APT for package self-builders

One of the main jobs of a package manager like apt is to download packages (ideally in a secure way) from a repository so that they can be processed further – usually installed. FSVO "normal user" this is all there ever is to it in terms of getting packages.

Package maintainers and other users rolling their own binary packages on the other hand tend to have the packages they want to install and/or play-test with already on their disk. For them, it seems like an additional hassle to push their packages to a (temporary) repository, so apt can download data from there again… for the love of supercow, there must be a better way… right?

For the sake of a common start lets say I want to modify (and later upload) hello, so I acquire the source via apt source hello. Friendly as apt is it ran dpkg-source for me already, so I have (at the time of writing) the files hello_2.10.orig.tar.gz, hello_2.10-1.debian.tar.xz and hello_2.10-1.dsc in my working directory as well as the extracted tarballs in the subdirectory hello-2.10.

Anything slightly more complex than hello probably has a bunch of build-dependencies, so what I should do next is install build-dependencies: Everyone knows apt build-dep hello and that works in this case, but given that you have a dsc file we could just as well use that and free us from our reliance on the online repository: apt build-dep ./hello_2.10-1.dsc. We still depend on having a source package built previously this way… but wait! We have the source tree and this includes the debian/control file so… apt build-dep ./hello-2.10 – the later is especially handy if you happen to add additional build-dependencies while hacking on your hello.

So now that we can build the package have fun hacking on it! You probably have your preferred way of building packages, but for simplicity lets just continue using apt for now: apt source hello -b. If all worked out well we should have now (if you are on a amd64 machine) also a hello_2.10-1_amd64.changes file as well as two binary packages named hello_2.10-1_amd64.deb and hello-dbgsym_2.10-1_amd64.deb (you will also get a hello_2.10-1_amd64.buildinfo which you can hang onto, but apt has currently no way of making use of it, so I ignore it for the moment).

Everyone should know by now that you can install a deb via apt install ./hello_2.10-1_amd64.deb but that quickly gets boring with increasing numbers, especially if the packages you want to install have tight relations. So feel free to install all debs included in a changes file with apt install ./hello_2.10-1_amd64.changes.

So far so good, but all might be a bit much. What about install only some debs of a changes file? Here it gets interesting as if you play your cards right you can test upgrades this way as well. So lets add a temporary source of metadata (and packages) – but before you get your preferred repository builder setup and your text editor ready: You just have to add an option to your apt call. Coming back to our last example of installing packages via a changes file, lets say we just want to install hello and not hello-dbgsym: apt install --with-source ./hello_2.10-1_amd64.changes hello.

That will install hello just fine, but if you happen to have hello installed already… apt is going to tell you it has already the latest version installed. You can look at this situation e.g. with apt policy --with-source ./hello_2.10-1_amd64.changes hello. See, the Debian repository ships a binary-only rebuild as 2.10-1+b1 at the moment, which is a higher version than the one we have locally build. Your usual apt-knowledge will tell you that you can force apt to install your hello with apt install --with-source ./hello_2.10-1_amd64.changes hello=2.10-1 but that isn't why I went down this path: As you have seen now metadata inserted via --with-source participates as usual in the candidate selection process, so you can actually perform upgrade tests this way: apt upgrade --with-source ./hello_2.10-1_amd64.changes (or full-upgrade).

The hello example reaches its limits here, but if you consider time travel a possibility we will jump back into a time in which hello-debhelper existed. To be exact: Right to the moment its maintainer wanted to rename hello-debhelper to hello. Most people consider package renames hard. You need to get file overrides and maintainerscripts just right, but at least with figuring out the right dependency relations apt can help you a bit. How you can feed in changes files we have already seen, so lets imagine you deal with with multiple packages from different sources – or just want to iterate quickly! In that case you want to create a Packages file which you would normally find in a repository. You can write those by hand of course, but its probably easier to just call dpkg-scanpackages . > Packages (if you have dpkg-dev installed) or apt-ftparchive packages . > Packages (available via apt-utils) – they behave slightly different, but for our proposes its all the same. Either way, ending up with a Packages file nets you another file you can feed to --with-source (sorry, you can't install a Packages file). This also allows you to edit the dependency relations of multiple packages in a single file without constant "fiddle and build" loops of the included packages – just make sure to run as non-root & in simulation mode (-s) only or you will make dpkg (and in turn apt) very sad.

Of course upgrade testing is only complete if you can influence what is installed on your system before you try to upgrade easily. You can with apt install --with-source ./Packages hello=2.10-1 -s -o Dir::state::status=/dev/null (it will look like nothing is installed) or feed a self-crafted file (or some compressed /var/backups/dpkg.status file from days past), but to be fair that gets a bit fiddly, so at some point its probably easier to write an integration test for apt which are just little shellscript in which (nearly) everything is possible, but that might be the topic of another post some day.

Q: How long do I have to wait to use this?

A: I think I have implemented the later parts of this in the 1.3 series. Earlier parts are in starting with 1.0. Debian stable (stretch) has the 1.4 series, so… you can use it now. Otherwise use your preferred package manager to upgrade your system to latest stable release. I hope it is clear which package manager that should be… 😉︎

Q: Does this only work with apt?

A: This works just the same with apt-cache (where the --with-source option is documented in the manpage btw) and apt-get. Everything else using libapt (so aptitude included) does not at the moment, but potentially can and probably will in the future. If you feel like typing a little bit more you can at least replicate the --with-source examples by using the underlying generic option: aptitude install -s hello-dbgsym -o APT::Sources::With::=./hello_2.10-1_amd64.changes (That is all you really need anyhow, the rest is syntactic sugar). Before you start running off to report bugs: Check before reporting duplicates (and don't forget to attach patches)!

Q: Why are you always typing ./packages.deb?

A: With the --with-source option the ./ is not needed actually, but for consistency I wrote it everywhere. In the first examples we need it as apt needs to know somehow if the string it sees here is a package name, a glob, a regex, a task, … or a filename. The string "package.deb" could be a regex after all. And any string could be a directory name… Combine this with picking up files and directories in the current directory and you would have a potential security risk looming here if you start apt in /tmp (No worries, we hadn't realized this from the start either).

Q: But, but, but … security anyone?!?

The files are on your disk and apt expects that you have verified that they aren't some system-devouring malware. How should apt verify that after all as there is no trustpath. So don't think that downloading a random deb suddently became a safe thing to do because you used apt instead of dpkg -i. If the dsc or changes files you use are signed and you verfied them through, you can rest assured that apt is verifying that the hashes mentioned in those files apply to the files they index. Doesn't help you at all if the files are unsigned or other users are able to modify the files after you verified them, but apt will check hashes in those cases anyhow.

Q: I ❤︎ u, 🍑︎ tl;dr

Just 🏃︎ those, you might 😍︎ some of them:

apt source hello
apt build-dep ./hello-*/ -s
apt source -b hello
apt install ./hello_*.deb -s
apt install ./hello_*.changes -s
apt install --with-source ./hello_*.changes hello -s
apt-ftparchive packages . > ./Packages
apt upgrade --with-source ./Packages -s

P.S.: If you have expected this post to be published sometime inbetween the last two months… welcome to the club! I thought I would do it, too. Lets see how long I will need for the next one… I have it partly written already, but that was the case for this one as well… we will see.

APT for DPL Candidates

(Note: Updated table in 2019 for the new election, the rest of the article remains unchanged and is still as true as it is provocative)

Today is a special day for apt: 20 years ago after much discussion in the team as well as in the Debian project at large "APT" was born.

What happened in all these years? A lot! But if there is one common theme then it is that many useful APT features, tricks and changes are not as known to the general public or even most Debian Developers as they should be.

A few postings are unlikely to change that, but I will try anyhow and this post is the start of a mini-series of "APT for …" articles showing off things: For the first installment I want to show nothing less but the longest running vote-rigging scheme in the known free (software) world. But lets start from the beginning:

Humans pride themselves having evolved over simple animals following their instincts by having a mind of their own to form decisions. On this concept, humans hold votes to agree upon stuff, including the Debian Project Leader for the next year.

DPL candidates are encouraged to provide a platform and a discussion between the candidates and the voters ensures that everyone can form a well informed opinion on the candidates in question and based on this information choose a candidate with their own free will.

Or, That is at least the theory Debian Developers want to believe in.

The following table tallies each leader vote since 1999 with the information if the candidate (68 over all, 37 unique) had contributed to APT (31/13), dpkg (29/17) or both (18/9) for cases I could identify (if I missed anything feel free to get in touch). The candidate in bold has won the election in the given year, candidates in italics won a later election:

Year Candidate APT? dpkg?
 
1999 Joseph Carter no no
Ben Collins no1 yes
Wichert Akkerman no yes
Richard Braakman no yes
 
2000 Ben Collins no1 yes
Wichert Akkerman no yes
Joel Klecker no yes
Matthew Vernon no yes
 
2001 Branden Robinson yes2 yes
Anand Kumria no yes
Ben Collins yes1 yes
Bdale Garbee yes3 no
 
2002 Branden Robinson yes2 yes
Raphaël Hertzog yes4 yes
Bdale Garbee yes3 no
 
2003 Moshe Zadka no no
Bdale Garbee yes3 no
Branden Robinson yes2 yes
Martin Michlmayr yes5 no
 
2004 Martin Michlmayr yes5 no
Gergely Nagy no no
Branden Robinson yes2 yes
 
2005 Matthew Garrett no no
Andreas Schuldei no yes
Angus Lees no no
Anthony Towns yes6 yes
Jonathan Walther no no
Branden Robinson yes2 yes
 
2006 Jeroen van Wolffelaar yes7 yes
Ari Pollak no no
Steve McIntyre yes8 no
Anthony Towns yes6 yes
Andreas Schuldei no yes
Jonathan (Ted) Walther no no
Bill Allombert no yes
 
2007 Wouter Verhelst no no
Aigars Mahinovs no no
Gustavo Franco no no
Sam Hocevar yes10 yes
Steve McIntyre yes8 no
Raphaël Hertzog yes4 yes
Anthony Towns yes6 yes
Simon Richter yes9 yes
 
2008 Marc Brockschmidt no no
Raphaël Hertzog yes4 yes
Steve McIntyre yes8 no
 
2009 Stefano Zacchiroli yes11 no
Steve McIntyre yes8 no
 
2010 Stefano Zacchiroli yes11 no
Wouter Verhelst no no
Charles Plessy yes12 yes
Margarita Manterola no yes
 
2011 Stefano Zacchiroli yes11 no
 
2012 Wouter Verhelst no no
Gergely Nagy no no
Stefano Zacchiroli yes11 no
 
2013 Gergely Nagy no no
Moray Allan no no
Lucas Nussbaum no no
 
2014 Lucas Nussbaum no no
Neil McGovern no no
 
2015 Mehdi Dogguy no no
Gergely Nagy no no
Neil McGovern no no
 
2016 Mehdi Dogguy no no
 
2017 Mehdi Dogguy no no
Chris Lamb yes13 yes
 
2018 Chris Lamb14 yes13 yes
 
2019 Joerg Jaspert yes16 no
Jonathan Carter maybe17 no
Sam Hartman yes18 no
Martin Michlmayr yes5 no

We can see directly that until recently it was nearly mandatory to have contributed to apt or dpkg to be accepted as a DPL candidate. The recent no streak before Chris entered the table gets doubly weird if we factor in that I joined Debian and the APT project around 2009… We might get to the bottom of this coincident in the future, but for now lets get back to the topic at hand:

DDs have no free will

It is hard to accept for a human, but the table above shows that DDs aren't as free in their choice as they think they are; they follow a simple rule:

If at least one of the candidates contributed to APT, an APT contributor wins the election.

You can read this directly from the table above (20 votes total, including 6 votes without an apt candidate). Interestingly, the same rule for dpkg does not hold at all. In fact there are years in which the defining difference for the winning candidate is that he15 hasn't contributed to dpkg but only to apt (e.g. 2002).

Praying via bugreports and sacrifices in the form of patches in the Pantheon of the Supercow, the deity@ mailinglist, can have profound effects: Take the very first elections as an example: After being an unsuccessful candidate in 1999 and 2000, candidate Ben implemented the rsh transport method for apt and as a result became DPL in 2001.

And as if that wouldn't be enough, being on good terms with Supercow has additional benefits:

Contribution beats Re-Election

While it seems like DPLs are granted a second term if they wish the recent 2017 election shows that contributing to APT is stronger. Two other non-re-elections are on record: In 2003 where the bugreporter Bdale lost against the patchprovider Martin, so contribution size and recency seem to play a role as well, but that might not be everything there is to infights between contributors as shown in 2007 where Anthony lost against Sam in the biggest vote so far with 5 out of 8 candidates supported by apt (including the present and future DPL in this year).

The "Super" rubs of on the DPL

Many DPLs run for two terms, but only a single one managed to run a third time: After unsuccessful campaigning in 2009 Stefano not only worked on apt in 2010 and the following year(s) but also consulted with a certain highpriest of the Supercow netting a record three-year stint as DPL as a result.

It is to be seen if intercession of a highpriest is needed for long DPL terms, but it certainly doesn't hurt – and I make myself of course selflessly available (for a reasonable monetary offering) as said highpriest should a DPL (candidate) be in need of my divine bovine help (again)…

Every contribution matters – for real!

No contribution is too small, everything counts & supercow sees everything. Even "just" downgrading the severity of a bug counts10. Supercow values all contributors: Join their rank today and win the next DPL election in 2019!

Of course, supercow likes big and groundbreaking patches as much as the next project, but while other projects are just talking about how they like testers, bugreporters, translators and documentation improvers we in the apt project have the election-rigging data of 20 years to proof it! Supercow really cares for its contributors!

So to all past, present and future DPL candidates: Thanks for your contributions to APT (and Debian)!

That… this… what the f…edora?!?

Look at the calendar: Its not only easter sunday, its also the beginning of voting period for DPL 2018. What better day would there be for some fun about humans, genesis, elections and the 20th birthday of apt.

I promise that future installments in the series will be more practically useful but until then enjoy the festive days (if applicable) around apts birthday, have fun, take care and make sure to contribute to apt!

Mooooo!


  1. Contributed the RSH/SSH method in 2000. Won the following election after two unsuccessful rounds. 

  2. Credited in AUTHORS for "Man Page Documentation" 

  3. Early tester as shown in e.g. #45050 

  4. Bugreporter and provider of draft patch, e.g. #793360 

  5. Bugreporter and patch provider, e.g. #417090 

  6. Multiple patches over the years since 2005 including the latest reimplementation of rred 

  7. Bugreporter and patch provider: #384182 

  8. Bugreporter and tester, e.g. #218995 

  9. Bugreporter, tester and patch provider, e.g. #509866 

  10. RC bug triager, e.g. #454666 

  11. Multiple bugreports and patches, including pushing & documenting EDSP 

  12. Documentation patches, e.g. #619088 

  13. Tester and patch provider, e.g. #848721 

  14. The vote hasn't happened yet, but NOTA is by definition not an apt contributor and hence can't win as outlined in this post. 

  15. To this day Debian had no DPL for which "he" does not apply. With this information, you might be able to change this in future elections! 

  16. Bugreporter and maintainer of apts partner in crime: the Debian archive; e.g. #499897 

  17. Produced a video about apt, but also about alternatives potentially canceling the effect 

  18. Bugreporter; showing proper distaste at heretic tools, e.g. #617625 


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