summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/doc/offline.sgml
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/offline.sgml')
-rw-r--r--doc/offline.sgml236
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 236 deletions
diff --git a/doc/offline.sgml b/doc/offline.sgml
deleted file mode 100644
index 659ca3147..000000000
--- a/doc/offline.sgml
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,236 +0,0 @@
-<!-- -*- mode: sgml; mode: fold -*- -->
-<!doctype debiandoc PUBLIC "-//DebianDoc//DTD DebianDoc//EN">
-<book>
-<title>Using APT Offline</title>
-
-<author>Jason Gunthorpe <email>jgg@debian.org</email></author>
-<version>$Id: offline.sgml,v 1.8 2003/02/12 15:06:41 doogie Exp $</version>
-
-<abstract>
-This document describes how to use APT in a non-networked environment,
-specifically a 'sneaker-net' approach for performing upgrades.
-</abstract>
-
-<copyright>
-Copyright &copy; Jason Gunthorpe, 1999.
-<p>
-"APT" and this document are free software; you can redistribute them and/or
-modify them under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published
-by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
-option) any later version.
-
-<p>
-For more details, on Debian systems, see the file
-/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL for the full license.
-</copyright>
-
-<toc sect>
-
-<chapt>Introduction
-<!-- Overview {{{ -->
-<!-- ===================================================================== -->
-<sect>Overview
-
-<p>
-Normally APT requires direct access to a Debian archive, either from a local
-media or through a network. Another common complaint is that a Debian machine
-is on a slow link, such as a modem and another machine has a very fast
-connection but they are physically distant.
-
-<p>
-The solution to this is to use large removable media such as a Zip disc or a
-SuperDisk disc. These discs are not large enough to store the entire Debian
-archive but can easily fit a subset large enough for most users. The idea
-is to use APT to generate a list of packages that are required and then fetch
-them onto the disc using another machine with good connectivity. It is
-even possible to use another Debian machine with APT or to use a completely
-different OS and a download tool like wget. Let <em>remote host</em> mean the
-machine downloading the packages, and <em>target host</em> the one with bad or
-no connection.
-
-<p>
-This is achieved by creatively manipulating the APT configuration file. The
-essential premise to tell APT to look on a disc for it's archive files. Note
-that the disc should be formated with a filesystem that can handle long file
-names such as ext2, fat32 or vfat.
-
-</sect>
- <!-- }}} -->
-
-<chapt>Using APT on both machines
-<!-- Overview {{{ -->
-<!-- ===================================================================== -->
-<sect>Overview
-
-<p>
-APT being available on both machines gives the simplest configuration. The
-basic idea is to place a copy of the status file on the disc and use the
-remote machine to fetch the latest package files and decide which packages to
-download. The disk directory structure should look like:
-
-<example>
- /disc/
- archives/
- partial/
- lists/
- partial/
- status
- sources.list
- apt.conf
-</example>
-
-</sect>
- <!-- }}} -->
-<!-- The configuartion file {{{ -->
-<!-- ===================================================================== -->
-<sect>The configuration file
-
-<p>
-The configuration file should tell APT to store its files on the disc and
-to use the configuration files on the disc as well. The sources.list should
-contain the proper sites that you wish to use from the remote machine, and
-the status file should be a copy of <em>/var/lib/dpkg/status</em> from the
-<em>target host</em>. Please note, if you are using a local archive you must use
-copy URIs, the syntax is identical to file URIs.
-
-<p>
-<em>apt.conf</em> must contain the necessary information to make APT use the
-disc:
-
-<example>
- APT
- {
- /* This is not necessary if the two machines are the same arch, it tells
- the remote APT what architecture the target machine is */
- Architecture "i386";
-
- Get::Download-Only "true";
- };
-
- Dir
- {
- /* Use the disc for state information and redirect the status file from
- the /var/lib/dpkg default */
- State "/disc/";
- State::status "status";
-
- // Binary caches will be stored locally
- Cache::archives "/disc/archives/";
- Cache "/tmp/";
-
- // Location of the source list.
- Etc "/disc/";
- };
-</example>
-
-More details can be seen by examining the apt.conf man page and the sample
-configuration file in <em>/usr/share/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf</em>.
-
-<p>
-On the target machine the first thing to do is mount the disc and copy
-<em>/var/lib/dpkg/status</em> to it. You will also need to create the directories
-outlined in the Overview, <em>archives/partial/</em> and <em>lists/partial/</em>.
-Then take the disc to the remote machine and configure the sources.list.
-On the remote machine execute the following:
-
-<example>
- # export APT_CONFIG="/disc/apt.conf"
- # apt-get update
- [ APT fetches the package files ]
- # apt-get dist-upgrade
- [ APT fetches all the packages needed to upgrade the target machine ]
-</example>
-
-The dist-upgrade command can be replaced with any other standard APT commands,
-particularly dselect-upgrade. You can even use an APT front end such as
-<em>dselect</em>. However this presents a problem in communicating your
-selections back to the local computer.
-
-<p>
-Now the disc contains all of the index files and archives needed to upgrade
-the target machine. Take the disc back and run:
-
-<example>
- # export APT_CONFIG="/disc/apt.conf"
- # apt-get check
- [ APT generates a local copy of the cache files ]
- # apt-get --no-d -o dir::state::status=/var/lib/dpkg/status dist-upgrade
- [ Or any other APT command ]
-</example>
-
-<p>
-It is necessary for proper function to re-specify the status file to be the
-local one. This is very important!
-
-<p>
-If you are using dselect you can do the very risky operation of copying
-disc/status to /var/lib/dpkg/status so that any selections you made on the
-remote machine are updated. I highly recommend that people only make selections
-on the local machine - but this may not always be possible. DO NOT copy
-the status file if dpkg or APT have been run in the mean time!!
-
-</sect>
- <!-- }}} -->
-
-<chapt>Using APT and wget
-<!-- Overview {{{ -->
-<!-- ===================================================================== -->
-<sect>Overview
-
-<p>
-<em>wget</em> is a popular and portable download tool that can run on nearly
-any machine. Unlike the method above this requires that the Debian machine
-already has a list of available packages.
-
-<p>
-The basic idea is to create a disc that has only the archive files downloaded
-from the remote site. This is done by using the --print-uris option to apt-get
-and then preparing a wget script to actually fetch the packages.
-
-</sect>
- <!-- }}} -->
-<!-- Operation {{{ -->
-<!-- ===================================================================== -->
-<sect>Operation
-
-<p>
-Unlike the previous technique no special configuration files are required. We
-merely use the standard APT commands to generate the file list.
-
-<example>
- # apt-get dist-upgrade
- [ Press no when prompted, make sure you are happy with the actions ]
- # apt-get -qq --print-uris dist-upgrade > uris
- # awk '{print "wget -O " $2 " " $1}' < uris > /disc/wget-script
-</example>
-
-Any command other than dist-upgrade could be used here, including
-dselect-upgrade.
-
-<p>
-The /disc/wget-script file will now contain a list of wget commands to execute
-in order to fetch the necessary archives. This script should be run with the
-current directory as the disc's mount point so as to save the output on the
-disc.
-
-<p>
-The remote machine would do something like
-
-<example>
- # cd /disc
- # sh -x ./wget-script
- [ wait.. ]
-</example>
-
-Once the archives are downloaded and the disc returned to the Debian machine
-installation can proceed using,
-
-<example>
- # apt-get -o dir::cache::archives="/disc/" dist-upgrade
-</example>
-
-Which will use the already fetched archives on the disc.
-
-</sect>
- <!-- }}} -->
-</book>