Building Debian Packages

Bcfg2 Packaging

The Bcfg2 project provides a debian subdirectory with the project's source that enables users to create their own Debian/Ubuntu? compatible packages (.deb files). The steps to do this, assuming that you are running on a Debian/Ubuntu? system, are as follows:

Build deps

If the distribution you are building on already has packaged bcfg2 (even an older version), the following command will likely install the necessary packages to enable it to be built:

apt-get build-dep bcfg2 bcfg2-server

Install source code

Depending on which version of bcfg2 you want build, you can obtain the source code from Download or from the project's git repository. To create a local anonymous working copy of the latest version of the bcfg2 source code, use a command like the following:

git clone git://git.mcs.anl.gov/bcfg2.git

Update the changelog

The next step is to update the Debian changelog file with an appropriate package version string. Debian packages contain a version that is extracted from the latest entry in the changelog file. An appropriate version will help you distinguish your locally built package from one provided by your distribution. It also helps the packaging system know when a newer version of the package is available to install.

It is possible to skip this step, but the packages you build will have the same version as the source distribution and will be easy to confuse with other similarly named (but maybe not equivalent) packages.

The basic format of the package version string to use is this:

<UPSTREAM VER>~<UPSTREAM PRE-VER>+<GIT-ID>-0.1+<LOCAL VER>

NOTE: The '+', and '-' characters have significance in determining when one package is newer than another. The following format is believed to do the right thing in all common situations.

The components of the package version string are explained below:

<UPSTREAM VER>

This is the version of the Bcfg source code you are working from. It will likely be something like 0.9.6 or 1.0.

<UPSTREAM PRE-VER>

If you are using a published pre-release of Bcfg2, it will have a name like pre1 or rc1. Use that string here, otherwise drop this component from the package version string.

+<GIT-ID>

If you are building from a local working copy of the git repository, it is useful to include the revision in the package version. If you are building from a downloaded copy of the source, drop this component (including the preceding plus-sign (+) from the package version string.

+<LOCAL VER>

This is a locally relevant name like your last name or your domain name, plus the digit 1. For example, if your family name is Smith, you could use smith1. If you work for Example Inc, you could use example1.

Here are some examples:

• If you are building packages for revision 6c681bd from git, and the latest published version is 1.2.0rc1, the version string should be 1.2.0rc1+6c681bd-0.1+example1.
• If you are building packages for the published 1.0 rc1 version, the version string should be 1.0rc1-0.1+example1.
• If you are building packages for the published 1.0 version, the version string should be 1.0-0.1+example1.

If you are working on a git working copy of 1.0 pre5 and have the devscripts package installed, the following command is a convenient way to create a well formatted changelog entry:

REV=$(git log --oneline | head -n 1 | cut -d' ' -f1)
debchange --force-bad-version --preserve --newversion "1.0~pre5+${REV}-0.1+example1" git revision $REV

Building the package

With the preliminaries out of the way, building the package is simple.

cd ..  # Change into the top level of the source directory
fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us

The freshly built packages will be deposited in the parent of the current directory (..). Examine the output of dpkg-buildpackage for details.

External build systems

This section describes how to build bcfg2 and deps via external build system. Currently only a PPA. Some other possibilities are:

• #651 Look into project-builder to make more native-system bcfg2 packages available
• ​http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service/Deb_builds

Launchpad PPA

• ​https://launchpad.net/~bcfg2

To upload to the PPA you need to be on the active member list of ​Bcfg2 in Launchpad.

Note that after each successful upload, you should wait until the PPA is built, and then install it locally using "sudo aptitude update; sudo aptitude install (packagename)" so the next build doesn't fail on your local machine. If you don't want to wait for a PPA binary build to complete, you can "apt-get source (packagename)" and do a local build before the PPA build is done.

setup gpg-agent

So you won't be prompted for your passphrase a whole bunch of times...

sudo aptitude install gnupg-agent pinentry-gtk2 pinentry-curses
# replace 0xAA95C349 with your GPG Key ID
export GPGKEY=0xAA95C349
killall -q gpg-agent
eval $(gpg-agent --daemon)

setup debuild

Tell dpkg-buildpackage who you are, for example:

export DEBEMAIL="dclark@pobox.com"
export DEBFULLNAME="Daniel Joseph Barnhart Clark"

bcfg2

upload bcfg2 to ppa

A dists file contains a space-separated list of all distributions you want to build PPA packages for.

#!/bin/sh

. ./dists

# Replace 0xAA95C349 with your GnuPG Key ID
export GPGKEY=0xAA95C349

sudo apt-get build-dep bcfg2 bcfg2-server
sudo aptitude install git

VERSION=1.3.2-1
if [ ! -d testing ]; then
    mkdir testing
fi
DATE=$(date +%F-%H%M)
ppa="testing" # "testing" or "ppa" (for stable)

# download source
cd testing
git clone git://git.mcs.anl.gov/bcfg2
cd bcfg2
GITID=$(git log --oneline | head -n 1 | cut -d' ' -f1)
cp debian/changelog ../changelog.orig

for dist in $DISTS
do
    cp ../changelog.orig debian/changelog
    (cd debian && dch --distribution ${dist} \
                      --force-bad-version \
                      --preserve \
                      --force-distribution \
                      --newversion "${VERSION}~${ppa}~${dist}${DATE}+${GITID}" \
                      "bcfg2 backport for ${dist} release ${VERSION} git commit ${GITID}")
    debuild --no-tgz-check -rfakeroot -I -S -k${GPGKEY}
done

for dist in $DISTS
do
    dput ppa:bcfg2/${dist}testing ../bcfg2_${VERSION}~${ppa}~${dist}${DATE}+${GITID}_source.changes
done