rpm --root equivalent?

[Panu Matilainen]

On Tue, 2006-05-09 at 10:39 -0600, Vincent Danen wrote:
> * Panu Matilainen <pmatilai at laiskiainen.org> [2006-05-08 06:52:36 -0700]:
> 
> > > Another question.  Is there a way to point apt to a chroot to do an
> > > install?  For instance, with rpm, you can use --root to point to a
> > > directory or other filesystem to make rpm install stuff in that
> > > directory rather than the "real" root.  urpmi can do the same thing (in
> > > fact, I use urpmi to do the whole system installation as a result).
> > >
> > > Can apt be coerced into doing the same thing somehow?  If not, then I
> > > have to keep urpmi (more's the pity) if for nothing else than the
> > > installer (and for building the installer).
> > 
> > Sure, you can use -o rpm::rootdir=/some/path from the command line or set 
> > it in configuration file.
> 
> Fantastic!
> 
> > BTW if you're dealing a lot with chroot environments you might want to 
> > have a look at mach: http://thomas.apestaart.org/projects/mach/
> 
> Hmmm... this sounds interesting.  I'll have to take a peek at this.
> Thanks!
> 
> Oh, one more question.  I just realized this the other day, or rather,
> just remembered.
> 
> apt only can use ftp/http to retrieve packages, correct?  Are there any
> plans to support other methods of package retrieval?  One thing that I
> found I use on my external web servers is that one of them holds a copy
> of my repository of packages, and the other retrieves them via ssh/scp.
> Now, I could setup an ftp server on the one machine to run over the
> local xover cable that links the two machines, but that's a bit of a
> pain... =)  I was wondering if apt could currently do something like
> this or if there were any plans?

Apt actually supports rsh and ssh retrieval, in addition to "normal"
http/ftp/file methods. There are patches for rsync support as well but
it required patching rsync itself the last I looked (quite a while ago),
maybe that has changed since.

> Thanks again for answering so many questions... =)  I really do
> appreciate it.

No problem :)

	- Panu -