Inodes

Fractional CTO Consulting

FOSS

Building a Private PPA on Ubuntu

· · 13 Comments

One of the things I love about the Ubuntu project and launchpad is the Personal Package Archive. PPAs make it so simple and easy to backport packages. The only problem with PPAs is that they are public. I had a need to be able to host some private internal packages as well as squid with SSL support, which you can’t distribute in binary form due to licensing restrictions.

Basically I wanted to create the equivalent of an Ubuntu PPA service running on our own servers so we could place it behind our firewall. This post is basically the process I followed to integrate rebuilld and reprepro to replicate a PPA setup.

So first up install reprepro

Bash
aptitude install reprepro

next we need do create a reprepro repository

Bash
mkdir -p /srv/reprepro/{conf,incoming,incomingtmp}

Now we need to tell reprepro which distributions we care about. Create /srv/reprepro/conf/distributions with the following contents

YAML
Suite: hardy
Version: 8.04
Codename: hardy
Architectures: i386 amd64 source
Components: main
Description: Local Hardy
SignWith: repository@inodes.org
DebIndices: Packages Release . .gz .bz2
DscIndices: Sources Release .gz .bz2
Tracking: all includechanges keepsources
Log: logfile
  --changes /srv/reprepro/bin/build_sources

Suite: intrepid
Version: 8.10
Codename: intrepid
Architectures: i386 amd64 source
Components: main
Description: Local Intrepid
SignWith: repository@inodes.org
DebIndices: Packages Release . .gz .bz2
DscIndices: Sources Release .gz .bz2
Tracking: all includechanges keepsources
Log: logfile
  --changes /srv/reprepro/bin/build_sources

Suite: jaunty
Version: 9.04
Codename: jaunty
Architectures: i386 amd64 source
Components: main
Description: Local Jaunty
SignWith: repository@inodes.org
DebIndices: Packages Release . .gz .bz2
DscIndices: Sources Release .gz .bz2
Tracking: all includechanges keepsources
Log: logfile
  --changes /srv/reprepro/bin/build_sources

I also like to create reprepro options file to setup some defaults, edit /srv/reprepro/conf/options

Bash
verbose
verbose
verbose
verbose
verbose

Next we need to setup an incoming queue so that we can use dput to get the source packages into reprepro,
vi /srv/reprepro/conf/incoming

YAML
Name: incoming
IncomingDir: incoming
Allow: hardy intrepid jaunty
Cleanup: on_deny on_error
Tempdir: incomingtmp

The repository is now ready to go. So now we can setup apache. Edit /etc/apache/sites-enabled/pppa

Apache
ServerName packages.inodes.org
DocumentRoot /srv/reprepro

and we should also configure our sources.list to use these repositories, edit /etc/apt/sources.list

Bash
# Sources for rebuildd
deb-src http://packages.inodes.org hardy main
deb-src http://packages.inodes.org intrepid main
deb-src http://packages.inodes.org jaunty main

Next we want to setup our dput.cf to make the magic happen to get the source packages into the archive, edit ~/.dput.cf

INI
[DEFAULT]
default_host_main = notspecified

[local]
fqdn = localhost
method = local
incoming = /srv/reprepro/incoming
allow_unsigned_uploads = 0
run_dinstall = 0
post_upload_command = reprepro -V -b /srv/reprepro processincoming incoming

So now we can do the following

Bash
apt-get source squid3
cd squid3*
dch -i # increment version number
dpkg-buildpackage -sa -S
cd ..
dput local *changes
aptitude update
apt-get source squid3

So when you run dput, first it copies the source package files to /srv/reprepro/incoming and then it gets reprepro to process it’s incoming queue. This means that the source package is now sitting in the repository.
So the second apt-get source should have downloaded the source package from our local repository which is exactly what rebuildd will do before it tries to build it.

Next step is to setup rebuildd so that it builds the binary packages and installs them into the repository.

Bash
aptitude install rebuildd

Setup so it runs out of init.d and the releases we care about, edit /etc/default/rebuildd

Bash
START_REBUILDD=1
START_REBUILDD_HTTPD=1
DISTS="hardy intrepid jaunty"

Now when a source package is uploaded into the repository we want to kick off rebuildd to build the package. We can do this through the reprepro log hooks. You’ll notice in the conf/distributions above the following lines.

YAML
Log: logfile
  --changes /srv/reprepro/bin/build_sources

This script will be run any time a .changes file is added to the repository. Create /srv/reprepro/bin/build_sources

Bash
#!/bin/bash

action=$1
release=$2
package=$3
version=$4
changes_file=$5

# Only care about packages being added
if [ "$action" != "accepted" ]
then
	exit 0
fi

# Only care about source packages
echo $changes_file | grep -q _source.changes
if [ $? = 1 ]
then
	exit 0
fi

# Kick off the job
echo "$package $version 1 $release"  | sudo rebuildd-job add

This script basically checks the right type of package is being added. Then it calls rebuildd-job to ask for that specific package and version to be built for that Ubuntu release.

Now the first thing that rebuildd does is download the source for the package. However we need to update the sources first since our server doesn’t know there are new files in the repository yet. So edit /etc/rebuildd/rebuilddrv an change

Bash
apt-get -q --download-only -t ${d} source ${p}=${v}

to

Bash
source_cmd = /srv/reprepro/bin/get_sources ${d} ${p} ${v}

and create /srv/reprepro/bin/get_sources with

Bash
#!/bin/bash

d=$1
p=$2
v=$3

sudo aptitude update >/dev/null
apt-get -q --download-only -t ${d} source ${p}=${v}

By this stage we have rebuildd building packages but we need to make sure they get re-injected back into the repository. We can do this with a post script. Edit /etc/rebuildd/rebuilddrc

Bash
post_build_cmd = /srv/reprepro/bin/upload_binaries ${d} ${p} ${v} ${a}

and create /srv/reprepro/bin/upload_binaries

Bash
#!/bin/bash

d=$1
p=$2
v=$3
a=$4

su -l -c "reprepro -V -b /srv/reprepro include ${d} /var/cache/pbuilder/result/${p}_${v}_${a}.changes" johnf

Now the su is in there because rebuildd needs to be able to access the GPG passphrase to sign the repository with. So rather than have a passphrase-less key we make sure that gpg-agent is running by adding the following to your .profile.

Bash
if test -f $HOME/.gpg-agent-info &&    kill -0 `cut -d: -f 2 $HOME/.gpg-agent-info` 2>/dev/null; then
	GPG_AGENT_INFO=`cat $HOME/.gpg-agent-info`
	export GPG_AGENT_INFO
else
	eval `gpg-agent --daemon`
	echo $GPG_AGENT_INFO >$HOME/.gpg-agent-info
fi

GPG_TTY=`tty`
export GPG_TTY

So that’s it you now have your own personal PPA. Just in case you had fallen asleep. Here is a little script I wrote so you can auto build the source packages for each release you care about in one go.

Bash
#!/bin/bash

set -e

RELEASES="hardy intrepid jaunty"

if [ ! -f debian/changelog ]
then
	echo "This isn't a debian repo"
	exit 1
fi

# Check for changes
if [ `bzr st | wc -l` != "0" ]
then
	echo "You have uncommitted changes!"
	exit 1
fi

if [ -d ../tmpbuild ]
then
	echo "The tmpbuild dir exists"
	exit 1
fi

bzr export ../tmpbuild
cp debian/changelog ../tmpbuild.changelog
cd ../tmpbuild

PACKAGE=`head -1 debian/changelog | awk '{print $1}'`
VERSION=`head -1 debian/changelog | awk '{print $2}' | sed -r -e 's/^(//;s/)$//'`

for release in $RELEASES
do
	
	sed -r -e "1s/) [^;]+; /~${release}) ${release}; /" ../tmpbuild.changelog > debian/changelog 
	head -1 debian/changelog
	dpkg-buildpackage -S -sa
	dput local ../${PACKAGE}_${VERSION}~${release}_source.changes
done

cd ..
rm -rf tmpbuild

So the above documentation is a bit of a brain dump on what I’ve been working on for the past 2 days and I’m sure I’ve left some bits out. So please give me any feedback you have in the comments.

Linux Australia SysAdmin Day Gift

· · 3 Comments

I would like to send out a big thank you to the Linux Australia Council. As I’m sure you all know yesterday was System Administrator Appreciation Day. The Council decided to send me a ThinkGeek gift certificate in appreciation for my work as an LA Admin.

After hours of searching I finally decided on the USB SATA Drive Dock :).

Again a big thank you to the LA council and to Steve Walsh for organising the gift certificate.

CruiseControl.rb and Bazaar

· · 3 Comments

Today I was investigating Continuous Integration solutions for rails projects. In the end I ended up settling on CruiseControl.rb mainly because it’s a rails app and most of the others where Java based.

The only problem is that CruiseControl.rb doesn’t currently support Bazaar, in fact the released version only supports SVN while the development version supports Git and Mercurual.

Anyway after a couple of hours of hacking I came up with the following patch which I’ve filed as a bug.

Bzr keeps easing my pain

· · 2 Comments

There has been a trend in the Annodex community lately to move towards using git rather than SVN for source code management. Now while I applaud the move to a DVCS, I hate having to use git. It is just extremely painful IMHO.

I just shouldn’t have to look up a man page or tutorial every time I want to use a tool. Something I don’t have to do with any of CSV, SVN, bzr or mecurial. Git may have some benefits under the hood but I think its user interface still has a long way to go. I can totally understand how git is the perfect tool for the kernel community but I just don’t think it makes a lot of sense for some other communities who have jumped on the badwagon.

The nice folks over in the bazaar community have found a way to ease my pain. Some of you may be familiar with the bzr-svn plugin written by Jelmer Vernooij. Well he has recently expanded on the work started by Rob Collins and now we have a working bzr-git.

Bash
johnf@zoot:~$ bzr branch git://git.xiph.org/liboggz.git
Branched 734 revision(s).
johnf@zoot:~$ cd liboggz.git/
johnf@zoot:~/liboggz.git$ bzr log -r -1
------------------------------------------------------------
revno: 734
git commit: ef3b0ebc1fdc299a09119df01fbd1c8867f90d8b
committer: Conrad Parker
timestamp: Wed 2009-04-01 00:59:36 +0000
message:
  Update the link to the theora spec
  Patch by Ralph Giles

Joy!!! Many thanks to the wonderful guys in the bazzar community for making my life so much easier. All we need now is bzr-hg and I’ll never have to leave my comfort zone 🙂

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