[pkg-go] Request for Review: rkt packaging

[Alban Crequy]

Hello Matthias,

I am replying below to report some progress related to your ITP rkt bug:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=782441

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 8:01 PM, Matthias Schmitz <matthias at sigxcpu.org> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> i started to package rkt [1] and pushed it
> to the Alioth pkg-go git repository [2].
>
> I have some questions about the packaging of Go applications in general
> and some questions about the rkt packaging.
>
> First: I use dh_golang as described on the pkg-go-Alioth page[3] and as
> rkt is a binary it should not install its source in /usr/share/golang.
> Is their a way to suppress the installation of the source? At the
> moment i just "rm" the usr/share/gocode/rkt in debian/rules (as i saw in
> the docker debian/rules).
>
> The rkt source build seven binaries but only two of them (rkt, actool)
> are for the user (living in /usr/bin/) and the other five are for
> use in the stage1.aci (Application Image Container, please see the
> architecture description here: [4]). Is there a more elegant way to
> install them not in usr/bin as the way i used (rm them from usr/bin and
> install also by rkt.install).
>
> The creation of the stage1.aci is also a thing i am unsure how to
> do that. Upstream builds the stage1.aci by downloading a pxe.img and
> extracting systemd and other stuff and create the Image. This is of
> course a "no way action" for Debian. What do you thing about shipping a
> script with rkt which would run the same actions like upstream
> (download coreos pxe.img and so on) to create the image by the user? I
> thing it could be hard to create the image only from Debian's own
> packages (installing systemd as Build-Dependency and copying that to
> the image e.g.).

Since today, it is possible to build stage1.aci with the
"usr-from-host" flavor, meaning that the build does not require access
to internet and it does not bundle systemd. When built in this way,
rkt has a run-time dependency on systemd-v220.

See:
https://github.com/coreos/rkt/issues/686#issuecomment-108930462

I hope this will make things easier for packagers. Let me know if you
have issues when trying this.

> But the thing that worries me most is the heavy use of embedded source
> code copies in the upstream repository. It ships all its Godeps
> committed in its own git repository. As i understand the Debian Policy
> 4.13 [5] those "Convenience copies of code" are not allowed.
> How would i address this problem?
>
> Please have a look at the git repository [2] and give feedback :-).
>
> Best wishes,
> Matthias
>
> [1] https://github.com/coreos/rkt
> [2] https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/pkg-go/packages/rkt.git/
> [3] https://pkg-go.alioth.debian.org/packaging.html
> [4]
> https://github.com/coreos/rkt/blob/master/Documentation/devel/architecture.md
> [5] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-source.html
>
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