vmdebootstrap.8

   1 .\" Copyright 2011 Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi>
   2 .\"
   3 .\" This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
   4 .\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
   5 .\" the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
   6 .\" (at your option) any later version.
   7 .\"
   8 .\" This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
   9 .\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  10 .\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  11 .\" GNU General Public License for more details.
  12 .\"
  13 .\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  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 .BR \-\-image =\fIFILE
  22 .RB [ options ]
  23 .SH DESCRIPTION
  24 .B vmdebootstrap
  25 installs a basic Debian system into a virtual disk image,
  26 for use with virtual machines,
  27 such as KVM, Qemu, or VirtualBox.
  28 It is like
  29 .BR debootstrap (8),
  30 which does the same thing, but puts the system into a directory,
  31 for use with
  32 .BR chroot (8).
  33 (In fact,
  34 .B vmdebootstrap
  35 is a wrapper around
  36 .BR debootstrap ).
  37 .PP
  38 You need to run
  39 .B vmdebootstrap
  40 as root.
  41 .PP
  42 To use the image,
  43 you probably want to create a virtual machine using your preferred
  44 virtualization technology, such as
  45 .BR kvm (1),
  46 or
  47 .BR qemu (1).
  48 Configure the virtual machine to use the image you've created.
  49 Then start the virtual machine,
  50 and log into it via its console to configure it.
  51 .PP
  52 The image will be using
  53 .BR extlinux (1)
  54 as a boot loader.
  55 It has an empty root password.
  56 The image will not have networking configured.
  57 Set the root password before you configure networking.
  58 .SH OPTIONS
  59 .TP
  60 .BR \-\-help
  61 Show full list of options (this manual page may be incomplete).
  62 .TP
  63 .BR \-\-verbose
  64 Report what is going on.
  65 .TP
  66 .BR \-\-log =\fIFILE
  67 Write log to
  68 .IR FILE .
  69 .TP
  70 .BR \-\-log\-level =\fILEVEL
  71 Write log messages of the given
  72 .I LEVEL
  73 or higher.
  74 Level is one of
  75 .IR debug ,
  76 .IR info ,
  77 .IR warning ,
  78 .IR error ,
  79 .IR critical ,
  80 .IR fatal ,
  81 and defaults to
  82 .IR info .
  83 .TP
  84 .BR \-\-image =\fIFILE
  85 Put created disk image in
  86 .IR FILE .
  87 .TP
  88 .BR \-\-size =\fISIZE
  89 Create a disk image of the given
  90 .IR SIZE ,
  91 which can be given in bytes,
  92 kilobytes,
  93 gigabytes,
  94 etc,
  95 using the appropriate suffix.
  96 .TP
  97 .BR \-\-mirror =\fIURL
  98 Use the Debian mirror at
  99 .IR URL .
 100 You probably want to specify a local mirror, if you have one.
 101 Defaults to
 102 .IR http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ ,
 103 which should work fairly well for most people without a local mirror.
 104 .TP
 105 .BR \-\-arch =\fIARCH
 106 Use a given architecture.
 107 This only works if the host system can run binaries for the architecture,
 108 e.g., you can build an i386 image on amd64, but not arm.
 109 .TP
 110 .BR \-\-distribution =\fINAME
 111 Use a given release of Debian.
 112 .TP
 113 .BR \-\-package =\fIPACKAGE
 114 Install
 115 .I PACKAGE
 116 on the system.
 117 Can be given multiple times.
 118 .TP
 119 .BR \-\-enable-dhcp
 120 Create an
 121 .I /etc/network/interfaces
 122 file that sets up DHCP on the eth0 interface.
 123 This means the system booted from the image will bring up networking
 124 automatically in typical environments.
 125 .SH EXAMPLE
 126 To create an image for the stable release of Debian:
 127 .nf
 128 .IP
 129 sudo ./vmdebootstrap --image test.img --size 1g \\
 130     --log test.log --log-level debug --verbose \\
 131     --mirror http://mirror.lan/debian/
 132 .SH "SEE ALSO"
 133 .BR debootstrap (8).