Provided by: mmdebstrap_1.3.7-2_all 
NAME
mmdebstrap - multi-mirror Debian chroot creation
SYNOPSIS
mmdebstrap [OPTION...] [SUITE [TARGET [MIRROR...]]]
DESCRIPTION
mmdebstrap creates a Debian chroot of SUITE into TARGET from one or more MIRRORs. It is
meant as an alternative to the debootstrap tool (see section DEBOOTSTRAP). In contrast to
debootstrap it uses apt to resolve dependencies and is thus able to use more than one
mirror and resolve more complex dependencies. See section OPERATION for an overview of how
mmdebstrap works internally.
If no MIRROR option is provided, <http://deb.debian.org/debian> is used. If SUITE is a
stable release name and no MIRROR is specified, then mirrors for updates and security are
automatically added. If a MIRROR option starts with "deb " or "deb-src " then it is used
as a one-line-style format entry for apt's sources.list inside the chroot. If a MIRROR
option contains a "://" then it is interpreted as a mirror URI and the apt line inside the
chroot is assembled as "deb [arch=A] B C D" where A is the host's native architecture, B
is the MIRROR, C is the given SUITE and D is the components given via --components
(defaults to "main"). If a MIRROR option happens to be an existing file, then its contents
are pasted into the chroot's sources.list. This can be used to supply a deb822 style
sources.list. If MIRROR is "-" then standard input is pasted into the chroot's
sources.list. More than one mirror can be specified and are appended to the chroot's
sources.list in the given order. If you specify a https or tor MIRROR and you want the
chroot to be able to update itself, don't forget to also install the ca-certificates
package, the apt-transport-https package for apt versions less than 1.5 and/or the apt-
transport-tor package using the --include option, as necessary.
The optional TARGET argument can either be the path to a directory, the path to a tarball
filename, the path to a squashfs image, the path to an ext2 image, a FIFO, a character
special device, or "-". Without the --format option, TARGET will be used to choose the
format. See the section FORMATS for more information. If no TARGET was specified or if
TARGET is "-", an uncompressed tarball will be sent to standard output.
The SUITE may be a valid release code name (eg, sid, stretch, jessie) or a symbolic name
(eg, unstable, testing, stable, oldstable). Any suite name that works with apt on the
given mirror will work. If no SUITE was specified, then a single MIRROR "-" is added and
thus the information of the desired suite has to come from standard input as part of a
valid apt sources.list file. The value of the SUITE argument will be used to determine
which apt index to use for finding out the set of "Essential:yes" packages and/or the set
of packages with the right priority for the selected variant. See the section VARIANTS for
more information.
All status output is printed to standard error unless --logfile is used to redirect it to
a file or --quiet or --silent is used to suppress any output on standard error. Help and
version information will be printed to standard error with the --help and --version
options, respectively. Otherwise, an uncompressed tarball might be sent to standard
output if TARGET is "-" or if no TARGET was specified.
OPTIONS
Options are case insensitive. Short options may be bundled. Long options require a double
dash and may be abbreviated to uniqueness. Options can be placed anywhere on the command
line, even before or mixed with the SUITE, TARGET, and MIRROR arguments. A double dash
"--" can be used to stop interpreting command line arguments as options to allow SUITE,
TARGET and MIRROR arguments that start with a single or double dash. Option order only
matters for options that can be passed multiple times as documented below.
-h,--help
Print synopsis and options of this man page and exit.
--man Show the full man page as generated from Perl POD in a pager. This requires the
perldoc program from the perl-doc package. This is the same as running:
pod2man /usr/bin/mmdebstrap | man -l -
--version
Print the mmdebstrap version and exit.
--variant=name
Choose which package set to install. Valid variant names are extract, custom,
essential, apt, required, minbase, buildd, important, debootstrap, -, and
standard. The default variant is debootstrap. See the section VARIANTS for more
information.
--mode=name
Choose how to perform the chroot operation and create a filesystem with ownership
information different from the current user. Valid mode names are auto, sudo,
root, unshare, fakeroot, fakechroot and chrootless. The default mode is auto. See
the section MODES for more information.
--format=name
Choose the output format. Valid format names are auto, directory, tar, squashfs,
ext2 and null. The default format is auto. See the section FORMATS for more
information.
--aptopt=option|file
Pass arbitrary options to apt. Will be permamently added to
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99mmdebstrap inside the chroot. Use hooks for temporary
configuration options. Can be specified multiple times. Each option will be
appended to 99mmdebstrap. A semicolon will be added at the end of the option if
necessary. If the command line argument is an existing file, the content of the
file will be appended to 99mmdebstrap verbatim.
Example: This is necessary for allowing old timestamps from snapshot.debian.org
--aptopt='Acquire::Check-Valid-Until "false"'
--aptopt='Apt::Key::gpgvcommand "/usr/libexec/mmdebstrap/gpgvnoexpkeysig"'
Example: Settings controlling download of package description translations
--aptopt='Acquire::Languages { "environment"; "en"; }'
--aptopt='Acquire::Languages "none"'
Example: Enable installing Recommends (by default mmdebstrap doesn't)
--aptopt='Apt::Install-Recommends "true"'
Example: Configure apt-cacher or apt-cacher-ng as an apt proxy
--aptopt='Acquire::http { Proxy "http://127.0.0.1:3142"; }'
Example: For situations in which the apt sandbox user cannot access the chroot
--aptopt='APT::Sandbox::User "root"'
Example: Minimizing the number of packages installed from experimental
--aptopt='APT::Solver "aspcud"'
--aptopt='APT::Solver::aspcud::Preferences
"-count(solution,APT-Release:=/a=experimental/),-removed,-changed,-new"'
--keyring=file|directory
Change the default keyring to use by apt during the initial setup. This is similar
to setting Dir::Etc::Trusted and Dir::Etc::TrustedParts using --aptopt except that
the latter setting will be permanently stored in the chroot while the keyrings
passed via <--keyring> will only be visible to apt as run by mmdebstrap. Do not
use --keyring if apt inside the chroot needs to know about your keys after the
initial chroot creation by mmdebstrap. This option is mainly intended for users
who use mmdebstrap as a deboostrap drop-in replacement. As such, it is probably
not what you want to use if you use mmdebstrap with more than a single mirror
unless you pass it a directory containing all the keyrings you need.
By default, the local setting of Dir::Etc::Trusted and Dir::Etc::TrustedParts are
used to choose the keyring used by apt as run by mmdebstrap. These two locations
are set to /etc/apt/trusted.gpg and /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d by default. Depending
on whether a file or directory is passed to this option, the former and latter
default can be changed, respectively. Since apt only supports a single keyring
file and directory, respectively, you can not use this option to pass multiple
files and/or directories. Using the "--keyring" argument in the following way is
equal to keeping the default:
--keyring=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyring=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d
If you need to pass multiple keyrings, use the "signed-by" option when specifying
the mirror like this:
mmdebstrap mysuite out.tar "deb [signed-by=/path/to/key.gpg] http://..."
Another reason to use "signed-by" instead of --keyring is if apt inside the chroot
needs to know by what key the repository is signed even after the initial chroot
creation.
The "signed-by" option will automatically be added to the final "sources.list" if
the keyring required for the selected SUITE is not yet trusted by apt.
Automatically adding the "signed-by" option in these cases requires "gpg" to be
installed. If "gpg" and "ubuntu-archive-keyring" are installed, then you can
create a Ubuntu Bionic chroot on Debian like this:
mmdebstrap bionic ubuntu-bionic.tar
The resulting chroot will have a "source.list" with a "signed-by" option pointing
to /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg.
You do not need to use --keyring or "signed-by" if you placed the keys that apt
needs to know about into /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d in the --setup-hook (which is
before "apt update" runs), for example by using the <copy-in> special hook. You
also need to copy your keys into the chroot explicitly if the key you passed via
"signed-by" points to a location that is not otherwise populated during chroot
creation (for example by installing a keyring package).
--dpkgopt=option|file
Pass arbitrary options to dpkg. Will be permanently added to
/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/99mmdebstrap inside the chroot. Use hooks for temporary
configuration options. Can be specified multiple times. Each option will be
appended to 99mmdebstrap. If the command line argument is an existing file, the
content of the file will be appended to 99mmdebstrap verbatim.
Example: Exclude paths to reduce chroot size
--dpkgopt='path-exclude=/usr/share/man/*'
--dpkgopt='path-include=/usr/share/man/man[1-9]/*'
--dpkgopt='path-exclude=/usr/share/locale/*'
--dpkgopt='path-include=/usr/share/locale/locale.alias'
--dpkgopt='path-exclude=/usr/share/doc/*'
--dpkgopt='path-include=/usr/share/doc/*/copyright'
--dpkgopt='path-include=/usr/share/doc/*/changelog.Debian.*'
--include=pkg1[,pkg2,...]
Comma or whitespace separated list of packages which will be installed in addition
to the packages installed by the specified variant. The direct and indirect hard
dependencies will also be installed. The behaviour of this option depends on the
selected variant. The extract and custom variants install no packages by default,
so for these variants, the packages specified by this option will be the only ones
that get either extracted or installed by dpkg, respectively. For all other
variants, apt is used to install the additional packages. Package names are
directly passed to apt and thus, you can use apt features like "pkg/suite",
"pkg=version", "pkg-", use a glob or regex for "pkg", use apt patterns or pass a
path to a .deb package file (see below for notes concerning passing the path to a
.deb package file in unshare mode). See apt(8) for the supported syntax.
The option can be specified multiple times and the packages are concatenated in
the order in which they are given on the command line. If later list items are
repeated, then they get dropped so that the resulting package list is free of
duplicates. So the following are equivalent:
--include="pkg1/stable pkg2=1.0 pkg3-"
--include=pkg1/stable,pkg2=1.0,pkg3-,,,
--incl=pkg1/stable --incl="pkg2=1.0 pkg3-" --incl=pkg2=1.0,pkg3-
Since the list of packages is separated by comma or whitespace, it is not possible
to mix apt patterns or .deb package file paths containing either commas or
whitespace with normal package names. If you do, your patterns and paths will be
split by comma and whitespace as well and become useless. To pass such a pattern
or package file path, put them into their own --include option. If the argument to
--include starts with an apt pattern or with a file path, then it will not be
split:
--include="?or(?priority(required), ?priority(important))"
--include="./path/to/deb with spaces/and,commas/foo.deb"
Specifically, all arguments to --include that start with a "?", "!", "~", "(",
"/", "./" or "../" are not split and treated as single arguments to apt. To add
more packages, use multiple --include options. To disable this detection of
patterns and paths, start the argument to --include with a comma or whitespace.
If you pass the path to a .deb package file using --include, mmdebstrap will
ensure that the path exists. If the path is a relative path, it will internally by
converted to an absolute path. Since apt (outside the chroot) passes paths to dpkg
(on the inside) verbatim, you have to make the .deb package available under the
same path inside the chroot as well or otherwise dpkg inside the chroot will be
unable to access it. This can be achieved using a setup-hook. A hook that
automatically makes the contents of "file://" mirrors as well as .deb packages
given with --include available inside the chroot is provided by mmdebstrap as
--hook-dir=/usr/share/mmdebstrap/hooks/file-mirror-automount. This hook takes care
of copying all relevant file to their correct locations and cleans up those files
at the end. In unshare mode, the .deb package paths have to be accessible by the
unshared user as well. This means that the package itself likely must be made
world-readable and all directory components on the path to it world-executable.
--components=comp1[,comp2,...]
Comma or whitespace separated list of components like main, contrib, non-free and
non-free-firmware which will be used for all URI-only MIRROR arguments. The
option can be specified multiple times and the components are concatenated in the
order in which they are given on the command line. If later list items are
repeated, then they get dropped so that the resulting component list is free of
duplicates. So the following are equivalent:
--components="main contrib non-free non-free-firmware"
--components=main,contrib,non-free,non-free-firmware
--comp=main --comp="contrib non-free" --comp="main,non-free-firmware"
--architectures=native[,foreign1,...]
Comma or whitespace separated list of architectures. The first architecture is the
native architecture inside the chroot. The remaining architectures will be added
to the foreign dpkg architectures. Without this option, the native architecture of
the chroot defaults to the native architecture of the system running mmdebstrap.
The option can be specified multiple times and values are concatenated. If later
list items are repeated, then they get dropped so that the resulting list is free
of duplicates. So the following are equivalent:
--architectures="amd64 armhf mipsel"
--architectures=amd64,armhf,mipsel
--arch=amd64 --arch="armhf mipsel" --arch=armhf,mipsel
--simulate, --dry-run
Run apt-get with --simulate. Only the package cache is initialized but no binary
packages are downloaded or installed. Use this option to quickly check whether a
package selection within a certain suite and variant can in principle be installed
as far as their dependencies go. If the output is a tarball, then no output is
produced. If the output is a directory, then the directory will be left populated
with the skeleton files and directories necessary for apt to run in it. No hooks
are executed in with --simulate or --dry-run.
--setup-hook=command
Execute arbitrary commands right after initial setup (directory creation,
configuration of apt and dpkg, ...) but before any packages are downloaded or
installed. At that point, the chroot directory does not contain any executables
and thus cannot be chroot-ed into. See section HOOKS for more information.
Example: Setup chroot for installing a sub-essential busybox-based chroot with
--variant=custom
--include=dpkg,busybox,libc-bin,base-files,base-passwd,debianutils
--setup-hook='mkdir -p "$1/bin"'
--setup-hook='for p in awk cat chmod chown cp diff echo env grep less ln
mkdir mount rm rmdir sed sh sleep sort touch uname mktemp; do
ln -s busybox "$1/bin/$p"; done'
--setup-hook='echo root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/sh > "$1/etc/passwd"'
--setup-hook='printf "root:x:0:\nmail:x:8:\nutmp:x:43:\n" > "$1/etc/group"'
For a more elegant way for setting up a sub-essential busybox-based chroot, see
the --hook-dir option below.
--extract-hook=command
Execute arbitrary commands after the Essential:yes packages have been extracted
but before installing them. See section HOOKS for more information.
Example: Install busybox symlinks
--extract-hook='chroot "$1" /bin/busybox --install -s'
--essential-hook=command
Execute arbitrary commands after the Essential:yes packages have been installed
but before installing the remaining packages. The hook is not executed for the
extract and custom variants. See section HOOKS for more information.
Example: Enable unattended upgrades
--essential-hook='echo unattended-upgrades
unattended-upgrades/enable_auto_updates boolean true
| chroot "$1" debconf-set-selections'
Example: Select Europe/Berlin as the timezone
--essential-hook='echo tzdata tzdata/Areas select Europe
| chroot "$1" debconf-set-selections'
--essential-hook='echo tzdata tzdata/Zones/Europe select Berlin
| chroot "$1" debconf-set-selections'
--customize-hook=command
Execute arbitrary commands after the chroot is set up and all packages got
installed but before final cleanup actions are carried out. See section HOOKS for
more information.
Example: Preparing a chroot for use with autopkgtest
--customize-hook='chroot "$1" passwd --delete root'
--customize-hook='chroot "$1" useradd --home-dir /home/user
--create-home user'
--customize-hook='chroot "$1" passwd --delete user'
--customize-hook='echo host > "$1/etc/hostname"'
--customize-hook='echo "127.0.0.1 localhost host" > "$1/etc/hosts"'
--customize-hook=/usr/share/autopkgtest/setup-commands/setup-testbed
--hook-directory=directory
Execute scripts in directory with filenames starting with "setup", "extract",
"essential" or "customize", at the respective stages during an mmdebstrap run. The
files must be marked executable. Their extension is ignored. Subdirectories are
not traversed. This option is a short-hand for specifying the remaining four hook
options individually for each file in the directory. If there are more than one
script for a stage, then they are added alphabetically. This is useful in cases,
where a user wants to run the same hooks frequently. For example, given a
directory "./hooks" with two scripts "setup01-foo.sh" and "setup02-bar.sh", this
call:
mmdebstrap --customize=./scriptA --hook-dir=./hooks --setup=./scriptB
is equivalent to this call:
mmdebstrap --customize=./scriptA --setup=./hooks/setup01-foo.sh \
--setup=./hooks/setup02-bar.sh --setup=./scriptB
The option can be specified multiple times and scripts are added to the respective
hooks in the order the options are given on the command line. Thus, if the scripts
in two directories depend upon each other, the scripts must be placed into a
common directory and be named such that they get added in the correct order.
Example 1: Run mmdebstrap with eatmydata
--hook-dir=/usr/share/mmdebstrap/hooks/eatmydata
Example 2: Setup chroot for installing a sub-essential busybox-based chroot
--hook-dir=/usr/share/mmdebstrap/hooks/busybox
Example 3: Automatically mount all directories referenced by "file://" mirrors
into the chroot
--hook-dir=/usr/share/mmdebstrap/hooks/file-mirror-automount
--skip=stage[,stage,...]
mmdebstrap tries hard to implement sensible defaults and will try to stop you
before shooting yourself in the foot. This option is for when you are sure you
know what you are doing and allows one to skip certain actions and safety checks.
See section OPERATION for a list of possible arguments and their context. The
option can be specified multiple times or you can separate multiple values by
comma or whitespace.
-q,--quiet, -s,--silent
Do not write anything to standard error. If used together with --verbose or
--debug, only the last option will take effect.
-v,--verbose
Instead of progress bars, write the dpkg and apt output directly to standard
error. If used together with --quiet or --debug, only the last option will take
effect.
-d,--debug
In addition to the output produced by --verbose, write detailed debugging
information to standard error. Errors will print a backtrace. If used together
with --quiet or --verbose, only the last option will take effect.
--logfile=filename
Instead of writing status information to standard error, write it into the file
given by filename.
MODES
Creating a Debian chroot requires not only permissions for running chroot but also the
ability to create files owned by the superuser. The selected mode decides which way this
is achieved.
auto This mode automatically selects a fitting mode. If the effective user id is the
one of the superuser, then the sudo mode is chosen. Otherwise, the unshare mode is
picked if /etc/subuid and /etc/subgid are set up correctly. Should that not be the
case and if the fakechroot binary exists, the fakechroot mode is chosen.
sudo, root
This mode directly executes chroot and is the same mode of operation as is used by
debootstrap. It is the only mode that can directly create a directory chroot with
the right permissions. If the chroot directory is not accessible by the _apt user,
then apt sandboxing will be automatically disabled. This mode needs to be able to
mount and thus requires "SYS_CAP_ADMIN".
unshare When used as a normal (not root) user, this mode uses Linux user namespaces to
allow unprivileged use of chroot and creation of files that appear to be owned by
the superuser inside the unshared namespace. A tarball created in this mode will
be bit-by-bit identical to a tarball created with the root mode. With this mode,
the only binaries that will run as the root user will be newuidmap(1) and
newgidmap(1) via their setuid bit. Running those successfully requires /etc/subuid
and /etc/subgid to have an entry for your username. This entry was usually created
by adduser(8) already.
The unshared user will not automatically have access to the same files as you do.
This is intentional and an additional security against unintended changes to your
files that could theoretically result from running mmdebstrap and package
maintainer scripts. To copy files in and out of the chroot, either use globally
readable or writable directories or use special hooks like copy-in and copy-out.
Besides the user namespace, the mount, pid (process ids), uts (hostname) and ipc
namespaces will be unshared as well. See the man pages of namespaces(7) and
unshare(2) as well as the manual pages they are linking to.
A directory chroot created with this mode will end up with wrong ownership
information (seen from outside the unshared user namespace). For correct ownership
information, the directory must be accessed from a user namespace with the right
subuid/subgid offset, like so:
$ lxc-usernsexec -- lxc-unshare -s 'MOUNT|PID|UTSNAME|IPC' -- \
> /usr/sbin/chroot ./debian-rootfs /bin/bash
Or without LXC:
$ mmdebstrap --unshare-helper /usr/sbin/chroot ./debian-rootfs /bin/bash
Or, if you don't mind using superuser privileges and have systemd-nspawn available
and you know your subuid/subgid offset (100000 in this example):
$ sudo systemd-nspawn --private-users=100000 \
> --directory=./debian-rootfs /bin/bash
If this mode is used as the root user, the user namespace is not unshared (but the
mount namespace and other still are) and created directories will have correct
ownership information. This is also useful in cases where the root user wants the
benefits of an unshared mount namespace to prevent accidentally messing up the
system.
fakeroot, fakechroot
This mode will exec mmdebstrap again under "fakechroot fakeroot". A directory
chroot created with this mode will end up with wrong permissions. If you need a
directory then run mmdebstrap under "fakechroot fakeroot -s fakeroot.env" and use
"fakeroot.env" later when entering the chroot with "fakechroot fakeroot -i
fakeroot.env chroot ...". This mode will not work if maintainer scripts are unable
to handle "LD_PRELOAD" correctly like the package initramfs-tools until version
0.132. This mode will also not work with a different libc inside the chroot than
on the outside. See the section LIMITATIONS in fakechroot(1).
chrootless
Uses the dpkg option "--force-script-chrootless" to install packages into TARGET
without dpkg and apt inside TARGET but using apt and dpkg from the machine running
mmdebstrap. Maintainer scripts are run without chrooting into TARGET and rely on
their dependencies being installed on the machine running mmdebstrap. Only very
few packages support this mode. Namely, as of 2022, not all essential packages
support it. See https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/Spec/InstallBootstrap or the
dpkg-root-support usertag of debian-dpkg@lists.debian.org in the Debian bug
tracking system. WARNING: if this option is used carelessly with packages that do
not support "DPKG_ROOT", this mode can result in undesired changes to the system
running mmdebstrap because maintainer-scripts will be run without chroot(1).
VARIANTS
All package sets also include the direct and indirect hard dependencies (but not
recommends) of the selected package sets. The variants minbase, buildd and -, resemble the
package sets that debootstrap would install with the same --variant argument. The release
with a name matching the SUITE argument as well as the native architecture will be used to
determine the "Essential:yes" and priority values. To select packages with matching
priority from any suite, specify the empty string for SUITE. The default variant is
debootstrap.
extract Installs nothing by default (not even "Essential:yes" packages). Packages given by
the "--include" option are extracted but will not be installed.
custom Installs nothing by default (not even "Essential:yes" packages). Packages given by
the "--include" option will be installed. If another mode than chrootless was
selected and dpkg was not part of the included package set, then this variant will
fail because it cannot configure the packages.
essential
"Essential:yes" packages.
apt The essential set plus apt. This variant uses the fact that apt treats itself as
essential and thus running "apt-get dist-upgrade" without any packages installed
will install the essential set plus apt. If you just want essential and apt, then
this variant is faster than using the essential variant and adding apt via
"--include" because all packages get installed at once. The downside of this
variant is, that if it should happen that an essential package is not installable,
then it will just get ignored without throwing an error.
required, minbase
The essential set plus all packages with Priority:required and apt. It is roughly
equivalent to running mmdebstrap with
--variant=essential --include="?priority(required)"
buildd The minbase set plus build-essential. It is roughly equivalent to running
mmdebstrap with
--variant=essential --include="?priority(required),build-essential"
important, debootstrap, -
The required set plus all packages with Priority:important. This is the default of
debootstrap. It is roughly equivalent to running mmdebstrap with
--variant=essential --include="~prequired|~pimportant"
standard
The important set plus all packages with Priority:standard. It is roughly
equivalent to running mmdebstrap with
--variant=essential --include="~prequired|~pimportant|~pstandard"
FORMATS
The output format of mmdebstrap is specified using the --format option. Without that
option the default format is auto. The following formats exist:
auto When selecting this format (the default), the actual format will be inferred from
the TARGET positional argument. If TARGET was not specified, then the tar format
will be chosen. If TARGET happens to be /dev/null or if standard output is
/dev/null, then the null format will be chosen. If TARGET is an existing
directory, and does not equal to "-", then the directory format will be chosen. If
TARGET ends with ".tar" or with one of the filename extensions listed in the
section COMPRESSION, or if TARGET equals "-", or if TARGET is a named pipe (fifo)
or if TARGET is a character special file, then the tar format will be chosen. If
TARGET ends with ".squashfs" or ".sqfs", then the squashfs format will be chosen.
If <TARGET> ends with ".ext2" then the ext2 format will be chosen. If none of
these conditions apply, the directory format will be chosen.
directory, dir
A chroot directory will be created in TARGET. If the directory already exists, it
must either be empty or only contain an empty "lost+found" directory. The special
TARGET "-" does not work with this format because a directory cannot be written to
standard output. If you need your directory be named "-", then just explicitly
pass the relative path to it like ./-. If a directory is chosen as output in any
other mode than sudo, then its contents will have wrong ownership information and
special device files will be missing. Refer to the section MODES for more
information.
tar A temporary chroot directory will be created in $TMPDIR or /tmp if $TMPDIR is not
set. A tarball of that directory will be stored in TARGET or sent to standard
output if TARGET was omitted or if TARGET equals "-". If TARGET ends with one of
the filename extensions listed in the section COMPRESSION, then a compressed
tarball will be created. The tarball will be in POSIX 1003.1-2001 (pax) format and
will contain extended attributes. To preserve the extended attributes, you have
to pass --xattrs --xattrs-include='*' to tar when extracting the tarball.
squashfs, sqfs
A temporary chroot directory will be created in $TMPDIR or /tmp if $TMPDIR is not
set. A tarball of that directory will be piped to the "tar2sqfs" utility, which
will create an xz compressed squashfs image with a blocksize of 1048576 bytes in
TARGET. The special TARGET "-" does not work with this format because "tar2sqfs"
can only write to a regular file. If you need your squashfs image be named "-",
then just explicitly pass the relative path to it like ./-. The "tar2sqfs" tool
only supports a limited set of extended attribute prefixes. Therefore, extended
attributes are disabled in the resulting image. If you need them, create a tarball
first and remove the extended attributes from its pax headers. Refer to the
EXAMPLES section for how to achieve this.
ext2 A temporary chroot directory will be created in $TMPDIR or /tmp if $TMPDIR is not
set. A tarball of that directory will be piped to the "genext2fs" utility, which
will create an ext2 image that will be approximately 90% full in TARGET. The
special TARGET "-" does not work with this format because "genext2fs" can only
write to a regular file. If you need your ext2 image be named "-", then just
explicitly pass the relative path to it like ./-. To convert the result to an ext3
image, use "tune2fs -O has_journal TARGET" and to convert it to ext4, use "tune2fs
-O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index,has_journal TARGET". Since "genext2fs" does not
support extended attributes, the resulting image will not contain them.
null A temporary chroot directory will be created in $TMPDIR or /tmp if $TMPDIR is not
set. After the bootstrap is complete, the temporary chroot will be deleted without
being part of the output. This is most useful when the desired artifact is
generated inside the chroot and it is transferred using special hooks such as
sync-out. It is also useful in situations where only the exit code or stdout or
stderr of a process run in a hook is of interest.
HOOKS
This section describes properties of the hook options --setup-hook, --extract-hook,
--essential-hook and --customize-hook which are common to all four of them. Any
information specific to each hook is documented under the specific hook options in the
section OPTIONS.
The options can be specified multiple times and the commands are executed in the order in
which they are given on the command line. There are four different types of hook option
arguments. If the argument passed to the hook option starts with "copy-in", "copy-out",
"tar-in", "tar-out", "upload" or "download" followed by a space, then the hook is
interpreted as a special hook. Otherwise, if command is an existing executable file from
$PATH or if command does not contain any shell metacharacters, then command is directly
exec-ed with the path to the chroot directory passed as the first argument. Otherwise,
command is executed under sh and the chroot directory can be accessed via $1. Most
environment variables set by mmdebstrap (like "DEBIAN_FRONTEND", "LC_ALL" and "PATH") are
preserved. Most notably, "APT_CONFIG" is being unset. If you need the path to
"APT_CONFIG" as written by mmdebstrap it can be found in the "MMDEBSTRAP_APT_CONFIG"
environment variable. All environment variables set by the user are preserved, except for
"TMPDIR" which is cleared. See section TMPDIR. Furthermore, "MMDEBSTRAP_MODE" will store
the mode set by --mode, "MMDEBSTRAP_HOOK" stores which hook is currently run (setup,
extract, essential, customize), "MMDEBSTRAP_ARGV0" stores the name of the binary with
which mmdebstrap was executed and "MMDEBSTRAP_VERBOSITY" stores the numerical verbosity
level (0 for no output, 1 for normal, 2 for verbose and 3 for debug output). The
"MMDEBSTRAP_INCLUDE" variable stores the list of packages, apt patterns or file paths
given by the --include option, separated by a comma and with commas and percent signs in
the option values urlencoded. If SUITE name was supplied, it's stored in
"MMDEBSTRAP_SUITE".
In special hooks, the paths inside the chroot are relative to the root directory of the
chroot. The path on the outside is relative to current directory of the original
mmdebstrap invocation. The path inside the chroot must already exist. Paths outside the
chroot are created as necessary.
In fakechroot mode, "tar", or "sh" and "cat" have to be run inside the chroot or
otherwise, symlinks will be wrongly resolved and/or permissions will be off. This means
that the special hooks might fail in fakechroot mode for the setup hook or for the extract
and custom variants if no "tar" or "sh" and "cat" is available inside the chroot.
copy-out pathinside [pathinside ...] pathoutside
Recursively copies one or more files and directories recursively from pathinside
inside the chroot to pathoutside outside of the chroot.
copy-in pathoutside [pathoutside ...] pathinside
Recursively copies one or more files and directories into the chroot into, placing
them into pathinside inside of the chroot.
sync-out pathinside pathoutside
Recursively copy everything inside pathinside inside the chroot into pathoutside.
In contrast to copy-out, this command synchronizes the content of pathinside with
the content of pathoutside without deleting anything from pathoutside but
overwriting content as necessary. Use this command over copy-out if you don't want
to create a new directory outside the chroot but only update the content of an
existing directory.
sync-in pathoutside pathinside
Recursively copy everything inside pathoutside into pathinside inside the chroot.
In contrast to copy-in, this command synchronizes the content of pathoutside with
the content of pathinside without deleting anything from pathinside but
overwriting content as necessary. Use this command over copy-in if you don't want
to create a new directory inside the chroot but only update the content of an
existing directory.
tar-in outside.tar pathinside
Unpacks a tarball outside.tar from outside the chroot into a certain location
pathinside inside the chroot.
tar-out pathinside outside.tar
Packs the path pathinside from inside the chroot into a tarball, placing it into a
certain location outside.tar outside the chroot.
download fileinside fileoutside
Copy the file given by fileinside from inside the chroot to outside the chroot as
fileoutside. In contrast to copy-out, this command only handles files and not
directories. To copy a directory recursively out of the chroot, use copy-out or
tar-out. Its advantage is, that by being able to specify the full path on the
outside, including the filename, the file on the outside can have a different name
from the file on the inside. In contrast to copy-out and tar-out, this command
follows symlinks.
upload fileoutside fileinside
Copy the file given by fileoutside from outside the chroot to inside the chroot as
fileinside. In contrast to copy-in, this command only handles files and not
directories. To copy a directory recursively into the chroot, use copy-in or tar-
in. Its advantage is, that by being able to specify the full path on the inside,
including the filename, the file on the inside can have a different name from the
file on the outside. In contrast to copy-in and tar-in, permission and ownership
information will not be retained.
OPERATION
This section gives an overview of the different steps to create a chroot. At its core,
what mmdebstrap does can be put into a 14 line shell script:
mkdir -p "$2/etc/apt" "$2/var/cache" "$2/var/lib"
cat << END > "$2/apt.conf"
Apt::Architecture "$(dpkg --print-architecture)";
Apt::Architectures "$(dpkg --print-architecture)";
Dir "$(cd "$2" && pwd)";
Dir::Etc::Trusted "$(eval "$(apt-config shell v Dir::Etc::Trusted/f)"; printf "$v")";
Dir::Etc::TrustedParts "$(eval "$(apt-config shell v Dir::Etc::TrustedParts/d)"; printf "$v")";
END
echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ $1 main" > "$2/etc/apt/sources.list"
APT_CONFIG="$2/apt.conf" apt-get update
APT_CONFIG="$2/apt.conf" apt-get --yes --download-only install '?essential'
for f in "$2"/var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb; do dpkg-deb --extract "$f" "$2"; done
chroot "$2" sh -c "dpkg --install --force-depends /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb"
The additional complexity of mmdebstrap is to support operation without superuser
privileges, bit-by-bit reproducible output, hooks and foreign architecture support.
The remainder of this section explains what mmdebstrap does step-by-step.
check Upon startup, several checks are carried out, like:
• whether required utilities (apt, dpkg, tar) are installed
• which mode to use and whether prerequisites are met
• whether the requested architecture can be executed (requires arch-test) using
qemu binfmt_misc support. This requires arch-test and can be disabled using
--skip=check/qemu
• how the apt sources can be assembled from SUITE, MIRROR and --components
and/or from standard input as deb822 or one-line format and whether the
required GPG keys exist.
• which output format to pick depending on the --format argument or name of
TARGET or its type.
• whether the output directory is empty. This check can be disabled using
--skip=check/empty
• whether adding a "signed-by" to "apt/sources.list" is necessary. This requires
gpg and can be disabled using --skip=check/signed-by
setup The following tasks are carried out unless --skip=setup is used:
• create required directories
• write out the temporary apt config file
• populates /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99mmdebstrap and
/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/99mmdebstrap with config options from --aptopt and
--dpkgopt, respectively
• write out /etc/apt/sources.list
• copy over /etc/resolv.conf and /etc/hostname
• populate /dev if mknod is possible
setup-hook
Run --setup-hook options and all setup* scripts in --hook-dir.
update Runs "apt-get update" using the temporary apt configuration file created in the
setup step. This can be disabled using --skip=update.
download
In the extract and custom variants, "apt-get install" is used to download all the
packages requested via the --include option. The apt variant uses the fact that
libapt treats the "apt" packages as implicitly essential to download only all
"Essential:yes" packages plus apt using "apt-get dist-upgrade". In the remaining
variants, all Packages files downloaded by the update step are inspected to find
the "Essential:yes" package set as well as all packages of the required priority.
If SUITE is a non-empty string, then only packages from the archive with suite or
codename matching SUITE will be considered for selection of "Essential:yes"
packages.
mount Mount relevant device nodes, /proc and /sys into the chroot and unmount them
afterwards. This can be disabled using --skip=chroot/mount or specifically by
--skip=chroot/mount/dev, --skip=chroot/mount/proc and --skip=chroot/mount/sys,
respectively. mmdebstrap will disable running services by temporarily moving
/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d and /sbin/start-stop-daemon if they exist. This can be
disabled with --skip=chroot/policy-rc.d and --skip=chroot/start-stop-daemon,
respectively.
extract Extract the downloaded packages into the rootfs.
prepare In fakechroot mode, environment variables "LD_LIBRARY_PATH" will be set up
correctly. If the chroot requires the qemu-user-static binary it will be copied
in. For foreign fakechroot environments, "LD_LIBRARY_PATH" and "QEMU_LD_PREFIX"
are set up accordingly. This step is not carried out in extract mode and neither
for the chrootless variant.
extract-hook
Run --extract-hook options and all extract* scripts in --hook-dir.
essential
Uses "dpkg --install" to properly install all packages that have been extracted
before. Removes all packages downloaded in the download step, except those which
were present in /var/cache/apt/archives/ before (if any). This can be disabled
using --skip=essential/unlink. This step is not carried out in extract mode.
essential-hook
Run --essential-hook options and all essential* scripts in --hook-dir. This step
is not carried out in extract mode.
install Install the apt package into the chroot, if necessary and then run apt from inside
the chroot to install all remaining packages. This step is not carried out in
extract mode.
customize-hook
Run --customize-hook options and all customize* scripts in --hook-dir. This step
is not carried out in extract mode.
unmount Unmount everything that was mounted during the mount stage and restores
/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d and /sbin/start-stop-daemon if necessary.
cleanup Performs cleanup tasks, unless --skip=cleanup is used:
• Removes the package lists (unless --skip=cleanup/apt/lists) and apt cache
(unless --skip=cleanup/apt/cache). Both removals can be disabled by using
--skip=cleanup/apt.
• Remove all files that were put into the chroot for setup purposes, like
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00mmdebstrap, the temporary apt config and the qemu-user-
static binary. This can be disabled using --skip=cleanup/mmdebstrap.
• Remove files that make the result unreproducible and write the empty string to
/etc/machine-id if it exists. This can be disabled using
--skip=cleanup/reproducible. Note that this will not remove files that make
the result unreproducible on machines with differing /etc/resolv.conf or
/etc/hostname. Use a --customize-hook to make those two files reproducible
across multiple hosts. See section "SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH" for more information.
The following files will be removed:
• /var/log/dpkg.log
• /var/log/apt/history.log
• /var/log/apt/term.log
• /var/log/alternatives.log
• /var/cache/ldconfig/aux-cache
• /var/log/apt/eipp.log.xz
• /var/lib/dbus/machine-id
• Remove everything in /run inside the chroot. This can be disabled using
--skip=cleanup/run.
• Remove everything in /tmp inside the chroot. This can be disabled using
--skip=cleanup/tmp.
For formats other than directory, pack up the temporary chroot directory into a
tarball, ext2 image or squashfs image and delete the temporary chroot directory.
EXAMPLES
Use like debootstrap:
$ sudo mmdebstrap unstable ./unstable-chroot
Without superuser privileges:
$ mmdebstrap unstable unstable-chroot.tar
With no command line arguments at all. The chroot content is entirely defined by a
sources.list file on standard input.
$ mmdebstrap < /etc/apt/sources.list > unstable-chroot.tar
Since the tarball is output on stdout, members of it can be excluded using tar on-the-fly.
For example the /dev directory can be removed from the final tarbal in cases where it is
to be extracted by a non-root user who cannot create device nodes:
$ mmdebstrap unstable | tar --delete ./dev > unstable-chroot.tar
Create a tarball for use with "sbuild --chroot-mode=unshare":
$ mmdebstrap --variant=buildd unstable ~/.cache/sbuild/unstable-amd64.tar
Instead of a tarball, a squashfs image can be created:
$ mmdebstrap unstable unstable-chroot.squashfs
By default, mmdebstrap runs tar2sqfs with "--no-skip --exportable --compressor xz
--block-size 1048576". To choose a different set of options, and to filter out all
extended attributes not supported by tar2sqfs, pipe the output of mmdebstrap into tar2sqfs
manually like so:
$ mmdebstrap unstable \
| mmtarfilter --pax-exclude='*' \
--pax-include='SCHILY.xattr.user.*' \
--pax-include='SCHILY.xattr.trusted.*' \
--pax-include='SCHILY.xattr.security.*' \
| tar2sqfs --quiet --no-skip --force --exportable --compressor xz \
--block-size 1048576 unstable-chroot.squashfs
By default, debootstrapping a stable distribution will add mirrors for security and
updates to the sources.list.
$ mmdebstrap stable stable-chroot.tar
If you don't want this behaviour, you can override it by manually specifying a mirror in
various different ways:
$ mmdebstrap stable stable-chroot.tar http://deb.debian.org/debian
$ mmdebstrap stable stable-chroot.tar "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stable main"
$ mmdebstrap stable stable-chroot.tar /path/to/sources.list
$ mmdebstrap stable stable-chroot.tar - < /path/to/sources.list
Drop locales (but not the symlink to the locale name alias database), translated manual
packages (but not the untranslated ones), and documentation (but not copyright and Debian
changelog).
$ mmdebstrap --variant=essential \
--dpkgopt='path-exclude=/usr/share/man/*' \
--dpkgopt='path-include=/usr/share/man/man[1-9]/*' \
--dpkgopt='path-exclude=/usr/share/locale/*' \
--dpkgopt='path-include=/usr/share/locale/locale.alias' \
--dpkgopt='path-exclude=/usr/share/doc/*' \
--dpkgopt='path-include=/usr/share/doc/*/copyright' \
--dpkgopt='path-include=/usr/share/doc/*/changelog.Debian.*' \
unstable debian-unstable.tar
Create a bootable USB Stick that boots into a full Debian desktop:
$ mmdebstrap --aptopt='Apt::Install-Recommends "true"' --customize-hook \
'chroot "$1" adduser --gecos user --disabled-password user' \
--customize-hook='echo 'user:live' | chroot "$1" chpasswd' \
--customize-hook='echo host > "$1/etc/hostname"' \
--customize-hook='echo "127.0.0.1 localhost host" > "$1/etc/hosts"' \
--include=linux-image-amd64,task-desktop unstable debian-unstable.tar
$ cat << END > extlinux.conf
> default linux
> timeout 0
>
> label linux
> kernel /vmlinuz
> append initrd=/initrd.img root=LABEL=rootfs
END
# You can use $(sudo blockdev --getsize64 /dev/sdXXX) to get the right
# image size for the target medium in bytes
$ guestfish -N debian-unstable.img=disk:8G -- \
part-disk /dev/sda mbr : \
part-set-bootable /dev/sda 1 true : \
mkfs ext4 /dev/sda1 : \
set-label /dev/sda1 rootfs : \
mount /dev/sda1 / : \
tar-in debian-unstable.tar / xattrs:true : \
upload /usr/lib/EXTLINUX/mbr.bin /boot/mbr.bin : \
copy-file-to-device /boot/mbr.bin /dev/sda size:440 : \
extlinux / : copy-in extlinux.conf / : sync : umount / : shutdown
$ qemu-system-x86_64 -m 1G -enable-kvm debian-unstable.img
$ sudo dd if=debian-unstable.img of=/dev/sdXXX status=progress
On architectures without extlinux you can also boot using grub2:
$ mmdebstrap --include=linux-image-amd64,grub2,systemd-sysv unstable fs.tar
$ guestfish -N debian-unstable.img=disk:2G -- \
part-disk /dev/sda mbr : \
part-set-bootable /dev/sda 1 true : \
mkfs ext4 /dev/sda1 : \
set-label /dev/sda1 rootfs : \
mount /dev/sda1 / : \
tar-in fs.tar / xattrs:true : \
command "grub-install /dev/sda" : \
command update-grub : \
sync : umount / : shutdown
$ qemu-system-x86_64 -m 1G -enable-kvm debian-unstable.img
Build libdvdcss2.deb without installing installing anything or changing apt sources on the
current system:
$ mmdebstrap --variant=apt --components=main,contrib --include=libdvd-pkg \
--customize-hook='chroot $1 /usr/lib/libdvd-pkg/b-i_libdvdcss.sh' \
| tar --extract --verbose --strip-components=4 \
--wildcards './usr/src/libdvd-pkg/libdvdcss2_*_*.deb'
$ ls libdvdcss2_*_*.deb
Use as replacement for autopkgtest-build-qemu and vmdb2:
$ mmdebstrap --variant=important --include=linux-image-amd64 \
--customize-hook='chroot "$1" passwd --delete root' \
--customize-hook='chroot "$1" useradd --home-dir /home/user --create-home user' \
--customize-hook='chroot "$1" passwd --delete user' \
--customize-hook='echo host > "$1/etc/hostname"' \
--customize-hook='echo "127.0.0.1 localhost host" > "$1/etc/hosts"' \
--customize-hook=/usr/share/autopkgtest/setup-commands/setup-testbed \
unstable debian-unstable.tar
$ cat << END > extlinux.conf
> default linux
> timeout 0
>
> label linux
> kernel /vmlinuz
> append initrd=/initrd.img root=/dev/vda1 rw console=ttyS0
END
$ guestfish -N debian-unstable.img=disk:8G -- \
part-disk /dev/sda mbr : \
part-set-bootable /dev/sda 1 true : \
mkfs ext4 /dev/sda1 : mount /dev/sda1 / : \
tar-in debian-unstable.tar / xattrs:true : \
upload /usr/lib/EXTLINUX/mbr.bin /boot/mbr.bin : \
copy-file-to-device /boot/mbr.bin /dev/sda size:440 : \
extlinux / : copy-in extlinux.conf / : sync : umount / : shutdown
$ qemu-img convert -O qcow2 debian-unstable.img debian-unstable.qcow2
As a debootstrap wrapper to run it without superuser privileges but using Linux user
namespaces instead. This fixes Debian bug #829134.
$ mmdebstrap --variant=custom --mode=unshare \
--setup-hook='env container=lxc debootstrap unstable "$1"' \
- debian-debootstrap.tar
Build a non-Debian chroot like Ubuntu bionic:
$ mmdebstrap --aptopt='Dir::Etc::Trusted
"/usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-keyring-2012-archive.gpg"' bionic bionic.tar
If, for some reason, you cannot use a caching proxy like apt-cacher or apt-cacher-ng, you
can use the sync-in and sync-out special hooks to synchronize a directory outside the
chroot with /var/cache/apt/archives inside the chroot.
$ mmdebstrap --variant=apt --skip=essential/unlink \
--setup-hook='mkdir -p ./cache "$1"/var/cache/apt/archives/' \
--setup-hook='sync-in ./cache /var/cache/apt/archives/' \
--customize-hook='sync-out /var/cache/apt/archives ./cache' \
unstable /dev/null
Instead of copying potentially large amounts of data with sync-in you can also use a bind-
mount in combination with a "file://" mirror to make packages from the outside available
inside the chroot:
$ mmdebstrap --variant=apt --skip=essential/unlink \
--setup-hook='mkdir "$1/tmp/mirror"' \
--setup-hook='mount -o ro,bind /tmp/mirror "$1/tmp/mirror"' \
--customize-hook='sync-out /var/cache/apt/archives ./cache' \
--customize-hook='umount "$1/tmp/mirror"; rmdir "$1/tmp/mirror";' \
unstable /dev/null file:///tmp/mirror http://deb.debian.org/debian
To automatically mount all directories referenced by "file://" mirrors into the chroot you
can use a hook:
$ mmdebstrap --variant=apt \
--hook-dir=/usr/share/mmdebstrap/hooks/file-mirror-automount \
unstable /dev/null file:///tmp/mirror1 file:///tmp/mirror2
Create a system that can be used with docker:
$ mmdebstrap unstable | sudo docker import - debian
[...]
$ sudo docker run -it --rm debian whoami
root
$ sudo docker rmi debian
Create a system that can be used with podman:
$ mmdebstrap unstable | podman import - debian
[...]
$ podman run --network=none -it --rm debian whoami
root
$ podman rmi debian
As a docker/podman replacement:
$ mmdebstrap unstable | mmtarfilter --path-exclude='/dev/*' > chroot.tar
[...]
$ mmdebstrap --variant=custom --skip=update \
--setup-hook='tar-in chroot.tar /' \
--customize-hook='chroot "$1" whoami' unstable /dev/null
[...]
root
$ rm chroot.tar
You can re-use a chroot tarball created with mmdebstrap for further refinement. Say you
want to create a minimal chroot and a chroot with more packages installed, then instead of
downloading and installing the essential packages twice you can instead build on top of
the already present minimal chroot:
$ mmdebstrap --variant=apt unstable chroot.tar
$ mmdebstrap --variant=custom --setup-hook \
'mmtarfilter "--path-exclude=/dev/*" < chroot.tar | tar -C "$1" -x' \
--customize-hook='chroot "$1" apt-get install --yes pkg1 pkg2' \
'' chroot-full.tar
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
"SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH"
By setting "SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH" the result will be reproducible across multiple
runs with the same options and mirror content. Note that for debootstrap
compatibility, mmdebstrap will copy the host's /etc/resolv.conf and /etc/hostname
into the chroot. This means that the mmdebstrap output will differ if it is run on
machines with differing /etc/resolv.conf and /etc/hostname contents. To make the
result reproducible across different hosts, you need to manually either delete
both files from the output:
$ mmdebstrap --customize-hook='rm "$1"/etc/resolv.conf' \
--customize-hook='rm "$1"/etc/hostname' ...
or fill them with reproducible content:
$ mmdebstrap --customize-hook='echo nameserver X > "$1"/etc/resolv.conf' \
--customize-hook='echo host > "$1"/etc/hostname' ...
"TMPDIR"
When creating a tarball, a temporary directory is populated with the rootfs before
the tarball is packed. The location of that temporary directory will be in /tmp or
the location pointed to by "TMPDIR" if that environment variable is set. Setting
"TMPDIR" to a different directory than /tmp is useful if you have /tmp on a tmpfs
that is too small for your rootfs.
If you set "TMPDIR" in unshare mode, then the unshared user must be able to access
the directory. This means that the directory itself must be world-writable and all
its ancestors must be at least world-executable.
Since "TMPDIR" is only valid outside the chroot, the variable is being unset when
running hook scripts. If you need a valid temporary directory in a hook, consider
using /tmp inside your target directory.
DEBOOTSTRAP
This section lists some differences to debootstrap.
• More than one mirror possible
• Default mirrors for stable releases include updates and security mirror
• Multiple ways to operate as non-root: fakechroot and unshare
• twice as fast
• Can create a chroot with only "Essential:yes" packages and their deps
• Reproducible output by default if $SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH is set
• Can create output on filesystems with nodev set
• apt cache and lists are cleaned at the end
• foreign architecture chroots using qemu-user
Limitations in comparison to debootstrap:
• Only runs on systems with apt installed (Debian and derivatives)
• No SCRIPT argument (use hooks instead)
• Some debootstrap options don't exist, namely:
--second-stage, --exclude, --resolve-deps, --force-check-gpg, --merged-usr and
--no-merged-usr
MERGED-/USR
mmdebstrap will create a merged-/usr chroot or not depending on whether packages setting
up merged-/usr (i.e. the usrmerge package) are installed or not. In Debian, the essential
package init-system-helpers depends on the usrmerge package, starting with Debian 12
(Bookworm).
Before Debian 12 (Bookworm), to force mmdebstrap to create a chroot with merged-/usr using
symlinks, either explicitly install the usrmerge package:
--include=usrmerge
or setup merged-/usr using the debootstrap-method which takes care of the architecture
specific symlinks and installs the usr-is-merged package.
--hook-dir=/usr/share/mmdebstrap/hooks/merged-usr
To force mmdebstrap to create a chroot without merged-/usr even after the Debian 12
(Bookworm) release, you can use the following hook:
--hook-dir=/usr/share/mmdebstrap/hooks/no-merged-usr
This will write "this system will not be supported in the future" into
/etc/unsupported-skip-usrmerge-conversion inside the chroot and install the usr-is-merged
package to avoid the installation of the usrmerge package and its dependencies.
If you are using mmdebstrap in a setup where you do not know upfront whether the chroot
you are creating should be merged-/usr or not and you want to avoid installation of the
usrmerge package and it's dependencies, you can use:
--hook-dir=/usr/share/mmdebstrap/hooks/maybe-merged-usr
That hook will use the availability of the usr-is-merged package to decide whether to call
the merged-usr hook or not.
COMPRESSION
mmdebstrap will choose a suitable compressor for the output tarball depending on the
filename extension. The following mapping from filename extension to compressor applies:
extension compressor
--------------------
.tar none
.gz gzip
.tgz gzip
.taz gzip
.Z compress
.taZ compress
.bz2 bzip2
.tbz bzip2
.tbz2 bzip2
.tz2 bzip2
.lz lzip
.lzma lzma
.tlz lzma
.lzo lzop
.lz4 lz4
.xz xz
.txz xz
.zst zstd
To change compression specific options, either use the respecitve environment variables
like XZ_OPT or send mmdebstrap output to your compressor of choice with a pipe.
WRAPPERS
debvm
debvm helps create and run virtual machines for various Debian releases and architectures.
The tool debvm-create can be used to create a virtual machine image and the tool debvm-run
can be used to run such a machine image. Their purpose primarily is testing software using
qemu as a containment technology. These are relatively thin wrappers around mmdebstrap
and qemu.
bdebstrap
bdebstrap is a YAML config based multi-mirror Debian chroot creation tool. bdebstrap is
an alternative to debootstrap and a wrapper around mmdebstrap to support YAML based
configuration files. It inherits all benefits from mmdebstrap. The support for
configuration allows storing all customization in a YAML file instead of having to use a
very long one-liner call to mmdebstrap. It also layering multiple customizations on top of
each other, e.g. to support flavors of an image.
BUGS
https://gitlab.mister-muffin.de/josch/mmdebstrap/issues
https://bugs.debian.org/src:mmdebstrap
As of version 1.20.9, dpkg does not provide facilities preventing it from reading the dpkg
configuration of the machine running mmdebstrap. Therefore, until this dpkg limitation is
fixed, a default dpkg configuration is recommended on machines running mmdebstrap. If you
are using mmdebstrap as the non-root user, then as a workaround you could run "chmod 600
/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/*" so that the config files are only accessible by the root user. See
Debian bug #808203.
With apt versions before 2.1.16, setting "[trusted=yes]" or
"Acquire::AllowInsecureRepositories "1"" to allow signed archives without a known public
key or unsigned archives will fail because of a gpg warning in the apt output. Since apt
does not communicate its status via any other means than human readable strings, and
because mmdebstrap wants to treat transient network errors as errors, mmdebstrap treats
any warning from "apt-get update" as an error.
SEE ALSO
debootstrap(8), debvm(1), bdebstrap(1)