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churn/docs/upgrade_pack.md

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Creating an upgrade content pack for the butterbox

Butterboxes run Debian OS and can be upgraded using apt update and apt upgrade commands. However, since they are often expected to operate in areas without Internet connectivity, the following instructions detail how to create and use a content pack to allow local offline upgrades.

Requirements

  • A large (min 250GB ) Hard drive or USB Stick, formatted as FAT32 or ext4
  • Internet connectivity
  • A computer running Debian

Creating a Debian mirror

  • Plug in and mount the hard drive into a computer running Debian. The rest of the configuration assumes this is mounted at /mnt.
  • Edit the Debian mirror configuration. For this, depending on what kind of butterbox you have (AMD64-based, like an old laptop, or ARM-based, like a Raspberry Pi), edit the file "/etc/apt/mirror.list" (you may wish to back it up beforehand) to contain the following, making sure to uncomment the line corresponding to your box.
############# config ##################
#
 set base_path    /mnt # This is where the mirror will be created, ensure it corresponds to where the hard drive is mounted
#
 set mirror_path  $base_path/mirror
 set skel_path    $base_path/skel
 set var_path     $base_path/var
 set cleanscript $var_path/clean.sh
 set postmirror_script $var_path/postmirror.sh
 set run_postmirror 0
set nthreads     20
set _tilde 0
#
############# end config ##############

#deb [arch=arm64] http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free # Uncomment for ARM64, e.g. Raspberry Pi 3 or 4
#deb [arch=amd64] http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free # Uncomment for AMD64

# Note the mirror location, ftp.us.debian.org; you can choose any other online debian mirror to download from, keep a note of its name
  • Run the command apt-mirror. This will create a Debian mirror on your hard drive, that can then be used to upgrade your butterbox. The size of the archive varies, but will utilise somewhere in the region of 150-200GB, depending on architecture.

Careful running this command on any metered connection, as it will attempt download hundreds of GB worth of data!

Be patient. This command will take a while to run depending on the speed of your Internet connection.

Updating your Butterbox

  • Plug in the hard drive into your butterbox, and mount it. This assumes it is mounted at /mnt.
  • Log in via the butterbox console, as the root user.
  • ensure the date is set correctly by running date, for example: date -s "30/12/2026 10:29"
  • edit file /etc/apt/sources.list to contain the following line: deb file:/mnt/mirror/ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free

Note that the name of the directory might vary depending on the mirror you used in the previous step.

  • Congrats! Now you can run apt update and apt upgrade to update the box.