[pkg-cryptsetup-devel] Volunteer to help cryptsetup packaging

[Jonas Meurer]

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Hey Andre,

Am 19.01.2012 12:31, schrieb Andre:
> Hi, Jonas. Thanks for answering. :)
> 
>> A first step would be to go through the list of bugreports 
>> against cryptsetup and work on them.
> 
> Is the bug tracking system you're referring to bugs.debian.org? If 
> yes, are these the ones I should start having a look?
> 
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?package=cryptsetup

Yes, this is the list of all bugreports against cryptsetup in debian.
As you can see, these bugreports are grouped in sections. You should
know that bugreports tagged as 'pending' are already fixed in trunk of
the Debian cryptsetup package repository. All other bugreports still
need to be addressed in one way or another.

Development for the Debian cryptsetup package happens in a subversion
(SVN) repository. In case that you're not familar with subversion yet,
it is a version control system. You should learn how to use it first.

The Debian cryptsetup package repository is located at
svn://svn.debian.org/svn/pkg-cryptsetup/cryptsetup and can be accessed
with a webbrowser at
http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-cryptsetup/cryptsetup/

Unfortunately I'm pretty bad in documenting the cryptsetup
maintainance details. I guess that this is due to the fact that I was
the only active package maintainer for cryptsetup in Debian within the
last years. Others might argue the other way around.
However, again I'm happy to answer any questions regarding cryptsetup
in Debian that arises. And in case that you (or anybody else) shows
lasting interest in maintainance of the Debian cryptsetup package, I'm
happy to work on documentation and standarization of maintainance work.

> Sorry for raising newbie questions, but after spending some time
> on the debian-mentors list i thought it would be better and faster
> to go directly to the instance where i could help packaging. I
> hope you have a little patience (or point me other ways, othewise).
> ;)

Don't hesitate to ask questions. I'm happy to help you in the process
to learn about Debian and it's package maintainance.

>> Try to reproduce the bugreports, see whether a fix is possible, 
>> and comment on the bugreport.
> 
> Nice. I'm a debian stable user, so I guess I have to setup a 
> chrooted environment (like a vserver) in order to test the 
> cryptsetup package on sid and testing, is that correct?

Yes, a sid/unstable setup is mandatory to work on Debian packages, as
development usually happens in sid/unstable. Actually one
chroot/virtual machine isn't even sufficient. Instead you'll need
several different systems in order to test/debug all the various
possible cryptsetup setups.

As an example, you'll need setups with and without plain dm-crypt- and
LUKS-encrypted root filesystem on top of software RAID and LVM, setups
with and without encrypted swap, setups which use passphrase, keyfile
and keyscripts to unlock the device and so on.

But I don't recomment to create all these different setups at once. I
do it the other way around: everytime I need a new setup in order to
work on a bugreport, I create it. I use the KVM for that, but any
other virtualization infrastructure will do as well.

You should refrain from doing dangerous tests on your productive
systems, and use test setups only for development instead.

To cut a long story short, checkout the Debian cryptsetup SVN trunk,
and take your first steps with building the package. Once you've
succeeded, feel free to pick any bugreport against cryptsetup from the
Debian BTS, setup a test system, and give it a try: try to reproduce
the reported bug, search for the reason and maybe even find a solution
to fix it.

But most important: Don't hesitate to ask in case you're unsure.

> I'm reading some doc to better understand the packaging process.
> If someone has other info other than this one, I'd appreciate very 
> much:
> 
> http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/

This is a good starting point. You should know about the Developer's
Reference[1] and Debian Policy[2] as well. But I wouldn't suggest to
read through the full documents without any practice. Instead you
might want to use these documents as reference work whenever you've
questions with packaging and other Debian maintainance work.

[1] http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/developers-reference/
[2] http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/

>> You'll need to learn about the debian specific scripts in 
>> cryptsetup package, but in general they're easy to understand. 
>> Feel free to ask questions whenever you've got one.
> 
> OK, thanks. I'll do my homework and come back as soon as I finish. 
> :)

See above.

>> If you like, then we can meet on IRC as well and discuss the 
>> details.
> 
> It would be nice, yes. Is there an irc channel where people that 
> work on cryptsetup debian package usually hang?

Unlike many Debian Developers, I usually don't hang around on IRC.
Instead I meet with people on IRC whenever there's a concrete topic to
discuss.

Regards,
 jonas
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