Create multiple ISO images with jigo-lite
Posted March 18th, 2008 in Linux/Unix/BSD
Jigdo is a tool for creating ISO images from a jigdo and template file, and files from multiple sources including previous release CDs or DVDs and FTP. I've written a few posts about jigdo now and this one looks at how to create multiple ISO images in one hit using the jigdo-lite command line tool. The example uses the recent Debian 4.0r3 i386 release.
Previous Posts
I've now posted a number of previous posts about using the jigdo tool. These are as follows:
- How to install jigdo on CentOS and RHEL (February 27 2008)
- How to use jigdo-lite (February 29 2008)
- Checksums do not match, image might be corrupted error with jigdo (March 6 2008)
- Create CDs from a DVD with jigdo (March 11 2008)
This will be the last post in my current series about jigdo.
Creating several CD images at once using jigdo
Fire up jigdo-lite:
jigdo-lite
and when prompted for the location of the jigdo files you can do this, substituting mirror.pacific.net.au with a local mirror (I won't put in all the other stuff it displays - you can see this in the previous posts):
ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/debian-cd/4.0_r3/i386/jigdo-cd/debian-40r3-i386-CD-{1,2,3,4,5,6,6}.jigdo
The jigdo-lite tools sees the {1,2,3,4,5,6} part and enumerates that into six different jigdo files, and you'll see some output like this:
You have asked me to process several files/URLs: ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/debian-cd/4.0_r3/i386/jigdo-cd/debian-40r3-i386-CD-1.jigdo ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/debian-cd/4.0_r3/i386/jigdo-cd/debian-40r3-i386-CD-2.jigdo ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/debian-cd/4.0_r3/i386/jigdo-cd/debian-40r3-i386-CD-3.jigdo ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/debian-cd/4.0_r3/i386/jigdo-cd/debian-40r3-i386-CD-4.jigdo ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/debian-cd/4.0_r3/i386/jigdo-cd/debian-40r3-i386-CD-5.jigdo ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/debian-cd/4.0_r3/i386/jigdo-cd/debian-40r3-i386-CD-6.jigdo Entering batch mode
It will then download the first jigdo file and then ask for the location of files from a previous CD, if you have them. If you have the previous CD or DVD then you would have this already mounted, which I've covered in the previous posts.
If you already have a previous version of the CD you are downloading, jigdo can re-use files on the old CD that are also present in the new image, and you do not need to download them again. Mount the old CD ROM and enter the path it is mounted under (e.g. `/mnt/cdrom'). Alternatively, just press enter if you want to start downloading the remaining files. You can also enter a single digit from the list below to select the respective entry for scanning: 1: /mnt/cdrom Files to scan: 1
At this stage it will now download the template file for the first image. It doesn't actually scan the mount point (/mnt/cdrom in my example selected above) until after it has downloaded the template file. This caught me out the first couple of times I tried using this batch mode myself because I didn't think it was going to bother scanning the mounted files.
When I did the above, I was creating the CDs from the 1st DVD of the same release, so I wouldn't have expected there to be any files to download. Nevertheless, on the second CD I was asked the following:
The jigdo file refers to files stored on Debian mirrors. Please choose a Debian mirror as follows: Either enter a complete URL pointing to a mirror (in the form `ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/'), or enter any regular expression for searching through the list of mirrors: Try a two-letter country code such as `de', or a country name like `United States', or a server name like `sunsite'. Debian mirror [ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/debian/]: ----------------------------------------------------------------- The jigdo file also refers to the Non-US section of the Debian archive. Please repeat the mirror selection for Non-US. Do not simply copy the URL you entered above; this does not work because the path on the servers differs! Debian non-US mirror [ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/debian-non-US/]:
I gave it the FTP locations, it then downloaded the template file, created the image, downloaded an additional 8 files, loaded them into the image and then verified it.
Once it completes the first CD in your list, jigdo-lite will then move on to the next one and the next one, until it has finished processing all the jigdo files that you asked for.
Summary and Series Summary
Jigdo is a powerful tool for downloading and assembling CD and DVD ISO images, and saves both time and bandwith when new releases come out. This is particularly useful for the Debian releases where there are currently 3 DVDs or 23 CDs per release. In this post I looked at how to get jigdo-lite to create multiple ISO images in one go. In previous posts I looked at how to use jigdo lite in general, creating CD or DVD images with or without files from previous or current releases, and some issues I have had.
In the past I have downloaded each CD and DVD for the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Debian. In the current 4.0 series this amounts to around 50 GB each time a minor point release comes out and can take a few days to download them. With jigdo I have been able to cut this down to probably only 2 or 3 GB per release and can usually assemble everything within a day.
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