3 febootstrap - Bootstrap a basic Fedora system (like Debian debootstrap)
7 febootstrap [--options] REPO TARGET [MIRROR]
11 febootstrap fedora-10 /tmp/f10
12 febootstrap rawhide /tmp/rawhide
13 febootstrap rawhide /tmp/rawhide http://mymirror/rawhide/x86_64/os
14 febootstrap --groupinstall="Mail Server" fedora-10 /tmp/mailserver
18 febootstrap creates a Fedora root filesystem, based on the Fedora
19 version specified by I<REPO> under the directory specified by
20 I<TARGET>. Optionally I<MIRROR> can point to a local mirror
21 (otherwise the public Fedora mirrors are used). I<REPO> names are
22 C<fedora-I<VERSION>> (eg. C<fedora-10>) or C<rawhide>.
24 febootstrap does I<not> need to be run as root. If for some reason
25 you do run it as root, then it works slightly differently and may have
26 side effects such as stopping or starting system daemons.
28 For more advanced needs, take a look at L<mock(1)>, C<livecd-creator>
29 and I<thincrust.net>'s C<appliance-creator>.
31 The normal output is a root directory located at I<TARGET> and
32 a fakeroot logfile at C<I<TARGET>/fakeroot.log>.
40 =item B<--install=package>
44 =item B<--groupinstall="group">
46 Specify the package or group to install. To list multiple packages or
47 groups, you must give multiple C<-i> or C<-g> options. Group names
48 can contain spaces, so use quotes where necessary.
50 These are passed directly to C<yum install> or C<yum groupinstall>
51 commands, and thus any dependencies are also resolved by yum. You can
52 also use shell globs and filenames here, as with ordinary yum.
54 If no packages or groups are given, then we install the C<Core> group
55 which is a small working Fedora installation (but by no means
56 minimal). Use C<yum groupinfo Core> to list the packages currently in
61 Normally febootstrap will clean up the yum repository
62 (C</var/cache/yum> inside the image). This contains the downloaded
63 RPMs and metadata. However if you give the C<--no-clean> option, then
64 the yum repository is left. This is useful if you want to run further
65 yum commands inside the filesystem by hand.
67 =item B<-p "proxyurl">
69 =item B<--proxy="proxyurl">
71 URL to the proxy server that yum should use.
75 =item B<--updates=source>
77 Pull in updates from an additional updates repository. The possible
82 =item -u C<http://...> (a URL)
84 Get updates from the specific URL.
86 =item -u C<updates-released-fN> (an updates repository name)
88 Get updates from the public mirrors of the named repository
89 (eg. C<updates-released-f10>). See REPOSITORIES below.
91 =item -u C<none> (default)
93 Don't add an updates repository. This is the default.
101 You can list available repositories by visiting this URL:
103 L<http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=help&arch=i386>
105 (If necessary replace C<i386> with your architecture, but it seems
106 unlikely that this list will change based on architecture).
108 =head1 RUNNING EXTRA COMMANDS IN THE ROOT FILESYSTEM
110 If you want to run further commands inside the root filesystem, for
111 example additional C<yum> installs, then use C<febootstrap-run>. See
112 the L<febootstrap-run(8)> manual page for more details.
114 You have to be careful about modifying files in the root filesystem
115 directly (without using C<febootstrap-run>). It's easy to confuse
116 fakeroot and end up with the wrong permissions on files (see FAKEROOT
119 C<febootstrap-run> runs the command inside the root filesystem, which
120 means it won't normally have access to files outside the root. You
121 can use C<FAKECHROOT_EXCLUDE_PATH> environment variable (see
122 L<fakechroot(1)>) or copy files into the root first.
124 =head2 FAKEROOT LOGFILE
126 When febootstrap is run as non-root (the normal case) we use fakeroot
127 so that yum thinks it is running as root. Fakeroot keeps track of
128 "real" file permissions in a log file which is saved into the target
129 directory as C<I<TARGET>/fakeroot.log>.
131 This logfile is indexed by inode number, which makes certain
132 operations safe and other operations unsafe. For example, deleting
133 files is usually safe. Files should be replaced only by doing:
135 echo updated-content > old-file
137 (since that preserves the original inode).
139 Deleting files and then creating new ones (even with a different name)
140 is usually unsafe, because the new files might reuse inodes claimed by
141 the old files, and so appear with peculiar permissions
142 (eg. unreadable, or as a symbolic link). (XXX We need an
143 C<febootstrap-install> utility to automate installing new files safely
146 In most cases it's usually safest to use C<febootstrap-run>.
148 You can use the fakeroot logfile in a number of ways:
154 Use L<febootstrap-run(8)> to run a command with the faked file
159 Generate an initramfs (compressed cpio) file containing the correct
160 permissions using the tool C<febootstrap-to-initramfs>.
164 Apply the permissions to the target directory using the forthcoming
165 tool C<febootstrap-fix-root> (requires root).
169 =head1 RUNNING FEBOOTSTRAP AS ROOT
171 There is some rudimentary support for running C<febootstrap> as root.
172 However it is not well-tested and generally not recommended.
174 =head1 COMPARISON TO DEBOOTSTRAP
176 febootstrap cannot do cross-architecture installs (C<debootstrap
177 --foreign>). The reason is that C<%pre> and C<%post> scripts cannot
178 run. It may be possible to defer running of scriptlets (which is
179 basically how debootstrap works), and patches to do this are welcomed.
181 febootstrap cannot do 32-on-64 bit installs. The reason is that
182 fakeroot and fakechroot do not load the correct preload library. This
183 is really a bug in fakeroot/fakechroot, which we think would be easy
184 to fix. (debootstrap deals with this case the same as for
185 C<--foreign> installs - see previous point).
187 =head1 OTHER RESTRICTIONS AND BUGS
189 The following programs are not run during C<%post> scriptlets (because
190 they are all statically linked, and fakechroot cannot run statically
195 =item C</sbin/ldconfig> (from many packages)
197 =item C</usr/sbin/glibc_post_upgrade> (from C<glibc>)
199 =item C</usr/sbin/build-locale-archive> (from C<glibc-common>)
201 =item C</usr/sbin/libgcc_post_upgrade> (from C<libgcc>)
205 If you wish, you can run them the first time you boot into the new
208 febootstrap recreates the repository anew each time, and this causes
209 yum to download all the RPMs every time. This is very wasteful, and
210 we should provide a way to cache the repository.
214 L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/febootstrap>
218 L<febootstrap-to-initramfs(8)>,
219 L<febootstrap-minimize(8)>,
220 L<febootstrap-run(8)>,
229 L<http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/LiveCDHowTo>,
230 L<http://thincrust.net/>,
232 C<ubuntu-vm-builder>.
236 Richard W.M. Jones <rjones @ redhat . com>
240 (C) Copyright 2009 Red Hat Inc.,
241 L<http://et.redhat.com/~rjones/febootstrap>.
243 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
244 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
245 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
246 (at your option) any later version.
248 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
249 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
250 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
251 GNU General Public License for more details.
253 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
254 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
255 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.