I am trying to build a dev package out of some .so files - i.e libraries.
dh_make -f ../ mylibs.tar.gz
then I choose
-l
since I want a library package.
A debian folder is created which consists of among others the controlfile and the install file.
When I finally create the package with
dpkg-buildpackage
I get the following error message:
dh_install: mylibs-dev missing files (usr/include/*), aborting
I dont understand what is missing since the headers are copied to
usr/include
I have checked the directory and the headers are copied there. So why do I get this error message?
the install-file look like this:
usr/lib/lib*.so.*
So - may the path to usr/include be missing here? I've tried with
usr/include/h.*
but it does not work
The debian install files are most often used for source packages that produce several binary packages. In that case, dh_auto_install installs to the directory debian/tmp/ and dh_install moves the files from there to each package. However, when there is a single package, dh_auto_install takes a shortcut and installs directly to debian/package-name/. In that case, you only need to list in the install file the files that make install missed (usually none). If you list the regular, installed files, dh_install will get confused because it is still looking for them in debian/tmp/.
It is possible to override either the directory where dh_auto_install installs, or the directory where dh_install is looking, but you probably don't need either.
Related
When creating a binary .deb package
mypkg
/DEBIAN
- control
/path
/to
- mypkg.so
What is the best way to include a symlink to /path/to/mypkg.so from /some/other/path/mypkg.so?
Guidance from other threads has been to add a (lowercase) debian/links file, which didn't appear to have any effect (no link created on install).
I also tried using dh_link but it appears to expect source (vs binary) packages with a control file at debian/control and errors out with
dh_link: error: "debian/control" not found. Are you sure you are in the correct directory?
I just installed Cmake from git clone wget http://www.cmake.org/files/v2.8/cmake-2.8.3.tar.gz in a new folder on a Linux server. The compilation worked but cmake command is not recognized from other paths. Should I copy the entire contents of cmake-2.8.0 folder to usr/local/bin? Or is the contents of bin folder that need to be copied?
Thanks
On Linux and other Unix-based systems, a common arrangement is to install packages to /opt and add relevant entries to the PATH environment variable to make them available. This is intended for packages not provided by the native package manager or distribution. By choosing an appropriate directory structure, this can be done in a way which also allows different versions to be installed simultaneously and the user can pick which one they want by adding the relevant directory to the PATH.
For the specific case of CMake asked about in the question, you can use a directory structure like /opt/cmake/<version> and then add the relevant /opt/cmake/<version>/bin directory to your PATH (e.g. /opt/cmake/3.8.2/bin for the 3.8.2 CMake release). You can even just download the official pre-built CMake tarballs, unpack them and move the top level directory into the /opt/cmake area as the particular version you downloaded. I've used this successfully on Linux, MacOS and Solaris, as I'm sure have many others.
Note that once you've run CMake on a particular source tree, the cmake executable doesn't need to be on the PATH any more. If cmake needs to be re-run, the build will do so itself and it records the full path to the cmake executable in its own cache, so the PATH isn't even consulted (this is essential in ensuring the same version of CMake continues to be used for all builds regardless of the PATH, since PATH can change between login sessions, etc.). You would only need cmake on your PATH if you intend to invoke cmake manually or for the first time you run it on a source tree, but in both of these cases you can always just use the full path to the cmake executable if you preferred.
I should also add that the entire set of files provided in the CMake package are required, not just the bin directory. CMake makes extensive use of files in its other directories, such as the various modules it comes with. If you are building CMake from source, you may want to build the package target so you get a relocatable tarball or similar which will contain everything that should be included when you provide a CMake package on your system.
After the build, use 'sudo make install'. This will make sure the correct libraries and binaries are copied to their proper places.
Usually this will install the binary to /usr/local/bin.
Make sure the PATH variable has this included.
sudo make install did not copy to /usr/local/bin/ for some reason, so I copied the content of CMAKE /bin. to usr/local/bin an it worked.
cp –a bin/. /usr/local/bin/
Created a simple debian/ubuntu package with some library files (*.so).
Works fine except, it installs them as default in the root path "/".
Since I've recreated my Makefile to output to $DESTDIR/ instead of "the usual" directory that I provide in the Makefile, when compiling from source, how do I now set the path of where the files should be installed now? I know there are several choices when using dh_make to create the package, "s" being the default one. Still, can't seem to find anything on where to tell dpkg to put the installed files.
Secondly, a Deb Library package containing only ".so" files should still be a "Single binary" since I gather that using the Library is for development purposes? Since this is a library, I just wanna make sure that's not the cause of the files being installed in the wrong location. What I mean is .so files and header files installation?
What I've used:
dh_make -e my#email.com -f ../myfile-1.0.tar.gz
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot
and some configurations set i debian/control, $DESTDIR in Makefile.
Seems that it was fairly simple, yet very confusing. This works, not sure if there is a better solution.
In my makefile I have a few variables
InstallTo = /usr/lib
install:
mkdir -p $(DESTDIR)$(InstallTo)
cp $FILE_TO_COPY $(DESTDIR)$(InstallTo)
This way it will create the directory tree inside the *.deb file. I had some trouble using /usr/local/lib instead of /usr/lib/ and rmdir complained when trying to delete it and it had no files (just directories). Not sure why, but changed it to /usr/lib instead.
Since someone voted this up, I'm guessing someone were also looking for the answer and this is my solution. Perhaps someone can provide a better one if there is one.
Just a note, $DESTDIR variable is the variable that dh_make suggest the user to use in our Makefile. It's the path to where dpkg will build the program and where it will install it so it can be included in the .deb file.
I have a debian package that I built that contains a tar ball of the files, a control file, and a postinst file. Its built using dpkg-deb and it installs properly using dpkg.
The modification I would like to make is to have the installation directory of the files be determined at runtime based on an environment variable that will be set when dpkg -i is run on the deb file. I echo out the environment variable in the postinst script and I can see that its set properly.
My questions:
1) Is it possible to dynamically determine the installation directory at runtime?
2) If its possible how would I go about this? I have read about the rules file and the mypackage.install files but I don't know if either of these would allow me to accomplish this.
I could hack it by copying the files to the target location in the posinst script but I would prefer to do it the right way if possible.
Thanks in advance!
So this is what I found out about this problem over the past couple of weeks.
With prepackaged binaries you can't build a debian package with a destination directory dynamicall determined at runtime. I believe that this might be possible if installing a package that is built from source where you can set the install directory using configure. But in this case since these are embedded Ubuntu machines they don't have make so I didn't pursue such an option. I did work out a non traditional method (hack) for installing that did work. Since debian packages simply contain a tar ball relative to / simply build your package relative to a directory under /tmp. In the postinst script you can then determine where to copy the files from the archive into a permanent location.
I expected that after rebooting and the automatic deletion of the subdirectory under /tmp that dpkg might not know that the file package existed. This wasn't a problem. When I ran 'dpkg -l myapp' it showed as still installed. Updating the package using dpkg/apt-get also worked without a hitch.
What I did find is that if you attempted to remove the package using 'dpkg -r myapp' that dpkg would try and remove /tmp which wasn't good. However /tmp isn't easily removed so it never succeeded. Plus in our situation we never remove packages but instead simply upgrade them.
I eventually had to abandon the universal package due to code differences in the sources resulting in having to recompile per platform but I would have left it this way and it did work.
I tried using --instdir to change the install directory of the package and it does relocate the files but dpkg fails since the dpkg file can't be found relative to the new instdir. Using --instdir is sort of like a chroot. I also tried --admindir and --root in various combinations to see if I could use the dpkg system relative to / but install relocate the files but they didn't work. I guess rpm has a relocate option that works but not Ubuntu.
You can also write a script that runs dpkg-deb with a different environment for 6 times, generating 6 different packages. When you make a modification, you simply have to run your script, and all 6 packages gets generated and you can install them on your machines avoiding postinst hacking!
Why not install to a standard location, and simply use a postinst script to create symbolic links to the desired location? This is much cleaner, and shouldn't break anything in dpk -I.
I made a perl script that creates a deb binary package from scratch.
I created the data, control, etc.
But when I run dpkg -i on my deb package it complains that it is unable to files from data.
Example:
unable to create '.dpkg-new'(while processing ''): No such file or directory.
I have downloaded some .deb packages to look at and they do not use the preinst script to create the directory structure.
I am thinking I am doing something wrong, I consider having to create my own directories in preinst but it does not seem right... perhaps I am missing something?
Do I have to create directories where my files from data will be copied in the preinst sh, or should dpkg do it and I am doing something wrong?
I had the same problem in a Ruby script I wrote.
I was generating a list of files to pass to tar when building the data.tar.gz archive. When I ungzip and untared the archive manually it would deflate fine, but dpkg would fail.
It turns out that the list of files must also include each directory to create as well.
Note that when I created data.tar.gz I built it with nearly the same options as dpkg-deb/build.c does in the dpkg-1.15.8.11 source.
execlp(TAR, "tar", "-cf", "-", "--format=gnu", "--null", "-T", "-", "--no-recursion", NULL);
Instead I used
IO.popen("gnutar -czf - --format=gnu -T - --no-recursion", "r+")
In addition to what #Arrowmaster said, check the http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ for some detailed explanation of the files. After you build the package itself, you can check it with lintian tool to see if there is anything obvious you might have missed.
If any one looks for a solution to the problem:
"Build a deb package from an rpm spec file."
Look here http://www.deepnet.cx/debbuild/
I have made my own perl build script much simple then the mentioned one so I can easily maintain it.
Some useful knowledge gained in the process:
0. the deb is an ar archive that contains 3 files, the order of the files is important.
1. the scripts from control.tar.gz must be made executable.
2. it is good to have a preinstall script to make directories if dirs do not exist.
3. sometimes dpkg decides to unzip your zips (this happened if the zip was the only file in the data.tar.gz) so check for that in an postinstall script.
4. when you tar.gz some files be sure to chmod to the dir that contains the directory structure for your tar.
You should not attempt to manually create a .deb binary package by hand. The Debian New Maintainers' Guide covers how to get started creating a Debian package using the correct tools.
Your hand created package may look correct to you but because it is not installing it is obviously flawed in either a minor way that you have not noticed or in a more serious way that is not visible to you (for example most people don't realize a .deb is actually an ar archive).
There are lots of reasons for this. You really need to run:
dpkg -i -D1110 mydeb.deb
And post the result to have any hope of someone being able to solve the problem.