PackageMaker is a kind of archiver like tar and zip but generates packages instead of just an archive file.

Packaging process is fully automated and you can package files, dirs and symlinks by just passing paths list and package information to PackageMaker.

It helps building packages of existing files on your system by automating almost all of the steps needed for packaing: arrange source tree, create makefiles and rpm specs or debian packaging files, etc.

See the output of pmaker --help (or run 'PYTHONPATH=. python tools/pmaker -h' in this dir) or pmaker(8) or examples/*.log.

When packaging files, dirs and symlinks which user gave in the path list, PackageMaker will try gathering the information of these targets and then:

1. arrange src tree contains these files, dirs and symlinks with these relative path kept, and build files (Makefile.am, configure.ac, etc.) to install these.
2. generate packaging metadata like RPM SPEC, debian/rules, etc.
3. build package such as rpm, src.rpm, deb, etc.

Usually, systems are constructed through the following steps:

1. kitting: setup hardware
2. install os
3. configure os
4. install middleware and apps
5. configure middleware and apps

It is possible to automate some of steps 2..4, above but it takes much time and hard sometime because most steps consist of procedual steps with side effects.

With help of onfiguration management technology such like puppet, chef and ansible or deployment tools like cappistrano, it may be possible to automate such build steps, but, important point is that procedual steps is not required in actual, that is, any procedual and effectful steps make some files, dirs and symlinks in the last. In other words, what we have to take care to construct systems is just what files, dirs and symlinks are needed and where these are.

It should be easy to manage and helps making these processes less procedual and more functional a lot if all we have to consider is what files we have to take care and where these should be. For example, if all of the changes (file/dir/symlink additions and modifications) after the step 2 could be packaged into some RPMs, we can re-play these steps with a kickstart file with basic os installatio and package list which these additional RPMs are added.

PackageMaker is one of the important pieces to actualize and establish "package based system construction"¹ methodology because it should enable reducing the cost of packaging files, dirs and sysmlinks (captureing what objects making that system), and may enables 're-playing' the system construction process.

Some configuration management systems such like puppet, chef and ansible also can accomplish the same goal packagemaker focusing but these add some more extra software layers to os-native software management systems. Puppet may conflict with and overrides package management system for example.

Say, if you're using puppet to just deploy files I think you should package these files and let package management system process them.

Packages built with packagemaker do not need any runtime system or libraries and should be able to work well with os-native package management systems in standalone mode.

Simply put, PackageMaker can be divided into four components:

1. Models
2. Collectors
3. Backends
4. Utility modules

Classes in pmaker.models.FileObjects module implement the basic model of target objects: files, dirs and symlinks. Because a lot of instance of these objects need to be created as user requested, operations (copy, move, etc.) for these models are implemented in functions in another module, pmaker.models.FileObjectOperations.

Model classes are instantiated from dedicated factory functions in pmaker.models.FileObjectFactory and never instantiated directly.

The code of models are placed in pmaker/models directory.

This component process user input (files list) and to create a collection of FIleObject instances to package later.

The code of collectors are placed in pmaker/collectors directory.

The modules under pmaker/backend is the core componenet to manage and drive packaging process.

All backend classes inherit pmaker.backend.base.Base class and may override methods {setup, preconfigure, configure, sbuild, build} to implement each actual build steps.

Most of python code in module's top directory (pmaker/*.py) are utility modules.

Although it takes some time to make a rpm, it should be better and I recommend this way:

1. python setup.py srpm
2. mock -r <target_build_dist> dist/SRPMS/packagemaker-*.src.rpm

It's easier than the above but only possible to make a rpm for build host. Just run:

python setup.py rpm

• Unit tests: python setup.py test
• Unit tests + System tests: python setup.py test --full

If you want to test specific python code:

1. source code: ./runtest.sh <path_to_python_source>
2. a class in source code: ./runtest.sh <path_to_python_source>:<class_name>
3. a method of a class in source code:./runtest.sh <path_to_python_source>:<class_name>.<method_name>

SEE ALSO: nosetests(1)

Here are some examples:

$ ./runtest.sh pmaker/tests/rpmutils.py
FIXME: Implement tests for this function ... ok
test_info_by_path (pmaker.tests.rpmutils.TestFunctions) ... ok
test_rpm_attr (pmaker.tests.rpmutils.TestFunctions) ... ok
test_rpm_search_provides_by_path (pmaker.tests.rpmutils.TestFunctions) ... ok
test_rpmh2nvrae (pmaker.tests.rpmutils.TestFunctions) ... ok
test_rpmh2nvrae__no_rpmdb (pmaker.tests.rpmutils.TestFunctions) ... ok
FIXME: Implement tests for this function ... ok
FIXME: Implement tests for this function ... ok

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 8 tests in 0.517s

OK
$ ./runtest.sh pmaker/models/tests/FileInfo.py:TestFileInfo
test__init__ (pmaker.models.tests.FileInfo.TestFileInfo) ... ok

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 1 test in 0.019s

OK
$ ./runtest.sh tests/07_multi_files_filelist_json.py:Test_00_multi_files_filelist_json.test_01_system_files__tgz
test_01_system_files__tgz (tests.07_multi_files_filelist_json.Test_00_multi_files_filelist_json) ... configure.ac:2: installing `./install-sh'
configure.ac:2: installing `./missing'
ok

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 1 test in 21.479s

OK
$

This is my usual way for enhancements:

1. create a branch: git branch foo
2. modify or add code to archive objective enhancements in that branch: git checkout foo; vim ...
3. add (unit) tests for enhancements to verify the correctness of changes
4. commit and run full test (unit + system tests)

if all looks ok, merge the branch to main.

And here is my usual way for bug fixes:

1. Write tests for the bug
2. Modify / add code for the fix
3. Run the tests and confirm if the fix was right

• resolve package name collisions due to overriding packages; there is 'man-pages-overrides' package exist. How about using '-overlay' suffix instead of '-overrides' ?
• correct wrong English expressions
• define schema for input (JSON, YAML?, XML?, ...)
  • perhaps, the contents of files will be gotten from external site pointed by URL reference in JSON data
• more complete tests
• eliminate the strong dependency to rpm and make it runnable on debian based systems (w/o rpm-python)
• find causes of warnings during deb build and fix them all
• plugin system: posponed
• keep permissions of targets in tar archives

• refactor its architecture: Done
  • make collector (generator) and packagemaker classes loosely-coupled: Done
  • separate packaging strategy (PackageMaker._scheme) and packaging format (PackageMaker._format): Done
• sort out command line options: Done
• Run w/o python-cheetah: Done (now it uses pytenjin instead)

In random order:

• http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora_Draft_Documentation/0.1/html/RPM_Guide/ch-creating-rpms.html
• http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora_Draft_Documentation/0.1/html/RPM_Guide/ch-rpm-programming-python.html
• http://cdbs-doc.duckcorp.org
• https://wiki.duckcorp.org/DebianPackagingTutorial/CDBS
• http://kitenet.net/~joey/talks/debhelper/debhelper-slides.pdf
• http://wiki.debian.org/IntroDebianPackaging
• http://www.debian.org/doc/maint-guide/ch-dother.ja.html

Basic idea and implementation design of PackageMaker was arised from offhand talk with my very talented co-worker, Masatake Yamato (yamato at redhat.com).

Around the same time I started working on PackageMaker, Magnus-san developed buildrpm and I was very impressed with it. Implementation was completely different but PackageMaker and buildrpm do the same thing basically.

I believe PackageMaker is useful and helps you but if you want features PackageMaker lacks or will not have or you don't like it, take a look at buildrpm:

• buildrpm: http://magnusg.fedorapeople.org/buildrpm/

And I recently found fpm which looks powerful and feature rich meta packaging tool written in ruby:

• https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm

• Copyright (C) 2011 Satoru SATOH <satoru.satoh @ gmail.com>
• Copyright (C) 2011 Satoru SATOH <ssato @ redhat.com>
• Copyright (C) 2011 - 2013 Red Hat, Inc.

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

Files under pmaker/imported/ were imported from external projects and the above license is not applied.

Satoru SATOH <ssato at redhat.com>