pbuilder/pdebuild mini-howto (Was: Building a build environment)

["Jens Peter Secher" <jps@debian.org>]

2008/7/29 Richard Hurt <rnhurt@kangaroobox.com>:
> I am just getting started in Debian package building and I need to know if
> this idea is valid or if there is a better way.
> [...]
>  What do you use?

I find pbuilder easiest to work with.  Since I am mostly running
Testing, I have two setups, one for Sid and one for Backports.  Here is
a mini-howto for what to do.

Create a ~/deb/unstable-pbuilderrc:

  DISTRIBUTION="sid"
  BASETGZ="$HOME/var/pbuilder/$DISTRIBUTION-base.tgz"
  BUILDPLACE="$HOME/var/pbuilder/$DISTRIBUTION"
  MIRRORSITE="http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian";
  USEPROC="yes"
  USEDEVPTS="yes"
  USEDEVFS="no"
  BUILDRESULT="$HOME/var/presult"
  APTCACHE="/var/cache/apt/archives"
  APTCACHEHARDLINK="no"
  REMOVEPACKAGES="lilo grub"
  HOOKDIR=""
  export DEBIAN_FRONTEND="noninteractive"
  DEBEMAIL="Jens Peter Secher <jps@debian.org>"
  BUILDSOURCEROOTCMD="fakeroot"
  PBUILDERROOTCMD="sudo"
  DEBBUILDOPTS=""
  APTCONFDIR="$HOME/deb/apt.config"
  BUILDUSERID="1000"
  BINDMOUNTS=""
  DEBOOTSTRAPOPTS[0]='--variant=buildd'

And create a ~/deb/backports-pbuilderrc:

  DISTRIBUTION="etch"
  BASETGZ="$HOME/var/pbuilder/backports-base.tgz"
  BUILDPLACE="$HOME/var/pbuilder/backports"
  MIRRORSITE="http://ftp.se.debian.org/debian";
  OTHERMIRROR="deb http://www.backports.org/debian/
$DISTRIBUTION-backports main"
  USEPROC="yes"
  USEDEVPTS="yes"
  USEDEVFS="no"
  BUILDRESULT="$HOME/var/presult"
  APTCACHE="/var/cache/apt/archives"
  APTCACHEHARDLINK="no"
  REMOVEPACKAGES="lilo grub"
  HOOKDIR=""
  export DEBIAN_FRONTEND="noninteractive"
  DEBEMAIL="Jens Peter Secher <jps@debian.org>"
  BUILDSOURCEROOTCMD="fakeroot"
  PBUILDERROOTCMD="sudo"
  DEBBUILDOPTS=""
  APTCONFDIR="$HOME/deb/apt.config"
  BUILDUSERID="1000"
  BINDMOUNTS=""
  DEBOOTSTRAPOPTS[0]='--variant=buildd'

To stop apt complaining, create an
~/deb/apt.config/apt.conf.d/allow-unauthenticated:

  APT::Get::AllowUnauthenticated 1;

To give pbuilder a place to store its stuff, do

  mkdir -p ~/var/presults ~/var/pbuilder

To create the environments, do

  sudo pbuilder create --configfile ~/deb/unstable-pbuilderrc
  sudo pbuilder create --configfile ~/deb/backports-pbuilderrc

To build a new package, in your package directory
(eg. ~/deb/libfoo/libfoo-2.13/) you then just do

  pdebuild --configfile ~/deb/unstable-pbuilderrc

or to build a backport, use the -sa -v options:

  pdebuild --configfile ~/deb/backports-pbuilderrc --debbuildopts '-sa -v2.12-1'

To manually install dependencies in the environment, you can do

  sudo pbuilder login --configfile ~/deb/backports-pbuilderrc

and then manually copy (source) packages into the chroot.  To tweak
things in the environment in general, you can do

  sudo pbuilder login --save-after-exec --configfile ~/deb/unstable-pbuilderrc

To sponsor a package, use the -k option:

  pdebuild --configfile ~/deb/unstable-pbuilderrc --debbuildopts '-kFE63E8A1'

Remember to update the environments before building:

  sudo /usr/sbin/pbuilder update --configfile ~/deb/unstable-pbuilderrc

The resulting packages are placed in ~/var/presults, where you need to
sign them with debsign, which works best with GPG Agent running, so put
something like this in your .xsession file:

  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


HTH,
-- 
                                                    Jens Peter Secher.
_DD6A 05B0 174E BFB2 D4D9 B52E 0EE5 978A FE63 E8A1 jpsecher gmail com_.
A. Because it breaks the logical sequence of discussion.
Q. Why is top posting bad?