DOKK / manpages / debian 12 / cdebootstrap-static / cdebootstrap-static.1.en
CDEBOOTSTRAP(1) User Commands CDEBOOTSTRAP(1)

cdebootstrap - Bootstrap a Debian system

cdebootstrap [OPTION]... [ORIGIN/]CODENAME TARGET [MIRROR]

cdebootstrap builds a basic Debian system of CODENAME (e.g. jessie, stretch, sid) from ORIGIN (e.g Debian, Ubuntu) into TARGET using the source specified in MIRROR. It supports http://, ftp://, file:// and ssh:// URL and defaults to http://ftp.debian.org/debian. The ssh:// scheme uses cat on the remote host to access the files. You have to setup a master connection and configure ssh to use it or use a key for authentication. No user interaction is possible. The complete log is saved as /var/log/bootstrap.log in the new system.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

Ignore if packages can't be authenticated. This ignores the unavailability of Release.gpg, missing keyrings, broken signatures and missing gpgv executable.
Set the target architecture.
Set the config directory.
Enable debug output.
Download packages, but don't perform installation.
Drop packages from the installation list. This only works if the package is pulled in explicitely, either via priority or explicit definition in the config. It won't exclude packages which are pulled in via dependencies.
Enable support for non-native arch (needs qemu-user-static).
Select the flavour to use (see FLAVOURS below).
Use given keyring. Relative filename are looked up in /usr/local/share/keyrings, /usr/share/keyrings and CONFIGDIR.
Set the helper directory.
Install extra packages.
Be quiet. Only warnings and errors are shown.
Be verbose. All command output is shown.
Display this help and exit.
Output version information and exit.

Flavours available with default configuration:

Installs essential, apt and build-essential. Suitable for sbuild and pbuilder usage. All rc.d operations are disabled by a policy-rc.d script (cdebootstrap-helper-rc.d package).
Installs essential and apt. All rc.d operations are disabled by a policy-rc.d script (cdebootstrap-helper-rc.d package).
Installs required and important priority packages. This is the default flavour.
cdebootstrap