debian-cd-clone/README

YACS - Yet Another CD Script :-)
================================
(better known as debian-cd)

Copyright 1999 Rapha<68>l Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
This set of tools is licensed under the General Public License
version 2 or any later version. You can find it in 
/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL on a Debian GNU system.

Thanks to Steve McIntyre <stevem@chiark.greenend.org.uk> for his
work on slink_cd/debian_cd. Some ideas come from his script.

Thanks to all the contributors on the debian-cd mailing list.

What is needed ?
================
Software :
- the apt-get (>= 0.3.11.1) tool
- perl (>= 5.004)
- bash (or another POSIX shell)
- make
- mkisofs/mkhybrid
- dpkg-multicd package (for dpkg-scanpackages with -m option)
- the perl MD5 module
- dpkg-dev (>= 1.4.1.6) (for dpkg-scansources)
Other :
- lots of free space on your disks
- a Debian mirror (on a partition where you can write, if you can't write
  on it then you may try to use a symlink farm but it's not the
  recommended way to build Debian CDs)

		-------------------------------
		- GENERATING DEBIAN CD IMAGES -
		-------------------------------
		
For people that do not have time, here's the quick explanation :
================================================================

Edit the CONF.sh and change the PATHs for the mirror and so on.
$ vim CONF.sh
$ . CONF.sh
$ make status
$ make list COMPLETE=1 SIZELIMIT1=576716800
$ make official_images
[ or if you want only binary images :
  $ make bin-official_images ]

But you really should consider reading further for more information.

How to build a CD set - step by step
====================================

If not yet done, cd to the /usr/share/debian-cd/ directory.

The process of building a CD is decomposed as follow :

- first configure what is needed in CONF.sh and source it
  in your shell
  $ . CONF.sh
  The exported environment variables will be used by all the
  tools involved here (Makefiles, perl scripts, shell scripts).

  If you want to build CD images for more than one arch, you will
  have to build them one after the other (you may use a shell
  script for this).

- now we'll check if your mirror is ok (with good Packages files) :
  $ make mirrorcheck

- then you will have to launch this for initializing the
  temporary directory used for the build :
  $ make status
  If this has failed then this will be automatically launched :
  $ make correctstatus
  However note that make status should never fail if it is
  used for building a CD set for the stable release ...

- now you can decide what you want on your CDs
  $ make list TASK=tasks/debian-2.2 COMPLETE=1
  or
  $ make list TASK=tasks/gnome COMPLETE=0 SIZELIMIT=576716800
  or
  $ export NONFREE=1; make list TASK=tasks/kde COMPLETE=1
  or for something like an official image for the USA (without non-US &
  non-free) :
  $ make COMPLETE=1 SIZELIMIT1=576716800
  .... take a look at the file tasks/* to see the options you can have :)
  
  You can change the behaviour of this command with the following
  variables :
  - if NONUS is set, then packages from non-US will be allowed (remember
    that the value of NONUS must be the path to the non-US mirror
    if you have one)
  - if NONFREE is set, then packages from non-free will be allowed
    (NONFREE must be exported to all sub-shells)
  - if COMPLETE is set, all packages that are not listed in the
    selected task file will be included at the end
  - if SIZELIMIT is set, it will be used as the maximum size that
    we can put into each CD
  - if SIZELIMIT<X> (with <X> beeing a integer) is set, it will be used 
    as the maximum size of the X'th binary CD. SIZELIMIT<X> overrides
    SIZELIMIT ...
  - if SRCSIZELIMIT is set, it's used as the maximum size for source CD
  - if SRCSIZELIMIT<X> (with <X> beeing an integer) is set, it will be
    used as the maximum size of the X'th source CD

  This target calls the targets "bin-list" and "src-list" that can be used to
  build only binary CDs or only source CDs.

- it may be time to add the disks-arch stuff and to make the CDs bootable
  $ make bootable
  This does affect only the binary CDs.

  If you want to use boot-floppies built by yourself you can give
  a parameter BOOTDISKS=<dir> giving the directory where
  they are (note that $BOOTDISKS/current must be a symlink to the
  real directory, it must follow the same setup than in the FTP
  mirror). Your boot-floppies must also be on the same partiton than
  your mirror & temporary dir (hardlinks are used here too).

- now, we'll add the binary packages to the temporary tree :
  $ make packages

- and we'll add the sources to the temporary tree :
  $ make sources

- if you want to install additional files :
  make bin-extras CD=1 ROOTSRC=/home/ftp/ DIR=goodies/wordperfect
  make src-extras CD=3 ROOTSRC=/home/ftp/ DIR=goodies/kernel-2.3

  The first will copy /home/ftp/goodies/wordperfect/ on the first binary
  CD. It will be in <root of the cd>/goodies/wordperfect ... you can call
  make extras multiple times if you need more. Please note that
  the files to be copied should be on the same partition than
  your mirror (unless you use a symlink farm).

  If you want to do customize your CD even more, you can use the hook
  system. Read below about them.

- We can add an md5sum.txt file on each CD to enable users to check their
  files :
  $ make md5list
  This does call the targets 'bin-md5list' and 'src-md5list'. You can
  choose to call only bin-md5list if you're building only binary images.

- now we can create the images
  $ make images
  If you don't have enough space for all images, you can generate 
  only one image (of the second binary CD for example) with :
  $ make bin-image CD=2
  Of course if you want to build all binary images you'll use :
  $ make bin-images
  And "make src-images" will generate the sources images.

- if you want to generate a MD5SUMS file with the md5sums of the
  images you can do it with :
  $ make imagesums

  
About the hook system
=====================

A hook script can be executed at different times. You can specify the
script by setting the HOOK variable to the script filename. It will
get 2 arguments, the first is the CD number. The second depends on
where/when the hook script is called. It can be 'before-scanpackages'
or 'before-mkisofs' (their values are explicit ...). When the script
is called, the current directory will be the temporary directory used for
the build (aka $TDIR/$CODENAME-$ARCH).

There are hooks only for binary CDs at the present time. If HOOK is not
set, it will look for a script $BASEDIR/tools/$CODENAME.hook.


About the symlink farm
======================

If you don't have write access on the disk where you have the mirror
or if for another reason hardlink cannot be used, you can try to
use a symlink farm. Instead of having real files, your temporary tree
will be filled with symlinks that mkhybrid will change into files when
it will build the image. You'll need to use a special options. You
have 2 lines of options in CONF.sh as examples.

I've never tested the symlink farm ... it may well generate unusable
images. Don't use it for ISO images that will used by many users.

Note that you will also need a patched mkhybrid that does support the
-F option. Have a look here about it :
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~stevem/DebianCD/

The mkhybrid package in Debian does support this -F option since 
potato (Debian 2.2).