Debianize upstream `zip`-file with `gbp` and `pristine-tar`

Question

The manual of gbp tells following:

First, create an empty repository:

mkdir package-0.1
cd package-0.1
git init

Then, you import the upstream sources, branch off the upstream-branch branch and add the Debian files (e.g. via dh_make):

gbp import-orig -u 0.1 ../package-0.1.tar.gz
dh_make

That's it, you're done.

But this fails with a zip because there is no .orig.tar.gz. Invoking dh_make --createorig creates an .orig.tar.gz, but this then includes the .git/ subdirectory, so it is invalid.

Also the pristine-tar branch is missing this way and pristine-tar commit does not know how to handle zip files.

How do I start a Debian package if the upstream only provides a zip-file? How to handle pristine-tar in that case?

Answer 1

(this here still is a bit untested)

For the benefit of the reader, this is what I came up with. I am not sure that this is BCP, but it works. On Linux and probably CygWin, too.

My current workflow to create a Debian repository from scratch with gbp is:

Import upstream

Upstream usually is an .orig.tar.gz, but following works with ZIP too. For all supported archive types, please see man gbp-import-orig.

Set some variables

This variables are used, that you can use copy and paste with the following lines of the recipe.

PACKAGENAME=mypackagename
UPSTREAMVERSION=0.1.2.3-up4
UPSTREAMARCHIVE=../upstreampackage-$UPSTREAMVERSION.zip

# Following should start/end with a number and only contain
# numbers, lowercase letters and single dots (.)
MYDIST=stable
MYBASEVERSION=0example.com1

TEMPLATEGIT=https://github.com/hilbig/templates.git
TEMPLATEBRANCH=gbp

Create the git repo

git init $PACKAGENAME
cd $PACKAGENAME

Initialize the repo

git commit --allow-empty -m empty
git branch upstream
git fetch $TEMPLATEGIT $TEMPLATEBRANCH
git merge FETCH_HEAD

First import of upstream

echo $PACKAGENAME | fakeroot gbp import-orig --upstream-version=$UPSTREAMVERSION $UPSTREAMARCHIVE

Create debian/

dh_make --indep -a -p ${PACKAGENAME}_$UPSTREAMVERSION
git add debian
git commit -m "dh_make --indep -a -p  ${PACKAGENAME}_$UPSTREAMVERSION"

Edit files in debian/

Now change all files in debian/ to your needs and deleted unwanted files (hint: rm -f *.ex). Sorry, I found no way to automate this properly. Do not alter files outside of debian/ as those are handled using quilt/patchqueues (AKA debian/patches/) later on. Be sure to edit debian/changelog:

• Change unstable (in the first line) to the value of $MYDIST. (It does not hurt if you don't.)
• Change the text * Initial release (Closes: #nnnn) ... to something better like debianized upstream XXX into package YYY.
• If the last line is wrong, you probably forgot to set your usual git config settings (which is kept in ~/.gitconfig). Do it now: git config --global user.name "Your Name" git config --global user.email [email protected]

If everything is set up in debian/, then commit it:

git add -A debian
# Use "git status" to see, that only file in "debian/" are changed
git commit -m 'edited directory debian/'

Setup gbp dch

Following is rubbish. I still try to figure out how do do it properly, because the needed tags are not created automatically as I thought they should.

If you want to use gbp dch --auto (which is recommended) this needs a properly set git tag. As you can change the format of those tags in debian/gbp.conf it is recommended to create the first tag using gbp dch --since (you can create it manually if you like, but we want to automate, right?) like this:

gbp dch --commit -D "$MYRELEASE" -N "`git describe --tags --abbrev=0 upstream | sort | head -1 | sed s/^[^0-9]*//`-$MYBASEVERSION" --since HEAD^
vim debian/changelog
git commit --amend debian/changelog

Push it to your git-server

When pushing to your git server, be sure always to include the tags:

git push origin --tags

Those (uncommented) tags are used for various reference/tracking purpose.

Explained

• The git fetch populates FETCH_HEAD with branch $TEMPLATEBRANCH from the git repo $TEMPLATEGIT, so it can be merged easily. This should create debian/gbp.conf with your favorite settings which include pristine-tar being enabled.

• echo $PACKAGENAME | fakeroot gbp ... does 2 things:

  • gbp will ask for the package name. Unfortunately there is no commandline option for this. Hence it is echoed into it to be able to run it batch-like.
  • fakeroot fixes a glitch where option pristine-tar (which can be missing from the commandline if set in gbp.conf) will create a .tar file with your user instead of root:root.

• dh_make needs -a to populate the debian/ directory, as there already is one which only contains gbp.conf.

• If there is no debian/gbp.conf when you first call gbp, then you need to add the option pristine-tar to gbp import-orig. Without it looks like it works, but there will be no usable .orig.tar.gz (which can be named .bz2 or .xz, too). gbp is the only tool recognizing .zip-files, so you will get into some trouble if you forget this. Unfortunately the option's name differs between versions of gbp (either --git-pristine-tar or --pristine-tar), so it is better to have it in gbp.conf.

Notes:

• In future there will be gbp init to improve these steps, however my current variant of gbp does not include this yet.

• File debian/gbp.conf shall look like following. Above it is supposed to be merged via git merge FETCH_HEAD from branch $TEMPLATEBRANCH of repo $TEMPLATEGIT. Perhaps create your own git template repository for this, see also https://github.com/hilbix/templates/tree/gbp:

debian/gbp.conf:

[DEFAULT]
pristine-tar = True
debian-branch = master
debian-tag = v%(version)s

[dch]
full = True
git-author = True

[pq]
patch-num-format = PATCH-%04d-

[import-orig]
merge-mode = replace

Follow the usual workflow

Afterwards you can follow the usual gbp workflow, so all other typical recipes on the web on how to change a Debian package can be used.

Here is, how I do it (sort of).

Build the package

Simple packages are easy. However some packages need more than that, like being compiled for 64bit, with sources, and parts are even for arch all. Also the .orig.tar.gz is missing after you cloned everything. Hence you need quite a trainload of options to handle that all properly.

Following assumes that you want to create for Intel platform and (optionally) providing 32 bit for older systems:

gbp buildpackage --dist="$MYDIST" --git-builder=sbuild --arch=amd64 --arch-all --source --force-orig-source
gbp buildpackage --dist="$MYDIST" --git-builder=sbuild --arch=i386

Notes:

• --git-builder=sbuild is an example. If you have trouble, just leave this away. Some newer gbp also renamed this option.

• Build often leaves some aritfacts. Do a cleanup with (Caution! This will unconditionally remove all uncommited edits if there are any!):

  git reset --hard

Use quilt format (patchqueues) to alter upstream

If you need to change things outside of debian/, this is the way to go:

gbp pq import
# now edit everything here
# if you are happy with it:
gbp pq export

You definitively want to use patchqueues, because you do not want to touch the upstream version which was merged into master. This way you do not accidentally loose all of your changes when a new upstream comes along, and moreover, new upstreams will merge more cleanly.

Please note that gbp buildpackage knows about patchqueues. They will be applied automatically, so you do not need to apply them yourself.

Create a new release

Before creating a new release, you perhaps want to cleanup your git commit log. Do this with:

git rebase -i COMMIT

COMMIT stands for the first commit you are happy with. git rebase is a very powerful tool, but beware: Do not try to rebase beyond merge-Commits, as those then will be wiped out. If your git commit history is clean (see git log), create the next debian/changelog:

gbp dch --commit -D $MYDIST

Leave away --commit to do the commit yourself, or alter the options of this as it suits you.

Import a new upstream

Set the parameters for the new upstream and then do:

echo $PACKAGENAME | fakeroot gbp import-orig --upstream-version=$UPSTREAMVERSION $UPSTREAMARCHIVE

Please note that this fails if your repo is not clean. (git status --porcelain does not output anything).

Then create a new debian/changlog entry for this:

gbp dch --commit -D "$MYDIST" -N "`git describe --tags --abbrev=0 upstream | sort | head -1 | sed s/^[^0-9]*//)-$MYBASEVERSION"