mmdebstrap/README.md

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mmdebstrap
==========
An alternative to debootstrap which uses apt internally and is thus able to use
more than one mirror and resolve more complex dependencies.
Usage
-----
Use like debootstrap:
sudo mmdebstrap unstable ./unstable-chroot
Without superuser privileges:
mmdebstrap unstable unstable-chroot.tar
With complex apt options:
cat /etc/apt/sources.list | mmdebstrap > unstable-chroot.tar
The sales pitch in comparison to debootstrap
--------------------------------------------
Summary:
- more than one mirror possible
- security and updates mirror included for Debian stable chroots
- 2-3 times faster
- chroot with apt in 11 seconds
- gzipped tarball with apt is 27M small
- bit-by-bit reproducible output
- unprivileged operation using Linux user namespaces, fakechroot or proot
- can operate on filesystems mounted with nodev
- foreign architecture chroots with qemu-user
The author believes that a chroot of a Debian stable release should include the
latest packages including security fixes by default. This has been a wontfix
with debootstrap since 2009 (See #543819 and #762222). Since mmdebstrap uses
apt internally, support for multiple mirrors comes for free and stable or
oldstable **chroots will include security and updates mirrors**.
A side-effect of using apt is being **2-3 times faster** than debootstrap. The
timings were carried out on a laptop with an Intel Core i5-5200U.
| variant | mmdebstrap | debootstrap |
| ------- | ---------- | ------------ |
| minbase | 25.25 s | 51.47 s |
| buildd | 30.99 s | 59.38 s |
| - | 29.85 s | 127.18 s |
Apt considers itself an `Essential: yes` package. This feature allows one to
create a chroot containing just the `Essential: yes` packages and apt (and
their hard dependencies) in **just 11 seconds**.
If desired, a most minimal chroot with just the `Essential: yes` packages and
their hard dependencies can be created with a gzipped tarball size of just 34M.
By using dpkg's `--path-exclude` option to exclude documentation, even smaller
gzipped tarballs of 21M in size are possible. If apt is included, the result is
a **gzipped tarball of only 27M**.
These small sizes are also achieved because apt caches and other cruft is
stripped from the chroot. This also makes the result **bit-by-bit
reproducible** if the `$SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH` environment variable is set.
The author believes, that it should not be necessary to have superuser
privileges to create a file (the chroot tarball) in one's home directory. If
mmdebstrap is run by an unprivileged user, either Linux user namespaces,
fakechroot or proot are used to create a chroot tarball. Debootstrap supports
fakechroot but will not create a tarball with the right permissions by itself.
Support for Linux user namespaces and proot is missing (see bugs #829134 and
#698347, respectively).
When creating a chroot tarball with debootstrap, the temporary chroot directory
cannot be on a filesystem that has been mounted with nodev. In unprivileged
mode, mknod is never used, which means that /tmp can be used as a temporary
directory location even if if it's mounted with nodev as a security measure.
If the chroot architecture cannot be executed by the current machine, qemu-user
is used to allow one to create a foreign architecture chroot.
Limitations in comparison to debootstrap
----------------------------------------
Debootstrap supports creating a Debian chroot on non-Debian systems but
mmdebstrap requires apt.
There is no `SCRIPT` argument.
There is no `--second-stage` option.
Tests
=====
The script `test.sh` compares the output of mmdebstrap with debootstrap in
several scenarios. Since debootstrap needs superuser privileges, `test.sh`
needs `sudo` to run.
Bugs
====
mmdebstrap has bugs. Report them here:
https://gitlab.mister-muffin.de/josch/mmdebstrap/issues