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vmdb2 installs a bare bones Debian system to a disk or disk image file. It can be used for installing Debian to bare metal hardware, bootable USB sticks, or to set up system disks for virtual machines.

Information on how we do things, and help to get you started if you're interested:

• Code; also sending patches or pull requests.
• Debian builds images for Raspberry Pi boards with vmdb2.

Example .vmdb file

A .vmdb file defines how an image is built:

steps:
  - mkimg: "{{ output }}"
    size: 4G

  - mklabel: msdos
    device: "{{ output }}"

  - mkpart: primary
    device: "{{ output }}"
    start: 1M
    end: 10M
    tag: unused

  - mkpart: primary
    device: "{{ output }}"
    start: 10M
    end: 100%
    tag: rootfs

  - kpartx: "{{ output }}"

  - mkfs: ext4
    partition: rootfs
    label: smoke

  - mount: rootfs

  - unpack-rootfs: rootfs

  - debootstrap: stretch
    mirror: http://deb.debian.org/debian
    target: rootfs
    unless: rootfs_unpacked

  - apt: install
    packages:
      - linux-image-amd64
    tag: rootfs
    unless: rootfs_unpacked

  - cache-rootfs: rootfs
    unless: rootfs_unpacked

  - chroot: rootfs
    shell: |
      sed -i '/^root:[^:]*:/s//root::/' /etc/passwd
      echo pc-vmdb2 > /etc/hostname

  - grub: bios
    tag: rootfs
    console: serial