Packaging

Overview

Creating a package involves the following steps:

  1. Initialize package directories

  2. Configure metadata and upstream source in Makefile

  3. Generate MANIFEST file (source checksums)

  4. Configure distribution-specific packaging

  5. Build the package

Creating Packages

Initialize a packaging skeleton:

./common/init_pkg.sh -n yourpackage

This creates the following structure:

foo/
├── buildenv -> ../common/buildenv
├── debian/            # Debian packaging files
│   ├── changelog
│   ├── compat
│   ├── control        # Package metadata and dependencies
│   ├── rules          # Build instructions
│   └── ...
├── rpm/
│   └── component.spec # RPM spec file
├── Makefile           # Package metadata and build configuration
└── MANIFEST           # Checksums of upstream sources

Building Packages

First, go in the package directory:

cd yourpackage

Building the .rpm Package:

make rpm_chroot DIST=el9  # Replace 'el9' with target distro

tree *out
out/
└── yourpackage-0.0.1-1.amk+el9.noarch.rpm

Building the .deb Package:

make deb_chroot DIST=trixie  # Replace 'trixie' with target distro

tree out
out/
└── yourpackage_0.0.1-1~amk+deb13_all.deb

Clean:

# Clean everything
make clean

# Clean, but retain upstream source download
make clean KEEP_CACHE=true

Makefile Setup

Package Metadata

The Makefile contains package metadata and upstream source configuration:

# Package name
NAME = mk-sh-skel
# Version
VERSION = 1.0.0
# URL of the project
URL = https://github.com/kakwa/mk-sh-skel
# Revision number
RELEASE = 1
# Description
DESCRIPTION = "Description of the package"
# License of the package
LICENSE = "MIT"
# URL to upstream source
URL_SRC = $(URL)/archive/$(VERSION).tar.gz

Sources Recovery & Preparation

From there, you can add the upstream source recovery.

Using wget + checksum tool:

# Example of source recovery url
URL_SRC=$(URL)/archive/$(VERSION).tar.gz

# Basic source archive recovery
$(SOURCE_ARCHIVE): $(SOURCE_DIR) $(CACHE) Makefile MANIFEST
    @$(WGS) -u $(URL_SRC) -o $(SOURCE_ARCHIVE)

Using git + checksum tool:

# Git URL
URL=https://github.com/kakwa/mk-sh-skel
# Revision
REVISION=dac9e68d96d5d7de9854728dd08f7824d1376eb2

# Example of git source recovery
$(SOURCE_ARCHIVE): $(SOURCE_DIR) $(CACHE) Makefile MANIFEST
    @$(GS) -u $(URL) -o $(SOURCE_ARCHIVE) -r $(REVISION)

It is also possible to manually tweak the archive if necessary (leveraging $(SOURCE_DIR) and $(SOURCE_TAR_CMD)):

# Example of upstream debian/ packaging removal
# note the switch -o -> -O in $(WGS)
$(SOURCE_ARCHIVE): $(SOURCE_DIR) $(CACHE) Makefile MANIFEST
    @$(WGS) -u $(URL_SRC) -O $(NAME)-$(VERSION).tar.gz
    @tar -vxf $(CACHE_DIR)/$(NAME)-$(VERSION).tar.gz -C $(SOURCE_DIR) --strip-components=1
    @rm -rf $(SOURCE_DIR)/debian
    @$(SOURCE_TAR_CMD)

Skipping Version

If you want to disable the build for a given distribution/version, add the following:

# Skip builds for Debian < 9, All RHEL versions, Fedora > 40, Ubuntu <= 18.4
SKIP=<:deb:9 >=:el:0 >:fc:40 <=:ubu:18.4

Generating the MANIFEST

After configuring the Makefile, and whenever you update the upstream version, (re)generate the MANIFEST file:

make manifest

This downloads the upstream source and creates a MANIFEST file with checksums to ensure upstream is not doing something iffy.

Version Specific Packaging

If necessary, you can override any packaging file on a per distribution basis. Simply use the <FILE>.dist.<DIST> to override a default <FILE>.

For example:

debian/control             # will be used as default
debian/control.dist.buster # will be used if build is called with DIST=buster

External Packaging Documentation

The rest of the work is pretty much .deb or .rpm vanilla packaging (with a bit of templating).

Follow the packaging documentation of each ecosystems and the usual standards:

Also, take inspiration from existing packages: