vmdebootstrap.8.in

   1 .\" Copyright 2011 Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi>
   2 .\"
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  11 .\" GNU General Public License for more details.
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  14 .\" along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
  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  auto lo
  78  iface lo inet loopback
  79
  80 If \-\-enable\-dhcp is specified, these settings are also included
  81 into /etc/network/interfaces.d/setup:
  82
  83  auto eth0
  84  iface eth0 inet dhcp
  85
  86 .SH BOOTLOADERS
  87 Unless the \-\-no\-extlinux or \-\-grub options are specified, the
  88 image will use
  89 .BR extlinux (1)
  90 as a boot loader.
  91 .B bootsize
  92 is not recommended when using
  93 .B extlinux
  94 \- use grub instead.
  95 Versions of grub2 in wheezy
  96 can fail to install in the VM, at which point vmdebootstrap will fall back to
  97 extlinux. It may still be possible to complete the installation of grub2 after
  98 booting the VM as the problem may be related to the need to use loopback
  99 devices during the grub-install operation. Details of the error will appear in the
 100 vmdebootstrap log file, if enabled with the \-\-log option. Note that
 101 .B grub-legacy
 102 is not supported.
 103 .SH INSTALLATION IMAGES AND VIRTUAL MACHINES
 104 .B vmdebootstrap
 105 is aimed principally at creating virtual machines, not installers or prebuilt
 106 installation images. It is possible to create prebuilt installation images
 107 for some devices but this depends on the specific device. (A 'prebuilt
 108 installation image' is a single image file which can be written to physical
 109 media in a single operation and which allows the device to boot directly
 110 into a fully installed system \- in a similar way to how a virtual machine
 111 would behave.)
 112 .PP
 113 .B vmdebootstrap
 114 assumes that all operations take place on a local image file, not a
 115 physical block device / removable media.
 116 .PP
 117 .B vmdebootstrap
 118 is intended to be used with tools like qemu on the command line to launch
 119 a new virtual machine. Not all devices have virtualisation support in hardware.
 120 .PP
 121 This has implications for
 122 .B u-boot
 123 support in some cases. If the device can support reading the bootloader
 124 from a known partition, like the beaglebone-black, then
 125 .B vmdebootstrap
 126 can provide space for the bootloader and the image will work as a prebuilt
 127 installation image. If the device expects that the bootloader exists at a
 128 specific offset and therefore requires that the bootloader is written as
 129 an image not as a binary which can be copied into an existing partition,
 130 .B vmdebootstrap
 131 is unable to include that bootloader image into the virtual machine image.
 132 .PP
 133 The beagleboneblack.sh script in the examples/ directory provides a worked
 134 example to create a prebuilt installation image. However, the beagleboneblack
 135 itself does not support virtualisation in hardware, so is unable to launch
 136 a virtual machine. Other devices, like the Cubietruck or Wandboard need
 137 .B u-boot
 138 at a predefined offset but can launch a virtual machine using qemu, so
 139 the cubietruck and wandboard6q scripts in the examples/ directory relate
 140 to building images for virtual machines once the device is already
 141 installed and booted into a suitable kernel.
 142 .PP
 143 It is possible to wrap
 144 .B vmdebootstrap
 145 in such a way as to prepare a
 146 .B physical block device
 147 with a bootloader image and then deploy the bootstrap on top. However,
 148 this does require physical media to be inserted and removed each time
 149 the wrapper is executed. To do this, use the \-\-tarball option instead
 150 of the \-\-image option. Then setup the physical media and bootloader
 151 image manually, as required for the device, redefine the partitions to
 152 make space for the rootfs, create a filesystem on the physical media and
 153 unpack the
 154 .B vmdebootstrap
 155 tarball onto that filesystem. Once you have working media, an image can be
 156 created using dd to read back from the media to an image file, allowing
 157 other media to be written with a single image file.
 158 .SH OPTIONS
 159 .IP \-\-output=FILE
 160 write output to FILE, instead of standard output
 161 .IP \-\-verbose
 162 report what is going on
 163 .IP \-\-image=FILE
 164 put created disk image in FILE
 165 .IP \-\-size=SIZE
 166 create a disk image of size SIZE (1000000000)
 167 .IP \-\-tarball=FILE
 168 tar up the disk's contents in FILE
 169 .IP \-\-mirror=URL
 170 use MIRROR as package source (http://http.debian.net/debian/)
 171 .IP \-\-arch=ARCH
 172 architecture to use (amd64) - if using an architecture which the
 173 host system cannot execute, ensure the \-\-foreign option is also
 174 used.
 175 .IP \-\-distribution=NAME
 176 release to use (defaults to stable). The release needs to be a valid
 177 Debian or Ubuntu release name or codename.
 178 .IP \-\-package=PACKAGE
 179 install PACKAGE onto system
 180 .IP \-\-custom-package=DEB
 181 install package in DEB file onto system (not from mirror)
 182 .IP \-\-no-kernel
 183 do not install a linux package
 184 .IP \-\-kernel-package
 185 If \-\-no-kernel is not used and the auto-selection of the
 186 .B linux-image-586
 187 or
 188 .B linux-image-armmp
 189 or
 190 .B linux-image-$ARCH
 191 package is not suitable, the kernel package can be specified
 192 explicitly.
 193 .IP \-\-enable-dhcp
 194 enable DHCP on eth0
 195 .IP \-\-root-password=PASSWORD
 196 set root password
 197 .IP \-\-customize=SCRIPT
 198 run SCRIPT after setting up system. If the script does not exist in the current
 199 working directory, /usr/share/vmdebootstrap/examples/ will be checked as a
 200 fallback. The script needs to be executable and is passed the root directory of
 201 the debootstrap as the only argument. Use chroot if you need to execute binaries
 202 within the debootstrap.
 203 .IP \-\-hostname=HOSTNAME
 204 set name to HOSTNAME (debian)
 205 .IP \-\-user=USER/PASSWORD
 206 create USER with PASSWORD
 207 .IP \-\-owner=OWNER
 208 change the owner of the final image from root to the specified user.
 209 .IP \-\-serial\-console
 210 configure image to use a serial console
 211 .IP \-\-serial-console-command
 212 set the command to manage the serial console which will be appended to
 213 /etc/inittab. Default is "/sbin/getty \-L ttyS0 115200 vt100", resulting in a line
 214 .BR "S0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty \-L ttyS0 115200 vt100"
 215 .IP \-\-sudo
 216 install sudo, and if user is created, add them to sudo group
 217 .IP \-\-bootsize=BOOTSIZE
 218 If specified, create a /boot partition of the given size within the image.
 219 Debootstrapping will fail if this is too small for the selected kernel package.
 220 .IP \-\-boottype=FSTYPE
 221 Filesystem to use for the /boot partition. (default ext2)
 222 .IP \-\-roottype=FSTYPE
 223 Filesystem to use for the / (root) partition. (default ext4)
 224 .IP \-\-swap=SWAPSIZE
 225 If specified, create a swap partition of the given size within the image.
 226 Debootstrapping will fail if this results in a root partition which is
 227 too small for the selected packages. The minimum swap space is 256Mb as
 228 the default memory allocation of QEMU is 128Mb. A default 1Gb image is
 229 not likely to have enough space for a swap partition as well.
 230 .IP \-\-foreign=PATH
 231 Path to the binfmt_handler to enable foreign support in debootstrap.
 232 e.g. /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static \- note foreign debootstraps may take a signficant
 233 amount of time to complete and that debootstrap will retry five times if
 234 packages fail to install by default.
 235 .IP \-\-no\-extlinux
 236 Skip installation of extlinux. needs a customize script to make the image
 237 bootable. Useful for architectures where extlinux is not supportable.
 238 Depending on how the image is to be booted, the \-\-mbr option may also be
 239 necessary with extlinux.
 240 .IP \-\-squash
 241 Run mksquashfs against the final image using xz compression \- requires
 242 squashfs-tools to be installed. The final file will have the .squashfs suffix.
 243 By default, mksquashfs is allowed to use all processors which may result
 244 in high load. Run mksquashfs separately if you need to control the number
 245 of processors used per run.
 246 .IP \-\-configure\-apt
 247 Use the specified mirror and distribution to create a suitable apt source inside
 248 the VM. Can be useful if debootstrap fails to create it automatically.
 249 .IP \-\-apt\-mirror
 250 Use the specified mirror inside the image instead of the mirror used to
 251 build the image. This is useful if you have a local mirror to make building
 252 the image quicker but the image needs to run even if that mirror is not
 253 available.
 254 .IP \-\-grub
 255 Disable extlinux installation and configure grub2 instead. grub2 will be added to
 256 the list of packages to install. update-grub will be called once the debootstrap is
 257 complete and grub-install will be called in the image.
 258 .IP \-\-no\-acpid
 259 Disable installation of acpid if not required, otherwise acpid will be
 260 installed if \-\-foreign is not used.
 261 .IP \-\-pkglist
 262 Output a list of package names installed inside the image. Useful if you
 263 need to track the relevant source packages used inside the image for
 264 licence compliance.
 265 .SH Configuration files and settings:
 266 .IP \-\-dump-config
 267 write out the entire current configuration
 268 .IP \-\-no-default-configs
 269 clear list of configuration files to read
 270 .IP \-\-config=FILE
 271 add FILE to config files
 272 .SH Logging:
 273 .IP \-\-log=FILE
 274 write log entries to FILE (default is to not write log files at all);
 275 use "syslog" to log to system log, or "none" to disable logging
 276 .IP \-\-log-level=LEVEL
 277 log at LEVEL, one of debug, info, warning, error, critical, fatal (default: debug)
 278 .IP \-\-log-max=SIZE
 279 rotate logs larger than SIZE, zero for never (default: 0)
 280 .IP \-\-log-keep=N
 281 keep last N logs (10)
 282 .IP \-\-log-mode=MODE
 283 set permissions of new log files to MODE (octal;  default 0600)
 284 .SH Peformance:
 285 .IP \-\-dump-memory-profile=METHOD
 286 make memory profiling dumps using METHOD, which is one of:
 287 none, simple, meliae, or heapy (default: simple)
 288 .IP \-\-memory-dump-interval=SECONDS
 289 make memory profiling dumps at least SECONDS apart
 290 .SH EXAMPLE
 291 To create an image for the stable release of Debian:
 292 .nf
 293 .IP
 294 sudo vmdebootstrap \-\-image test.img \-\-size 1g \\
 295     \-\-log test.log \-\-log-level debug \-\-verbose \\
 296     \-\-mirror http://mirror.lan/debian/
 297 .PP
 298 To run the test image, make sure it is writeable. Use the \-\-owner
 299 option to set mode 0644 for the specified user or use chmod manually:
 300 .IP
 301 sudo chmod a+w ./test.img
 302 .PP
 303 Execute using qemu, e.g. on amd64 using qemu-system-x86_64:
 304 .IP
 305 qemu-system-x86_64 -drive format=raw,file=./test.img
 306 .PP
 307 (This loads the image in a new window.)
 308 .PP
 309 For further examples, including u-boot support for beaglebone-black,
 310 see /usr/share/vmdebootstrap/examples
 311 .SH NOTES
 312 If you get problems with the bootstrap process, run a similar bootstrap
 313 call directly and chroot into the directory to investigate the failure.
 314 The actual debootstrap call is part of the vmdebootstrap logfile. The
 315 debootstrap logfile, if any, will be copied into your current working
 316 directory on error.
 317 .PP
 318 .B debootstrap
 319 will download all the apt archive files into the apt cache and does not
 320 remove them before starting the configuration of the packages. This can
 321 mean that debootstrap can fail due to a lack of space on the device if
 322 the VM size is small. vmdebootstrap cleans up the apt cache once debootstrap
 323 has finished but this doesn't help if the package unpack or configuration
 324 steps use up all of the space in the meantime. Avoid this problem by
 325 specifying a larger size for the image.
 326 .PP
 327 Note that if you are also using a separate /boot partition in your options to
 328 .B vmdebootstrap
 329 it may well be the boot partition which needs to be enlarged rather than
 330 the entire image.
 331 .PP
 332 It is advisable to change the mirror in the example scripts to a mirror
 333 closer to your location, particularly if you need to do repeated builds.
 334 Use the \-\-apt\-mirror option to specify the apt mirror to be used inside
 335 the image, after boot.
 336 .PP
 337 There are two types of examples for ARM devices available with
 338 .B vmdebootstrap:
 339 prebuilt installation images (like the beaglebone-black) and virtual
 340 machine images (cubietruck and wandboard). ARM devices which do not
 341 support hypervisor mode and which also rely on the bootloader being at
 342 a specific offset instead of using a normal partition will
 343 .B not
 344 be supportable by vmdebootstrap. Similarly, devices which support
 345 hypervisor will only be supported using virtual machine images, unless
 346 the bootloader can be executed from a normal partition.
 347 .PP
 348 .SH "SEE ALSO"
 349 .BR debootstrap (8)
 350 ,
 351 .BR qemu-system-x86_64 (1)
 352 ,
 353 .BR grub-install (8)
 354 .
 355 .SH BUGS
 356 Please provide the config section of the logfile when reporting bugs, as well as the complete command line.