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APT Repository for RabbitMQ in Debian
=====================================
First, a note on what we're trying to do. We want a single "testing"
repository. When RabbitMQ is more stable we will also want a
"stable" repository. It is very important to understand that these refer
to the state of the rabbit code, *NOT* which Debian distribution they go
with. At the moment our dependencies are very simple so our packages can
be used with any current Debian version (etch, lenny, sid) as well as
with Ubuntu. So although we have a "testing" distribution, this is not
codenamed "lenny". Instead it's currently codenamed "kitten" since
that's a baby rabbit.
Secondly, a note on software. We need a tool to manage the repository,
and a tool to perform uploads to the repository. Debian being Debian
there are quite a few of each. We will use "reprepro" to manage the
repository since it's modern, maintained, and fairly simple. We will use
"dupload" to perform the uploads since it gives us the ability to run
arbitrary commands after the upload, which means we don't need to run a
cron job on the web server to process uploads.
Creating a repository
=====================
Much of this was cribbed from:
https://www.debian-administration.org/articles/286
The repository is fundamentally just some files in a folder, served over
HTTP (or FTP etc). So let's make it "debian" in the root of
www.rabbitmq.com.
This means the repository will be at https://www.rabbitmq.com/debian/ and
can be added to a sources.list as:
deb https://www.rabbitmq.com/debian/ testing main
deb-src https://www.rabbitmq.com/debian/ testing main
Inside this folder we need a "conf" folder, and in
that we need a "distributions" configuration file - see the file in this
folder. Note that:
* We list all architectures so that people can install rabbitmq-server
on to anything.
* We don't list the "all" architecture even though we use it; it's
implied.
* We only have a "main" component, we could have non-free and contrib
here if it was relevant.
* We list the email address associated with the key we want to use to
sign the repository. Yes, even after signing packages we still want to
sign the repository.
We're now ready to go. Assuming the path to our repository is /path,
(and hence configuration is in /path/conf) we can upload a file to the
repository (creating it in the process) by doing something like this on
the repository host:
$ reprepro --ignore=wrongdistribution -Vb /path include kitten \
rabbitmq-server_1.0.0-alpha-1_i386.changes
Note that we upload to the distribution "kitten" rather than "testing".
We also pass --ignore=wrongdistribution since the current packages are
built to go in "unstable" (this will be changed obviously).
Note also that the .changes file claims to be for i386 even though the
package is for architecture "all". This is a bug in debhelper.
Finally, if you've just created a repository, you want to run:
$ reprepro -Vb /path createsymlinks
since this will create "kitten" -> "testing" symlinks. You only need to
do this once.
Removing packages
=================
Fairly simple:
$ reprepro --ignore=wrongdistribution -Vb /path remove kitten \
rabbitmq-server
Subsequent updates and "dupload"
================================
You can run the "reprepro" command above again to update the versions of
software in the repository. Since we probably don't want to have to log
into the machine in question to do this, we can use "dupload". This is a
tool which uploads Debian packages. The supplied file "dupload.conf" can
be renamed to ~/.dupload.conf. If you then run:
$ dupload -to rabbit --nomail .
in the folder with the .changes file, dupload will:
* create an incoming folder in your home directory on the repository
machine
* upload everything there
* run reprepro to move the packages into the repository
* "rm -rf" the uploads folder
This is a bit cheesy but should be enough for our purposes. The
dupload.conf uses scp and ssh so you need a public-key login (or type
your password lots).
There's still an open question as to whether dupload is really needed
for our case.
Keys and signing
================
We currently sign the package as we build it; but we also need to sign
the repository. The key is currently on my machine (mrforgetful) and has
ID 056E8E56. We should put it on CDs though.
reprepro will automatically sign the repository if we have the right
SignWith line in the configuration, AND the secret key is installed on
the repository server. This is obviously not ideal; not sure what the
solution is right now.
You can export the public key with:
$ gpg --export --armor 056E8E56 > rabbit.pub
(Open question: do we want to get our key on subkeys.pgp.net?)
We can then add this key to the website and tell our users to import the
key into apt with:
# apt-key add rabbit.pub
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