I've written up the process to create a Debian based virtual appliance
for a Netrek Server, placing it in docs/README.debian-virtual-appliance
in my repository, and attached.

Unlike the previous post, this image is a mere 127Mb.  ;-)

One based on OpenWrt x86 should be about 3Mb.  There's a lot of cruft in
a standard Debian install.

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/
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# HOWTO build a Debian based Netrek Server virtual appliance
# by James Cameron, 2007-09-08
#
# input: Debian netinst installation media, internet access.
#
# output: virtual appliance that runs a netrek server in bronco mode,
# suitable for use by qemu, vmware, etc.

qemu-img create -f vmdk debian-etch.vmdk 400M

# build etch system from installation media
# TODO: use /usr/sbin/qemu-make-debian-root instead
qemu -hda debian-etch.vmdk -boot d -cdrom /dev/hda
# root password netrek

# reboot after installation
qemu -hda debian-etch.vmdk -boot c -cdrom /dev/hda -redir tcp:8022::22

# install ssh for further access
apt-get update
apt-get install ssh

# build a netrek virtual appliance using the debian system as input
cp debian-etch.vmdk netrek-server.vmdk
qemu -hda netrek-server.vmdk -boot c -cdrom /dev/hda -redir tcp:8022::22

# local shell customisation, set your proxy server here, optional
export http_proxy=http://10.0.0.1:3128/

# reduce grub boot timer from five seconds to zero seconds
sed 's/timeout\t\t5/timeout\t\t0/' < /boot/grub/menu.lst > /tmp/menu.lst && \
mv /tmp/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst

# install the netrek server package
echo "deb http://quozl.linux.org.au/netrek ./" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get update
apt-get install netrek-server-vanilla

# add missing dependency
apt-get install libgmp3c2

# configure netrek server to start on boot
update-rc.d netrek-server-vanilla defaults

# trim back packages installed
apt-get remove --purge \
traceroute manpages usbutils acpid acpi info eject libsasl2 iptables \
installation-report netcat wget man-db groff-base dselect nano tasksel \
tasksel-data aptitude apt-utils console-common console-data console-tools \
libdb4.4 libsigc++-2.0-0c2a libconsole dmidecode
# TODO: find other packages to remove, to cut down the space used

# clean up
apt-get clean

poweroff

# test boot the netrek server appliance
qemu -hda netrek-server.vmdk -boot c -cdrom /dev/hda -redir tcp:8952::2592 -snapshot

# compress the appliance
cp netrek-server.vmdk netrek-server-vanilla-2.12.1-appliance.vmdk
pbzip2 -v9 netrek-server-vanilla-2.12.1-appliance.vmdk
# total 127Mb