go-ian

Simple debian package building and management named in memory of the late Ian Murdock, founder of the Debian project.

The purpose of this tool is to decrease the overhead in maintaining a debian package stored in a git repository. It tries to mimic the CLI of other popular tools such as git and bundler. It is intended to be helpful when integrating other build tools/systems and with CI/CD.

It has been ported to golang from the ruby project of the same name.

You can download binaries and Debian packages from the releases page.

Requirements

I shell out a bit to save time, will eventually make things more native. For now, need the following tools:

• dpkg-deb
• fakeroot
• rsync

This should do it.

sudo apt-get install fakeroot dpkg-dev rsync coreutils findutils

Installation

Simple to build / install, provided you have go setup:

go get github.com/penguinpowernz/go-ian
go install github.com/penguinpowernz/go-ian/cmd/ian

Or you can download a pre-built binary or Debian package from the releases page.

Usage

This tool is used for working with what Debian called "Binary packages" - that is ones that have the DEBIAN folder in capitals to slap Debian packages together quickly. It uses dpkg-deb -b in the background which most Debian package maintainers frown at but it is suitable enough for rolling your own packages quickly, and it scratches an itch.

Initializing

ian init

Analagous to git init this will do the same as new but do it in the current folder.

Now you will see you have a DEBIAN folder with a control and postinst file.

Info

ian info

This will simply dump the control file contents out. There are flags for version, priority, section, architecture etc.

Set fields in the control file

The architecture and the version can be set quickly in this manner. Other fields are not (yet) supported.

ian set -a amd64
ian set -v 1.2.3-test

Packaging

ian pkg

The one you came here for. Packages the repo in a debian package, excluding junk files like .git and .gitignore, moves root files (like README.md) to a /usr/share/doc folder so you don't dirty your root partition on install.
The package will be output to a pkg directory in the root of the repo. It will also generate the md5sums file and calculate the package size proir to packaging.

Push

ian push [target]

Setup scripts to run in a file called .ianpush in the repo root and running ian push will run all the lines in the file as commands with the current package. The package filename will be appended to each command unless $PKG is found on the line, in which case that will be replaced with the package filename. Also the target name can be given as an argument to push to specfic targets (supports globbing).

package_cloud push user/app-testing/debian/wheezy
stable: package_cloud push user/app-stable/debian/wheezy
devbox: scp $PKG [email protected]:~
s3: aws s3 cp $PKG s3://mybucket/dpkg/

Note that targets requiring input will fail as there is no terminal attached to the command. For SCP, it is recommended to use the SSH config files to your advantage.

Other

Use -h to get help on commands and their available flags.

Some other commands:

ian -d dpkg pkg # uses the folder called `dpkg` as the package root
ian excludes    # shows the excluded files
ian size        # calculates the package size (in kB)
ian -v          # prints the ian version
ian deps        # prints the dependencies line by line

You can also use the envvar IAN_DIR instead of -d in the same way that you would use GIT_DIR - that is, to do stuff with ian but from a different folder location.

Use DEBUG=1 ian pkg to show debug logs for ian commands.

Library Usage

The Debian package Control struct could come in handy for others. As a quick overview here's what it can do:

• Parse([]byte) (Control, error) - parse the bytes from the control file
• Read(string) (Control, error) - read the given file and parse it's contents
• Default() (Control) - a default package control file
• ctrl.Filename() string - the almost Debian standard filename (missing distro name)
• ctrl.String() string - render the control file as a string
• ctrl.WriteFile(string) error - write the string into the given filename

Plus the exported fields on the Control struct that mirror the dpkg field names.

For more information please check the godocs.

Dogfooding

The debian package source for Ian is actually managed by Ian in the folder dpkg. So you can build the debian package for ian, using ian. Give it a try!

go get github.com/penguinpowernz/go-ian
go install github.com/penguinpowernz/go-ian/cmd/ian
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/penguinpowernz/go-ian/dpkg
ian pkg
sudo dpkg -i pkg/ian_v1.0.0_amd64.deb

TODO

• more tests
• add help page
• add subcommands help
• pushing
• test pushing
• ignore file
• allow specifying where to output the package to after building
• deps management
• install after packaging
• package a specific version
• optional semver enforcement
• utilize rules file
• support copyright file
• support changelog
• don't shell out for md5sums
• don't shell out for rsync
• don't shell out for find
• don't shell out for dpkg-deb
• pull maintainer from git config

Contributor Code of Conduct

This project adheres to No Code of Conduct. We are all adults. We accept anyone's contributions. Nothing else matters.

For more information please visit the No Code of Conduct homepage.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/penguinpowernz/ian.

In Memory Of

In memory of Ian Ashley Murdock (1973 - 2015) founder of the Debian project.