Abuild and Helpers

The abuild package provides scripts you need when creating packages for Alpine Linux. The abuild and its friends are installed automatically along with the alpine-sdk package.

apk add alpine-sdk

The git repository contains always the lastest version of the scripts, example-files, and makefiles.

Building and maintaining packages

abuild

To build a package, abuild is used. Beside the package building functionality also options for other package maintainance tasks are provided.

If you just want to build a package from a APKBUILD file, only those two command are needed.

abuild checksum && abuild -r

To use the command above, you have to be in the abuild group.

Below all options and commands for abuild are listed.

abuild [options] [-i PKG] [-P REPODEST] [-p PKGDEST] [-s SRCDEST] [cmd] ...

abuild options

• -A Print CARCH and exit
• -c Enable colored output
• -d Disable dependency checking
• -f Force specified cmd, even if they are already done
• -F Force run as root
• -h Show this help
• -i Install PKG after successful build
• -k Keep built packages, even if APKBUILD or sources are newer
• -m Disable colors (monochrome)
• -p Set package destination directory
• -P Set PKGDEST to REPODEST/<repo>/\$CARCH, where repo is the parents dir name
• -q Quiet
• -r Install missing dependencies from system repository (using sudo)
• -R Recursively build and install missing dependencies (using sudo)
• -s Set source package destination directory
• -u Recursively build and upgrade all dependencies (using sudo)

abuild commands

• build Compile and install package into \$pkgdir
• checksum Generate checksum to be included in APKBUILD
• clean Remove temp build and install dirs
• cleancache Remove downloaded files from \$SRCDEST
• cleanoldpkg Remove binary packages except current version
• cleanpkg Remove already built binary and source package
• deps Install packages listed in makedepends and depends
• fetch Fetch sources to \$SRCDEST and verify checksums
• index Regenerate the APKINDEX for abuildrepo
• listpkg List target packages
• package Create package in \$PKGDEST
• prepare Apply patches
• rootpkg Run 'package', the split functions and create apks as fakeroot
• sanitycheck Basic sanity check of APKBUILD
• snapshot Create a \$giturl or \$svnurl snapshot and upload to \$disturl
• sourcecheck Check if remote source package exists upstream
• srcpkg Make a source package
• undeps Uninstall packages listed in makedepends and depends
• unpack Unpack sources to \$srcdir
• up2date Compare target and sources dates
• verify Verify checksums

abump

The tool abump is an utility to bump pkgver in APKBUILD files if the package gets an update to a nwer upstream release.

abump [-hR]

abump options

• -h Show this help
• -R Run abuild with -R for recursive building
• -k Keep existing packages

apkgrel

If you want to bump or reset the pkgrel value of your APKBUILD or test your APKBUILD files, apkgrel can assist you.

apkgrel -a|-h|-s NUM|-t|-z [-f] FILE...

apkgrel options

• -a Add 1 to current pkgrel
• -f Force, even if given files are not in proper format
• -h Show this help
• -s Set pkgrel to NUM
• -t Only verify that files are in proper format
• -z Set pkgrel to 0

Generating new APKBUILDs

newapkbuild

To create the actual APKBUILD file newapkbuild can serve you a template to start with. It will create a directory with the given package name, place an example/template APKBUILD file to the given directory, and fill some variables if those are provided.

newapkbuild packagename

newapkbuild options

• -a Create autotools (use ./configure ...)
• -c Copy a sample init.d, conf.d and install script to new directory
• -d Set package description (pkgdesc) to DESC
• -f Force even if directory already exist
• -h Show this help
• -l Set package license to LICENSE
• -p Create perl package (Assume Makefile.PL is there)
• -y Create python package (Assume setup.py is there)
• -u Set package URL
• -s Use sourceforge source url

apkbuild-cpan

The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) provides a large collection of perl software and documentation. apkbuild-cpan helps with the creation of APKBUILD for perl modules from CPAN.

apkbuild-cpan [create <Module::Name> | check | recreate | update | upgrade]

apkbuild-pypi

The Python Package Index (PyPi) is a repository of software and libraries for the Python programming language. apkbuild-pypi helps with the creation of APKBUILD for python package hosted at PyPI.

apkbuild-cpan apkbuild-pypi [create <package> | check | recreate | update | upgrade

Signing packages and indexes

abuild-sign

abuild-sign is for signing indexes.

abuild-sign [-hq] [-k PRIVKEY] [-p PUBKEY] INDEXFILE...

abuild-sign options

• -h Show this help
• -k The private key to use for signing
• -p The name of public key. apk add will look for /etc/apk/keys/PUBKEY

abuild-tar

apkbuild-tar [--hash[=<algorithm>]] [--cut]

apkbuild-tar options

• --hash[=sha1|md5] Read tar archive from stdin, precalculate hash for regular entries and output tar archive on stdout
• --cut Remove the end of file tar record

buildrepo

buildrepo creates a local package repository for you.

buildrepo [-a APORTSDIR] [-d REPODIR] [-hp] [-l LOGPREFIX ] [-r DEPREPO] REPOSITORY...

buildrepo options

• -a Set the aports base dir to APORTSDIR instead of $HOME/aports
• -d Set destination repository base dir to REPODIR instead of $HOME/packages
• -h Show this help and exit
• -l Send build to logfile, prefixed by LOGPREFIX
• -p Purge obsolete packages from REPODIR after build
• -r Dependencies are found in DEPREPO

Setting up the build environment

abuild-keygen

For abuild a public/private rsa key pair is needed. abuild-keygen does the generation of those keys for you.

abuild-keygen -a -i

abuild-keygen options

• -a Set PACKAGER_PRIVKEY=<generated key> in abuild.conf
• -i Install public key into /etc/apk/keys using sudo
• -h Show this help
• -n Non-interactive. Use defaults
• -q Quiet mode

Creating keys manually

In older versions of Alpine, we had to manually create keys for signing packages and indexes. This explains how. Nowadays you can just use abuild-keygen.

Since the public key needs to be unique for each developer, the email address should be used as name for the public key.

Create the private key:

openssl genrsa -out emailaddress.priv 2048

Tip: Append -aes256 if you want it encrypted, but then you'll need to enter the password for every package you sign

Create the public key:

openssl rsa -in emailaddress.priv -pubout -out /etc/apk/keys/emailaddress

The public key should be distributed and installed into /etc/apk/keys on the alpine box that will install the packages. This basically means that the main developer's public keys should be in /etc/apk/keys on all Alpine boxes.

buildlab

See the buildlab page.