Provided by: devscripts_2.14.1ubuntu0.1_amd64 
NAME
cowpoke - Build a Debian source package in a remote cowbuilder instance
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=architecture
Specify the Debian architecture(s) to build for. A space separated 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=distribution
Specify the Debian distribution(s) to build for. A space separated list of
distributions may be used to build for all of them in a single pass. Either
codenames (such as sid, or squeeze) 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.
--return=[path]
Copy results of the build to path. If path is not specified, then return them to
the current directory. The given path must exist, it will not be created.
--no-return
Do not copy results of the build to RETURN_DIR (overriding a path set for it in the
configuration files).
--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.
--help Display a brief summary of the available options and current configuration.
--version
Display the current version information.
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
When cowpoke is run the following configuration options are read from global, per-user,
and per-project configuration files if present. File 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 cowbuilder 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 configuration 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 separated 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.
UPLOAD_QUEUE
If this option is set, it is expected to contain a 'host' specification for dput(1)
which will be used to upload them after they are signed. You will be prompted to
confirm whether you wish to upload the packages after they are signed. If this
option is unset or an empty string, no attempt to upload packages will be made. If
SIGN_KEYID is not set, this option will be ignored entirely.
BUILDD_ROOTCMD
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 sudoers will enable
invoking cowbuilder without an additional password entry required:
youruser ALL = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/cowbuilder
Alternatively you could use SSH with a forwarded key, or whatever other mechanism
suits your local access policy. Using su -c isn't really suitable here due to its
quoting requirements being somewhat different to the rest.
DEBOOTSTRAP
The utility to use when creating a new build root. Alternatives are debootstrap or
cdebootstrap.
RETURN_DIR
If set, package files resulting from the build will be copied to the path (local or
remote) that this is set to, after the build completes. The path must exist, it
will not be created. This option is unset by default and can be overridden with
--return or --no-return.
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 versions of the package that were built
previously may be found. If any such older packages exist, debdiff will be used to
compare 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.
~/.cowpoke
Per-user configuration options. Will override any global configuration.
.cowpoke
Per-project configuration options. Will override any per-user or global
configuration if cowpoke is called from the directory where they exist.
If the environment variable COWPOKE_CONF is set, it specifies an additional
configuration file which will override all of those above. Options specified
explicitly on the command line override all configuration files.
COWBUILDER CONFIGURATION
There is nothing particularly special required to configure a cowbuilder instance for use
with cowpoke. Simply create them in the flavour you require with `cowbuilder --create`
according to the cowbuilder 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 INCOMING_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. If rsync(1) is available on both the local and build machine, then it will
be used to transfer the source package (this may save on some transfers of the orig.tar.*
when building subsequent Debian revisions).
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, cowpoke 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 uncommitted work.
SEE ALSO
cowbuilder(1), pbuilder(1), ssh-agent(1), sudoers(5)
AUTHOR
cowpoke was written by Ron <ron@debian.org>.
April 28, 2008 COWPOKE(1)