how to create a debian install?

[TheTechnobear]

could you give us some pointers about how you created your debian install...

the issue I have is there do not appear to be any 'live' images for arm64, just intel/amd

Ive worked out the basics of how to pull a vmlinuz and initrd from an install image.
so I can boot the netinst image... but it doesnt find the network driver

Im guessing this is perhaps related to your comment

An example working commandline is:

    vftool -k ~/vm/debian/Image-5.9 -d ~/vm/debian/arm64_debian.img  -p 2 -m 4096 -a "console=hvc0 root=/dev/vda1"
I've used a plain/defconfig Linux 5.9 build (not gzipped):

    $ file Image-5.9
    Image-5.9: Linux kernel ARM64 boot executable Image, little-endian, 4K pages
Note that Virtualization.framework provides all IO as virtio-pci, including the console (i.e. not a UART). The debian install kernel does not have virtio drivers, unfortunately. I ended up using debootstrap (--foreign) to install to a disc image on a Linux box... but I hear good things about Fedora etc.

in particular Note that Virtualization.framework provides all IO as virtio-pci, including the console (i.e. not a UART). The debian install kernel does not have virtio drivers

could you provide a clue/reference to what you mean by

I ended up using debootstrap (--foreign) to install to a disc image on a Linux box

Id happy create an image on a linux box if thats how I can move forward :)

Ive seen others using the unbuntu cloud image, unfortunately this is causing me issues since I seem not be able to use qemu-user-static on it, I believe because binfmt_misc is not compiled as a kernel module.
I guess I could recompile the kernel...

but really I wanted a debian stretch image anyway, so if I could boot a debian install that be perfect :)

thanks for any pointers

[tommythorn]

You can probably boot your Debian image using the kernel from the Ubuntu netinstall. Unfortunately I don't have time to verify it.

[njhsi]

1. build arm64 kernel image. "$ make Image" https://wiki.debian.org/BuildADebianKernelPackage
2. download Debian cloud image. you may need use qemu-nbd/img to dd out the rootfs partition to debian_icloud.img file.
3. setup debian vm, using ubuntu's initrd, check the relevant ref
   $ vftool -k ubuntu.vm/vmlinuz -i ubuntu.vm/initrd -d debian/debian_cloud.img ...
4. run debian vm
   $ vftool -k arm64kernel.img -d debian/debian_icloud.img ...

[TheTechnobear]

sorry, I not quite following the what you are doing here...

1. build a deb kernel from source - ok
2. which debian 'cloud' image? the only 'live' image they have is not for arm64, but intel/amd?!
3. which unbuntu vm are you using here?.... what are we aiming to setup?
4. ok, that I presume thats the final stage, where we use the debian kernel we made in (1) and use the configured 'debian cloud' image , done in step (3)

so I guess what I dont get is , what debian cloud image are we using, and what are we doing with it in step (3)

btw... Im dont need detailed instructions here, rather just pointers to what the process is/why.
(hope that makes sense)

[njhsi]

google is kinda friend.

https://cloud.debian.org/images/cloud/buster/20201214-484/debian-10-generic-arm64-20201214-484.qcow2

==
mkdir /mnt
mount /dev/vda /mnt
chroot /mnt

touch /etc/cloud/cloud-init.disabled

echo 'root:root' | chpasswd

#!!! delete or comment out the '/boot' line in /etc/fstab, or there will be "A start job is running on /dev/disk/.." blocking!!

ssh-keygen -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key -N '' -t rsa
ssh-keygen -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key -N '' -t dsa
ssh-keygen -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ecdsa_key -N '' -t ecdsa
ssh-keygen -f /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key -N '' -t ed25519

cat < /etc/network/interfaces.d/enp0s1
allow-hotplug enp0s1
iface enp0s1 inet dhcp
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
EOF

mkdir /root/.ssh
cat < /root/.ssh/authorized_keys
ssh-rsa <...>
EOF

exit
umount /dev/vda

[TheTechnobear]

thank you

[darvintang]

• build arm64 kernel image. "$ make Image" https://wiki.debian.org/BuildADebianKernelPackage
• download Debian cloud image. you may need use qemu-nbd/img to dd out the rootfs partition to debian_icloud.img file.
• setup debian vm, using ubuntu's initrd, check the relevant ref
  $ vftool -k ubuntu.vm/vmlinuz -i ubuntu.vm/initrd -d debian/debian_cloud.img ...
• run debian vm
  $ vftool -k arm64kernel.img -d debian/debian_icloud.img ...

how to use qemu-nbd/img to dd out the rootfs partition to debian_icloud.img file?