FEBOOTSTRAP-MINIMIZE(8)

NAME

febootstrap-minimize - Minimize an febootstrap image

SYNOPSIS

febootstrap-minimize [--options] DIR

DESCRIPTION

febootstrap-minimize minimizes an febootstrap(8)-created filesystem. This means that unneeded files and cruft are removed from the image.

If no options are given, the default is to minimize the image as much
as possible. This means, for example, that locales are removed so the image will only be usable in US-English, there will be no documentation or manual pages, and the image will only work in a UTC timezone.

Note that image minimization involves deleting files that have been
installed by RPM. Thus after minimization, it is no longer guaranteed that RPM will function correctly on the image. You should only do this as a final step for "throwaway" appliances that do not need to be
modified or upgraded in future.

OPTIONS

--all: Perform all minimization operations, to produce the smallest
possible image. Note in particular that locales are discarded.; You can perform all minimization operations except X, Y and Z by doing:

febootstrap-minimize --all --keep-X --keep-Y --keep-Z ...; ("--all" can be omitted since it is the default).
--none: Start with no minimization operations. You can specify only minimization operations X, Y and Z like this:

febootstrap-minimize --none --drop-X --drop-Y --drop-Z ...; --keep-locales
--drop-locales
Keep or drop locale support.; --keep-docs
--drop-docs
Keep or drop documentation, man pages and info files.; --keep-cracklib
--drop-cracklib
Keep or drop cracklib libraries.; --keep-i18n
--drop-i18n
Keep or drop "/usr/share/i18n".; --keep-zoneinfo
--drop-zoneinfo
Keep or drop all timezones (except UTC which is never deleted).; --keep-rpmdb
--drop-rpmdb
Keep or drop the RPM and YUM package databases. Obviously RPM and YUM will be completely non-functional if you drop these.; --keep-yum-cache
--drop-yum-cache
Keep or drop the yum cache. Note that febootstrap(8) has already deleted this directory unless you ran it with the "--no-clean"
option.; --keep-services
--drop-services
Keep or drop the "/etc/services" file. If dropped, this file is
replaced with a very minimal one which just lists the most common
services. For less common services you will have to refer to them by port number instead of name.; --keep-sln
--drop-sln
Keep or drop "/sbin/sln" (statically linked "ln"). This is not
really required in minimal appliances.; --keep-ldconfig
--drop-ldconfig
Keep or drop "/sbin/ldconfig", "/etc/ld.so.cache" and
"/var/cache/ldconfig" (the dynamic linking cache). This is not
needed. Dynamic linking during program execution will be
marginally slower.; --pack-executables
This option has been removed in febootstrap 2.5. In previous
versions it was used to pack executables using the external "upx"
program. However it was not enabled by default and never worked
very effectively.

TODO

o Deduplicate files with the same content (by hardlinking them). See: the program hardlink(1).
o Remove unused binaries.
o Remove unused libraries.

AUTHORS

Richard W.M. Jones <rjones @ redhat . com>

COPYRIGHT

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

docs.sk

comprehensive documentation repository

See also