Difference between revisions of "Unix/Linux Packages"

Revision as of 13:44, 29 May 2008

For building binary installation packages for different Linux/Unix distribution you can use the scripts make_debian_package, make_rpm_package and make_svr_package.

Introduction

This is a step by step manual on how to create such packages with these scripts. Since the source is the same for all distributions, the resulting packages are not distribution specific. This means you should be able to install e.g. a resulting .deb package on Debian and Ubuntu. In general the scripts take an existing EiffelStudio delivery, copy all files to a temporary Unix root directory and call the packaging tools for the specific distribution.

Note that you should only create packages from deliveries built for your specific architecture. This is because the packaging tools automatically determine your architecture and store that information in the resulting package. So lets say you have an amd64 machine, only try to create packages for linux-x86-64 deliveries. The package will then be tagged for x86_64 architectures. Because the packaging tools automatically detect dynamic library dependencies, unfortunately it is not possible to create packages for other architectures, even if you use an already compiled delivery.

Also if the Delivery includes a docs/ directory, the packaging scripts will automatically create an architecture independent package only containing the documentary for EiffelStudio. This is to keep the size for the main package as little as possible.

Prerequisites

Make sure $ISE_EIFFEL and $ISE_PLATFORM are pointing to the delivery you want to make a package for. The version of EiffelStudio will automatically be detected so your package will be named correctly and also contain all information related to the delivery $ISE_EIFFEL points to.

Regardless which distribution you want to create a package for, you will need a directory called packaging and a script called make_unix_layout from https://svn.origo.ethz.ch/eiffelstudio/trunk/Delivery/scripts/unix/. The packaging directory contains build related files for all distribution. make_unix_layout is used by the packaging scripts to create the final unix layout for EiffelStudio (the way it will be installed later on the end user's system).

In a terminal, type the following commands in the directory you want to create your package(s). In general you do not need root access to build the packages.

export SVNURL=https://svn.origo.ethz.ch/eiffelstudio/trunk
svn export $SVNURL/Delivery/scripts/unix/packaging
svn export $SVNURL/Delivery/scripts/unix/make_unix_layout

Debian

To create a .deb package of EiffelStudio, you will need the make_debian_package script from the repository.

svn export $SVNURL/Delivery/scripts/unix/make_debian_package

Following debian packages are required:

• build-essential
• devscripts
• debhelper
• fakeroot
• lintian (optional)

To install the packages, copy paste following code into a root shell:

apt-get install build-essential devscripts debhelper fakeroot lintian

RPM

To create a .rpm package of EiffelStudio, you will need the make_rpm_packge script from the repository.

svn export $SVNURL/Delivery/scripts/unix/make_rpm_package

Sometimes, RPM does not have rpmbuild installed. Usually you can install it be typing this into a root shell:

yum install rpm-build

UNIX

To create a .svr package of EiffelStudio, you will need the make_svr_packge script from the repository.

svn export $SVNURL/Delivery/scripts/unix/make_svr_package

The packaging tools pkgmk and pkgtrans which are used by the scripts should be installed already.

Creating the packages

Creating the package itself is fairly simple. Depending on which distribution you want to build a package for, type one of the following commands.

For a debian (.deb) package:

./make_debian_package

For a RPM (.rpm) package:

./make_rpm_package

For a UNIX (.svr) package

./make_svr_package

If everything works fine, the created packages are located in the current directory.

Additional packages

To reduce the package size for EiffelStudio, all scripts produce a separate architecture independent package containing documentation. This only works if you have a docs directory in your $ISE_EIFFEL delivery. Otherwise it will only create the main package.

Signing packages

So far signing is only supported for RPM packages. make_rpm_package will automatically try to sign the package if gpg is available on your system. Also you will need to set $KEY and $PASS_PHRASE in packaging/config.sh with the identifier/pass phrase of your private key.

Verifying packages (optional)

Debian

For Debian packages you have the possibility of verifying your package with a tool called lintian. If you have installed lintian as mentioned in the Prerequisites section for Debian, simply run following command:

lintian *.deb

lintian will print any errors and warnings about the packages.

RPM

Use

rpm -qpi *.rpm

to display package information or

rpm -qpl *.rpm

to have a list of the files contained in the packages.

Implementation Details

Both scripts make_debian_package and make_rpm_package do not make use of the build facilities provided by debuild, respectively rpmbuild. This is mainly because the packages are meant to support the installation of EiffelStudio and not provide source packages to actually build EiffelStudio on the different distributions and platforms. This means that both scripts skip the building part and perform the installation themselves by calling make_unix_layout. What remains is generally compressing/archiving the installation files and putting them into a .deb/.rpm file together with some information about the package.

The next sections will explain which files are needed for debuild and rpmbuild to work and what make_debian_package and make_rpm_package need to set up before invoking them.

Files in packaging/

In the packaging directory you have mostly template files for building packages. Some files have a .sh ending and have to be executed so they produce the actual file used by debuild or rpmbuild (e.g. control.sh will produce a file called control). The reason is that most of the settings in these files have to be determined once we now which delivery we are using. This are mostly path names, but can also be names or email addresses or the person creating the package.

• config.sh contains general attributes the packages should have at the end. They apply to all distributions.
• description is a longer description of EiffelStudio. This will appear in the package manager if people install or display the new packages.
• desktop contains menu information for desktop environments like Gnome or KDE (this file gets added by make_unix_layout)
• license contains copyright information for EiffelStudio
• logo.png icon for menu entry (gets added by make_unix_layout)
• make_install.sh this script is added to a unix layout also by make_unix_layout (/usr/share). It is used to build the precompile libraries by calling the wizard or if there is no GUI directly through command line.
• debian/control.sh produces the control file containing information like package name, version number or maintainer. This information is then put into the package by debuild. The control file contains information for the main and the documentation package.
• debian/changelog.sh produces a changelog file. Since we do not have any distribution specific changes this file only contains a place holder entry.
• debian/compat is only used by debuild
• debian/rules is a modified makefile which tells debuild what it has to execute in order to build the package. As mentioned earlier, we don't actually build the package, so all build and install related directives have been removed. What is left are a lot of calls to dh_* helper scripts, which perform various tasks. All of the scripts contain a manpage which describes what they actually do.
• debian/postinst.sh creates a Debian package script similar to make_install.sh, except that it is called by the packaging manager directly when installing the package (or reconfiguring it e.g. through dpkg-reconfigure).
• debian/prerm.sh created a Debian package script which simply removes the EIFGENs directory for precompiles.
• rpm/eiffelstudio.spec.sh and rpm/eiffelstudio-doc.spec.sh create RPM spec files which contain the same information file as the control for Debian packages. Except that when packaging it is easier if there are two separate files for the main and doc package. As a difference to Debian packages, the .spec files for RPM already include the install/remove scripts (Although simplified because user input through the console is not allowed with RPM during installation).
• rpm/RPMS is the directory in which rpmbuild will create the new packages.
• svr/pkginfo.sh and svr/pkginfo-doc.sh creates a pkginfo file containing general information for each package.
• svr/preremove.sh creates a the preremove scripts which gets called when uninstalling EiffelStudio (similar to Debian's prerm.sh)
• svr/reqeust.sh creates a script which is called before installing the resulting package. The scripts simply prints some information on how to generate the precompile libraries after the installation. The reason why we (currently) can not do this as convenient as for Debian/RPM is that the package manager for .svr packages clears all environment variables when calling these scripts.

Check out the links in the References section for more information of the content of these files.

make_debian_package

This list describes briefly what the make_debian_package script does step by step:

• calling make_unix_layout to produce a unix layout in packaging/debian/eiffelstudio-X.Y
• run all *.sh files in the packaging directory
• if make_unix_layout created a docs directory:
  • move the docs directory into a separate package directory packaging/debian/eiffelstio-X.Y-doc
  • call debuild to create the documentation package (since it is architecture independent, we can simply call debuild with the binary-indep switch, so it only tries to create a -doc package)
  • clean up all documentation related files
• run debuild with the binary-arch switch to make it create the main package
• some cleaning up

make_rpm_package

This list describes briefly what the make_rpm_package script does step by step:

• calling make_unix_layout to produce a unix layout in packaging/rpm/eiffelstudio
• run all *.sh files in the packaging directory
• if make_unix_layout created a docs directory:
  • move the docs directory into a separate package directory packaging/rpm/eiffelstudio-doc
  • call rpmbuild with the eiffelstudio-doc.spec file to create the documentation package
  • clean up all documentation related files
• call rpmbuild with the eiffelstudio.spec file to create the main package
• move the created RPM packages to the current directory
• some cleaning up

See also

• LinuxUnixLayout

References

Debian:

• http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/
• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackagingGuide/Complete

RPM:

• http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm/
• http://pmc.ucsc.edu/~dmk/notes/RPMs/Creating_RPMs.html

UNIX:

• http://docsrv.sco.com/SDK_tools/CTOC-PackagSWApps.html
• http://www.cymru.com/Documents/UNIX/package.txt
• http://dlc.sun.com/osol/docs/content/IPS/ggcph.html (Opensolaris)