Good evening, I just tried following the steps in "Tip: Creating throwaway appliances with febootstrap"[1] on my workstation at home running Debian/unstable. I ran into problems: ,---- | $ mkdir supermin.d | $ febootstrap --names 'bash' 'coreutils' -o supermin.d | Get: 1 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main bash amd64 4.1-3 [1325 kB] | Get: 2 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main base-files amd64 6.4 [69.1 kB] | Get: 3 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main coreutils amd64 8.5-1 [5102 kB] | Get: 4 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main libacl1 amd64 2.2.49-5 [28.7 kB] | Get: 5 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main libattr1 amd64 1:2.4.44-3 [18.4 kB] | Get: 6 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main dash amd64 0.5.5.1-7.4 [108 kB] | Get: 7 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main debianutils amd64 4 [75.4 kB] | Get: 8 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main dpkg amd64 1.16.0.3 [2227 kB] | Get: 9 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main libbz2-1.0 amd64 1.0.5-6 [46.4 kB] | Get: 10 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main libc6 amd64 2.13-4 [4312 kB] | Get: 11 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main libc-bin amd64 2.13-4 [1079 kB] | Get: 12 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main gawk amd64 1:3.1.7.dfsg-5 [806 kB] | Get: 13 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main libgcc1 amd64 1:4.6.0-10 [42.8 kB] | Get: 14 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main gcc-4.6-base amd64 4.6.0-10 [131 kB] | Get: 15 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main libselinux1 amd64 2.0.98-1+b1 [89.2 kB] | Get: 16 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main mawk amd64 1.3.3-15 [90.1 kB] | Get: 17 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main libncurses5 amd64 5.9-1 [382 kB] | Get: 18 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main original-awk amd64 2010-05-23-1 [73.4 kB] | Get: 19 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main sensible-utils all 0.0.6 [6428 B] | Get: 20 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main xz-utils amd64 5.0.0-2 [201 kB] | Get: 21 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main liblzma2 amd64 5.0.0-2 [184 kB] | Get: 22 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/main zlib1g amd64 1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3 [79.2 kB] | Fetched 16.5 MB in 13s (1261 kB/s) `---- No obvious problems so far. ,---- | $ ls -lh supermin.d/ | | total 100K | -rw-r--r-- 1 bengen bengen 52K May 29 18:59 base.img | -rw-r--r-- 1 bengen bengen 42K May 29 18:59 hostfiles `---- Well, base.img and hostfiles have been created, but base.img is considerably smaller than in the example. ,---- | $ cat > init | #!/bin/bash - | echo Welcome to my world | bash -i | $ chmod +x init | $ echo init | cpio -o -H newc --quiet > supermin.d/init.img | $ febootstrap-supermin-helper -f ext2 supermin.d x86_64 kernel initrd root | febootstrap-supermin-helper: ext2: parent directory not found: /lib/modules: File not found by ext2_lookup `---- Running febootstrap-supermin-helper with -vv produces these lines before the error: ,---- | ext2_file_stat /var/tmp 041777 | supermin helper [06516ms] visiting supermin.d/init.img | cpio header 070701016E4031000081ED000003E8000003E8000000014DE27BEC00000030000000090000000000000000000000000000000500000000 | ext2 read_file init 100755 | ext2 read_file dirname init basename init | cpio header 07070100000000000000000000000000000000000000010000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000B00000000 | ext2 read_file TRAILER!!! 0 | ext2_file_stat /lib/modules/2.6.39-1-amd64 040755 | febootstrap-supermin-helper: ext2: parent directory not found: /lib/modules: File not found by ext2_lookup `---- Any hints on how to further debug this? Ending on a high note, I have prepared a patch for febootstrap that gets rid of the insmod.static dependency, clearing the path for "proper" Debian packages of febootstrap 3 (and libguestfs). I'll post it once I have been able to verify that it works correctly. Cheers, -Hilko [1] http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/tip-creating-throwaway-appliances-with-...