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Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 28 Mar 2011, 21:20
by snowie
I've been spending 3 hours now searching (both the forum as well as google) for a way to get a minimal installation of Debian onto the B3 without any success, so if there is an answer out there, I apologize.

Is there an "image" available for the B3 with the kernel patches and other necessities on top of a bare Debian installation?

Since the bubbaroot tarball within install/payload inside the b3-install zip file already have the packages installed, my other take would be to start to manually remove unwanted packages from the tarball (probably by mounting a USB stick on the B3 with the necessary filesystem and then chrooting into '/' that's within the tarball) and reconfigure the necessary config files. That will take some time though, so if there's a base with the base necessities already, it would save a lot of time.

Thanks!

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 07 Apr 2011, 04:26
by snowie
A small update here. Since there were no reply I decided to go ahead and going bananas with purging packages. I've reduced the number of packages significantly (right now I'm at 176 packages installed). I reckon I can still shave off an additional ~20-30 packages, but after that it's quite hard to continue further without some time consuming and quirky hacks and still maintaining the smooth functionality I want to keep.

A list of the packages with a few additional packages installed by me separately for my own needs (ruby and xz are 2 examples, just diff this list to the base install list and you should see which they are) follows below if anybody else is looking to do the same thing. A word of caution though, I removed a lot of stuff that didn't suite my needs, so if you decide to go the same way, make sure you know how to set things up you want from scratch (DNS, RAID, DHCP server etc.).

adduser apt apt-utils aptitude base-files base-passwd bash bsdmainutils bsdutils bubba-buttond bubba3-kernel bubba3-modules bzip2 ca-certificates coreutils cpio cron dash debconf debconf-i18n debian-archive-keyring debianutils diffutils dmsetup dpkg e2fslibs e2fsprogs excito-keyring file findutils gcc-4.4-base gnupg gpgv grep groff-base gzip hostname ifupdown info initscripts insserv install-info iproute iptables iputils-ping isc-dhcp-client isc-dhcp-common less libacl1 libattr1 libblkid1 libboost-iostreams1.42.0 libbsd0 libbubba-info-perl libbubba-info0 libbz2-1.0 libc-bin libc6 libcap2 libcomerr2 libconfig8 libcwidget3 libdb4.7 libdb4.8 libdevmapper1.02.1 libedit2 libept1 libffi5 libfile-copy-recursive-perl libfribidi0 libgcc1 libgcrypt11 libgdbm3 libgnutls26 libgpg-error0 libgssapi-krb5-2 libk5crypto3 libkeyutils1 libkrb5-3 libkrb5support0 libldap-2.4-2 liblocale-gettext-perl liblzma2 libmagic1 libncurses5 libncursesw5 libnewt0.52 libnfnetlink0 libopts25 libpam-modules libpam-runtime libpam0g libpcre3 libpopt0 libreadline5 libreadline6 libruby1.9.1 libsasl2-2 libselinux1 libsepol1 libsigc++-2.0-0c2a libslang2 libsqlite3-0 libss2 libssl0.9.8 libstdc++6 libtasn1-3 libtext-charwidth-perl libtext-iconv-perl libtext-wrapi18n-perl libudev0 libusb-0.1-4 libuuid1 libwrap0 libxapian15 libxapian22 libxml2 libyaml-0-2 locales-all login logrotate lsb-base lsof lvm2 lzma make man-db manpages mawk module-init-tools mount ncurses-base ncurses-bin net-tools netbase ntp openssh-blacklist openssh-client openssh-server openssl passwd perl perl-base perl-modules procps psmisc readline-common resolvconf ri1.9.1 rsync rsyslog ruby1.9.1 ruby1.9.1-examples screen sed sensible-utils sudo sysv-rc sysvinit sysvinit-utils tar tasksel tasksel-data traceroute ttf-bitstream-vera tzdata udev update-inetd util-linux uuid-runtime vim-common vim-tiny wget whiptail xz-utils zlib1g

I'm still interested to know if there's a minimal debian installation image for B3, so if anybody has any input here, I'd be more than happy.

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 28 Jun 2011, 11:46
by Thoht
Did you find this list? Any updates on how it went?

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 03 Jul 2011, 17:17
by Thoht
This would be snowie's setup after removing all "unnecessary" packages to mimic a Debian netinst setup - basically, the skeleton of a Debian server as I understand it. I marked the Excito packages left for hardware compatibility in red.
  • adduser
    apt
    apt-utils
    aptitude
    base-files
    base-passwd
    bash
    bsdmainutils
    bsdutils
    bubba-buttond
    bubba3-kernel
    bubba3-modules

    ca-certificates
    coreutils
    cpio
    cron
    dash
    debconf
    debconf-i18n
    debian-archive-keyring
    debianutils
    diffutils
    dmsetup
    dpkg
    e2fslibs
    e2fsprogs
    excito-keyring
    file
    findutils
    gcc-4.4-base
    gnupg
    gpgv
    grep
    groff-base
    gzip
    hostname
    ifupdown
    info
    initscripts
    insserv
    install-info
    iproute
    iptables
    iputils-ping
    isc-dhcp-client
    isc-dhcp-common
    less
    libacl1
    libattr1
    libblkid1
    libbsd0
    libbubba-info-perl
    libbubba-info0

    libbz2-1.0
    libc-bin
    libc6
    libcap2
    libcomerr2
    libcwidget3
    libdb4.7
    libdb4.8
    libdevmapper1.02.1
    libedit2
    libept1
    libfribidi0
    libgcc1
    libgcrypt11
    libgdbm3
    libgnutls26
    libgpg-error0
    libgssapi-krb5-2
    libk5crypto3
    libkeyutils1
    libkrb5-3
    libkrb5support0
    libldap-2.4-2
    liblocale-gettext-perl
    liblzma2
    libmagic1
    libncurses5
    libncursesw5
    libnewt0.52
    libnfnetlink0
    libopts25
    libpam-modules
    libpam-runtime
    libpam0g
    libpcre3
    libpopt0
    libreadline5
    libreadline6
    libsasl2-2
    libselinux1
    libsepol1
    libsigc++-2.0-0c2a
    libslang2
    libsqlite3-0
    libss2
    libssl0.9.8
    libstdc++6
    libtasn1-3
    libtext-charwidth-perl
    libtext-iconv-perl
    libtext-wrapi18n-perl
    libudev0
    libusb-0.1-4
    libuuid1
    libwrap0
    libxapian15
    libxapian22
    libxml2
    locales-all
    login
    logrotate
    lsb-base
    lsof
    lvm2
    lzma
    make
    man-db
    manpages
    mawk
    module-init-tools
    mount
    ncurses-base
    ncurses-bin
    net-tools
    netbase
    ntp
    openssh-blacklist
    openssh-client
    openssh-server
    openssl
    passwd
    perl
    perl-base
    perl-modules
    procps
    psmisc
    readline-common
    rsyslog
    sed
    sensible-utils
    sysv-rc
    sysvinit
    sysvinit-utils
    tar
    tasksel
    tasksel-data
    traceroute
    tzdata
    udev
    update-inetd
    util-linux
    uuid-runtime
    vim-common
    vim-tiny
    wget
    whiptail
    xz-utils
    zlib1g
If I could, I'd have done a comparison against the package list of a Debian net install but I don't have a spare PC nor have I found any list online. If anyone does have the opportunity to do that it'd be awesome. The command is:

Code: Select all

dpkg --get-selections
Judging from the package descriptions found here however I'm not sure that the above list covers the LED which would be controlled by bubba-status. I'm also curious regarding bubba-diskmanager and bubba-networkmanager - I don't understand the bubba-diskmanager description at all and bubba-networkmanager is described as being designed for the BubbaTwo platform. Other packages (to be kept marked as red, curiousities marked as blue) are as follows (taken from above link):
  • bubba
    bubba-album
    bubba-apt - I think this is only necessary to have the web-admin interface stay functional.
    bubba-backend
    bubba-buttond
    bubba-diskmanager
    bubba-fail
    bubba-frontend
    bubba-horde (Horde)
    bubba-kernel (B2)
    bubba-manual
    bubba-modules (B2)
    bubba-networkmanager
    bubba-status
    bubba3-kernel
    bubba3-modules
    cdebootstrap-excito - Is this what modifies the Debian install?
    crda
    dimp1 - (Horde)
    dimp1-base - (Horde)
    epeg
    expect
    expect-dev
    expectk
    filetransferdaemon - The FTP/HTTP/BitTorrent downloader
    horde3 - (Horde)
    horde3-base - (Horde)
    hostapd - I think this adds the feature of WPA-keys when you use the B3 as router?
    imp4 - (Horde)
    imp4-base - (Horde)
    iptables
    iptables-dev - Not installed by default.
    kronolith2 - (Horde)
    kronolith2-base - (Horde)
    libanyevent-perl
    libapache2-mod-fastcgi
    libapache2-mod-php5
    libapache2-mod-php5filter
    libaudio-scan-perl
    libbubba-info-dev
    libbubba-info-perl
    libbubba-info-php
    libbubba-info0
    ...
    (Didn't see anything of interest beyond this point)
I'd love to hear from Johannes or Carl (or anyone else with knowledge of this) which of the "Excito" packages are of absolute necessity in order for the hardware - as is - to work properly, including the LED lights and the button on the back. Tor once spoke about a bare minimal Debian setup to (hopefully) be released but that initiative sadly seems to have been put aside for the time being.

My curiosity comes from a need to understand how to install, configure and secure an HTTP(S) and SFTP server without the need to worry about SAMBA and other (albeit nice features) potential weak spots.

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 04 Jul 2011, 05:21
by carl
The only packages that are needed for a minimal installation is the bubba-kernel, bubba-modules, and bubba-buttond packages. The buttond package can be ignored if you don't need/want to have hardware button functionality.

The package cdebootstrap-excito is only used internally when building new images.

/Carl

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 04 Jul 2011, 07:05
by Thoht
Thank you Carl! Would you please explain what the bubba-status does, though? The LED is rather nice to have after all.

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 04 Jul 2011, 08:39
by carl
Thoht wrote:Thank you Carl! Would you please explain what the bubba-status does, though? The LED is rather nice to have after all.
bubba-status only contains two init scripts, one which is obsolete due to led not blinking on the B3. you don't need it to change the color of the led, as you can work against the sysfs directly :)

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 04 Jul 2011, 09:09
by Thoht
carl wrote:
Thoht wrote:Thank you Carl! Would you please explain what the bubba-status does, though? The LED is rather nice to have after all.
bubba-status only contains two init scripts, one which is obsolete due to led not blinking on the B3. you don't need it to change the color of the led, as you can work against the sysfs directly :)
Ah, so it has nothing to do with the LED being green when installing, red at failure, purple at booting and shutdown and blue when... uh... ready?

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 04 Jul 2011, 12:12
by Thoht
This proved to be more difficult than I thought. Attempting to remove/purge any package at all will result in aptitude stating that it will either remove the bubba package or do nothing. Removal of the bubba package also removes the following:
  • apache2-mpm-prefork
    apache2-utils
    apache2.2-bin
    apache2.2-common
    avahi-daemon
    bc
    bind9-host
    bridge-utils
    bubba
    bubba-album
    bubba-apt
    bubba-backend
    bubba-diskmanager
    bubba-frontend
    bubba-horde
    bubba-manual
    bubba-networkmanager
    bubba-status
    ca-certificates
    cracklib-runtime
    crda
    cups
    cups-client
    cups-common
    cups-driver-gutenprint
    db4.8-util
    dimp1-base
    dmsetup
    dnsmasq
    dnsmasq-base
    dovecot-common
    dovecot-imapd
    duplicity
    epeg
    ethtool
    expect
    fancontrol
    fetchmail
    filetransferdaemon
    foomatic-db
    foomatic-db-engine
    foomatic-filters
    geoip-database
    ghostscript
    ghostscript-cups
    gsfonts
    horde3-base
    hostapd
    hpijs
    ifplugd
    imp4-base
    iw
    kronolith2-base
    libapache2-mod-fastcgi
    libapache2-mod-php5
    libapr1
    libaprutil1
    libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3
    libaprutil1-ldap
    libavahi-client3
    libavahi-common-data
    libavahi-common3
    libavahi-core7
    libavcodec52
    libavformat52
    libavutil49
    libbind9-60
    libboost-filesystem1.42.0
    libboost-system1.42.0
    libboost-thread1.42.0
    libbsd0
    libbubba-info-perl
    libbubba-info-php
    libbubba-info0
    libc-client2007e
    libconfig-tiny-perl
    libcrack2
    libcrypt-passwdmd5-perl
    libcrypt-ssleay-perl
    libcups2
    libcupscgi1
    libcupsdriver1
    libcupsimage2
    libcupsmime1
    libcupsppdc1
    libcurl3-gnutls
    libdaemon0
    libdevmapper1.02.1
    libdirac-encoder0
    libdns66
    libedit2
    libepeg0
    libeutils1
    libexif12
    libexpect-perl
    libfaad2
    libffmpegthumbnailer4
    libfile-type-perl
    libgeoip1
    libglib2.0-0
    libglib2.0-data
    libgs8
    libgutenprint2
    libhpmud0
    libid3tag0
    libijs-0.35
    libimage-exiftool-perl
    libio-pty-perl
    libio-stty-perl
    libipc-run3-perl
    libisc60
    libisccc60
    libisccfg60
    libjasper1
    libjbig2dec0
    libjs-jquery
    libjs-jquery-ui
    libjs-prototype
    libjs-scriptaculous
    liblcms1
    liblist-moreutils-perl
    liblwres60
    libmcrypt4
    libmozjs2d
    libnspr4-0d
    libonig2
    libopenjpeg2
    libopts25
    liborc-0.4-0
    libpam-cracklib
    libpaper-utils
    libpaper1
    libparse-debcontrol-perl
    libparted0debian1
    libperl5.10
    libperl6-say-perl
    libphp-codeigniter
    libpoppler5
    libpq5
    libqdbm14
    librsync1
    libschroedinger-1.0-0
    libsensors4
    libslp1
    libsnmp-base
    libsnmp15
    libspeex1
    libswscale0
    libt1-5
    libtag1-vanilla
    libtag1c2a
    libtagc0
    libtalloc2
    libtheora0
    libtiff4
    libtorrent-rasterbar5
    libtry-tiny-perl
    libwbclient0
    libxslt1.1
    lighttpd-spawnfcgi
    lm-sensors
    lsof
    lvm2
    mdadm
    mediatomb-common
    mediatomb-daemon
    mlock
    mnemo2-base
    mt-daapd
    ncftp
    netatalk
    ntp
    openssh-blacklist
    openssh-blacklist-extra
    openssh-client
    openssh-server
    php-date
    php-db
    php-file
    php-http-request
    php-http-webdav-server
    php-log
    php-mail
    php-mail-mime
    php-mail-mimedecode
    php-mdb2
    php-mdb2-driver-mysql
    php-mdb2-schema
    php-net-imap
    php-net-socket
    php-net-url
    php-pear
    php-soap
    php5-cgi
    php5-cli
    php5-common
    php5-gd
    php5-imap
    php5-mcrypt
    php5-mysql
    php5-xcache
    poppler-utils
    proftpd-basic
    python-central
    python-pexpect
    samba
    samba-common
    samba-common-bin
    shared-mime-info
    tcl8.5
    turba2-base
    unzip
    update-inetd
    wamerican
    wireless-regdb
    xsltproc
    zip
Note that this removes openssh-server as well. The first thing I did after purging bubba was to reinstall openssh. Rebooting the system however, will result in it shutting down and upon boot get stuck - somehow, somewhere - and the purple LED to remain constantly lit. It is unreachable by SSH although detected by my router.

Any advice?

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 04 Jul 2011, 16:49
by Ubi
boot from a rescue stick?

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 04 Jul 2011, 16:55
by Thoht
Ubi wrote:boot from a rescue stick?
Haha! :D Yeah my question was a bit silly. No I meant, where did it go wrong? The three necessary bubba packages are still installed, as is openssh. Upon starting the B3 however the LED never changes from purple, is detected by the router and has an IP-adress but doesn't respond to ping or ssh. It doesn't shutdown if I press the button either - the only option is to unplug the cable.

(Booting from a USB memory is no problem - I formatted a stick as FAT32 and moved the "install" folder downloaded from Excito there - works like a charm.)

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 05 Jul 2011, 16:37
by Thoht
Ubi wrote:boot from a rescue stick?
Oh wow I thought you meant "reinstall the whole thing" but that was a great idea! I booted the rescue BusyBox thingy, mounted the HDD and activated bootlogd, rebooted, shut it down, booted from rescue and had a peek at the boot log:

Code: Select all

Tue Jul  5 22:21:26 2011: Activating swap...done.
Tue Jul  5 22:21:26 2011: mount: you must specify the filesystem type
Tue Jul  5 22:21:26 2011: Cannot check root file system because it is not mounted read-only. ... E[31mfailed!E[39;49m
Tue Jul  5 22:21:26 2011: Cleaning up ifupdown....
Tue Jul  5 22:21:26 2011: Setting up networking....
Tue Jul  5 22:21:26 2011: Loading kernel modules...done.
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: Activating lvm and md swap...done.
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: Checking file systems...fsck from util-linux-ng 2.17.2
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: e2fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: fsck.ext3: No such file or directory while trying to open /dev/mapper/bubba-storage
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: 
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: filesystem.  If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011:     e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: 
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: fsck died with exit status 8
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: E[31mfailed (code 8).E[39;49m
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: File system check failed. A log is being saved in /var/log/fsck/checkfs if that location is writable. Please repair the file system manually. ... E[31mfailed!E[39;49m
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: A maintenance shell will now be started. CONTROL-D will terminate this shell and resume system boot. ... E[33m(warning).E[39;49m
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: Give root password for maintenance
Tue Jul  5 22:21:27 2011: 

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 05 Jul 2011, 18:00
by Thoht
After some more testing I've come to the conclusion that after removing the bubba package (and its dependencies) followed by a reboot the filesystem crashes or can't be mounted correctly. I've messed around with /etc/fstab without any proper results.

Tough call. Attempting to aptitude remove basically any package (Horde, Mediatomb...) from a fresh B3 install will demand the removal of the bubba which inevitably(?) bricks the device - giving me the options to either boot in by USB with BusyBox or reinstall the system.

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 04:17
by ryz
/dev/mapper/bubba-storage is an lvm partition so I guess that the support for lvm partition was removed with the dependencies to the bubba package. You can most likely install it by hand if you now what to install.
If you are lucky you can do that using chroot from the rescue disk.

Re: Minimal debian installation image for B3

Posted: 06 Jul 2011, 10:24
by Thoht
ryz wrote:/dev/mapper/bubba-storage is an lvm partition so I guess that the support for lvm partition was removed with the dependencies to the bubba package. You can most likely install it by hand if you now what to install.
If you are lucky you can do that using chroot from the rescue disk.
Thanks! Awesome, I had no idea about that LVM stuff. I installed it and then continued purging as much as I could and got down to 165 packages in total. Snowie had 176 in total but installed ruby and stuff so I should be at the same stage as her/him now.

This thread doesn't seem to raise that much interest but I'll keep posting anyway since this was pretty difficult (for me at least) to grasp. I'll post the step-by-step instructions I've written in the wiki if I get my account request granted.