| 1 | <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> |
| 2 | <!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN" |
| 3 | "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [ |
| 4 | <!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent"> %aptent; |
| 5 | <!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent"> %aptverbatiment; |
| 6 | <!ENTITY % aptvendor SYSTEM "apt-vendor.ent"> %aptvendor; |
| 7 | ]> |
| 8 | |
| 9 | <book lang="en"> |
| 10 | |
| 11 | <title>Using APT Offline</title> |
| 12 | |
| 13 | <bookinfo> |
| 14 | |
| 15 | <authorgroup> |
| 16 | <author> |
| 17 | <personname>Jason Gunthorpe</personname><email>jgg@debian.org</email> |
| 18 | </author> |
| 19 | </authorgroup> |
| 20 | |
| 21 | <releaseinfo>Version &apt-product-version;</releaseinfo> |
| 22 | |
| 23 | <abstract> |
| 24 | <para> |
| 25 | This document describes how to use APT in a non-networked environment, |
| 26 | specifically a 'sneaker-net' approach for performing upgrades. |
| 27 | </para> |
| 28 | </abstract> |
| 29 | |
| 30 | <copyright><year>1999</year><holder>Jason Gunthorpe</holder></copyright> |
| 31 | |
| 32 | <legalnotice> |
| 33 | <title>License Notice</title> |
| 34 | <para> |
| 35 | "APT" and this document are free software; you can redistribute them and/or |
| 36 | modify them under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by |
| 37 | the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your |
| 38 | option) any later version. |
| 39 | </para> |
| 40 | <para> |
| 41 | For more details, on Debian systems, see the file |
| 42 | /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL for the full license. |
| 43 | </para> |
| 44 | </legalnotice> |
| 45 | |
| 46 | </bookinfo> |
| 47 | |
| 48 | <chapter id="ch1"><title>Introduction</title> |
| 49 | |
| 50 | <section id="s1.1"><title>Overview</title> |
| 51 | <para> |
| 52 | Normally APT requires direct access to a Debian archive, either from a local |
| 53 | media or through a network. Another common complaint is that a Debian machine |
| 54 | is on a slow link, such as a modem and another machine has a very fast |
| 55 | connection but they are physically distant. |
| 56 | </para> |
| 57 | <para> |
| 58 | The solution to this is to use large removable media such as a Zip disc or a |
| 59 | SuperDisk disc. These discs are not large enough to store the entire Debian |
| 60 | archive but can easily fit a subset large enough for most users. The idea is |
| 61 | to use APT to generate a list of packages that are required and then fetch them |
| 62 | onto the disc using another machine with good connectivity. It is even |
| 63 | possible to use another Debian machine with APT or to use a completely |
| 64 | different OS and a download tool like wget. Let <emphasis>remote |
| 65 | host</emphasis> mean the machine downloading the packages, and <emphasis>target |
| 66 | host</emphasis> the one with bad or no connection. |
| 67 | </para> |
| 68 | <para> |
| 69 | This is achieved by creatively manipulating the APT configuration file. The |
| 70 | essential premise to tell APT to look on a disc for it's archive files. Note |
| 71 | that the disc should be formatted with a filesystem that can handle long file |
| 72 | names such as ext2, fat32 or vfat. |
| 73 | </para> |
| 74 | </section> |
| 75 | |
| 76 | </chapter> |
| 77 | |
| 78 | <chapter id="ch2"><title>Using APT on both machines</title> |
| 79 | |
| 80 | <section id="s2.1"><title>Overview</title> |
| 81 | <para> |
| 82 | APT being available on both machines gives the simplest configuration. The |
| 83 | basic idea is to place a copy of the status file on the disc and use the remote |
| 84 | machine to fetch the latest package files and decide which packages to |
| 85 | download. The disk directory structure should look like: |
| 86 | </para> |
| 87 | <screen> |
| 88 | /disc/ |
| 89 | archives/ |
| 90 | partial/ |
| 91 | lists/ |
| 92 | partial/ |
| 93 | status |
| 94 | sources.list |
| 95 | apt.conf |
| 96 | </screen> |
| 97 | </section> |
| 98 | |
| 99 | <section id="s2.2"><title>The configuration file</title> |
| 100 | <para> |
| 101 | The configuration file should tell APT to store its files on the disc and to |
| 102 | use the configuration files on the disc as well. The sources.list should |
| 103 | contain the proper sites that you wish to use from the remote machine, and the |
| 104 | status file should be a copy of <emphasis>/var/lib/dpkg/status</emphasis> from |
| 105 | the <emphasis>target host</emphasis>. Please note, if you are using a local |
| 106 | archive you must use copy URIs, the syntax is identical to file URIs. |
| 107 | </para> |
| 108 | <para> |
| 109 | <emphasis>apt.conf</emphasis> must contain the necessary information to make |
| 110 | APT use the disc: |
| 111 | </para> |
| 112 | <screen> |
| 113 | APT |
| 114 | { |
| 115 | /* This is not necessary if the two machines are the same arch, it tells |
| 116 | the remote APT what architecture the target machine is */ |
| 117 | Architecture "i386"; |
| 118 | |
| 119 | Get::Download-Only "true"; |
| 120 | }; |
| 121 | |
| 122 | Dir |
| 123 | { |
| 124 | /* Use the disc for state information and redirect the status file from |
| 125 | the /var/lib/dpkg default */ |
| 126 | State "/disc/"; |
| 127 | State::status "status"; |
| 128 | |
| 129 | // Binary caches will be stored locally |
| 130 | Cache::archives "/disc/archives/"; |
| 131 | Cache "/tmp/"; |
| 132 | |
| 133 | // Location of the source list. |
| 134 | Etc "/disc/"; |
| 135 | }; |
| 136 | </screen> |
| 137 | <para> |
| 138 | More details can be seen by examining the apt.conf man page and the sample |
| 139 | configuration file in |
| 140 | <emphasis>/usr/share/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf</emphasis>. |
| 141 | </para> |
| 142 | <para> |
| 143 | On the target machine the first thing to do is mount the disc and copy |
| 144 | <emphasis>/var/lib/dpkg/status</emphasis> to it. You will also need |
| 145 | to create the directories outlined in the Overview, |
| 146 | <emphasis>archives/partial/</emphasis> and |
| 147 | <emphasis>lists/partial/</emphasis>. Then take the disc to the |
| 148 | remote machine and configure the sources.list. On the remote |
| 149 | machine execute the following: |
| 150 | </para> |
| 151 | <screen> |
| 152 | # export APT_CONFIG="/disc/apt.conf" |
| 153 | # apt-get update |
| 154 | [ APT fetches the package files ] |
| 155 | # apt-get dist-upgrade |
| 156 | [ APT fetches all the packages needed to upgrade the target machine ] |
| 157 | </screen> |
| 158 | <para> |
| 159 | The dist-upgrade command can be replaced with any other standard APT commands, |
| 160 | particularly dselect-upgrade. You can even use an APT front end such as |
| 161 | <emphasis>dselect</emphasis>. However this presents a problem in communicating |
| 162 | your selections back to the local computer. |
| 163 | </para> |
| 164 | <para> |
| 165 | Now the disc contains all of the index files and archives needed to upgrade the |
| 166 | target machine. Take the disc back and run: |
| 167 | </para> |
| 168 | <screen> |
| 169 | # export APT_CONFIG="/disc/apt.conf" |
| 170 | # apt-get check |
| 171 | [ APT generates a local copy of the cache files ] |
| 172 | # apt-get --no-d -o dir::state::status=/var/lib/dpkg/status dist-upgrade |
| 173 | [ Or any other APT command ] |
| 174 | </screen> |
| 175 | <para> |
| 176 | It is necessary for proper function to re-specify the status file to be the |
| 177 | local one. This is very important! |
| 178 | </para> |
| 179 | <para> |
| 180 | If you are using dselect you can do the very risky operation of copying |
| 181 | disc/status to /var/lib/dpkg/status so that any selections you made on the |
| 182 | remote machine are updated. I highly recommend that people only make |
| 183 | selections on the local machine - but this may not always be possible. DO NOT |
| 184 | copy the status file if dpkg or APT have been run in the mean time!! |
| 185 | </para> |
| 186 | </section> |
| 187 | |
| 188 | </chapter> |
| 189 | |
| 190 | <chapter id="ch3"><title>Using APT and wget</title> |
| 191 | |
| 192 | <section id="s3.1"><title>Overview</title> |
| 193 | <para> |
| 194 | <emphasis>wget</emphasis> is a popular and portable download tool that can run |
| 195 | on nearly any machine. Unlike the method above this requires that the Debian |
| 196 | machine already has a list of available packages. |
| 197 | </para> |
| 198 | <para> |
| 199 | The basic idea is to create a disc that has only the archive files downloaded |
| 200 | from the remote site. This is done by using the --print-uris option to apt-get |
| 201 | and then preparing a wget script to actually fetch the packages. |
| 202 | </para> |
| 203 | </section> |
| 204 | |
| 205 | <section id="s3.2"><title>Operation</title> |
| 206 | <para> |
| 207 | Unlike the previous technique no special configuration files are required. We |
| 208 | merely use the standard APT commands to generate the file list. |
| 209 | </para> |
| 210 | <screen> |
| 211 | # apt-get dist-upgrade |
| 212 | [ Press no when prompted, make sure you are happy with the actions ] |
| 213 | # apt-get -qq --print-uris dist-upgrade > uris |
| 214 | # awk '{print "wget -O " $2 " " $1}' < uris > /disc/wget-script |
| 215 | </screen> |
| 216 | <para> |
| 217 | Any command other than dist-upgrade could be used here, including |
| 218 | dselect-upgrade. |
| 219 | </para> |
| 220 | <para> |
| 221 | The /disc/wget-script file will now contain a list of wget commands to execute |
| 222 | in order to fetch the necessary archives. This script should be run with the |
| 223 | current directory as the disc's mount point so as to save the output on the |
| 224 | disc. |
| 225 | </para> |
| 226 | <para> |
| 227 | The remote machine would do something like |
| 228 | </para> |
| 229 | <screen> |
| 230 | # cd /disc |
| 231 | # sh -x ./wget-script |
| 232 | [ wait.. ] |
| 233 | </screen> |
| 234 | <para> |
| 235 | Once the archives are downloaded and the disc returned to the Debian machine |
| 236 | installation can proceed using, |
| 237 | </para> |
| 238 | <screen> |
| 239 | # apt-get -o dir::cache::archives="/disc/" dist-upgrade |
| 240 | </screen> |
| 241 | <para> |
| 242 | Which will use the already fetched archives on the disc. |
| 243 | </para> |
| 244 | </section> |
| 245 | |
| 246 | </chapter> |
| 247 | |
| 248 | </book> |