[PKG-Openstack-devel] Packaging OpenStack command line clients

[Thomas Goirand]

On 04/17/2017 01:07 AM, Allison Randal wrote:
> Hi David,
> 
> Sorry to be slow to reply, it sounded like Thomas was taking things back
> over, but I haven't heard from him in a while, so I'm not sure what the
> status is.

I continue to maintain Newton for Stretch, though I'm not really sure
about other releases yet. I'm still waiting on the confirmation from my
hopefully future sponsor, but as time passes, I'm loosing hope. :(

> Unfortunately, the OpenStack packages in Debian have some unique/unusual
> customizations that can make them difficult to work with. And, Thomas is
> pretty much the only person who can explain these aspects of the packaging.

Others could too: Ondrej and Gustavo for example. I don't see anything
so unusual, except that openstack-pkg-tools contains a makefile that is
included in packages (it's easy to read), plus the use of a few command
lines that are well documented (with man page).

>> I still have a few questions:
>>
>> Why is there a debian/newton branch? I thought, the command line clients
>> have a different release cycle than the main openstack components.
> 
> It would probably be better to name the branches after the Debian
> release the packages are built for, rather than naming them after the
> OpenStack releases.

It was the case before, though we slowly switched everything to have
branches corresponding to a release. The reason is simple: we need to
maintain every release of OpenStack, and there's not enough space in
Debian. Then we end up having every release of OpenStack maintained in a
single debian/unstable branch, which isn't practical.

>> postrm and prerm do nearly the same thing. Wouldn't one of them be
>> enough?
> 
> One would probably be adequate. It's possible that neither is actually
> needed.

That's needed. We already had this conversation in this list. The
update-alternatives are anyway generated using pkgos-alternative-bin
(see the man page for its usage on the command line).

>> I don't understand all of the adjustments to debian/rules. Where can I
>> get information on pkgos-.. commands? Why are there commands that are
>> not supposed to run?
> 
> The pkgos- commands come from a special package built for OpenStack
> Debian packaging, which isn't a standard part of either OpenStack or
> Debian. Take a look at the debian/newton branch of the code (the others
> aren't current):
> 
> https://github.com/openstack/deb-openstack-pkg-tools/tree/debian/newton

Yes, and look at the man pages.

Cheers,

Thomas Goirand (zigo)