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|
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN" "/usr/share/sgml/docbook/dtd/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">
<!-- the original of this documentation is in pbuilder source tar-ball,
and the latest version is found in git repository. -->
<book xml:lang="en">
<bookinfo>
<date>2007-5-27</date>
<title>pbuilder User's Manual</title>
<abbrev>pbuilder-doc</abbrev>
<subtitle>Usage and operations</subtitle>
<releaseinfo>documentation in progress</releaseinfo>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Junichi</firstname>
<surname>Uekawa</surname>
</author>
</authorgroup>
</bookinfo>
<!-- FIXME: consistent markup of commands, files, and variables -->
<chapter id="introduction">
<title>Introducing pbuilder</title>
<sect1 id="aim">
<title>Aims of pbuilder</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> stands for
Personal Builder, and it is an automatic Debian Package Building system
for personal development workstation environments.
<command>pbuilder</command> aims to be an
easy-to-setup system
for auto-building Debian packages inside a clean-room
environment, so that it is possible to verify that
a package can be built on most Debian installations.
The clean-room environment is achieved through the use of
a base chroot image,
so that only minimal packages will be installed inside the
chroot.
</para>
<para>
The Debian distribution consists of free software
accompanied with source.
The source code within Debian's "main" section
must build within Debian "main",
with only the explicitly specified build-dependencies
installed.
</para>
<para>
The primary aim of <command>pbuilder</command> is different from other
auto-building systems in Debian in that its aim is not
to try to build as many packages as possible.
It does not try to guess
what a package needs, and in most cases it tries the
worst choice of all if there is a choice to be made.
</para>
<para>
In this way, <command>pbuilder</command> tries to ensure
that packages
tested against <command>pbuilder</command> will build properly in
most Debian installations, hopefully resulting
in a good overall Debian source-buildability.
</para>
<para>
The goal of making Debian buildable from source is somewhat
accomplished, and has seen good progress. In the past age of
Debian 3.0, there were many problems when building from
source. More recent versions of Debian is much better.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="usingpbuilder">
<title>Using pbuilder</title>
<para>
There are several simple commands for operation.
<command>pbuilder create</command>, <command>pbuilder
update</command>, and <command>pbuilder build</command> commands
are the typical commands used. Let us look at the commands
one by one.
</para>
<sect1 id="creatingbase">
<title>Creating a base chroot image tar-ball</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder create</command>
will create a base chroot image tar-ball (base.tgz).
All other commands will operate on the resulting base.tgz
If the Debian release to be created within chroot is not going
to be "sid" (which is the default), the distribution code-name
needs to be specified with the
<command><option>--distribution</option></command>
command-line option.
</para>
<para>
<command>debootstrap</command> <footnote>
<para>debootstrap or cdebootstrap can be chosen</para>
</footnote>
is used to create
the bare minimum Debian installation,
and then build-essential packages are installed on top
of the minimum installation using <command>apt-get</command>
inside the chroot.
</para>
<para>
For fuller documentation of command-line options, see
the pbuilder.8 manual page.
Some configuration will be required for <filename>/etc/pbuilderrc</filename>
for the mirror site
<footnote>
<para>
The mirror site should preferably be
a local mirror or a cache server,
so as not to overload the public mirrors with
a lot of access.
Use of tools such as apt-proxy would be advisable.
</para>
</footnote>
to use, and proxy configuration may be required to allow access
through HTTP.
See the pbuilderrc.5 manual page for details.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="basechroot">
<title>Updating the base.tgz</title>
<para><command>pbuilder update</command>
will update the base.tgz.
It will extract the chroot, invoke <command>apt-get update</command>
and <command>apt-get dist-upgrade</command> inside the
chroot, and then recreate the base.tgz (the base tar-ball.)
</para>
<para>
It is possible to switch the distribution which the
base.tgz is targeted at at this point.
Specify <command><option>--distribution <parameter>sid</parameter></option> <option>--override-config</option></command> to change the distribution
to sid.
<footnote>
<para>Only upgrading is supported.
Debian does not generally support downgrading (yet?).</para>
</footnote>
</para>
<para>
For fuller documentation of command-line options, see
the pbuilder.8 manual page
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="buildpackagechroot">
<title>Building a package using the base.tgz</title>
<para>
To build a package inside the chroot, invoke
<command>pbuilder build <option>whatever.dsc</option></command>.
<command>pbuilder</command> will extract
the base.tgz to a temporary working directory,
enter the directory with chroot,
satisfy the build-dependencies inside chroot,
and build the package.
The built packages will be moved to a
directory specified with
the <command><option>--buildresult</option></command>
command-line option.
</para>
<para>
The <command><option>--basetgz</option></command> option can be
used to specify which base.tgz to use.
</para>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> will extract a fresh base chroot
image from base.tgz. (base.tgz is created with
<command>pbuilder create</command>, and updated with
<command>pbuilder update</command>). The chroot is populated
with build-dependencies by parsing debian/control and invoking
<command>apt-get</command>.
</para>
<para>
For fuller documentation of command-line options, see
the pbuilder.8 manual page
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="pdebuild">
<title>Facilitating Debian Developers' typing, pdebuild</title>
<para>
<command>pdebuild</command> is a little wrapper
script that does the most frequent of all tasks.
A Debian Developer may try to do <command>debuild</command>, and
build a package, inside a Debian source directory.
<command>pdebuild</command> will allow similar
control, and allow package to be built inside the chroot,
to check that the current source tree will build happily
inside the chroot.
</para>
<para>
<command>pdebuild</command> calls <command>dpkg-source</command>
to build the source packages, and then invokes
<command>pbuilder</command> on the resulting source package.
However, unlike debuild, the resulting deb files will be
found in the <command><option>--buildresult</option></command>
directory.
</para>
<para>
See the pdebuild.1 manual page for more details.
</para>
<para>
There is a slightly different mode of operation available
in <command>pdebuild</command> since version 0.97. <command>pdebuild</command> usually runs
<command>debian/rules clean</command> outside of the chroot;
however, it is possible to change the behaviour to run it
inside the chroot with
the <command><option>--use-pdebuild-internal</option></command>.
It will try to bind mount the working directory inside chroot,
and run <command>dpkg-buildpackage</command> inside.
It has the following characteristics, and is not yet the
default mode of operation.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Satisfies build-dependency inside the chroot before creating source package.
(which is a good point that default <command>pdebuild</command> could not do).
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The working directory is modified
from inside the chroot.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Building with <command>pdebuild</command> does not guarantee
that it works with <command>pbuilder</command>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If making the source package fails,
the session using the chroot is wasted
(chroot creation takes a bit of time, which should be improved with cowdancer).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Does not work in the same manner as it used to;
for example, <command><option>--buildresult</option></command>
does not have any effect.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The build inside chroot is ran with the current user outside chroot.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="configfile">
<title>Configuration Files</title>
<para>
It is possible to specify all settings by command-line
options. However, for typing convenience, it is possible to
use a configuration file.
</para>
<para>
<filename>/etc/pbuilderrc</filename> and
<filename>${HOME}/.pbuilderrc</filename>
are read in when <command>pbuilder</command> is invoked.
The possible options are documented in
the pbuilderrc.5 manual page.
</para>
<para>
It is useful to use <option>--configfile</option> option to load up a preset
configuration file when switching between configuration files for
different distributions.
</para>
<para>
Please note <filename>${HOME}/.pbuilderrc</filename> supersede system settings. For
example, if you are upgrading from sarge to etch, you may need to
adjust some part of your local setting just like new
<filename>/usr/share/pbuilder/pbuilderrc</filename>, e.g., "unset DEBOOTSTRAPOPTS", to cope
with the use of cdebootstrap. The same care is needed if you edited
old system setting in <filename>/etc/pbuilderrc</filename>.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="nonrootchroot">
<title>Building packages as non-root inside the chroot</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> requires full root privilege
when it is satisfying the build-dependencies, but most packages do not
need root privilege to build, or even refused to build when they are built as root.
<command>pbuilder </command> can create a user which is only used
inside <command>pbuilder </command> and use that user id when
building, and use the <command>fakeroot</command> command
when root privilege is required.
</para>
<para>
BUILDUSERID configuration option should be set to a value for a user id that
does not already exist on the system, so that it is more difficult for
packages that are being built with
<command>pbuilder</command> to affect the environment outside the chroot.
When BUILDUSERNAME configuration option is also set,
<command>pbuilder</command> will use the specified user name and fakeroot for building packages,
instead of running as root inside chroot.
</para>
<para>
Even when using the fakerooting method, <command>pbuilder</command> will run with
root privilege when it is required.
For example, when installing
packages to the chroot, <command>pbuilder</command> will run under root privilege.
</para>
<para>
To be able to invoke <command>pbuilder</command> without being
root, you need to use user-mode-linux, as explained
in <xref linkend="pbuilder-uml"/>.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="backporting">
<title>Using pbuilder for back-porting</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> can be used for back-porting software from
the latest Debian distribution to
the older stable distribution, by using a chroot that contains
an image of the older distribution, and building packages inside the
chroot.
There are several points to consider, and due to the following reasons,
automatic back-porting is usually not possible, and
manual interaction is required:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The package from the unstable distribution
may depend on packages or versions of packages which
are only available in unstable.
Thus, it may not be possible to satisfy Build-Depends:
on stable (without additional backporting work).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The stable distribution may have bugs that have been
fixed in unstable which need to be worked around.</para></listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The package in the unstable distribution may have
problems building even on unstable.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="massbuild">
<title>Mass-building packages</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> can be automated, because its operations are
non-interactive.
It is possible to run <command>pbuilder</command> through multiple packages
non-interactively.
Several such scripts are known to exist.
Junichi Uekawa has been running such a script since 2001,
and has been filing bugs on packages that fail the
test of <command>pbuilder</command>. There were several problems with auto-building:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Build-Dependencies need to install non-interactively, but
some packages are so broken that they cannot install
without interaction (like postgresql).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>When a library package breaks, or gcc/gcj/g++ breaks,
or even bison, a large number of build failures are reported.
(gcj-3.0 which had no "javac", bison which got more strict, etc.)
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Some people were quite hostile against build failure reports.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
Most of the initial bugs have been resolved in the <command>pbuilder</command>
sweep done around 2002, but these transitional problems which
affect a large portion of Debian Archive do arise from time to
time. Regression tests have their values.
</para>
<para>
A script that was used by Junichi Uekawa is now included in
the <command>pbuilder</command> distribution, as <command>pbuildd.sh</command>.
It is available in <filename>/usr/share/doc/pbuilder/examples/pbuildd/</filename>
and its configuration is in <filename>/etc/pbuilder/pbuildd-config.sh</filename>.
It should be easy enough to set up for people who are used to
<command>pbuilder</command>. It has been running for quite a while, and it should be
possible to set the application up on your system also.
However, it is a new introduction, and please file bugs
to the Debian BTS if you know of possible problems,
or improved on the script considerably.
</para>
<para>
To set up pbuildd, there are some points to be aware of.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>A file <filename>./avoidlist</filename> needs to be available with the list of packages to avoid building. </para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>It will try building anything, even packages
which are not aimed for your architecture.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Because you are running random build scripts, it is better to use
the fakeroot option of <command>pbuilder</command>, to avoid running the build
under root privilege.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Because not all builds are guaranteed to finish in a finite time,
setting a timeout is probably necessary, or pbuildd may stall with
a bad build.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Some packages require a lot of disk space,
around 2GB seems to be sufficient for the largest packages for the time being.
If you find otherwise, please inform the maintainer of this documentation.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="autobackport">
<title>Auto-backporting scripts</title>
<para>
There are some people who use <command>pbuilder</command> to automatically back-port
a subset of packages to the stable distribution.
</para>
<para>
I would like some information on how people are doing it,
I would appreciate any feedback or information on
how you are doing, or any examples.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="autotesting">
<title>Using pbuilder for automated testing of packages</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> can be used for automated testing of packages.
It has the feature of allowing hooks to be placed,
and these hooks can try to install packages inside
the chroot, or run them, or whatever else that
can be done. Some known tests and ideas:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Automatic install-remove-upgrade-remove-install-purge-upgrade-purge test-suite (distributed as an example, <filename>B91dpkg-i</filename>),
or just check that everything installs somewhat (<filename>execute_installtest.sh</filename>).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Automatically running lintian/linda (distributed as an example in
<filename>/usr/share/doc/pbuilder/examples/B90linda</filename>).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Automatic debian-test of the package?
The debian-test package has been removed from Debian.
A <command>pbuilder</command> implementation can be found as
debian/pbuilder-test directory, implemented through B92test-pkg script.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
To use B92test-pkg script, first, add it to your hook directory.
<footnote>
<para>It is possible to specify <command>--hookdir
/usr/share/doc/pbuilder/examples</command> command-line
option to include all example hooks as
well.</para></footnote>.
The test files are shell scripts
placed in
<filename>debian/pbuilder-test/NN_name</filename> (where
NN is number) following run-parts standard<footnote>
<para> See run-parts(8). For example, no '.' in file
names!
</para>
</footnote>
for file names. After a successful build, packages are first
tested for installation and removal, and then each test is ran
inside the chroot. The current directory is the top directory
of the source-code. This means you can expect to be able to
use ./debian/ directory from inside your scripts.
</para>
<para>
Example scripts for use with pbuilder-test can be found in
<filename>/usr/share/doc/pbuilder/examples/pbuilder-test</filename>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="altcompiler">
<title>Using pbuilder for testing builds with alternate compilers</title>
<para>
Most packages are compiled with <command>gcc</command>
or <command>g++</command>
and using the default compiler version, which was gcc 2.95 for Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (i386).
However, Debian 3.0 was distributed with other compilers, under package names
such as <command>gcc-3.2</command> for gcc compiler
version 3.2.
It was therefore possible to try compiling packages against different
compiler versions.
<command>pentium-builder</command> provides an infrastructure for
using a different compiler for building packages than the default gcc, by
providing a wrapper script called gcc which calls the real gcc.
To use <command>pentium-builder</command> in <command>pbuilder</command>, it is possible to set up the
following in the configuration:
<screen>
EXTRAPACKAGES="pentium-builder gcc-3.2 g++-3.2"
export DEBIAN_BUILDARCH=athlon
export DEBIAN_BUILDGCCVER=3.2
</screen>
</para>
<para>
It will instruct <command>pbuilder</command> to install the <command>pentium-builder</command> package
and also the GCC 3.2 compiler packages inside the chroot,
and set the environment variables required for
<command>pentium-builder</command> to function.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="pbuilder-uml">
<title>Using User-mode-linux with pbuilder</title>
<para>
It is possible to use user-mode-linux by invoking
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> instead of
<command>pbuilder</command>.
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> doesn't require root
privileges, and it uses the copy-on-write (COW) disk access
method of <command>User-mode-linux</command> which typically
makes it much faster than the traditional
<command>pbuilder</command>.
</para>
<para>
<command>User-mode-linux</command> is a somewhat less proven
platform than the standard Unix tools which
<command>pbuilder</command> relies on
(<command>chroot</command>, <command>tar</command>, and
<command>gzip</command>) but mature enough to support
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> since its version
0.59. And since then,
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> has seen a rapid
evolution.
</para>
<para>
The configuration of <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command>
goes in three steps:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Configuration of user-mode-linux</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Configuration of rootstrap</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Configuration of pbuilder-uml</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<sect1 id="user-mode-linux-config">
<title>Configuring user-mode-linux</title>
<para>
user-mode-linux isn't completely trivial to set up. It would
probably be useful to acquaint yourself with it a bit before
attempting to use <command>rootstrap</command> or
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command>. For details,
read
<filename>/usr/share/doc/uml-utilities/README.Debian</filename>
and the <command>user-mode-linux</command> documentation. (It's in a separate
package, user-mode-linux-doc.)
</para>
<para>
<command>user-mode-linux</command> requires
the user to be in the uml-net group in order to configure the network
unless you are using slirp.
</para>
<para>
If you compile your own kernel, you may want to
verify that you enable TUN/TAP support,
and you might want to consider the SKAS patch.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="rootstrap">
<title>Configuring rootstrap</title>
<para>
<command>rootstrap</command>
is a wrapper around debootstrap.
It creates a Debian disk image for use with UML.
To configure rootstrap, there are several requirements.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Install the rootstrap package.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
TUN/TAP only:
add the user to the uml-net group to allow access to the network
<screen>
adduser dancer uml-net
</screen></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>TUN/TAP only:
Check that the kernel supports the TUN/TAP interface,
or recompile the kernel if necessary.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Set up <filename>/etc/rootstrap/rootstrap.conf</filename>.
For example,
if the current host is 192.168.1.2, changing following
entries to something like this seems to work.
<screen>
transport=tuntap
interface=eth0
gateway=192.168.1.1
mirror=http://192.168.1.2:8081/debian
host=192.168.1.198
uml=192.168.1.199
netmask=255.255.255.0
</screen>
Some experimentation with configuration and running
<command>rootstrap ~/test.uml</command> to actually
test it would be handy.
</para>
<para>
Using slirp requires less configuration.
The default configuration comes with a working example.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="pbuilderumlconfig">
<title>Configuring pbuilder-uml</title>
<para>
The following needs to happen:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Install the pbuilder-uml package.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Set up the configuration file
<filename>/etc/pbuilder/pbuilder-uml.conf</filename>
in the following manner. It will be different for slirp.
<screen>
MY_ETH0=tuntap,,,192.168.1.198
UML_IP=192.168.1.199
UML_NETMASK=255.255.255.0
UML_NETWORK=192.168.1.0
UML_BROADCAST=255.255.255.255
UML_GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
PBUILDER_UML_IMAGE="/home/dancer/uml-image"
</screen>
Also, it needs to match the rootstrap configuration.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Make sure BUILDPLACE is writable by the user.
Change BUILDPLACE in the configuration file to a place
where the user has access.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Run <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux <option>create --distribution sid</option></command> to create the image.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Try running <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux build</command>.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="consideruml">
<title>Considerations for running pbuilder-user-mode-linux</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> emulates most of <command>pbuilder</command>, but there
are some differences.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> does not support all options of <command>pbuilder</command>
properly yet. This is a problem, and will be addressed as
specific areas are discovered.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
/tmp is handled differently inside
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command>. In
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command>,
<filename>/tmp</filename> is mounted as tmpfs inside UML,
so accessing files under <filename>/tmp</filename> from
outside user-mode-linux does not work. It affects options
like <command><option>--configfile</option></command>, and
when trying to build packages placed under
<filename>/tmp</filename>.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="paralleluml">
<title>Parallel running of pbuilder-user-mode-linux</title>
<para>
To run <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> in parallel
on a system, there are a few things to bear in mind.
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The create and update methods must not be run when
a build is in progress, or the COW file will be invalidated.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
If you are not using slirp, user-mode-linux processes which are
running in parallel need to have different IP addresses.
Just trying to run the <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command>
several times will result in failure to access the network.
But something like the following will work:
<screen>
for IP in 102 103 104 105; do
xterm -e pbuilder-user-mode-linux build --uml-ip 192.168.0.$IP \
20030107/whizzytex_1.1.1-1.dsc &
done
</screen>
When using slirp, this problem does not exist.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="pbuilderumlwrap">
<title>Using pbuilder-user-mode-linux as a wrapper script to start up a virtual machine</title>
<para>
It is possible to use
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> for other uses
than just building Debian packages.
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux
<option>login</option></command> will let a user use a shell
inside the user-mode-linux <command>pbuilder</command> base
image, and <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux
<option>execute</option></command> will allow the user to
execute a script inside the image.
</para>
<para>
You can use the script to install ssh and add a new user,
so that it is possible to access inside the user-mode-linux through ssh.
</para>
<para>
Note that it is not possible to use a script from
<filename>/tmp</filename> due to the way
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> mounts a tmpfs at
<filename>/tmp</filename>.
</para>
<para>
The following example script may be useful in starting a sshd
inside user-mode-linux.
</para>
<screen>
#!/bin/bash
apt-get install -y ssh xbase-clients xterm
echo "enter root password"
passwd
cp /etc/ssh/sshd_config{,-}
sed 's/X11Forwarding.*/X11Forwarding yes/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config- > /etc/ssh/sshd_config
/etc/init.d/ssh restart
ifconfig
echo "Hit enter to finish"
read
</screen>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="faq">
<title>Frequently asked questions </title>
<!-- Start of FAQ/faq -->
<para>
Here, known problems and frequently asked questions are
documented. This portion was initially available in README.Debian
file, but moved here.
</para>
<sect1 id="pbuildercreatefail">
<title>pbuilder create fails</title>
<para>
It often happens that <command>pbuilder</command> cannot create the latest chroot.
Try upgrading <command>pbuilder</command> and debootstrap.
It is currently only possible to create software that handles the
past. Future prediction is a feature which may be added later after
we have become comfortable with the past.
</para>
<para>
There are people who occasionally back port debootstrap to stable
versions; hunt for them.
</para>
<para>
When there are errors with the debootstrap phase,
the debootstrap script needs to be fixed.
<command>pbuilder</command> does not provide a way to work around debootstrap.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="bindmountlimits">
<title>Directories that cannot be bind-mounted</title>
<para>
Because of the way <command>pbuilder</command> works, there
are several directories which cannot be bind-mounted when
running <command>pbuilder</command>. The directories include
<filename>/tmp</filename>,
<filename>/var/cache/pbuilder</filename>, and system
directories such as <filename>/etc</filename> and
<filename>/usr</filename>. The recommendation is to use
directories under the user's home directory for bind-mounts.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="shellafterfail">
<title>Logging in to pbuilder to investigate build failure</title>
<para>
It is possible to invoke a shell session after a build
failure. Example hook script are provided as
<filename>C10shell</filename> and
<filename>C11screen</filename> scripts. C10shell script will
start bash inside chroot, and C11screen script will start GNU
screen inside the chroot.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="modifyupdate">
<title>Logging in to pbuilder to modify the environment</title>
<para>
It is sometimes necessary to modify the chroot environment.
<command>login</command> will remove the contents of the chroot after logout.
It is possible to invoke a shell using hook scripts.
<command>pbuilder update</command> executes 'E' scripts,
and a sample for invoking a shell
is provided as <filename>C10shell</filename>.
</para>
<screen>
$ mkdir ~/loginhooks
$ cp C10shell ~/loginhooks/E10shell
$ sudo pbuilder update --hookdir ~/loginhooks/E10shell
</screen>
<para>
It is also possible to add <option>--save-after-exec</option>
and/or <option>--save-after-login</option> options
to the <command>pbuilder login</command> session
to accomplish the goal.
It is possible to add the <option>--uml-login-nocow</option> option
to <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux <option>login</option></command> session
as well.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="BUILDRESULTUID">
<title>Setting BUILDRESULTUID for sudo sessions</title>
<para>
It is possible to set
<screen>BUILDRESULTUID=$SUDO_UID</screen> in pbuilderrc to set
the proper BUILDRESULTUID when using <command>sudo</command>.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="tmpdir">
<title>Notes on usage of $TMPDIR</title>
<para>
If you are setting $TMPDIR to an unusual value, of other than
<filename>/tmp</filename>, you will find that some errors may occur inside the chroot,
such as <command>dpkg-source</command> failing.
</para>
<para>There are two options, you may install a hook to create that
directory, or set
<screen>export TMPDIR=/tmp</screen>
in pbuilderrc. Take your pick.
</para>
<para>
An example script is provided as
<filename>examples/D10tmp</filename> with <command>pbuilder</command>.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="DISTRIBUTIONSWITCH">
<title>Creating a shortcut for running <command>pbuilder</command> with a specific distribution</title>
<para>
When working with multiple chroots, it would be nice to work
with scripts that reduce the amount of typing. An example
script <filename>pbuilder-distribution.sh</filename> is
provided as an example. Invoking the script as
<filename>pbuilder-etch</filename> will invoke
<command>pbuilder</command> with a etch chroot.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="usingspecialaptsources">
<title>Using special apt sources lists, and local packages</title>
<para>
If you have some very specialised requirements on your
apt setup inside <command>pbuilder</command>,
it is possible to specify that through
the <command><option>--othermirror</option></command>
option.
Try something like:
<command><option>--othermirror "deb http://local/mirror stable main|deb-src http://local/source/repository ./"</option></command>
</para>
<para>
To use the local file system instead of HTTP, it is necessary to do
bind-mounting.
<command><option>--bindmounts</option></command>
is a command-line option useful for such cases.
</para>
<para>
It might be convenient to use your built packages from inside the chroot.
It is possible to automate the task with the following configuration.
First, set up pbuilderrc to bindmount your build results directory.
</para>
<para>
<screen>BINDMOUNTS="/var/cache/pbuilder/result"
</screen>
</para>
<para>
Then, add the following hook
</para>
<para>
<screen>
# cat /var/cache/pbuilder/hooks/D70results
#!/bin/sh
cd /var/cache/pbuilder/result/
/usr/bin/dpkg-scanpackages . /dev/null > /var/cache/pbuilder/result/Packages
/usr/bin/apt-get update
</screen>
</para>
<para>
This way, you can use <filename>deb file:/var/cache/pbuilder/result</filename>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="apt-getupdateonbuild-depend">
<title>How to get pbuilder to run apt-get update before trying to satisfy build-dependency</title>
<para>
You can use hook scripts for this.
D scripts are run before satisfying build-dependency.
</para>
<para>
<ulink url="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2006/05/msg00550.html">
This snippet comes from Ondrej Sury.
</ulink>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="bashprompt">
<title>Different bash prompts inside pbuilder login</title>
<para>
To make distinguishing bash prompts inside
<command>pbuilder</command> easier, it is possible to set
environment variables such as PS1 inside
<filename>pbuilderrc</filename>
</para>
<para>
With versions of bash more recent than 2.05b-2-15,
the value of the debian_chroot variable, if set,
is included in the value of PS1 (the Bash prompt)
inside the chroot.
In prior versions of bash,<footnote>
<para>Versions of bash from and before Debian 3.0</para>
</footnote>
setting PS1 in pbuilderrc worked.
</para>
<para>example of debian_chroot</para>
<screen>
export debian_chroot="pbuild$$"
</screen>
<para>example of PS1</para>
<screen>
export PS1="pbuild chroot 32165 # "
</screen>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="chrootmemo">
<title>Creating a chroot reminder</title>
<para>
Bash prompts will help you remember that you are inside a
chroot. There are other cases where you may want other signs
of being inside a chroot. Check out the
<filename>examples/F90chrootmemo</filename> hook script. It
will create a file called <filename>/CHROOT</filename> inside
your chroot.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="packagecachearchives">
<title>Using /var/cache/apt/archives for the package cache</title>
<para>
For the help of low-bandwidth systems, it is possible to use
<filename>/var/cache/apt/archives</filename> as the package
cache. Just specify it instead of the default
<filename>/var/cache/pbuilder/aptcache</filename>.
</para>
<para>
It is however not possible to do so currently with the
user-mode-linux version of <command>pbuilder</command>,
because <filename>/var/cache/apt/archives</filename> is
usually only writable by root.
</para>
<para>
Use of dedicated tools such as apt-proxy is recommended, since
caching of packages would benefit the system outside the scope
of <command>pbuilder</command>.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="stablebackport">
<title>pbuilder back ported to stable Debian releases</title>
<para>
Currently stable back port of pbuilder is avialable at backports.org.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="LOGNAME">
<title>Warning about LOGNAME not being defined</title>
<para>
You might see a lot of warning messages when running <command>pbuilder</command>.
</para>
<para>
<screen>
dpkg-genchanges: warning: no utmp entry available and LOGNAME not defined; using uid of process (1234)
</screen>
</para>
<para>
It is currently safe to ignore this warning message. Please
report back if you find any problem with having LOGNAME unset.
Setting LOGNAME caused a few problems when invoking
<command>chroot</command>. For example, dpkg requires getpwnam
to succeed inside chroot, which means LOGNAME and the related
user information have to be set up inside chroot.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="nobuildconflictessential">
<title>Cannot Build-conflict against an essential package</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> does not currently allow Build-Conflicts against
essential packages.
It should be obvious that essential packages should not be
removed from a working Debian system, and a source
package should not try to force removal of such packages
on people building the package.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="lninvalidcrossdevicelink">
<title>Avoiding the "ln: Invalid cross-device link" message</title>
<para>
By default, <command>pbuilder</command> uses hard links to
manage the <command>pbuilder</command> package cache. It is
not possible to make hard links across different devices; and
thus this error will occur, depending on your set up. If this
happens, set <screen>APTCACHEHARDLINK=no</screen> in your
pbuilderrc file.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="fakechroot">
<title>Using fakechroot</title>
<para>
It is possible to use <command>fakechroot</command> instead of
being root to run <command>pbuilder</command>; however,
several things make this impractical.
<command>fakechroot</command> overrides library loads and
tries to override default libc functions when providing the
functionality of virtual <command>chroot</command>. However,
some binaries do no use libc to function, or override the
overriding provided by <command>fakechroot</command>. One
example is <command>ldd</command>. Inside
<command>fakechroot</command>, <command>ldd</command> will
check the library dependency outside of the chroot, which is
not the expected behaviour.
</para>
<para>
To work around the problem, debootstrap has a
<option>--variant fakechroot</option> option. Use that, so
that ldd and ldconfig are overridden.
</para>
<para>
Make sure you have set your LD_PRELOAD path correctly, as described in
the fakechroot manpage.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="debconfinsidepbuilder">
<title>Using debconf inside pbuilder sessions</title>
<para>
To use debconf inside <command>pbuilder</command>, setting DEBIAN_FRONTEND to
<quote>readline</quote> in <filename>pbuilderrc</filename> should work.
Setting it to <quote>dialog</quote> should also work, but make sure
whiptail or dialog is installed inside the chroot.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="nodev">
<title>nodev mount options hinder pbuilder activity</title>
<para>
If you see messages such as this when building a chroot, you are mounting the file system with
the nodev option.
</para>
<screen>
/var/lib/dpkg/info/base-files.postinst: /dev/null: Permission denied
</screen>
<para>
You will also have problems if you mount the file system with
the noexec option, or nosuid.
Make sure you do not have these flags set when mounting the file system for
<filename>/var/cache/pbuilder</filename> or $BUILDPLACE.
</para>
<para>
This is not a problem when using <command>user-mode-linux</command>.
</para>
<para>
See <ulink url="http://bugs.debian.org/316135">
316135
</ulink> for example.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="faqslowpbuilder">
<title>pbuilder is slow</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> is often slow. The slowest part of
<command>pbuilder</command> is extracting the tar.gz every
time <command>pbuilder</command> is invoked. That can be
avoided by using <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command>.
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> uses COW file
system, and thus does not need to clean up and recreate the
root file system.
</para>
<para>
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> is slower in
executing the actual build system, due to the usual
<command>user-mode-linux</command> overhead for system
calls. It is more friendly to the hard drive.
</para>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> with cowdancer is also an
alternative that improves speed of pbuilder startup.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="sponsor">
<title>Using pdebuild to sponsor package</title>
<para>
To sign a package marking for sponsorship, it is possible to
use<command><option> --auto-debsign</option></command> and
<command><option>--debsign-k</option></command> options of
<command>pdebuild</command>.
</para>
<screen>
<command>pdebuild <option>--auto-debsign </option> <option>--debsign-k </option><parameter>XXXXXXXX</parameter></command>
</screen>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="sourcechanges">
<title>Why is there a source.changes file in ../?</title>
<para>
When running <command>pdebuild</command>, <command>pbuilder</command> will run dpkg-buildpackage to create a
Debian source package to pass it on to <command>pbuilder</command>.
File named XXXX_YYY_source.changes is what remains from that process.
It is harmless unless you try to upload it to the Debian archive.
</para>
<para>
This behaviour is different when running through <option>--use-pdebuild-internal</option>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="amd64i386">
<title>amd64 and i386-mode</title>
<para>
amd64 architectures are capable of running binaries in i386
mode. It is possible to use <command>pbuilder</command> to
run packages, using <command>linux32</command> and
<command>debootstrap <option>--arch</option></command> option.
Specifically, a command-line option like the following will
work.
</para>
<para>
<screen>
<command>pbuilder create --distribution sid --debootstrapopts --arch --debootstrapopts i386 \
--basetgz /var/cache/pbuilder/base-i386.tgz --mirror http://ftp.jp.debian.org/debian</command>
<command>linux32 pbuilder build --basetgz /var/cache/pbuilder/base-i386.tgz</command>
</screen>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="ccache">
<title>How to use ccache</title>
<para>
To use <command>ccache</command> with
<command>pbuilder</command>, use the following for
configuration. Note that the directory used for CCACHE_DIR
needs to exist, and be writable by user within <command>chroot</command>. The
default user within <command>chroot</command> is <screen>uid=1234</screen>.
</para>
<screen>
export CCACHE_DIR="/var/cache/pbuilder/ccache"
export PATH="/usr/lib/ccache:${PATH}"
EXTRAPACKAGES=ccache
BINDMOUNTS="${CCACHE_DIR}"
</screen>
<para>
<ulink url="http://web.glandium.org/blog/?p=55">This entry created thanks to a blog posting.
</ulink>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="tmpfsforpbuilder">
<title>Using tmpfs for buildplace</title>
<para>
To improve speed of operation, it is possible to use tmpfs for
pbuilder build location. Mount tmpfs to
<filename>/var/cache/pbuilder/build</filename>, and set
<screen>APTCACHEHARDLINK=no</screen>.
</para>
</sect1>
<!-- end of FAQ -->
</chapter>
<chapter id="develanddebug">
<title>Troubleshooting and development</title>
<sect1 id="bugreport">
<title>Reporting bugs </title>
<para>
To report bugs, it would be important to have a log of what's
going wrong. Most of the time, adding a
<command><option>--debug</option></command> option and
re-running the session should do the trick. Please send the
log of such session along with your problem to ease the
debugging process.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="mailinglist">
<title>Mailing list</title>
<para>
There is a mailing list for <command>pbuilder</command> on
alioth (pbuilder-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org). You can
subscribe through the alioth web interface.
<ulink url="http://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=30778">
http://alioth.debian.org/mail/?group_id=30778</ulink>.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="IRCchannel">
<title>IRC Channel</title>
<para>
For coordination and communication,
IRC channel #pbuilder on irc.oftc.net is used.
Please log your intent there when you are going to
start doing some changes and committing some change.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="development">
<title>Information for pbuilder developers</title>
<para>
This section tries to document current development practices
and how things generally operate in development.
</para>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> is co-maintained with resources
provided by Alioth.
There is an Alioth project page at
<ulink url="http://alioth.debian.org/projects/pbuilder">
http://alioth.debian.org/projects/pbuilder</ulink>.
Home page is also available,
at <ulink url="http://pbuilder.alioth.debian.org/">
http://alioth.debian.org/projects/pbuilder</ulink>
which shows this text.
git repository is available through http, git, or (if you have an
account on alioth, ) ssh.
</para>
<screen>
git-clone git://git.debian.org/git/pbuilder/pbuilder.git
git-clone http://git.debian.org/git/pbuilder/pbuilder.git
git-clone ssh://git.debian.org/git/pbuilder/pbuilder.git
</screen>
<para>
Test-suites are available in <filename>./testsuite/</filename> directory.
Changes are expected not to break the test-suites.
<filename>./run-test.sh</filename> is a basic test-suite, which puts a summary in
<filename>run-test.log</filename>, and <filename>run-test-cdebootstrap.log</filename>.
<filename>./run-test-regression.sh</filename> is a regression test-suite,
which puts the result in <filename>run-test-regression.log</filename>.
Currently, run-test.sh is ran automatically daily to ensure that pbuilder is working.
</para>
<table id="dirtestsuites">
<title>Directory structure of the testsuite</title>
<tgroup cols="2">
<colspec colnum="1" colname="c1" colwidth="1*" align="left" />
<colspec colnum="2" colname="c2" colwidth="1*" align="left" />
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Directory</entry>
<entry>Meaning</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><filename>./testsuite/</filename></entry>
<entry>Directory for testsuite</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>./testsuite/run-test.sh</filename></entry>
<entry>Daily regression test to test against Debian Archive changes breaking pbuilder.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>./testsuite/run-test.log</filename></entry>
<entry>A summary of testsuite</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>./testsuite/normal/</filename></entry>
<entry>Directory for testsuite results of running pbuilder with debootstrap</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>./testsuite/cdebootstrap/</filename></entry>
<entry>Directory for testsuite results of running pbuilder with cdebootstrap</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>./testsuite/run-regression.sh</filename></entry>
<entry>Regression testsuite, ran every time change is made to pbuilder to make sure there is no regression.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>./testsuite/run-regression.log</filename></entry>
<entry>Summary of test result</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>./testsuite/regression/BugID-*.sh</filename></entry>
<entry>Regression tests, exit 0 for success, exit 1 for failure</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>./testsuite/regression/BugID-*</filename></entry>
<entry>Files used for the regression testsuite.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>./testsuite/regression/log/BugID-*.sh.log</filename></entry>
<entry>Output of the regression test, output from the script is redirected by run-regression.sh</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>
<para>
When making changes, a description of the change targeted at
developers should be documented in
<filename>ChangeLog</filename><footnote>
<para>ChangeLog is edited using emacs ChangeLog mode.</para>
</footnote>, and committed. A brief
summary of the change targeting end users should be documented
in <filename>debian/changelog</filename>, so that users can
see them.
It is important to note that the description of
<filename>debian/changelog</filename> is targeted at users,
and <filename>ChangeLog</filename> is targeted at developers.
For git commit messages, a cut-n-paste of
<filename>ChangeLog</filename> diff should be enough.
</para>
<para>
A TODO file is available in <filename>debian/TODO</filename>.
It's mostly not well-maintained, but hopefully it will be more
up-to-date when people start using it. emacs todoo-mode is
used in editing the file.
</para>
<para>
When releasing a new version of <command>pbuilder</command>,
the version is tagged with the git tag
X.XXX (version number).
This is done with <command>./git-tag.sh</command> script available in the source tree.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="otheruse">
<title>Other uses of pbuilder</title>
<sect1 id="chroot">
<title>Using pbuilder for small experiments</title>
<para>
There are cases when some small experimenting is required, and
you do not want to damage the main system,
like when installing experimental library packages,
or compiling with experimental compilers.
For such cases, the <command>pbuilder login</command> command is available.
</para>
<para>
<command>pbuilder login </command> is a debugging feature for
<command>pbuilder</command> itself, but it also allows users to have a temporary chroot.
</para>
<para>
Note that the chroot is cleaned after logging out of the shell,
and mounting file systems inside it is considered harmful.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="runningprograms">
<title>Running little programs inside the chroot</title>
<para>
To facilitate using <command>pbuilder</command> for other uses,
<command>pbuilder execute</command> is available.
<command>pbuilder execute </command> will take a script
specified in the command-line argument, and
invoke the script inside the chroot.
</para>
<para>
The script can be useful for sequences of operations such as
installing ssh and adding a new user inside the chroot.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="experimental">
<title>Experimental or wish-list features of pbuilder</title>
<para>
There are some advanced features, above that of the
basic feature of <command>pbuilder</command>, for some specific purposes.
</para>
<sect1 id="lvm">
<title>Using LVM</title>
<para>
LVM2 has a useful snapshot function that features Copy-on-write images.
That could be used for <command>pbuilder</command> just as it can be used for
the user-mode-linux <command>pbuilder</command> port.
lvmpbuilder script in the examples directory implements such port.
The scripts and documentation can be found under
<filename>/usr/share/doc/pbuilder/examples/lvmpbuilder/</filename>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="cowdancer">
<title>Using cowdancer</title>
<para>
<command>cowdancer</command> allows copy-on-write semantics on
file system using hard links and hard-link-breaking-on-write
tricks. <command>pbuilder</command> using
<command>cowdancer</command> seems to be much faster and it is
one ideal point for improvement.
<command>cowbuilder</command>, a wrapper for
<command>pbuilder</command> for using
<command>cowdancer</command> is available from
<command>cowdancer</command> package since 0.14
</para>
<para>
Example command-lines for cowbuilder look like the following.
</para>
<para>
<screen>
# cowbuilder --create --distribution sid
# cowbuilder --update --distribution sid
# cowbuilder --build XXX.dsc
</screen>
</para>
<para>
It is also possible to use cowdancer with pdebuild command.
Specify with command-line option <option>--pbuilder</option>
or set it in PDEBUILD_PBUILDER configuration option.
</para>
<para>
<screen>
$ pdebuild --pbuilder cowbuilder
</screen>
</para>
<sect2 id="sargecowdancer">
<title>Using cowdancer for sarge</title>
<para>
This section is mostly obsolete now that etch is released,
but left for reference, and will be removed after lenny
release.
</para>
<para>
cowdancer was introduced after the release of Debian sarge;
if you want to build packages for sarge with cowbuilder, you
will need to workaround its unavailability.
</para>
<para>
One way to workaround the problem is to set APTCONFDIR in pbuilderrc
to point to a directory with a list of sources for APT which has both
sarge and sarge-backports.
</para>
<para>
<screen>
$ cat sources.list
# sarge-backports
deb http://www.backports.org/debian sarge-backports main
deb-src http://www.backports.org/debian sarge-backports main
# sarge
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian sarge main
deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian sarge main
</screen>
</para>
<para>
It is recommended to "Pin" the cowdancer package appropriately in
this case, via the APT preferences mechanism.
</para>
<para>
<screen>
$ cat preferences
Explanation: use cowdancer from backports
Package: cowdancer
Pin: release a=sarge-backports
Pin-Priority: 950
</screen>
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="withouttargz">
<title>Using pbuilder without tar.gz</title>
<para>
The <command><option>--no-targz</option></command>
option of <command>pbuilder</command>
will allow usage of <command>pbuilder</command> in a different way
from conventional usage.
It will try to use an existing chroot,
and will not try to clean up after
working on it.
It is an operation mode more like
<command>sbuild</command>.
</para>
<para>
It should be possible to create base chroot images
for <command>dchroot</command> with the following commands:
<screen>
# pbuilder create --distribution etch --no-targz --basetgz /chroot/etch
# pbuilder create --distribution lenny --no-targz --basetgz /chroot/lenny
# pbuilder create --distribution sid --no-targz --basetgz /chroot/sid
</screen>
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="inavserver">
<title>Using pbuilder in a vserver</title>
<para>
It is possible to use <command>pbuilder</command> in a vserver
environment. This requires either vserver-patches in version 2.1.1-rc14
or higher, or a Linux kernel version 2.6.16 or higher.
</para>
<para>
To use <command>pbuilder</command> in a vserver, you need to set the
<command>secure_mount</command> <command>CAPS</command> in the
<command>ccapabilities</command> of this vserver.
</para>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter id="refs">
<title>Reference materials</title>
<sect1 id="dirstructoutside">
<title>Directory structure outside the chroot</title>
<table>
<title>Directory Structure outside the chroot </title>
<tgroup cols="2">
<colspec colnum="1" colname="c1" colwidth="1*" align="left" />
<colspec colnum="2" colname="c2" colwidth="1*" align="left" />
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Directory</entry>
<entry>Meaning</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><filename>/etc/pbuilderrc</filename></entry>
<entry>configuration file</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/usr/share/pbuilder/pbuilderrc</filename></entry>
<entry>Default configuration</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/var/cache/pbuilder/base.tgz</filename></entry>
<entry>Default location pbuilder uses for base.tgz, the tar-ball containing a basic Debian installation
with only the build-essential packages.
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/var/cache/pbuilder/build/PID/</filename></entry>
<entry>Default location pbuilder uses for chroot</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/var/cache/pbuilder/aptcache</filename></entry>
<entry>Default location <command>pbuilder</command> will use as apt cache, to store deb packages required during <command>pbuilder</command> build.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/var/cache/pbuilder/result</filename></entry>
<entry>Default location <command>pbuilder</command> puts the deb files and other files created after build</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/var/cache/pbuilder/pbuilder-umlresult</filename></entry>
<entry>Default location <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> puts the deb files and other files created after build </entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/var/cache/pbuilder/pbuilder-mnt</filename></entry>
<entry>Default location <command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> uses for mounting the COW file system, for chrooting.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/tmp</filename></entry>
<entry><command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> will mount tmpfs for work.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>${HOME}/tmp/PID.cow</filename></entry>
<entry><command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> use this directory for location of COW file system.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>${HOME}/uml-image</filename></entry>
<entry><command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> use this directory for user-mode-linux full disk image.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="dirstructinside">
<title>Directory structure inside the chroot</title>
<table>
<title>Directory Structure inside the chroot </title>
<tgroup cols="2">
<colspec colnum="1" colname="c1" colwidth="1*" align="left" />
<colspec colnum="2" colname="c2" colwidth="1*" align="left" />
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Directory</entry>
<entry>Meaning</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><filename>/etc/mtab</filename></entry>
<entry>
symlink to <filename>/proc/mounts</filename>.
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/tmp/buildd</filename></entry>
<entry>Default place used in <command>pbuilder</command>
to place the Debian package to be processed.
<filename>/tmp/buildd/packagename-version/</filename>
will be the root directory of the package being
processed. HOME environment variable is set to this
value inside chroot by pbuilder-buildpackage
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/run</filename></entry>
<entry>The
script passed as an argument to
<command>pbuilder</command> execute is passed on.
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/tmp/hooks</filename></entry>
<entry>
The location of hooks.
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/var/cache/apt/archives</filename></entry>
<entry>
<command>pbuilder</command> copies the content of this directory to and from
the aptcache directory of outside chroot.
</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>/tmp/XXXX</filename></entry>
<entry><command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> uses
a script in <filename>/tmp</filename> to bootstrap into
user-mode-linux</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</table>
</sect1>
</chapter>
<chapter>
<title>Minor archaeological details</title>
<sect1>
<title>Documentation history </title>
<para>
This document was started on 28 Dec 2002 by
Junichi Uekawa, trying to document what is known
about <command>pbuilder</command>.
</para>
<para>
This documentation is available from the <command>pbuilder</command> source tar-ball,
and from the git repository of <command>pbuilder</command> (web-based access is possible).
A copy of this documentation can be found on the
<ulink url="http://pbuilder.alioth.debian.org/pbuilder-doc.html">Alioth project page for pbuilder</ulink>.
<ulink url="http://pbuilder.alioth.debian.org/pbuilder-doc.pdf">There is also a PDF version</ulink>.
The homepage for <command>pbuilder</command> is
<ulink url="http://pbuilder.alioth.debian.org/">
http://pbuilder.alioth.debian.org/
</ulink> hosted by alioth project.
</para>
<para>
Documentation is written using DocBook XML,
with emacs PSGML mode, and using wysidocbookxml for live
previewing.
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="pbuilderbackgroundhistory">
<title>Possibly inaccurate Background History of pbuilder</title>
<para>
The following is a most possibly inaccurate account of how
<command>pbuilder</command> came to happen, and other attempts to
make something like <command>pbuilder</command> happen.
This part of the document was originally in the AUTHORS file,
to give credit to those who existed before <command>pbuilder</command>.
</para>
<sect2>
<title>The Time Before pbuilder</title>
<para>
There was once dbuild, which was a shell script to build
Debian packages from source. Lars Wirzenius wrote that
script, and it was good, short, and simple (probably).
There was nothing like build-depends then (I think), and it was simple.
It could have been improved, I could only find references and no actual source.
</para>
<para>
debbuild was probably written by James Troup. I don't know it
because I have never seen the actual code, I could only find some
references to it on the net, and mailing list logs.
</para>
<para>
sbuild is a perl script to build Debian packages from source.
It parses Build-Depends, and performs other miscellaneous checks,
and has a lot of hacks to actually get things building,
including a table of what package to use when virtual packages are
specified (does it do that still?).
It supports the use of a local database for packages which do not
have build-dependencies. It was written by Ronan Hodek,
and I think it was patched and fixed and extended by
several people. It is part of wanna-build, and used extensively
in the Debian buildd system. I think it was maintained
mostly by Ryan Murray.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="birth">
<title>Birth of pbuilder</title>
<para>
wanna-build (sbuild) was (at the time of year 2001) quite
difficult to set up, and it was never a Debian
package. dbuild was something that predated Build-Depends.
</para>
<para>
Building packages from source using Build-Depends
information within a chroot sounded trivial; and
<command>pbuilder</command> was born. It was initially a shell script
with only a few lines, which called debootstrap
and chroot and dpkg-buildpackage in the same run,
but soon, it was decided that that's too slow.
</para>
<para>
Yes, and it took almost an year to get things somewhat
right, and in the middle of the process, Debian 3.0
was released. Yay.
Debian 3.0 wasn't completely buildable with <command>pbuilder</command>,
but the amount of packages which are not buildable
is steadily decreasing. (I hope)
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="secondyear">
<title>And the second year of its life</title>
<para>
Someone wanted <command>pbuilder</command> to not run as
root, and as User-mode-linux has become more useful as time
passed, I've started experimenting with
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command>.
<command>pbuilder-user-mode-linux</command> has not stayed
functional as much as I would have liked, and bootstrapping
<command>user-mode-linux</command> environment has been
pretty hard, due to the quality of user-mode-linux code or
packaging at that time, which kept on breaking network
support in one way or the other.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="fifthyear">
<title>Fifth year of pbuilder</title>
<para>
<command>pbuilder</command> is now widely adopted as a 'almost standard' tool
for testing packages, and building packages in a pristine
environment. There are other similar tools that do similar
tasks, but they do not share the exact same goal. To
commemorate this fact, <command>pbuilder</command> is now co-maintained with
several people.
</para>
<para>
<command>sbuild</command> is now a well-maintained Debian package within
Debian, and with <command>pbuilder</command> being such a slow monster, some
people prefer the approach of sbuild. Development to use
LVM-snapshots, cowloop, or cowdancer is hoped to improve the
situation somewhat.
</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>
</book>
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