Hi
As announced earlier the Debian AMD64 archive moved away from alioth
on the weekend from April 30 til today, May 2. Well, we are still
polishing some bits, but hey - 99% of it works.
For the impatient here are the important things you need to know:
- Modify /etc/apt/sources.list to include one deb-line from
http://amd64.debian.net/README.mirrors.html and choose either sarge or
sid to use. Choose the mirror that is nearest to you, to get the best
possible result and to distribute the load to multiple hosts.
All mirrors listed there get a "push" from the archive, so they are
updated as soon as something changed.
You will probably see that a lot of packages get refetched on the next
apt-get/dselect/aptitude/whatever run you do. This is because amd64 no
longer rebuilts the architecture independent packages anymore. As
apt-get is sometimes a bit stupid you may need to do an apt-get clean
run before you update your system, or it wont fetch the packages but
keeps nagging you about them.
Note: non-free is NOT provided yet. We need to decide what we do with
it, as we may be forbidden to distribute some of the software in it (we aren't
Debian).
The best thing would be someone willing to do the work checking the
licenses and telling us what's free enough to ship it. While you are
doing the work - think about a bigger solution, usable by everyone,
like a database of packages in non-free, that contains information
about any package and its status. Probably compared against DFSG as a
quick check and some more detailed check attached. Accessible for
anyone who has interest in it. That would be most useful.
If you are a mirror admin the next paragraph is for you, if not you can
skip it.
We already provide a bunch of mirrors with the so-called "push-mirroring",
which means you (your mirror script) gets a notice to update its copy
as soon as something is changed in our archive.
If you are interested in this and also want it, please contact me
directly and we set it up.
While we are at it we would like to thank (in no particular order)
Andreas 'aba' Barth,
Kurt Roeckx,
Goswin Brederlow and
Joerg Jaspert,
doing the work for the move, and
FNB TU Darmstadt,
who kindly host our machine.
Now, for all the interested folks out there, some more information about
the archive, the release we want to do and how we intend to handle some
things.
First the archive software - we are using dak[1] from the main Debian
archive, so you can expect a similar behaviour. Of course we have
differences, they are detailed here.
- We are syncing our overrides strictly with Debian, so every package
should go into the same section/priority. Changes in Debian will
change our overrides too.
- We sync our testing suite with the information from Debian's Britney
(and a small script adapting that to our binary packages). That way we
are as close to "official" Sarge as possible, except where we really
need to patch a package (see below in security paragraph).
- We are syncing our archive daily with new uploads to Debian. Basically,
we just import the source and the binary_all debs and then let our
autobuilders do the work. That happens somewhere in the night, after
"dinstall" on debian finished and stuff is on the mirror network available.
- Our new GPG Key for the archive (available on any keyserver that syncs),
is
pub 1024D/B5F5BBED 2005-04-24
Key fingerprint = C20C A1D9 499D ECBB D8BD ACF9 E415 B2B4 B5F5 BBED
uid Debian AMD64 Archive Key <debian-amd64@lists.debian.org>
sub 2048g/34FC6FE5 2005-04-24
The Key is signed by Andreas Barth, Tollef Fog Heen and me, and we are
the only ones with access to it.
Access to the main archive server "amd64.debian.net" is limited[2], only
very few people who really need access to it actually have it. The
public can access it via http, but probably prefers a local mirror.
If you have administrative questions about the machine or some parts of
this archive, please contact one of the following people:
Joerg Jaspert, Admin of the whole machine and ftpmaster.
Andreas 'aba' Barth, ftpmaster, beeing responsible for the amd64 w-b.
Tollef Fog Heen, ftpmaster, will do security for the stable release.
The contact address is ftpmaster@amd64.debian.net, please never direct
any amd64 related question to the @debian.org counterpart.
There are more people, like our buildd admins
Frederik Schueler
Kurt Roeckx
Tollef Fog Heen
who keep the new .debs coming in[3].
If you are interested in build-logs of your package in AMD64 you may
visit amd64.ftbfs.de. We will keep all our logs there, as long as we
follow unstable/testing, later on we will keep the logs of
stable-proposed-updates there.[4]
cdimage.debian.org is going to build and host CD/DVD images in the
same way it does for all other architectures. Which means netboot,
jigdo, and whatever else is normally included.
Next important point for users is packages.debian.org. We talked with
the maintainer behind it, and he agreed to include amd64 packages in the
listings of it. The first test already worked, so he set the timeline
for this "between now and next week". That means that you can find your
favorite package on package.debian.org and then simply follow download
links pointing to the right mirror for amd64!
We have been in contact with Martin 'Joey' Schulze of the Debian
Security Team. He has agreed to give amd64 security support to the
fullest extent possible. His requirements for doing so are:
- We do not diverge from Debian's Sarge release.
This means we don't add packages to our Sarge release. We do not
update to newer upstream versions or patch them either. This is the
same policy as any port in Debian would follow. There are currently
some (less than 10) exceptions for this, but we try to keep those
changes to a minimum both in number of packages and number of patches.
Most notably is the choose-mirror we will modify for our release to
use the amd64 mirrors rather than the regular Debian mirrors.
Unimportant packages will be dropped rather than patched.
- After Sarge has been released, the port must be added to the regular
Debian archive and be considered a regular Debian architecture. From
previous discussions, this should not be any problem. The exact
details on how this will work out are yet to be decided. The Debian
ftpmasters need to approve on how it will be done, but we will provide
security support, one way or the other. The way will be announced
once the details are worked out.
- The buildd and site admin of this security build daemon both have to
be trusted Debian Developer(s).
Please, please don't contact, flame or bug the ftpmasters in any way
surrounding this issue. It will not help anyone.
People following the AMD64 move closely will notice that we no longer
include a gcc-3.X tree or various other builds that were available on
alioth. Some of them, like gcc-XX is moving into a new project, some
others were decided to be not worth to keep at the moment, partly
because some of it was really old and unmaintained.
Another reason is also the close relation we try to keep up with
"official" Debian. At the moment these files are still available if you
use ftp://alioth.debian.org/pub/debian-amd64 or one of the mirrors that
still have it around, like bach or bytekeeper (see mirrorlist above).
But note that the space on alioth will be freed this weekend!
The Future? This archive will follow sarge with all point releases and
what else might happen to sarge. Thats for sure. :)
We will drop the unstable/main part of it, as soon as amd64 gets
included into debian. We intent to provide a timeframe of about one or
two weeks prior to the deletion, counting from the day on amd64 hit the
95% rate of built packages in Debian.
Footnotes:
[1] http://packages.debian.org/dak
[2] If you previously were in the alioth project for amd64, and have a
reason to get an account on this machine (like running a buildd), please
contact me. If at least one other active porter with access agrees you
can have an account.
(What directions to use for an account? Noone should have an
account, just because its fun. It's to be used for amd64 related stuff only).
[3] Note that all packages get rebuild for the inclusion into the main
debian archive as soon as that move happens. It is not decided who
will operate the buildd for Debian then, that is NOT for us to
decide.
[4] Except build logs for security updates, as they are not provided on
buildd.d.o also.
--
bye Joerg
.SH AUTHOR
This manual page was not written by anyone. It sprang forth into
existence on its own.
--
bye Joerg
A.D. 1492:
Christopher Columbus arrives in what he believes to be India, but
which RMS informs him is actually GNU/India.
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