Re: dselect (Re: Using dpkg for a custom installation from cdrom media)
Henry Hollenberg speed@barney.iamerica.net
On Tue, 3 Mar 1998, Joost Kooij wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Mar 1998, Henry Hollenberg wrote:
>
> > Hello Joost and thanks for the reply.
> >
> > I've been tinkering with dselect and I think I've figured out enough to
> > get it to do what it can for me......as far as that goes.
>
> Oh, sorry, I didn't quite get that.
>
> > But I'm trying to do a "custom" install with alots of selected packages
> > for a bastion host/firewall. This would be cumbersome to do by hand on
> > the three machines that would make up the firewall.
>
> > therefore I believe dselect just will not have the functionality required
> > for this project and that is why I'm looking into dpkg.
>
> You're probably wrong about that:
> - theoretically because: dselect builds on dpkg; it provides extra
> functionality that dpkg doesn't have and calls upon dpkg to do what dpkg
> can.
> - practically because: see suggestions below;
>
> > It looks as if dpkg can probably pull it off.....I'm just not sure how to
> > use it in this complex scenario.....I've used it for simpler stuff and it
> > works great.....installing a kernel dselect couldn't find for instance
> > (2.0.33).
>
> Was that a kernel you brewed yourself with kernel-package? Then it
> probably wasn't mentioned in a "Packages" file. How would dselect know
> about your package then?
>
> Dselect's standard way of getting to know what packages are available in
> an archive is to run dpkg --update-avail on the Packages file that comes
> with the archive.
>
> You could have made a Packages file yourself, with dpkg-scanpackages and
> put that in a DIY archive and use it with dselect (making a custom
> archive). You'll have to make an "override" file too, to get
> dpkg-scanpackages to add sections to the packages entries in the Packages
> file. You can find examples in the ftp.debian.org /debian/indices/
> directory.
I think this is probably the way we want to go. Although burning a custom
CD is neat, I don't think it will be as extensible to the Debian/Linux
community at large. I had hoped we could come up with a deb package for
an application that would help one to set up one of a few standard
firewall configurations...., and have this app/package added into the
debian distribution...for this app to be useful the end user needs to be
able to pull the needed packages using the standard ftp siteds or get them
off the standard distribution CD's.
As a first step I thought the thing to do would be to cookbook the process
to help study the steps involved.
What is a DIY archive?
Little sketchy on the "override" file too....I'll look up your reference!
BTW, is their a better authoritative source of info on dpkg/dselect than
the man pages or --help switch, examples and all you know.....
Thanks hgh
>
> Or (not using an archive at all) you could have used dpkg --avail
> custom-kernel.deb. I'm afraid you'd have to put the .deb on a floppy to
> use it with dselect, because that's the only way it knows how to deal with
> a non-archive. In this simple case, dpkg -i by hand is more convinient of
> course.
I think I have the custom kernel build figured out....
>
> > so my question remains, what are the steps?
>
> Another solution is to build a package with dependencies on all the
> packages you want to install. Create an archive that contains that
> package, the packages it depends on and packages that those depend on.
> Since you want to build a firewall, you'll probably want to put in a
> _lot_ of conflicts as well ;-).
> Use dpkg-scanpackages to generate a Packages file. Burn it on a cd or
> put it on your ftp site and it should work fine with dselect and deity.
>
> If you're really serious about creating your own cd, then dselect is
> definately the way to go.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> Joost
>
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