How Emdebian makes a release, using reprepro
reprepro will gain a [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=515030 "read-only" mode] for a genuinely frozen distribution, but a few workarounds are necessary with the current version of reprepro.
The problem is that if stable is created within the existing repository, every action to include new or updated packages in the repository or modify repository data, causes the Release files for the stable distribution to be touched. This should not happen and it breaks the security signatures on the Release files.
The solution is to put stable into a second repository, all by itself, clearly identified as 'frozen' and then symlink that directory so that apt and similar tools can find it where they expect to find it. Naturally, this means removing stable from the existing repository.
The important point in this process is that suites can change, codenames must be pulled - i.e. reprepro can change a suite (unstable, testing, stable, oldstable) during a normal export but changing a codename (etch, lenny, squeeze, sid) can only be done by creating the codename you need and pulling packages from the old codename to the new.
Do NOT get [http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=515114 suites and codenames] confused!
Emdebian Release Plan
Create a frozen directory. Copy conf/distributions into frozen/conf and delete all lines for unstable. Rename testing as stable and remove any existing update and override rules. Generate data for lenny (stable). reprepro -b frozen/ export reprepro -b frozen/ createsymlinks Create an updates file in frozen/conf Name: freeze Method: file://opt/reprepro/grip/ Suite: testing Add updates file to frozen/conf/distributions Update: freeze Update frozen from lenny (testing) in current repository. reprepro -b frozen/ checkupdate reprepro -b frozen/ update Remove update rule from frozen/conf/distributions Remove update file from frozen/conf/ we now have a frozen lenny (stable) Delete testing/ symlink in old repo Change lenny in old repo to stable in conf/distributions Add squeeze (testing) in old repo conf/distributions reprepro export reprepro createsymlinks Pull lenny (testing) in old repo into new squeeze (testing) Create the pulls file in conf/ Name: squeeze From: lenny reprepro checkpull reprepro pull Remove lenny from old repo conf/distributions rm -rf dists/lenny reprepro --delete clearvanished reprepro createsymlinks Now symlink frozen/dists/stable into dists/ cd dists/ ln -s ../frozen/dists/lenny/ . ln -s lenny stable
Final dists/ directories:
$ ls -l dists/ total 8 lrwxrwxrwx 1 neil neil 22 2009-02-14 20:08 lenny -> ../frozen/dists/lenny/ drwxr-xr-x 3 neil neil 4096 2009-02-14 20:09 sid drwxr-xr-x 3 neil neil 4096 2009-02-14 20:09 squeeze lrwxrwxrwx 1 neil neil 5 2009-02-14 20:08 stable -> lenny lrwxrwxrwx 1 neil neil 7 2009-02-14 20:06 testing -> squeeze lrwxrwxrwx 1 neil neil 3 2009-01-19 08:15 unstable -> sid
Note that squeeze and sid are real directories, testing and unstable are symlinks. lenny is a real directory in ../frozen/dists/ as well, stable is the symlink.
Sample local test for apt
deb file:///opt/reprepro/grip/ lenny main
Sample apt-cache policy output:
$ apt-cache policyPackage files: 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status release a=now 500 file: lenny/main Packages release v=0.1,o=Debian,a=stable,l=EmdebianGrip,c=main 500 http://www.emdebian.org unstable/main Packages release v=0.1,o=Debian,a=unstable,l=Emdebian-tools-unstable,c=main origin www.emdebian.org 500 ftp://ftp.fr.debian.org unstable/main Packages release o=Debian,a=unstable,l=Debian,c=main origin ftp.fr.debian.org Pinned packages:
For a specific test package:
$ apt-cache policy zlib1g zlib1g: Installed: 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-12 Candidate: 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-12em1 Version table: 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-12em1 0 500 file: lenny/main Packages *** 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-12 0 500 ftp://ftp.fr.debian.org unstable/main Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
Remember to remove the local test sources (or comment them out).