Provided by: emdebian-grip_3.1.0_all 
NAME
apt-grip - extend Emdebian Grip to add Debian packages on-the-fly
Synopsis
$ sudo apt-grip foo bar baz
$ sudo apt-grip -M http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian/ foo bar baz
$ sudo apt-grip --clean-cache
Description
Emdebian Grip has a limited number of packages in the main repository, principally to reduce the size of
the apt cache data. On occassion, individual packages from standard Debian need to be added to a single
machine running Emdebian Grip. apt-grip has been written with that purpose in mind.
apt-grip requires DEB_VENDOR support in dpkg to determine how the package should be "gripped". The
default Vendor is "emdebian-grip" but note the next section on the limitations of apt-grip if you plan to
use it on an unmodified Debian system.
The usual case is that the system has already been upgraded to Emdebian Grip before apt-grip is used.
Contact the debian-embedded@lists.debian.org mailing list for requests to add packages to Emdebian Grip
repositories directly.
Downloading the Packages files can take a reasonable amount of time, so to grip a number of packages,
either specify all packages in one command or use the "--keep-cache" option for each run and use the
"--clean-cache" option at the end.
If the device running Grip has insufficient space to download and process the package(s), run apt-grip on
a different machine of the using the "--build-only" and "--arch" options.
The processed archives will be in /var/lib/apt-grip/output/ and can be copied from there onto the device
directly or by including the packages into a locally accessible repository. Once installed on the Grip
device use "apt-grip -c" on the build machine to clear the cache. "--keep-cache" is implied when
"--build-only" is set.
Note also that, in common with the rest of Emdebian processing, Install-Recommends is always turned off,
so if you need a package that is only recommended by packages in the list given to "apt-grip", that
package will need to be added to the list explicitly.
Limitations
Installing any package from repositories outside the normal apt sources (especially if those packages are
subsequently modified as in emgrip) will list those packages as "local or obsolete" in package managers.
Converted packages cannot be upgraded without repeating the call to "apt-grip" because "apt-get" does not
know about the temporary mirror that "apt-grip" used to download the packages. This can cause problems if
dependencies of such packages need to be upgraded. It is possible that the main system "apt" will try to
remove these local packages in order to proceed with the main system upgrade.
The best option is to seek addition of such packages to the repository you use for your main apt sources.
(Use the emdebian-grip-server package to create your own repository.)
"Gripping" a package means making a new version (with the em1 version suffix) with less files in the new
package. See emgrip (1) for detailed information on that process. Changing the version string means that
some dependencies need to be changed - particularly strict dependencies. This means that apt-grip could
fail with some combinations of packages.
"apt-grip" uses the "--reinstall" option to apt-get to cope with some of these situations.
Strict dependency issues
If a source package builds multiple binary packages, where at least one package has a strict dependency
on one of the other binary packages and one of those binary packages is already installed from Debian, it
will be necessary to install Grip versions of both the binary packages involved so that the strict
dependency can be satisfied.
Source: foo
Package: foo
Depends: bar (= 0.0.1)
Package: bar
$ sudo apt-grip foo bar
In the example above, foo_0.0.1_amd64.deb will become foo_0.0.1em1_amd64.deb and will be given a strict
dependency on "bar (= 0.0.1em1)" by emgrip.
Default mirror
apt-grip uses "http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/" as the default Debian mirror. Use the -M|--mirrror
option to change it.
SecureApt
Use the "--no-auth" option to allow the use of unauthenticated repositories. Note that this disables
authentication against all available repositories.
Upgrading to Grip
Change your sources list from debian mirrors to the emdebian grip mirror.
e.g. for unstable:
deb http://www.emdebian.org/grip/ unstable main
(Emdebian Grip only supports Debian suites: unstable, sid, testing, squeeze, stable, lenny, lenny-
proposed-updates.)
Then update and upgrade:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get clean
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
(Note that apt-get will usually report the ability to free several hundred megabytes on your system when
some of your Debian packages are upgraded to Emdebian Grip but you still need enough room to actually
download and unpack the new packages.) Use "apt-get clean" after the upgrade to recover more free space.
Grip components
Grip divides the archive further by creating new areas of the archive for packages related to
development, debugging, documentation or java, again to reduce the final size of the cached package data
on the system. If you want to use "apt-grip" on your Emdebian Grip system, ensure that you add the dev
component to your apt sources:
deb http://www.emdebian.org/grip/ unstable main dev
Similarly for doc, debug and java. Other components may be added from time to time, so check the Emdebian
website:
http://www.emdebian.org/grip/search.php
Add more components as required:
deb http://www.emdebian.org/grip/ unstable main dev debug java
Emdebian Baked
apt-grip has been extended to help generate packages for use with Emdebian Baked. This has meant adding
foreign architecture support as well as support for ignoring the status of currently installed packages
on the device running apt-grip.
The difficult part of this process is managing updated packages and changed dependencies. apt-grip can
only help with Debian stable.
emdebian-grip has not been backported to Lenny, so your development machine must be running Debian
Squeeze or Sid (testing or unstable) to develop a Baked root filesystem based on Lenny.
Example apt-grip command for Baked
$ sudo apt-grip -a mipsel -V emdebian-baked -S stable dash snmpd
Baked packages will then exist in /var/lib/apt-grip/output/, including all dependencies of the specified
packages. These can then be included into an existing reprepro repository:
$ reprepro includedeb stable /var/lib/apt-grip/output/*.deb
If your repository is to support more than one architecture, ensure that you remove or ignore the
Architecture: all packages which have already been processed by apt-grip:
$ sudo rm /var/lib/apt-grip/output*_all.deb
Then use the -A option to reprepro to only include the added architecture:
$ reprepro -A armel includedeb stable /var/lib/apt-grip/output/*_armel.deb
For more information, see the emdebian website: http://www.emdebian.org/baked/
perl v5.14.2 2013-05-06 APT-GRIP(1)