How to use jdeb with Ant

January 11, 2025 · View on GitHub

Attribute	Description	Required
destfile	The debian package to be generated	Yes
control	The directory containing the control files	Yes
compression	Compression method for the data file (`gzip`, `bzip2`, `xz` or `none`)	No; defaults to `gzip`
verbose	Print detailed info during the package generation	No; defaults to `false`
keyring	The file containing the PGP keys	No
key	The name of the key to be used in the keyring	No
passphrase	The passphrase to use the key	No
changesIn	The changes to add	No
changesOut	The changes file generated	No
changesSave	The merged changes file	No
changesEnabled	Enable the creation of the changes file	No; defaults to `true`
encoding	The character character encoding to use when reading control and changes files	No; defaults to default charset of the JVM

The jdeb Ant task can package up a directory as Debian package. You have to provide the control files defining meta information about the package (except the md5sums which gets created automatically). It creates the archive and if you want even a signed changes file.

    <target name="package">
      <taskdef name="deb" classname="org.vafer.jdeb.ant.DebAntTask"/>
      <copy todir="${deb}/control">
        <fileset dir="src/main/resources/deb/control"/>
        <filterset begintoken="[[" endtoken="]]">
          <filter token="version" value="${version}"/>
          <filter token="name" value="${ant.project.name}"/>
        </filterset>
      </copy>
      <deb destfile="jdeb.deb" control="${deb}/control">
        <data src="src/main/resources/deb/data" type="directory">
          <exclude name="**/.svn"/>
        </data>
      </deb>
    </target>

For cross platform builds it might be important to retain permissions, ownerships and links. When you provide the original tar as input the meta data will be kept intact gets included directly into the deb. You can apply simple modifications like prefixing or stripping of paths though.

    <deb destfile="jdeb.deb" control="${deb}/control">
      <data src="src/release.tgz" type="archive">
        <mapper type="perm" strip="1" prefix="/somewhere/else"/>
        <exclude name="**/.svn"/>
      </data>
    </deb>

For more complex permission and ownership adjustments you can use a "ls" mapper. It allows you to define permissions and ownerships in a text file and even under Windows you will be able to build your debian package. The encoding property does not apply to the "ls" mapper. The mapping files must be encoded as UTF-8.

    <deb destfile="jdeb.deb" control="${deb}/control">
      <data src="src/release.tgz" type="archive">
        <mapper type="ls" src="mapping.txt" />
      </data>
    </deb>

The mapper will apply the output of an "ls -laR > mapping.txt" command that should look like this:

./trunk/target/test-classes/org/vafer/dependency:
total 176
drwxr-xr-x   23 tcurdt  tcurdt   782 Jun 25 03:48 .
drwxr-xr-x    3 tcurdt  tcurdt   102 Jun 25 03:48 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 tcurdt  tcurdt  2934 Jun 25 03:48 DependenciesTestCase.class
-rw-r--r--    1 tcurdt  tcurdt  2176 Jun 25 03:48 WarTestCase.class
drwxr-xr-x    4 tcurdt  tcurdt   136 Jun 25 03:48 classes

It's also possible to use a fileset or even a tarfileset to specify the set of files to include with their permissions:

    <deb destfile="jdeb.deb" control="${deb}/control">
      <tarfileset dir="src/main/resources/deb/data"
               prefix="/somewhere/else"
             filemode="600"
             username="tcurdt"
                group="tcurdt"/>
    </deb>

Links can be added by specifying a link element:

    <deb destfile="jdeb.deb" control="${deb}/control">
      <link name="/usr/share/java/foo.jar" target="/usr/share/java/foo-1.0.jar"/>
    </deb>

Here are the supported attributes on the link element:

Attribute	Description	Required
name	The path of the link	Yes
target	The target of the link	Yes
symbolic	The type of the link (`true`: symbolic, `false`: hard)	No; defaults to `true`
uid	Numerical uid	No; defaults to 0
gid	Numerical gid	No; defaults to 0
user	User name	No; defaults to "root"
group	User group	No; defaults to "root"
mode	Permissions as octet	No; defaults to 777

Changes file

In order to also create a changes file you will need to provide the input and output of the changes. The input file is a much simpler file where you should list your changes. Every change should be starting with the " * " and one line only.

* changes for the next release
release distribution=staging, date=20:13 17.08.2007,version=1.4+r89114,urgency=low,by=Torsten Curdt <torsten@vafer.org>
* debian changes support

When you do a release jdeb will add (or complete!) the release line and create a debian format standard changes file for you. (Don't forget to commit changes jdeb did to the file.) From Ant you have to call jdeb like this

    <deb destfile="jdeb.deb"
          control="${deb}/control"
        changesIn="changes.txt"
       changesOut="jdeb.changes">
      <data src="some/dir"/>
    </deb>

If you also provide a changesSave attribute the jdeb will add release information to the original input and write out the new file.

    <deb destfile="jdeb.deb"
          control="${deb}/control"
        changesIn="changes.txt"
       changesOut="jdeb.changes"
      changesSave="changes.txt">
      <data src="some/dir"/>
    </deb>

Signing changes

To have the changes be signed, make sure you have the BouncyCastle OpenPGP/BCPG jar in your classpath (just copy it into the $ANT_HOME/lib folder - next to jdeb). Then you can sign your changes file with:

    <deb destfile="jdeb.deb"
          control="${deb}/control"
        changesIn="changes.txt"
       changesOut="jdeb.changes"
              key="2E074D8F"
       passphrase="secret"
          keyring="/Users/tcurdt/.gnupg/secring.gpg">
      <data src="some/dir"/>
    </deb>

Security Note: Hard coding the passphrase in the <deb> task can be a serious security hole. Consider using variable substitution and asking the passphrase to the user with the <input> task, or retrieving it from a secured .properties file.

Conffiles file

If you package up a directory as Debian package you can also add the affected files to the conffiles file. You only have to set the conffile attribute to true.

    <target name="package">
      <taskdef name="deb" classname="org.vafer.jdeb.ant.DebAntTask"/>
      <deb destfile="jdeb.deb" control="${deb}/control">
        <data src="src/main/resources/deb/data" type="directory" conffile="true">
          <exclude name="**/.svn"/>
        </data>
      </deb>
    </target>

Reproducible builds

Starting with version 1.9, the jdeb supports reproducible builds. You can use SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH environment variable, containing int representing seconds since the epoch.