1DEBOOTSTRAP(8) Debian GNU/Linux manual DEBOOTSTRAP(8)
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6 debootstrap - Bootstrap a basic Debian system
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9 debootstrap [OPTION...] SUITE TARGET [MIRROR [SCRIPT]]
10 debootstrap [OPTION...] --second-stage
12
14 debootstrap bootstraps a basic Debian system of SUITE (eg, sarge, etch,
15 lenny, sid) into TARGET from MIRROR by running SCRIPT. MIRROR can be
16 an http:// URL, a file:/// URL, or an ssh:/// URL. Notice that file:/
17 URLs are translated to file:/// (correct scheme as described in RFC1738
18 for local filenames), and file:// will not work. ssh://USER@HOST/PATH
19 URLs are retrieved using scp; use of ssh-agent or similar is strongly
20 recommended.
21 Debootstrap can be used to install Debian in a system without using an
23 installation disk but can also be used to run a different Debian flavor
24 in a chroot environment. This way you can create a full (minimal)
25 Debian installation which can be used for testing purposes (see the
26 EXAMPLES section). If you are looking for a chroot system to build
27 packages please take a look at pbuilder.
28
30 --arch ARCH
31 Set the target architecture (use if dpkg isn't installed). See
32 also --foreign.
33 --include=alpha,beta
35 Comma separated list of packages which will be added to download
36 and extract lists.
37 --exclude=alpha,beta
39 Comma separated list of packages which will be removed from
40 download and extract lists. WARNING: you can and probably will
41 exclude essential packages, be careful using this option.
42 --components=alpha,beta
44 Use packages from the listed components of the archive.
45 --no-resolve-deps
47 By default, debootstrap will attempt to automatically resolve
48 any missing dependencies, warning if any are found. Note that
49 this is not a complete dependency resolve in the sense of dpkg
50 or apt, and that it is far better to specify the entire base
51 system than rely on this option. With this option set, this be‐
52 haviour is disabled.
53 --variant=buildd|fakechroot
55 Name of the bootstrap script variant to use. Currently, the
56 variant supported are buildd, which installs the build-essential
57 packages into TARGET and fakechroot, which installs the packages
58 without root privileges. The default, with no --variant=X argu‐
59 ment, is to create a base Debian installation in TARGET.
60 --keyring=KEYRING
62 Download signatures for retrieved Release files and check them
63 against KEYRING. By default, Release file signatures are not
64 checked.
65 --verbose
67 Produce more info about downloading.
68 --print-debs
70 Print the packages to be installed, and exit. Note that a TARGET
71 directory must be specified so debootstrap can download Packages
72 files to determine which packages should be installed, and to
73 resolve dependencies. The TARGET directory will be deleted
74 unless --keep-debootstrap-dir is specified.
75 --download-only
77 Download packages, but don't perform installation
78 --foreign
80 Do the initial unpack phase of bootstrapping only, for example
81 if the target architecture does not match the host architecture.
82 A copy of debootstrap sufficient for completing the bootstrap
83 process will be installed as /debootstrap/debootstrap in the
84 target filesystem.
85 --second-stage
87 Complete the bootstrapping process. Other arguments are gener‐
88 ally not needed.
89 --second-stage-target DIR
91 Run second stage in a subdirectory instead of root. (can be used
92 to create a foreign chroot) (requires --second-stage)
93 --keep-debootstrap-dir
95 Don't delete the /debootstrap directory in the target after com‐
96 pleting the installation.
97 --unpack-tarball FILE
99 Acquire .debs from tarball FILE instead of downloading via http
100 --make-tarball FILE
102 Instead of bootstrapping, make a tarball (written to FILE) of
103 the downloaded packages. The resulting tarball may be passed to
104 a later --unpack-tarball.
105 --boot-floppies
107 Used for internal purposes by boot-floppies
108 --debian-installer
110 Used for internal purposes by the debian-installer
111
113 To setup a sarge system:
114 # debootstrap sarge ./sarge-chroot http://ftp.debian.org/debian
116 # debootstrap sarge ./sarge-chroot file:///PATH_TO_LOCAL_MIRROR/debian
118 Full process to create a complete Debian installation of sid (unsta‐
120 ble):
121 main # cd / ; mkdir /sid-root
123 main # debootstrap sid /sid-root http://ftp.debian.org/debian/
124 [ ... watch it download the whole system ]
125 main # echo "proc /sid-root/proc proc none 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
126 main # mount proc /sid-root/proc -t proc
127 main # cp /etc/hosts /sid-root/etc/hosts
128 main # chroot /sid-root /bin/bash
129 chroot # dselect
130 [ you may use aptitude, install mc and vim ... ]
131 main # echo "8:23:respawn:/usr/sbin/chroot /sid-root " \
132 "/sbin/getty 38400 tty8" >> /etc/inittab
133 [ define a login tty that will use this system ]
134 main # init q
135 [ reload init ]
136 Note that you will generally need a recent version of debootstrap to do
138 this; the version currently in stable will generally have stopped work‐
139 ing due to changes to unstable shortly after the last release.
140
142 debootstrap was written by Anthony Towns <ajt@debian.org>. This man‐
143 page was written by Matt Kraai <kraai@debian.org>.
144Debian Project 2001-04-27 DEBOOTSTRAP(8)