Update Status field values handling
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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>
25This document describes how to use APT in a non-networked environment,
26specifically 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
36modify them under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
37the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
38option) any later version.
39</para>
40<para>
41For 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>
52Normally APT requires direct access to a Debian archive, either from a local
53media or through a network. Another common complaint is that a Debian machine
54is on a slow link, such as a modem and another machine has a very fast
55connection but they are physically distant.
56</para>
57<para>
58The solution to this is to use large removable media such as a Zip disc or a
59SuperDisk disc. These discs are not large enough to store the entire Debian
60archive but can easily fit a subset large enough for most users. The idea is
61to use APT to generate a list of packages that are required and then fetch them
62onto the disc using another machine with good connectivity. It is even
63possible to use another Debian machine with APT or to use a completely
64different OS and a download tool like wget. Let <emphasis>remote
65host</emphasis> mean the machine downloading the packages, and <emphasis>target
66host</emphasis> the one with bad or no connection.
67</para>
68<para>
69This is achieved by creatively manipulating the APT configuration file. The
70essential premise to tell APT to look on a disc for it's archive files. Note
71that the disc should be formated with a filesystem that can handle long file
72names 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>
82APT being available on both machines gives the simplest configuration. The
83basic idea is to place a copy of the status file on the disc and use the remote
84machine to fetch the latest package files and decide which packages to
85download. 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>
101The configuration file should tell APT to store its files on the disc and to
102use the configuration files on the disc as well. The sources.list should
103contain the proper sites that you wish to use from the remote machine, and the
104status file should be a copy of <emphasis>/var/lib/dpkg/status</emphasis> from
105the <emphasis>target host</emphasis>. Please note, if you are using a local
106archive 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
110APT 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>
138More details can be seen by examining the apt.conf man page and the sample
139configuration file in
140<emphasis>/usr/share/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf</emphasis>.
141</para>
142<para>
143On 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
145to create the directories outlined in the Overview,
146<emphasis>archives/partial/</emphasis> and
147<emphasis>lists/partial/</emphasis>. Then take the disc to the
148remote machine and configure the sources.list. On the remote
149machine 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>
159The dist-upgrade command can be replaced with any other standard APT commands,
160particularly dselect-upgrade. You can even use an APT front end such as
161<emphasis>dselect</emphasis>. However this presents a problem in communicating
162your selections back to the local computer.
163</para>
164<para>
165Now the disc contains all of the index files and archives needed to upgrade the
166target 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>
176It is necessary for proper function to re-specify the status file to be the
177local one. This is very important!
178</para>
179<para>
180If you are using dselect you can do the very risky operation of copying
181disc/status to /var/lib/dpkg/status so that any selections you made on the
182remote machine are updated. I highly recommend that people only make
183selections on the local machine - but this may not always be possible. DO NOT
184copy 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
195on nearly any machine. Unlike the method above this requires that the Debian
196machine already has a list of available packages.
197</para>
198<para>
199The basic idea is to create a disc that has only the archive files downloaded
200from the remote site. This is done by using the --print-uris option to apt-get
201and 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>
207Unlike the previous technique no special configuration files are required. We
208merely 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 &gt; uris
214 # awk '{print "wget -O " $2 " " $1}' &lt; uris &gt; /disc/wget-script
215</screen>
216<para>
217Any command other than dist-upgrade could be used here, including
218dselect-upgrade.
219</para>
220<para>
221The /disc/wget-script file will now contain a list of wget commands to execute
222in order to fetch the necessary archives. This script should be run with the
223current directory as the disc's mount point so as to save the output on the
224disc.
225</para>
226<para>
227The remote machine would do something like
228</para>
229<screen>
230 # cd /disc
231 # sh -x ./wget-script
232 [ wait.. ]
233</screen>
234<para>
235Once the archives are downloaded and the disc returned to the Debian machine
236installation can proceed using,
237</para>
238<screen>
239 # apt-get -o dir::cache::archives="/disc/" dist-upgrade
240</screen>
241<para>
242Which will use the already fetched archives on the disc.
243</para>
244</section>
245
246</chapter>
247
248</book>