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PackageDebian.md

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Package your software for Debian

This document covers the preparation of Debian packages for your software package using BSD Owl Scripts. After reading this document, you will know:

  • How to configure your environment to start writing packages.
  • How to write the first version of your package.
  • How to update your package.

We assume that the package:

  • is built and installed using BSD Owl Scripts;
  • uses git as a source control management system.

We take as an example the preparation of a Debian package for Anvil 0.3.0. This special example also

  • uses GNU Autoconf to discover the system it is running on;
  • has a release branch holding the latest release;
  • uses tags similar to v1.0.0 to identify versions.

It should be easy to adapt the provided instructions to match other settings.

See Also: Debian New Maintainers' Guide, Packaging with git.

Clone the repository

We clone the repository and let our shell visit it.

% git clone git@github.com:michipili/anvil.git
% cd anvil

Create the Debian branch

We cut out a debian branch off the release branch. This branch should hold all files required by Debian to produce a package.

% git checkout -b debian origin/release

As detailed below in the section Staying up to date, subsequent releases happening on the release branch are to be merged on the debian branch in order to prepare packages for the newer version.

Create the Debian directory

The debian directory is used by the build system as a repository for configuration files but also as a work directory. We use the dh_make program to initialise this directory.

% dh_make --native -p anvil_0.3.0
% git add debian
% git commit -m "Create the Debian directory"

See Also: Debian New Maintainers' Guide, Chapter 2, dh-make(1).

Cleanup the Debian directory

The dh_make program fills the debian directory with a lot of templates. Most of the templates contain comments and are described in the Debian New Maintainers' Guide. After a quick inspection, we remove those which are not relevant.

% cd debian
% git rm README*
% git rm anvil.cron.d.ex
% git rm anvil.default.ex
% git rm init.d.ex
% git rm manpage.* menu.ex {pre,post}{inst,rm}.ex
% git commit -m "Cleanup the Debian directory"

Edit the control file

The control file holds most of the package meta-information. The contents of this file is described in details in Chapter 4 of Debian New Maintainer's Guide. We proceed to the following actions:

  • Set the Section
  • Set Build-Depends
  • Set Homepage
  • Set Vcs-Git
  • Set Vcs-Browser
  • Set Depends
  • Set Description

When we are done, we commit the resulting control file.

Edit the copyright file

The copyright file contains, as its name suggests, copyright information for the files found in the package. In the simplest cases, it is essentially a copy of the licence agreement. The Chapter 4 of Debian New Maintainer's Guide describes how to prepare this file.

When we are done, we commit the resulting copyright file.

Edit the changelog file

This is a third file with other meta-information. The most important information it contains is the version information. It is also described in Chapter 4 of Debian New Maintainer's Guide describes how to prepare this file.

Edit the rules file

The rules file is a GNU Makefile describing how to actually compile the software. All packages using BSD Owl Scripts will have a rules file similar to the following:

#!/usr/bin/make -f
MAKETOOL=bmake -r -I/usr/share/bsdowl DESTDIR=$$(pwd)/debian/anvil

%:
	dh $@

override_dh_auto_configure:
	autoconf
	dh_auto_configure

override_dh_auto_build:
	${MAKETOOL} build

override_dh_auto_install:
	${MAKETOOL} install
	dh_installman

override_dh_auto_clean:
	${MAKETOOL} distclean

override_dh_auto_test:
	: Do nada

It assumes that the configure script is not under version control, otherwise the target override_dh_auto_configure can be removed. It also assumes that our software package can be distcleaned without having been configured before.

Edit documentation index

The file anvil.doc-base is a documentation index that should briefly describe installed documents. The program dh_make created a template that we need to edit, then commit.

Edit the watch file

The watch file is used to automatically detect new versions of the software, which is not mandatory but still nice to have.

version=3
opts=pgpsigurlmangle=s/$/.sig/ https://github.com/michipili/anvil/releases (?:.*/)?anvil-([\d\.]+).tar.(?:gz|bz2|xz)

Configure git-buildpackage

Finally we configure the git buildpackage subcommand, to match the conventions used in our repository, which are slightly different from the default conventions. We create the file gbp.conf with the following contents:

[DEFAULT]
upstream-branch = release
upstream-tag = v%(version)s
debian-branch = debian
debian-tag = debian/v%(version)s

Once we commit this file, the package can finally be created with git buildpackage.

Staying up to date

Once a version 0.4.0 of our anvil software package is merged into the release branch, producing an updated package can be as easy as:

% git checkout debian
% git merge --no-commit --no-ff release
% dch -v 0.4.0-1
% git add debian/changelog
% git commit
% git buildpackage

If the upstream package evolves a lot, one can expect more work to be necessary. When packaging for Ubuntu and distributing on a PPA, it is necessary to prepare a source package rather than a binary package. For this, we use git buildpackage -S.

Once packages are ready, we can dput them on the appropriate servers.