DI-NETBOOT-ASSISTANT(1)

💖 DI-NETBOOT-ASSISTANT(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the User Commands section of the manual, page 1, and this one is genuinely a bop: it's di-netboot-assistant, the Debian-Installer netboot assistant. she downloads and unpacks netboot images for you and she does it flawlessly. let's get into it 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

di-netboot-assistant — Debian-Installer netboot assistant 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

di-netboot-assistant {install | uninstall | uncache | purge | fw-toggle} image... [--alias=alias] [--arch=arch] [--di-args=ARGS] [--ignore-sig] [--target-args=ARGS] [--offline] [--verbose]
di-netboot-assistant {rebuild-grub | rebuild-menu} [--verbose]
di-netboot-assistant {-h | --help} | {-V | --version}

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

di-netboot-assistant is a tool to download and extract Debian Installer netboot images. she's the girl who does the fetching and the unpacking so you don't have to 💅

not me reminding you: unless you're passing -h, --help, -V, or --version, you have to give one of the commands below. no command, no service, fr fr.

🌸 the commands

• install — install is followed by a repository name you want installed. that repository name has to be one of the ones declared in /etc/di-netboot-assistant/di-sources.list. the image gets installed/extracted into the default location, which is declared in /etc/di-netboot-assistant/di-netboot-assistant.conf. ✨
• uninstall — uninstall is followed by the name of the repository you want gone (or the repository's alias if you used --alias=). the netboot files for that distribution get removed from the TFTP server. bye bestie 🫶
• uncache — uncache cleans the cached files for the given netboot image. you must specify a repository name here, not an --alias= name. (she said what she said.)
• purge — purge is followed by a repository name desired for installation. purge is literally identical to running uninstall and then uncache for a given repository. two birds, one vibe 💀
• rebuild-grub — rebuild-grub rebuilds the grub EFI netboot image. the configuration itself is set up by rebuild-menu. this command takes no argument. periodt.
• rebuild-menu — rebuild-menu rebuilds the top level menu. it's useful if you modified di-netboot-assistant.conf or added a Live ISO image. the installer images need to have a top level menu (like i386, amd64). this command takes no argument. 👑
• fw-toggle — fw-toggle is followed by a repository name and adds or removes non-free firmware (yes, it toggles — icon behaviour honestly). the non-free firmware gets downloaded if it isn't available from cache. use n-pkg as the repository to add the firmware to packaged installer images.

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -h, --help — print short help and exit. the "girl help" of flags, but make it intentional 💖
• -V, --version — print script version and exit.
• --alias=alias — specify the alias name under which this repository will be saved. alias names can only contain alphanumeric, _ and - characters. this is especially useful for daily images. by default, the alias name is the same as the repository name. 🎀
• --arch=arch — specify the architecture to operate on. the architecture used for the install action must be declared in /etc/di-netboot-assistant/di-sources.list. architectures available for the purge action are those previously installed. available architectures can be listed by leaving --arch= empty. if absent, the system's architecture (as reported by dpkg --print-architecture) is used.
• --verbose — verbose messages. she's telling you everything, no gatekeeping 🌈
• --di-args="ARGS" — Debian-Installer boot arguments. the specified arguments will be *appended* to the one provided in the downloaded image, before the --. (you can also define DI_ARGS= in di-netboot-assistant.conf.)
• --tftproot="DIR" — overwrite the TFTP_ROOT variable given in the configuration. use DIR as the TFTP server's root directory instead.

⚠️ not recommended and to be used with care, as only a single TFTP root directory is supported. handle with care bestie, this is fragile girl energy 🙈

• --ignore-sig — ignore failing image signature checks. useful when run non-interactively in scripts and images are known to be not signed. 🔥
• --target-args="ARGS" — boot arguments for the target (installed) system. the specified arguments will be *appended* to the one provided in the downloaded image, at the very end of the line. (you can also define TARGET_ARGS= in di-netboot-assistant.conf.)
• --offline — don't download the files (use the files cached previously). airplane mode but make it netboot ✈️

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✨ EXAMPLES ✨

to install a netboot image for the stable repository, for the default architecture:

di-netboot-assistant install stable

to list the installed netboot images that can be removed:

di-netboot-assistant purge

to remove a netboot image for the stable repository, for the default architecture:

di-netboot-assistant purge stable

to toggle firmware for the stable repository, for the default architecture:

di-netboot-assistant fw-toggle stable

to toggle firmware for packaged debian-installer netboot images, all architectures:

di-netboot-assistant fw-toggle n-pkg --arch=all

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✨ EXIT CODE ✨

1. 0 — successful program execution. she ate and left no crumbs 💅
2. 1 — an error occurred. (note that purge doesn't fail if the specified repository doesn't exist). 🫠

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✨ FILES ✨

• /etc/di-netboot-assistant/di-netboot-assistant.conf — the default system-wide configuration file. the file syntax must be bash(1) compatible. 🐚
• ~/.di-netboot-assistant/di-netboot-assistant.conf — user's own configuration file. the file syntax must be bash(1) compatible. (see file peruser.di-netboot-assistant.conf, in /usr/share/doc/di-netboot-assistant/examples/).
• /etc/di-netboot-assistant/di-sources.list — this file contains the list of downloadable netboot images. 📋
• /etc/di-netboot-assistant/pxelinux.HEAD — the content of this file is prepended to the generated PXElinux config file (i.e. boot menu). PXElinux bootloader is used on BIOS based i386 and amd64 systems.
• /var/lib/di-netboot-assistant/ — the folder where hints about installed netboot images are stored.

🚫 do not edit those files, re-use install to modify the settings of an installed image. hands off bestie.

• /var/cache/di-netboot-assistant/ — the folder where downloaded files are stored (cached) before "installing" them. use the action uncache to remove cached files.

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✨ SECURITY ✨

🔒 do not use sudo to grant execution right to di-netboot-assistant (see the README file). seriously. no.

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✨ PROXY ✨

di-netboot-assistant uses wget or curl to actually download the files. you can set the environment variables accordingly. 🌐

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✨ AUTHOR ✨

di-netboot-assistant was written by Frank Lin PIAT <fpiat@klabs.be>. 💜

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and that's the whole page bestie!! written by Frank Lin Piat, dated August 2009, living in the DI-NETBOOT-ASSISTANT(1) era — she's an icon, she's a legend, and she's the moment. go install something 🦋✨🎀