Provided by: devscripts_2.22.1ubuntu1_amd64 bug

NAME

       debbisect - bisect snapshot.debian.org

DESCRIPTION

       usage: debbisect [-h] [-d] [-v] [--cache CACHE] [--nocache] [--port PORT]

              [--depends  DEPENDS]  [--qemu  QEMU]  [--architecture ARCHITECTURE] [--suite SUITE]
              [--components COMPONENTS] [--no-find-exact-package] good bad script

       Execute a script or a shell snippet for a known good timestamp and a known  bad  timestamp
       and  then  bisect the timestamps until a timestamp from snapshot.debian.org is found where
       the script first fails. Environment variables are used to tell the script which  timestamp
       to  test.  See  ENVIRONMENT  VARIABLES  below.  At  the  end  of  the execution, the files
       debbisect.log.good and debbisect.log.bad are the log files of the last good and  last  bad
       run,  respectively. By default, a temporary caching mirror is executed to reduce bandwidth
       usage on snapshot.debian.org.  If you plan to run debbisect multiple times  on  a  similar
       range  of  timestamps,  consider  setting a non-temporary cache directory with the --cache
       option.

       The program has three basic modes  of  operation.  In  the  first,  the  given  script  is
       responsible to set up everything as needed:

              $ ./debbisect "last week" today script.sh
              $ diff -u debbisect.log.good debbisect.log.bad

       If  also  the  --depends  option  is given, then a chroot of the correct timestamp will be
       created each time and the script will receive as first argument the path to  that  chroot.
       Additionally,  this  mode  allows  debbisect  to  figure  out  the  exact package that was
       responsible for the failure instead of only presenting you the last  good  and  first  bad
       timestamp.

       Lastly,  you  can also provide the --qemu option. In this mode, your test will be create a
       qemu virtual machine of the correct timestamp each  time.  The  script  will  receive  the
       correct ssh config to log into a host named qemu and execute arbitrary commands.

   positional arguments:
       good   good timestamp -- see section TIMESTAMPS for valid formats

       bad    bad timestamp -- see section TIMESTAMPS for valid formats

       script test  script  --  can either be a shell code snippet or an executable script. A non
              zero exit code indicates failure. When also  --depends  is  used,  then  the  first
              argument to the script will be the chroot directory.  When --qemu is used, then the
              first argument to the script will an ssh config for a host named qemu.

   options:
       -h, --help
              show this help message and exit

       -d, --debug
              Print lots of debugging statements

       -v, --verbose
              Be verbose

       --cache CACHE
              cache directory -- by default $TMPDIR is used

       --nocache
              disable cache

       --port PORT
              manually choose port number for the apt cache instead of automatically  choosing  a
              free port

       --depends DEPENDS
              Comma separated list of binary packages the test script requires. With this option,
              the test script will run inside a chroot with the requested packages installed.

       --qemu QEMU
              Create qemu virtual machine and pass a ssh config file to  the  test  script.  This
              argument  takes  a  commaseparated series of key=value pairs to specify the virtual
              machine memory size (via memsize) and the virtual machine disksize (via  disksize).
              Sizes  are  measured in bytes or with common unit suffixes like M or G. To pick the
              default values (disksize=4G,memsize=1G) the shorthand 'defaults' can be passed.

       --architecture ARCHITECTURE
              Chosen architecture when creating the chroot with  --depends  or  --qemu  (default:
              native architecture)

       --suite SUITE
              Chosen suite when creating the chroot with --depends or --qemu (default: unstable)

       --components COMPONENTS
              Chosen  components (separated by comma or whitespace) when creating the chroot with
              --depends or --qemu (default: main)

       --no-find-exact-package
              Normally, when the --depends argument is given so  that  debbisect  takes  care  of
              managing   dependencies,  the  precise  package  that  introduced  the  problem  is
              determined after bisection by installing the packages that differ between the  last
              good and first bad timestamp one by one. This option disables this feature.

TIMESTAMPS

       Valid good and bad timestamp formats are either:

              > the format used by snapshot.debian.org
              > ISO 8601 (with or without time, seconds and timezone)
              > RFC 2822 (used in debian/changelog)
              > all formats understood by the Python dateutil module (if installed)
              > all formats understood by the Python parsedatetime module (if installed)

       Without specifying the timezone explicitly, the local offset is used.

       Examples (corresponding to the items in above list, respectively):

              > 20200313T065326Z
              > 2020-03-13T06:53:26+00:00
              > Fri, 29 Nov 2019 14:00:08 +0100
              > 5:50 A.M. on June 13, 1990
              > two weeks ago

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The following environment variables are available to the test script:

       DEBIAN_BISECT_MIRROR    Contains the caching mirror address.

       DEBIAN_BISECT_EPOCH     Contains an integer representing the unix epoch of the

       current timestamp. The value of this variable can
              directly be assigned to SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH.

       DEBIAN_BISECT_TIMESTAMP Contains a timestamp in the format used by

       snapshot.debian.org. Can also be generated from
              DEBIAN_BISECT_EPOCH via: date --utc --date=@$DEBIAN_BISECT_EPOCH +%Y%m%dT%H%M%SZ

       DEBIAN_BISECT_*         All environment variables starting with DEBIAN_BISECT_

              are passed to the test script.

EXAMPLES

       Just run "do_something" which runs the test and returns a non-zero exit on failure.

              $  ./debbisect  "last  week"  today  "mmdebstrap  --customize-hook='chroot  \"\$1\"
              do_something' unstable - \$DEBIAN_BISECT_MIRROR >/dev/null"
              $ diff -u debbisect.log.good debbisect.log.bad

       Since the command can easily become very long and quoting very involved, lets instead  use
       a script:

              $ cat << END > script.sh

              > #!/bin/sh
              > set -exu
              > mmdebstrap \
              > --verbose \
              > --aptopt='Acquire::Check-Valid-Until "false"' \
              > --variant=apt \
              > --include=pkga,pkgb,pkgc \
              > --customize-hook='chroot "$1" dpkg -l' \
              > --customize-hook='chroot "$1" do_something' \
              > unstable \
              > - \
              > $DEBIAN_BISECT_MIRROR \
              > >/dev/null
              > END

              $ chmod +x script.sh
              $ ./debbisect --verbose --cache=./cache "two years ago" yesterday ./script.sh
              $ diff -u debbisect.log.good debbisect.log.bad
              $ rm -r ./cache

       This  example sets Acquire::Check-Valid-Until to not fail on snapshot timestamps from "two
       years ago", uses the "apt" variant (only Essential:yes plus apt),  installs  the  packages
       required  for  the  test using --include, runs "dpkg -l" so that we can see which packages
       differed in the logs at the end and uses --cache=cache so that the apt cache does not  get
       discarded  at  the  end  and the command can be re-run without downloading everything from
       snapshot.debian.org again.

       If you want to build a source package you can use the  script  shipped  by  devscripts  as
       /usr/share/doc/devscripts/examples/debbisect_buildsrc.sh and either use it unmodified like
       this:

              $  DEBIAN_BISECT_SRCPKG=mysrc  ./debbisect  "two   years   ago"   yesterday       >
              /usr/share/doc/devscripts/examples/debbisect_buildsrc.sh

       or use the script as a starting point to do your own custom builds.

       Once  debbisect  has  finished  bisecting  and figured out the last good and the first bad
       timestamp, there might be more than one package that differs in version between these  two
       timestamps.  debbisect  can figure out which package is the culprit if you hand it control
       over installing dependencies for you via the --depends option. With  that  option  active,
       the  script  will not be responsible to set up a chroot itself but is given the path to an
       existing chroot as the first argument. Here is a real example that  verifies  the  package
       responsible for Debian bug #912935:

              $   ./debbisect  --depends=botch  "2018-11-17"  "2018-11-22"  'chroot  "$1"  botch-
              dose2html --packages=/dev/null --help'

              [...]  test upgrading python3-minimal 3.6.7-1 -> 3.7.1-2...

              upgrading python3-minimal triggered the problem

       If you want to run above test under qemu, then you would run:

              $ ./debbisect --depends=botch --qemu=defaults  "2018-11-17"  "2018-11-22"  'ssh  -F
              "$1" qemu botch-dose2html --packages=/dev/null --help'

       In  the last two examples we omitted the --cache argument for brevity. But please make use
       of it to reduce the load on snapshot.debian.org.

AUTHOR

       Written by Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues <josch@debian.org>