Debseed

Create ISO images to automate Debian installations, by appending a preseed file to Debian official images.

Prerequisites

This application must be run on Linux and requires python3, xorriso and isolinux. Example on Debian:

sudo apt install python3-pip xorriso isolinux

Installation

Install the application using pip:

pip3 install debseed

Or, if you wish to automatically publish the generated ISO files to a VMWare datastore, install the application with additional dependencies:

pip3 install debseed[vmware]

Usage examples

Download latest Debian ISO file and generate a custom ISO file from it, using the generic edition:

debseed update

Generate a custom ISO file from a specific image and preseed file:

debseed generate debian-11.5.0-amd64-netinst.iso path/to/preseed.cfg

To print full usage instructions, run:

debseed --help

Configuration

Configuration of Debseed is defined in the following files (by decreasing priority):

• local.conf in current working directory
• ~/.config/debseed/debseed.conf in home directory
• C:/ProgramData/debseed/debseed.conf (Windows) or /etc/debseed/debseed.conf (Linux)

Configuration section [debseed] contains general-purpose application settings.

Specific sets of generation parameters, called editions, are configured in their own configuration section. For example, section named default is configured using configuration section [debseed:default].

See example.

Development

Create Python virtual environment (example on a Debian workstation):

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install --upgrade pip wheel
pip install -r requirements_all.txt

Run commands:

python -m debseed --help

Clean repository:

find . \( -name __pycache__ -o -name build -o -name dist -o -name "*.egg-info" \) -not -path "./.venv/*" -exec rm -rf {} \;

Create Python redistribuable package:

pip wheel --no-deps -w dist .

Prepare Twine for package upload (if necessary):

pip install twine
$env:REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE="...ca-certificates.crt"

Check package (in particular, verify version in file name):

twine check dist/...

Upload le paquet:

twine upload --repository ...  dist/...

Troubleshooting

Display information about an ISO file

Using command isoinfo from Debian package genisoimage:

isoinfo -d -i path.iso

Extract initial ramdisk

cd debseed.tmp/...
mkdir extracted-initrd
cd  extracted-initrd
cpio -idm < ../initrd

Update Debian signing GPG key

gpg --keyserver hkp://keyring.debian.org:80 --keyserver-options http-proxy=http://... --recv-keys DF9B9C49EAA9298432589D76DA87E80D6294BE9B
gpg --output debseed/assets/debian-cd-signing.gpg --export DF9B9C49EAA9298432589D76DA87E80D6294BE9B

Create local NAT network 10.0.2.2/24 for Hyper-V VMs

To reproduces VirtualBox default networking, where 10.0.2.2 is the address of the host as seen from the VMs, configure an internal virtual switch in Hyper-V, using the following Powershell commands (with elevated privileges):

New-VMSwitch -Name "10.0.2 Switch" -SwitchType Internal -Notes "For VMs in network 10.0.2.2/24"
New-NetIPAddress -IPAddress 10.0.2.2 -PrefixLength 24 -InterfaceAlias "vEthernet (10.0.2 Switch)"
Get-NetNat | ? Name -Eq "10.0.2 Nat" | Remove-NetNat -Confirm:$False
New-NetNat -Name "10.0.2 Nat" -InternalIPInterfaceAddressPrefix 10.0.2.0/24