DEBPIC: DEbian Build Package In Container

Introduction

Debpic lets you build Debian packages in an isolated Docker environment.

See the man page for an introduction and usage instructions.

The Debian wiki has a list of similar tools.

Overview

Tasks	Steps
Build package	debpic
Configure Container
Different linux distribution	debpic --distribution debian:11
Local apt repository	debpic --local-repository ~/mydebs
Private apt repository (configure)	Write deb822 format sources to /etc/debpic/sources.list.d/MyServer.sources
Private apt repository (use)	debpic --sources MyServer
Install extra packages	debpic --extra-pkg gdb
Run Container
Use DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS	DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS="nocheck no_lto" debpic
Run command in container	debpic "my command"
Pass args to dpkg-buildpackage	debpic -- -b
Hook script (Configure)	Write script to /etc/debpic/hooks/myscript
Hook script (Use)	debpic --hook myscript
Interactive mode	debpic --interactive
Open VSCode in container	debpic --vscode
Set destination directory	debpic --destination ~/my_built_packages

User Experience	Info
Jenkins integration	See Using With Jenkins.
Tab completion	Yes
Man page	Yes
Coloured output	Yes
Caching	Container is cached. Ccache enabled by default.
Config file	~/.config/debpic/debpic.conf
Built package location	./built_packages/
Include extra tools	Edit ./developer-packages.txt

Simple Usage

To build any debian package - Navigate to the root directory of the source code for the debian package and run the following command.

debpic -- -b --no-sign

• the -b tells dpkg-buildpackage to only build the binary package which will gets past the problem error: can't build with source format '3.0 (quilt)': no upstream tarball ...
• the --no-sign tells dpkg-buildpackage to not sign the package which gets past the problem error: failed to sign ...

Installation

1. Add the apt repository.

echo "deb https://aidangallagher.co.uk/apt-repo/ unstable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debpic.list

2. Add gpg key for apt repository.

gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 9945693042DB91DF

gpg --export 9945693042DB91DF | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/debpic.gpg > /dev/null

3. Install debpic.

sudo apt update && sudo apt install debpic

NOTE: If you prefer you can download the debpic debian package directly from github.

4. Configure docker to run as non-root user. See official docker documentation for more details.

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
newgrp docker

5. Optionally - configure git to globally ignore generated built_packages directory.

echo built_packages >> ~/.config/git/ignore

Documentation

For more information see the documentation.