Bug#926242: jenkins.debian.org: Please test reproducibility status of Debian Installer images

[Chris Lamb]

Dear Mattia,

> > TIL. However, as these generated files do not appear in the binary
> > debian-installer package it is likely that that our testing framework
> > will (after the mooted networking exception is made) entirely-
> > correctly report that the src:debian-installer package is reproducible
> > as its declared artifects contain only documentation. This will be
> > somewhat misleading about the true reproducibility status of our installer.
> 
> It doesn't contain only documentation.
> src:debian-installer also builds a
> debian-installer-images_$(VERSION)_$(ARCH).tar.gz that does contain
> binary stuff, including the initrd, kernel image, mini.iso, etc etc.

Whilst it may build indeed these files they do not appear in the
binary package:

    $ find | head
    .
    ./usr
    ./usr/share
    ./usr/share/doc
    ./usr/share/doc/debian-installer
    ./usr/share/doc/debian-installer/talks
    ./usr/share/doc/debian-installer/talks/fosdem07
    ./usr/share/doc/debian-installer/talks/fosdem07/README
    ./usr/share/doc/debian-installer/talks/fosdem07/fosdem1.tgz
    ./usr/share/doc/debian-installer/talks/d-i_debconf7

    $ find | grep images

    $ 

Thus, they cannot affect the reproducibility status of the debian-
installer source package. This prompted my paragraph regarding at
least including these files' hashes, etc.

> Right, to cover this we would need to do a full build of the cd image.
> I have no idea whatsoever how that's done (and, as others said, it's
> outside of the debian-boot office, it's within debian-cd).

I see I've been conflating the -boot and -cd work here, sorry. Well,
if full debian-cd rebuilds are out of scope for now (!) we should
at-least cover any "debian-boot" related stuff.

Now, I am certain I am missing something but would this latter
approach just (!) involve adding another Jenkins job that tracks the
HEAD of debian- installer.git (ooh, another advantage; time) which
calls "make -C build release" in two environments?


Regards,

-- 
      ,''`.
     : :'  :     Chris Lamb
     `. `'`      lamby at debian.org 🍥 chris-lamb.co.uk
       `-