| Author: | Luca Falavigna <dktrkranz@debian.org> |
|---|---|
| Date: | October 06, 2010 |
| Homepage: | http://launchpad.net/debomatic |
Contents
This is Deb-o-Matic, an easy to use build machine for Debian-based source packages. It provides a simple tool to automate building of Debian source packages with limited user interaction and a straightforward configuration.
It has some useful feature such as automatic chroot update and automatic scan and selection of source packages to build. It is meant to help developers to build their packages without worrying too much of compilation, since it will run in background and no user feedback is required during the whole process.
These packages are required to build and install Deb-o-Matic on your system:
These ones are required to execute Deb-o-Matic:
To enable additional features, you may want to install these packages:
An Internet connection is also required, broadband access is recommended because debootstrap will fetch several packages from the Internet to set up chroots.
Installation process is straightforward, just execute:
python setup.py install
You will find debomatic executable into /usr/bin, Debomatic module into /usr/lib/python*/site-packages/Debomatic (or /usr/lib/python*/dist-packages/, based on your Python version), custom modules in /usr/share/debomatic/modules and related man pages into /usr/share/man directory.
In order to have Deb-o-Matic working, you have to prepare a configuration file which will provide the options needed to run debomatic. You can look at examples/debomatic.conf to see a working example.
The most important options are located under "default" section: here are some:
See debomatic.conf man page for a complete list of the available options.
When main configuration file is complete, you must create the directories referenced by packagedir and configdir, where you will put pbuilder configuration files. Working examples are located into examples directory. Names must match target distribution you want to build packages for (e.g. if you want to build a package for unstable, pbuilder configuration filename must be unstable). They should be the same as the ones provided by debootstrap.
See pbuilderrc man page for a complete list of the available options.
To start Deb-o-Matic, you have to launch debomatic -c debomatic.conf command (where debomatic.conf is your main configuration file). You need root privileges to do so because of pbuilder infrastructure. This will start debomatic in daemon mode, use -n switch to avoid this.
Now you can put source packages in the chosen package directory (identified by packagedir option) and Deb-o-Matic will take care of the building phase. Deb-o-Matic requires .changes files, be sure to generate a full Debian source package by using a command such as dpkg-buildpackage -S -sa. You have to upload .changes file and each file mentioned under its Files section. You may want to use software like dput to automate the process. A source upload is required, other type of .changes files could not be parsed correctly leading to an ignored build.
Normally, Deb-o-Matic tries to update chroot only if there is a valid reason to do so (e.g. if Release file on the preferred mirror changed, that means some packages have been added or removed).
If your configuration has a local package repository, populated by packages just built by Deb-o-Matic, you may always want to update pbuilder chroot. To do so, simply put a file called "alwaysupdate" into gpg folder of the targets you want to enable this feature for.
Deb-o-Matic supports GPG-signed source packages to allow build for authorized people only. To enable GPG support, you need to set options in "gpg" section in main configuration file. Only packages signed with keys present in keyring pointed by the correspondent option will be processed, unknown packages will be deleted automatically.
Deb-o-Matic can parse commands file to perform actions on queued builds, or to schedule new ones. It actually implements rm and rebuild, the former is used to remove files in packagedir, while the latter is used to instruct Deb-o-Matic to fetch packages from the chosen mirror and rebuild them using current chroot.
To remove a file, rm must be followed by a word, with or without wildcards, Deb-o-Matic will try to remove files matching the pattern. Example follows:
To schedule a rebuild, rebuild must be followed by package name, an underscore, package version, a space, and target distribution. Example follows:
It is possible to include multiple commands into a single file, they must be separated by a newline.
Deb-o-Matic can automatically fetch upstream tarballs if already available on main distribution archive (e.g. http://archive.debian.com/debian), so you can choose not to include them in such cases. You always need to include them in case of new upstream version or new packages.
Deb-o-Matic provides modules support. Modules are Python scripts pluggable at runtime which extend Deb-o-Matic features. Available modules are stored into modules directory. An example module can be found into examples directory, useful to write your own Deb-o-Matic module.
Modules can be blacklisted to avoid launching them during build process. A module.blacklist file needs to be defined in configuration file for this. In order to define a blacklist, it is sufficient to list desired module name, without trailing .py, separated by a space or a newline.
If you want to report a bug or a feature, please visit Deb-o-Matic homepage at https://launchpad.net/debomatic.