Automated build process for special purpose chroot-ed packages

[Peter Viskup <skupko.sk@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

I am beginner in Debian packaging and would like to ask you for an opinion regarding use of debhelper to create chroot-ed packages.

Somebody of you already worked on some similar solution probably.

Background:

 - requirement to have more instances of same service in chroot-ed environment

 - simplify the maintenance of chroot environments

 - being able to upgrade chroot-ed services separately

 - build packages for all instances automagically

 - maintain some instance specific configuration file templates

I would like to be able to create those packages at once (one dpkg-buildpackage execution) and using template within the 'debian' directory. This should simplify the process of creating package for new chroot.

Environment:

 - packages created as <package>-chroot-<instance> and installed in base system

 - chroot directory /chroot/<instance> (<package>-chroot-<instance> will place it's files directly to this location)

 - use of some jailing tool calls in preinst/postinst maintainer scripts

Could somebody comment on this approach whether it's reasonable or better would be to have separate copies of sources for every package? Some more detailed proposals from your side how to accomplish this (e.g. debian/rules for every package)?

Thank you all in advance.

--

Peter Viskup