[dev] new debian build instructions

Martin Winter mwinter at opensourcerouting.org
Thu Oct 12 17:17:54 EDT 2017


On 11 Oct 2017, at 23:42, Rodny Molina wrote:

> Thanks Martin. I ran the entire set of steps this time around and it 
> worked. There are more steps than with the previous approach 
> --previously we only had to adjust debian/rules to our needs and run 
> dpkg-buildpackage to build frr.deb--, so in my first attempt i skipped 
> most of the bullets in your Readme file. The current process is more 
> complex, so i wonder if all the steps are really needed. For example, 
> is backport creation step really needed?

Introducing the backports was the only way we managed to have the 
different debian distros supported (and allowing us to add new ones).
It is a standard way how debian packages are built. I’m not a debian 
expert to judge if this is the only or best way to do it, I just
want a way which works (and the old version had numerous issues)

If you (or someone else) finds a simpler way to achieve the same thing 
(and follow the “debian” conventions), then we are happy to 
listen…
One key part (for me) is to be able to support building packages from 
git AND from the source tar.gz (as built by a “make dist”), so
an archived tar file can be used to rebuild the package from source.

- Martin


>> On Oct 10, 2017, at 10:50 PM, Martin Winter 
>> <mwinter at opensourcerouting.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 10 Oct 2017, at 21:56, Rodny Molina wrote
>>
>>> Hi folks,
>>>
>>> I just noticed that the original ‘debian’ folder has been moved 
>>> to ‘debianpkg’ (which is breaking our build)
>>
>> By the rules of debian maintainers, there should be no “debian” 
>> folder in the source as it breaks some automated debian package build 
>> setups.
>> So the decision was made to keep the debian files in a different 
>> named folder
>>
>>> , and that there’s a new set of instructions for building FRR.deb 
>>> package. However, these new instructions 
>>> (debianpkg/README.deb_build.md) are not working for me. Basically, 
>>> we are missing a ‘changelog’ and (apparently) some other debian 
>>> requirements.
>>
>> There is a “changelog.in” which is the source for a changelog 
>> built by a “make dist”
>> (“make dist” creates the source tar.gz archive which then can be 
>> used as a source for all the packages)
>>
>> See step 4 in debianpkg/README.deb_build.md
>>
>>> So a couple of questions:
>>>
>>> * Do you have any cheatsheet for non-debian experts?
>>
>> debianpkg/README.deb_build.md should be the cheatsheet. Can you give 
>> details where you fail or what part is not clear?
>>
>>> * Are (somewhat) drastic changes like this one expected in stable 
>>> (3.0) branches? Was this discussed somewhere and i totally missed 
>>> it?
>>
>> 2.0 is using the same setup and master should be converted to this 
>> next. The old setup had various issues.
>> Debian Packages were discussed multiple times and (on 2.0) this setup 
>> was extensively tested and pushed with (so far)
>> no negative comments.
>>
>> But this is still a rc candidate, so it’s not too late to fix or 
>> improve the doc.
>>
>> Can you open an issue and document the problems? (and feel free to 
>> assign to me)
>>
>> - Martin



More information about the dev mailing list