SYNOPSIS
cowpoke [options] packagename.dsc
DESCRIPTION
Uploads a Debian source package to a cowbuilder host and builds it,
optionally also signing and uploading the result to an incoming queue.
OPTIONS
The following options are available:
--arch=arch
Specify the Debian architecture(s) to build for. A space sepa-
rated list of architectures may be used to build for all of them
in a single pass. Valid arch names are those returned by dpkg-
architecture(1) for deb_build_arch.
--dist=dist
Specify the Debian distribution(s) to build for. A space sepa-
rated list of distributions may be used to build for all of them
in a single pass. Either codenames (such as sid, or lenny) or
distribution names (such as unstable, or experimental) may be
used, but you should usually stick to using one or the other
consistently as this name may be used in file paths and to
locate old packages for comparison reporting.
--buildd=host
Specify the remote host to build on.
--buildd-user=name
Specify the remote user to build as.
--create
Create the remote cowbuilder root if it does not already exist.
If this option is not passed it is an error for the specified
--dist or --arch to not have an existing cowbuilder root in the
expected location.
--dpkg-opts='opt1 opt2 ...'
specify additional options to be passed to dpkg-buildpackage(1).
Multiple options are delimited with spaces. This will override
any options specified in DEBBUILDOPTS in the build host's
pbuilderrc.
paths may be absolute or relative, the latter being relative to the
BUILDD_USER's home directory. Since the paths are typically quoted
when used, tilde expansion will not be performed on them.
Global defaults
These apply to every arch and dist in a single cowpoke invocation.
BUILDD_HOST
The network address or fqdn of the build machine where cow-
builder is configured. This may be overridden by the --buildd
command line option.
BUILDD_USER
The unprivileged user name for operations on the build machine.
This defaults to the local name of the user executing cowpoke
(or to a username that is specified in your ssh config for
BUILDD_HOST), and may be overridden by the --buildd-user command
line option.
BUILDD_ARCH
The Debian architecture(s) to build for. This must match the
DEB_BUILD_ARCH of the build chroot being used. It defaults to
the local machine architecture where cowpoke is executed, and
may be overridden by the --arch command line option. A (quoted)
space separated list of architectures may be used here to build
for all of them in a single pass.
BUILDD_DIST
The Debian distribution(s) to build for. A (quoted) space sepa-
rated list of distributions may be used to build for all of them
in a single pass. This may be overridden by the --dist command
line option.
INCOMING_DIR
The directory path on the build machine where the source package
will initially be placed. This must be writable by the
BUILDD_USER.
PBUILDER_BASE
The filesystem root for all pbuilder COW and result files. Arch
and dist specific subdirectories will normally be created under
this. The apt cache and temporary build directory will also be
located under this path.
SIGN_KEYID
If this option is set, it is expected to contain the gpg key id
to pass to debsign(1) if the packages are to be remotely signed.
You will be prompted to confirm whether you wish to sign the
packages after all builds are complete. If this option is unset
or an empty string, no attempt to sign packages will be made.
The command to use to gain root privileges on the remote build
machine. if unset the default is sudo(8). this is only
required to invoke cowbuilder and allow it to enter its chroot,
so you may restrict this user to only being able to run that
command with escalated privileges. Something like this in sudo-
ers will enable invoking cowbuilder without an additional pass-
word entry required:
youruser ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/cowbuilder
Alternatively you could use ssh with a forwarded key, or what-
ever other mechanism suits your local access policy. su -c
isn't really suitable here due to its quoting requirements being
different from all the rest.
DEBOOTSTRAP
The utility to use when creating a new build root. Alternatives
are debootstrap or cdebootstrap.
Arch and dist specific options
These are variables of the form: $arch_$dist_VAR which apply only for a
particular target arch/dist build.
arch_dist_RESULT_DIR
The directory path on the build machine where the resulting
packages (source and binary) will be found, and where older ver-
sions of the package that were built previously may be found.
If any such older packages exist, debdiff will be used to com-
pare the new package with the previous version after the build
is complete, and the result will be included in the build log.
Files in it must be readable by the BUILDD_USER for sanity
checking with lintian(1) and debdiff(1), and for upload with
dput(1). if this option is not specified for some arch and dist
combination then it will default to
$PBUILDER_BASE/$arch/$dist/result
arch_dist_BASE_PATH
The directory where the COW master files are to be found (or
created if the --create command line option was passed). If
this option is not specified for some arch or dist then it will
default to $PBUILDER_BASE/$arch/$dist/base.cow
CONFIGURATION FILES
/etc/cowpoke.conf
Global configuration options. Will override hardcoded defaults.
ride all configuration files.
COWBUILDER CONFIGURATION
There is nothing particularly special required to configure a cow-
builder instance for use with cowpoke. Simply create them in the
flavour you require with `cowbuilder --create` according to the cow-
builder documentation, then configure cowpoke with the user, arch, and
path information required to access it, on the machines you wish to
invoke it from (or alternatively configure cowpoke with the path, arch
and distribution information and pass the --create option to it on the
first invocation). The build host running cowbuilder does not require
cowpoke installed locally.
The build machine should have the lintian and devscripts packages
installed for post-build sanity checking. Upon completion, the build
log and the results of automated checks will be recorded in the INCOM-
ING_DIR. If you wish to upload signed packages the build machine will
also need dput(1) installed and configured to use the 'host' alias
specified by UPLOAD_QUEUE.
The user executing cowpoke must have ssh access to the build machine as
the BUILDD_USER. That user must be able to invoke cowbuilder as root
by using the BUILDD_ROOTCMD. Signing keys are not required to be
installed on the build machine (and will be ignored there if they are).
If the package is signed, keys will be expected on the machine that
executes cowpoke.
When cowpoke is invoked, it will first attempt to update the cowbuilder
image if that has not already been done on the same day. This is
checked by the presence or absence of a cowbuilder-$arch-$dist-update-
log-$date file in the INCOMING_DIR. You may move, remove, or touch
this file if you wish the image to be updated more or less often than
that. Its contents log the output of cowbuilder during the update (or
creation) of the build root.
NOTES
Since cowbuilder creates a chroot, and to do that you need root, cow-
poke also requires some degree of root access. So all the horrible
things that can go wrong with that may well one day rain down upon you.
cowbuilder has been known to accidentally wipe out bind-mounted
filesystems outside the chroot, and worse than that can easily happen.
So be careful, keep good backups of things you don't want to lose on
your build machine, and use cowpoke to keep all that on a machine that
isn't your bleeding edge dev box with your last few hours of uncommit-
ted work.
SEE ALSO
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