Creating the Debian package

Preparation

As long as the debian directory is in the sub-directory you need to link or copy it in the top directory.

In the top directory do this:

rm -rf debian
cp -r dist/debian .

Make sure all the dependencies are met. See the INSTALL.md for this. Otherwise debuild will complain and quit.

Configuration

To do some configuration for the build, some environment variables can be used.

Due to the fact, that debuild filters out some variables, all the configuration variables need to be prefixed by DEB_

mconfig

See mconfig --help for details about the configuration options.

export DEB_NOSUID=1 adds --without-suid

export DEB_NONETWORK=1 adds --without-network

export DEB_NOSECCOMP=1 adds --without-seccomp

export DEB_NOALL=1 adds all of the above

To select a specific profile for mconfig.

REMINDER: to build with seccomp you need to install libseccomp-dev package !

For real production environment us this configuration:

export DEB_SC_PROFILE=release-stripped

or if debugging is needed use this.

export DEB_SC_PROFILE=debug

In case a different build directory is needed:

export DEB_SC_BUILDDIR=builddir

debchange

One way to update the changelog would be that the developer of singularity update the Debian changelog on every commit. As this is double work, because of the CHANGELOG.md in the top directory, the changelog is automatically updated with the version of the source which is currently checked out. Which means you can easily build Debian packages for all the different tagged versions of the software. See INSTALL.md on how to checkout a specific version.

Be aware, that debchange will complain about a lower version as the top in the current changelog. Which means you have to cleanup the changelog if needed. If you did not change anything in the debian directory manually, it might be easiest to start from scratch. Be aware, that the Debian install directory as you see it now, might not be available in older versions (branches, tags). Make sure you have a clean copy of the debian directory before you switch to (checkout) an older version.

Usually debchange is configured by the environment variables DEBFULLNAME and EMAIL. As debuild creates a clean environment it filters out most of the environment variables. To set DEBFULLNAME for the debchange command in the makefile, you have to set DEB_FULLNAME. If these variables are not set, debchange will try to find appropriate values from the system configuration. Usually by using the login name and the domain-name.

export DEB_FULLNAME="Your Name"
export EMAIL="you@example.org"

Building

As usual for creating a Debian package you can use dpkg-buildpackage or debuild which is a kind of wrapper for the first and includes the start of lintian, too.

dpkg-buildpackage --build=binary --no-sign
lintian --verbose --display-info --show-overrides

or all in one

debuild --build=binary --no-sign --lintian-opts --display-info --show-overrides

After successful build the Debian package can be found in the parent directory.

To clean up the temporary files created by debuild use the command:

dh clean

To cleanup the copy of the debian directory, make sure you saved your changes (if any) and remove it.

rm -rf debian

For details on Debian package building see the man-page of debuild and dpkg-buildpackage and lintian

Debian Repository

In the current version this is by far not ready for using it in official Debian Repositories.

This might change in future. I updated the old debian directory to make it just work, for people needing it.

Any help is welcome to provide a Debian installer which can be used for building a Debian package, that can be used in official Debian Repositories.