DEBOOTSTRAP(8) Debian GNU/Linux manual DEBOOTSTRAP(8)
NAME
debootstrap - Bootstrap a basic Debian system
SYNOPSIS
debootstrap [OPTION...] SUITE TARGET [MIRROR [SCRIPT]]
debootstrap [OPTION...] --second-stage
DESCRIPTION
debootstrap bootstraps a basic Debian system of SUITE (eg, sarge, etch,
lenny, sid) into TARGET from MIRROR by running SCRIPT. 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 not work. ssh://USER@HOST/PATH
URLs are retrieved using scp; use of ssh-agent or similar is strongly
recommended.
Debootstrap 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 chroot environment. This way you can create a full (minimal)
Debian installation which can be used for testing purposes (see the
EXAMPLES section). If you are looking for a chroot system to build
packages please take a look at pbuilder.
OPTIONS
--arch=ARCH
Set the target architecture (use if dpkg isn’t installed). See
also --foreign.
--include=alpha,beta
Comma separated list of packages which will be added to download
and extract lists.
--exclude=alpha,beta
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.
--components=alpha,beta
Use packages from the listed components of the archive.
--no-resolve-deps
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.
--variant=minbase|buildd|fakechroot
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 TARGET; and fakechroot, which installs the pack-
ages without root privileges. The default, with no --variant=X
argument, is to create a base Debian installation in TARGET.
--keyring=KEYRING
Download signatures for retrieved Release files and check them
against KEYRING. By default, Release file signatures are not
checked.
--verbose
Produce more info about downloading.
--print-debs
Print the packages to be installed, and exit. Note that a TAR-
GET 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.
--download-only
Download packages, but don’t perform installation.
--foreign
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.
--second-stage
Complete the bootstrapping process. Other arguments are gener-
ally not needed.
--second-stage-target=DIR
Run second stage in a subdirectory instead of root. (can be used
to create a foreign chroot) (requires --second-stage)
--keep-debootstrap-dir
Don’t delete the /debootstrap directory in the target after com-
pleting the installation.
--unpack-tarball=FILE
Acquire .debs from tarball FILE instead of downloading via http.
--make-tarball=FILE
Instead of bootstrapping, make a tarball (written to FILE) of
the downloaded packages. The resulting tarball may be passed to
a later --unpack-tarball.
--boot-floppies
Used for internal purposes by boot-floppies
--debian-installer
Used for internal purposes by the debian-installer
EXAMPLE
To setup a sarge system:
# debootstrap sarge ./sarge-chroot http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian
# debootstrap sarge ./sarge-chroot file:///PATH_TO_LOCAL_MIRROR/debian
Full process to create a complete Debian installation of sid (unsta-
ble):
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 ]
Note that you will generally need a recent version of debootstrap to do
this; the version currently in stable will generally have stopped work-
ing due to changes to unstable shortly after the last release.
AUTHOR
debootstrap was written by Anthony Towns <ajt@debian.org>. This man-
page was written by Matt Kraai <kraai@debian.org>.
Debian Project 2001-04-27 DEBOOTSTRAP(8)
