vmdebootstrap.8.in

   1 .\" Copyright 2011 Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi>
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  11 .\" GNU General Public License for more details.
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  15 .\"
  16 .TH VMDEBOOTSTRAP 8
  17 .SH NAME
  18 vmdebootstrap \- install basic Debian system into virtual disk image
  19 .SH SYNOPSIS
  20 .B vmdebootstrap
  21 \-\-image=FILE \-\-size=SIZE [\-\-mirror=URL] [\-\-distribution=NAME]
  22 .PP
  23 .B vmdebootstrap
  24 [\-\-output=FILE] [\-\-verbose |\-\-no-verbose] \-\-image=FILE \-\-size=SIZE
  25 [\-\-tarball=FILE] [\-\-mirror=URL] [\-\-arch=ARCH] [\-\-distribution=NAME]
  26 [\-\-package=PACKAGE] [\-\-custom-package=DEB] [\-\-no-kernel] [\-\-kernel-package]
  27 [\-\-enable-dhcp | \-\-no-enable-dhcp] [\-\-root-password=PASSWORD]
  28 [\-\-customize=SCRIPT] [\-\-hostname=HOSTNAME] [\-\-user=USER/PASSWORD]
  29 [\-\-serial-console | \-\-no-serial-console] [\-\-sudo |\-\-no-sudo] [\-\-owner=OWNER]
  30 [\-\-bootsize=BOOTSIZE] [\-\-boottype=FSTYPE] [\-\-roottype=FSTYPE] [\-\-foreign=PATH]
  31 [\-\-variant=VARIANT] [\-\-no-extlinux] [\-\-squash] [\-\-configure-apt]
  32 [\-\-grub] [\-\-apt-mirror] [\-\-pkglist]
  33 .SH DESCRIPTION
  34 .B vmdebootstrap
  35 installs a basic Debian system into a virtual disk image,
  36 for use with virtual machines,
  37 such as KVM, Qemu, or VirtualBox.
  38 It is like
  39 .BR debootstrap (8),
  40 which does the same thing, but puts the system into a directory,
  41 for use with
  42 .BR chroot (8).
  43 (In fact,
  44 .B vmdebootstrap
  45 is a wrapper around
  46 .BR debootstrap ).
  47 .PP
  48 You need to run
  49 .B vmdebootstrap
  50 as root. If the \-\-verbose option is not used, no output will be
  51 sent to the command line. If the \-\-log option is not used, no
  52 output will be sent to any log files either.
  53 .PP
  54 To use the image,
  55 you probably want to create a virtual machine using your preferred
  56 virtualization technology, such as
  57 .BR kvm (1),
  58 or
  59 .BR qemu (1).
  60 Configure the virtual machine to use the image you've created.
  61 Then start the virtual machine, (see
  62 .B EXAMPLES
  63 )
  64 and log into it via its console to configure it.
  65 The image has an empty root password and will not have networking
  66 configured by default. Set the root password before you configure
  67 networking.
  68 .SH NETWORKING
  69 The \-\-enable\-networking option uses the /etc/network/interfaces.d/
  70 source directory, with the default settings for
  71 .B lo
  72 and
  73 .B eth0
  74 being added to /etc/network/interfaces.d/setup. Other networking
  75 configuration can be specified using a customisation script.
  76 Localhost settings would be:
  77
  78  auto lo
  79  iface lo inet loopback
  80
  81 If \-\-enable\-dhcp is specified, these settings are also included
  82 into /etc/network/interfaces.d/setup:
  83
  84  auto eth0
  85  iface eth0 inet dhcp
  86
  87 .SH BOOTLOADERS
  88 Unless the \-\-no\-extlinux or \-\-grub options are specified, the
  89 image will use
  90 .BR extlinux (1)
  91 as a boot loader.
  92 .B bootsize
  93 is not recommended when using
  94 .B extlinux
  95 \- use grub instead.
  96 Versions of grub2 in wheezy
  97 can fail to install in the VM, at which point vmdebootstrap will fall back to
  98 extlinux. It may still be possible to complete the installation of grub2 after
  99 booting the VM as the problem may be related to the need to use loopback
 100 devices during the grub-install operation. Details of the error will appear in the
 101 vmdebootstrap log file, if enabled with the \-\-log option. Note that
 102 .B grub-legacy
 103 is not supported.
 104 .SH INSTALLATION IMAGES AND VIRTUAL MACHINES
 105 .B vmdebootstrap
 106 is aimed principally at creating virtual machines, not installers or prebuilt
 107 installation images. It is possible to create prebuilt installation images
 108 for some devices but this depends on the specific device. (A 'prebuilt
 109 installation image' is a single image file which can be written to physical
 110 media in a single operation and which allows the device to boot directly
 111 into a fully installed system \- in a similar way to how a virtual machine
 112 would behave.)
 113 .PP
 114 .B vmdebootstrap
 115 assumes that all operations take place on a local image file, not a
 116 physical block device / removable media.
 117 .PP
 118 .B vmdebootstrap
 119 is intended to be used with tools like qemu on the command line to launch
 120 a new virtual machine. Not all devices have virtualisation support in hardware.
 121 .PP
 122 This has implications for
 123 .B u-boot
 124 support in some cases. If the device can support reading the bootloader
 125 from a known partition, like the beaglebone-black, then
 126 .B vmdebootstrap
 127 can provide space for the bootloader and the image will work as a prebuilt
 128 installation image. If the device expects that the bootloader exists at a
 129 specific offset and therefore requires that the bootloader is written as
 130 an image not as a binary which can be copied into an existing partition,
 131 .B vmdebootstrap
 132 is unable to include that bootloader image into the virtual machine image.
 133 .PP
 134 The beagleboneblack.sh script in the examples/ directory provides a worked
 135 example to create a prebuilt installation image. However, the beagleboneblack
 136 itself does not support virtualisation in hardware, so is unable to launch
 137 a virtual machine. Other devices, like the Cubietruck or Wandboard need
 138 .B u-boot
 139 at a predefined offset but can launch a virtual machine using qemu, so
 140 the cubietruck and wandboard6q scripts in the examples/ directory relate
 141 to building images for virtual machines once the device is already
 142 installed and booted into a suitable kernel.
 143 .PP
 144 It is possible to wrap
 145 .B vmdebootstrap
 146 in such a way as to prepare a
 147 .B physical block device
 148 with a bootloader image and then deploy the bootstrap on top. However,
 149 this does require physical media to be inserted and removed each time
 150 the wrapper is executed. To do this, use the \-\-tarball option instead
 151 of the \-\-image option. Then setup the physical media and bootloader
 152 image manually, as required for the device, redefine the partitions to
 153 make space for the rootfs, create a filesystem on the physical media and
 154 unpack the
 155 .B vmdebootstrap
 156 tarball onto that filesystem. Once you have working media, an image can be
 157 created using dd to read back from the media to an image file, allowing
 158 other media to be written with a single image file.
 159 .SH OPTIONS
 160 .IP \-\-output=FILE
 161 write output to FILE, instead of standard output
 162 .IP \-\-verbose
 163 report what is going on
 164 .IP \-\-image=FILE
 165 put created disk image in FILE
 166 .IP \-\-size=SIZE
 167 create a disk image of size SIZE (1000000000)
 168 .IP \-\-tarball=FILE
 169 tar up the disk's contents in FILE
 170 .IP \-\-mirror=URL
 171 use MIRROR as package source (http://http.debian.net/debian/)
 172 .IP \-\-arch=ARCH
 173 architecture to use (amd64) - if using an architecture which the
 174 host system cannot execute, ensure the \-\-foreign option is also
 175 used.
 176 .IP \-\-distribution=NAME
 177 release to use (defaults to stable). The release needs to be a valid
 178 Debian or Ubuntu release name or codename.
 179 .IP \-\-package=PACKAGE
 180 install PACKAGE onto system
 181 .IP \-\-custom-package=DEB
 182 install package in DEB file onto system (not from mirror)
 183 .IP \-\-no-kernel
 184 do not install a linux package
 185 .IP \-\-kernel-package
 186 If \-\-no-kernel is not used and the auto-selection of the
 187 .B linux-image-586
 188 or
 189 .B linux-image-armmp
 190 or
 191 .B linux-image-$ARCH
 192 package is not suitable, the kernel package can be specified
 193 explicitly.
 194 .IP \-\-enable-dhcp
 195 enable DHCP on eth0
 196 .IP \-\-root-password=PASSWORD
 197 set root password
 198 .IP \-\-customize=SCRIPT
 199 run SCRIPT after setting up system. If the script does not exist in the current
 200 working directory, /usr/share/vmdebootstrap/examples/ will be checked as a
 201 fallback. The script needs to be executable and is passed the root directory of
 202 the debootstrap as the only argument. Use chroot if you need to execute binaries
 203 within the debootstrap.
 204 .IP \-\-hostname=HOSTNAME
 205 set name to HOSTNAME (debian)
 206 .IP \-\-user=USER/PASSWORD
 207 create USER with PASSWORD
 208 .IP \-\-owner=OWNER
 209 change the owner of the final image from root to the specified user.
 210 .IP \-\-serial\-console
 211 configure image to use a serial console
 212 .IP \-\-serial-console-command
 213 set the command to manage the serial console which will be appended to
 214 /etc/inittab. Default is "/sbin/getty \-L ttyS0 115200 vt100", resulting in a line
 215 .BR "S0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty \-L ttyS0 115200 vt100"
 216 .IP \-\-sudo
 217 install sudo, and if user is created, add them to sudo group
 218 .IP \-\-bootsize=BOOTSIZE
 219 If specified, create a /boot partition of the given size within the image.
 220 Debootstrapping will fail if this is too small for the selected kernel package.
 221 .IP \-\-boottype=FSTYPE
 222 Filesystem to use for the /boot partition. (default ext2)
 223 .IP \-\-roottype=FSTYPE
 224 Filesystem to use for the / (root) partition. (default ext4)
 225 .IP \-\-swap=SWAPSIZE
 226 If specified, create a swap partition of the given size within the image.
 227 Debootstrapping will fail if this results in a root partition which is
 228 too small for the selected packages. The minimum swap space is 256Mb as
 229 the default memory allocation of QEMU is 128Mb. A default 1Gb image is
 230 not likely to have enough space for a swap partition as well.
 231 .IP \-\-foreign=PATH
 232 Path to the binfmt_handler to enable foreign support in debootstrap.
 233 e.g. /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \- note foreign debootstraps may take a signficant
 234 amount of time to complete and that debootstrap will retry five times if
 235 packages fail to install by default.
 236 .IP \-\-no\-extlinux
 237 Skip installation of extlinux. needs a customize script to make the image
 238 bootable. Useful for architectures where extlinux is not supportable.
 239 Depending on how the image is to be booted, the \-\-mbr option may also be
 240 necessary with extlinux.
 241 .IP \-\-squash
 242 Run mksquashfs against the final image using xz compression \- requires
 243 squashfs-tools to be installed. The final file will have the .squashfs suffix.
 244 By default, mksquashfs is allowed to use all processors which may result
 245 in high load. Run mksquashfs separately if you need to control the number
 246 of processors used per run.
 247 .IP \-\-configure\-apt
 248 Use the specified mirror and distribution to create a suitable apt source inside
 249 the VM. Can be useful if debootstrap fails to create it automatically.
 250 .IP \-\-apt\-mirror
 251 Use the specified mirror inside the image instead of the mirror used to
 252 build the image. This is useful if you have a local mirror to make building
 253 the image quicker but the image needs to run even if that mirror is not
 254 available.
 255 .IP \-\-grub
 256 Disable extlinux installation and configure grub2 instead. grub2 will be added to
 257 the list of packages to install. update-grub will be called once the debootstrap is
 258 complete and grub-install will be called in the image.
 259 .IP \-\-no\-acpid
 260 Disable installation of acpid if not required, otherwise acpid will be
 261 installed if \-\-foreign is not used.
 262 .IP \-\-pkglist
 263 Output a list of package names installed inside the image. Useful if you
 264 need to track the relevant source packages used inside the image for
 265 licence compliance.
 266 .SH Configuration files and settings:
 267 .IP \-\-dump-config
 268 write out the entire current configuration
 269 .IP \-\-no-default-configs
 270 clear list of configuration files to read
 271 .IP \-\-config=FILE
 272 add FILE to config files
 273 .SH Logging:
 274 .IP \-\-log=FILE
 275 write log entries to FILE (default is to not write log files at all);
 276 use "syslog" to log to system log, or "none" to disable logging
 277 .IP \-\-log-level=LEVEL
 278 log at LEVEL, one of debug, info, warning, error, critical, fatal (default: debug)
 279 .IP \-\-log-max=SIZE
 280 rotate logs larger than SIZE, zero for never (default: 0)
 281 .IP \-\-log-keep=N
 282 keep last N logs (10)
 283 .IP \-\-log-mode=MODE
 284 set permissions of new log files to MODE (octal;  default 0600)
 285 .SH Peformance:
 286 .IP \-\-dump-memory-profile=METHOD
 287 make memory profiling dumps using METHOD, which is one of:
 288 none, simple, meliae, or heapy (default: simple)
 289 .IP \-\-memory-dump-interval=SECONDS
 290 make memory profiling dumps at least SECONDS apart
 291 .SH EXAMPLE
 292 To create an image for the stable release of Debian:
 293 .nf
 294 .IP
 295 sudo vmdebootstrap \-\-image test.img \-\-size 1g \\
 296     \-\-log test.log \-\-log-level debug \-\-verbose \\
 297     \-\-mirror http://mirror.lan/debian/
 298 .PP
 299 To run the test image, make sure it is writeable. Use the \-\-owner
 300 option to set mode 0644 for the specified user or use chmod manually:
 301 .IP
 302 sudo chmod a+w ./test.img
 303 .PP
 304 Execute using qemu, e.g. on amd64 using qemu-system-x86_64:
 305 .IP
 306 qemu-system-x86_64 -drive format=raw,file=./test.img
 307 .PP
 308 (This loads the image in a new window.)
 309 .PP
 310 For further examples, including u-boot support for beaglebone-black,
 311 see /usr/share/vmdebootstrap/examples
 312 .SH NOTES
 313 If you get problems with the bootstrap process, run a similar bootstrap
 314 call directly and chroot into the directory to investigate the failure.
 315 The actual debootstrap call is part of the vmdebootstrap logfile. The
 316 debootstrap logfile, if any, will be copied into your current working
 317 directory on error.
 318 .PP
 319 .B debootstrap
 320 will download all the apt archive files into the apt cache and does not
 321 remove them before starting the configuration of the packages. This can
 322 mean that debootstrap can fail due to a lack of space on the device if
 323 the VM size is small. vmdebootstrap cleans up the apt cache once debootstrap
 324 has finished but this doesn't help if the package unpack or configuration
 325 steps use up all of the space in the meantime. Avoid this problem by
 326 specifying a larger size for the image.
 327 .PP
 328 Note that if you are also using a separate /boot partition in your options to
 329 .B vmdebootstrap
 330 it may well be the boot partition which needs to be enlarged rather than
 331 the entire image.
 332 .PP
 333 It is advisable to change the mirror in the example scripts to a mirror
 334 closer to your location, particularly if you need to do repeated builds.
 335 Use the \-\-apt\-mirror option to specify the apt mirror to be used inside
 336 the image, after boot.
 337 .PP
 338 There are two types of examples for ARM devices available with
 339 .B vmdebootstrap:
 340 prebuilt installation images (like the beaglebone-black) and virtual
 341 machine images (cubietruck and wandboard). ARM devices which do not
 342 support hypervisor mode and which also rely on the bootloader being at
 343 a specific offset instead of using a normal partition will
 344 .B not
 345 be supportable by vmdebootstrap. Similarly, devices which support
 346 hypervisor will only be supported using virtual machine images, unless
 347 the bootloader can be executed from a normal partition.
 348 .PP
 349 .SH "SEE ALSO"
 350 .BR debootstrap (8)
 351 ,
 352 .BR qemu-system-x86_64 (1)
 353 ,
 354 .BR grub-install (8)
 355 .
 356 .SH BUGS
 357 Please provide the config section of the logfile when reporting bugs, as well as the complete command line.