isn't installed).
See also \-\-foreign.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-include=alpha,beta\fP"
Comma separated list of packages which will be added to download and extract
lists.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-exclude=alpha,beta\fP"
Comma separated list of packages which will be removed from download and
extract lists.
WARNING: you can and probably will exclude essential packages, be
careful using this option.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-components=alpha,beta\fP"
Use packages from the listed components of the archive.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-no\-resolve\-deps\fP"
By default, debootstrap will attempt to automatically resolve any missing
dependencies, warning if any are found.
Note that this is not a complete dependency resolve in the sense of dpkg
or apt, and that it is far better to specify the entire base system than
rely on this option.
With this option set, this behaviour is disabled.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-variant=minbase|buildd|fakechroot\fP"
Name of the bootstrap script variant to use.
Currently, the variants supported are minbase, which only includes
essential packages and apt; buildd, which installs the build-essential
packages into
.IR TARGET ;
and fakechroot, which installs the packages without root privileges.
The default, with no \fB\-\-variant=X\fP argument, is to create a base
Debian installation in
.IR TARGET .
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-keyring=KEYRING\fP"
Download signatures for retrieved Release files and check them against
.IR KEYRING .
By default, Release file signatures are not checked.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-verbose\fP"
Produce more info about downloading.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-print\-debs\fP"
Print the packages to be installed, and exit.
Note that a TARGET directory must be specified so debootstrap can
download Packages files to determine which packages should be installed,
and to resolve dependencies.
The TARGET directory will be deleted unless \-\-keep\-debootstrap\-dir
is specified.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-download\-only\fP"
Download packages, but don't perform installation.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-foreign\fP"
Do the initial unpack phase of bootstrapping only, for example if the
target architecture does not match the host architecture.
A copy of debootstrap sufficient for completing the bootstrap process
will be installed as /debootstrap/debootstrap in the target filesystem.
You can run it with the \fB\-\-second\-stage\fP option to complete the
bootstrapping process.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-second\-stage\fP"
Complete the bootstrapping process.
Other arguments are generally not needed.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-second\-stage\-target=DIR\fP"
Run second stage in a subdirectory instead of root. (can be used to create
a foreign chroot) (requires \-\-second\-stage)
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-keep\-debootstrap\-dir\fP"
Don't delete the /debootstrap directory in the target after completing the
installation.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-unpack\-tarball=FILE\fP"
Acquire .debs from tarball FILE instead of downloading via http.
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-make\-tarball=FILE\fP"
Instead of bootstrapping, make a tarball (written to FILE) of the downloaded
packages.
The resulting tarball may be passed to a later
.BR \-\-unpack\-tarball .
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-boot\-floppies\fP"
Used for internal purposes by boot-floppies
.IP
.IP "\fB\-\-debian\-installer\fP"
Used for internal purposes by the debian-installer
.IP 
.SH "EXAMPLE"
.
.PP 
To setup a \fIsarge\fR system:
.PP 
# debootstrap sarge ./sarge-chroot http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian
.PP
# debootstrap sarge ./sarge-chroot file:///PATH_TO_LOCAL_MIRROR/debian
.PP
Full process to create a complete Debian installation of \fIsid\fR (unstable):
.PP
     main # cd / ; mkdir /sid-root
     main # debootstrap sid /sid-root http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/
     [ ... watch it download the whole system ]
     main # echo "proc /sid-root/proc proc none 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
     main # mount proc /sid-root/proc -t proc
     main # cp /etc/hosts /sid-root/etc/hosts
     main # chroot /sid-root /bin/bash
     chroot # dselect  
     [ you may use aptitude, install mc and vim ... ]
      main # echo "8:23:respawn:/usr/sbin/chroot /sid-root " \\
             "/sbin/getty 38400 tty8"  >> /etc/inittab
     [ define a login tty that will use this system ]
      main # init q    
     [ reload init ]
.PP
Note that you will generally need a recent version of debootstrap to
do this; the version currently in stable will generally have stopped
working due to changes to unstable shortly after the last release.
.SH AUTHOR
.B debootstrap
was written by Anthony Towns <ajt@debian.org>.
This manpage was written by Matt Kraai <kraai@debian.org>.