For the Portland BSP, pre-configured cloud instances are provided that use schroot as a build environment.
For information on how to set up schroot on your own system, see mk-sbuild.
Using schroot to build packages
To see the list of available chroots, run:
schroot -l
To enter a copy of the chroot, run:
schroot -u root -c CHROOT_NAME
where CHROOT_NAME is the chroot you created earlier (e.g. unstable-amd64, unstable-i386, etc). From here, you can install deps:
apt-get build-dep PACKAGE
where PACKAGE is the package you want to work on. When you're ready to build packages, switch to a non-root user, and do what you need to do:
su builder apt-get source PACKAGE cd PACKAGE-* dch -i play! debuild -uc -us
When you're ready for a source build:
debuild -S -uc -us
This will generate a .dsc file, which you give to sbuild (see next section).
Using sbuild
To use sbuild, you'll need a source package (with a .dsc file -- see above). Outside your chroots, you can build using sbuild via:
sbuild -A -d CHROOT_NAME PACKAGE*.dsc
And everything will happen automatically.