Frank Lichtenheld and others have brought up the idea of automatically
testing installation, upgrading, and removal of packages. It struck me
that it should be pretty simple to implement at least basic versions of
this. The result: http://liw.iki.fi/liw/download/piuparts-0.4.tar.gz
I have attached the manual page.
The current version is quite simplistic. It may well be too simplistic
to work for more than in simple cases, but it's a start.
I'd be very curious to hear about suggestions for improvements.
piuparts(1) piuparts(1)
NAME
piuparts - Debian package installation, upgrade, and removal testing
suite
SYNOPSIS
piuparts [-apvV] [-d distro] [-i filename] [-l logfile] [-m url] [pack-
age]...
DESCRIPTION
piuparts tests that Debian packages can be installed and removed with-
out ill effects. It is meant for people who create Debian packages to
test them before they upload them to the Debian package archive.
piuparts creates a chroot environment with a minimal Debian installa-
tion, plus any packages that are needed for the test. It then installs
the packages, and removes and purges them, and checks that no files are
left behind, and that no extra files are removed.
The test consists of the following steps:
1. Create a chroot by running debootstrap, and configuring it suit-
ably. Meta data (filenames and data returned by lstat) is cap-
tured and remembered for later.
2. Install the packages named on the command line. Technically this
works by doing dpkg -i on the package files, then running
apt-get -yf, which installs also any missing dependencies.
3. Uninstall (first dpkg --remove, then dpkg --purge) the packages
and what dependencies were added.
4. Compare the final state of the chroot with what was saved in the
first step. Any files that are missing, modified, or new are
reported. Modification is done only by comparing file meta data,
not actual file contents.
If the package is known to apt-cache, piuparts also does an upgrade
test, where it first installs the package with apt-get, and then
installs from the package files given on the command line, and finally
removes and purges everything that got installed. The assumption is
that the version apt-get finds is older than the package file. The
upgrade test is not performed if -a is used.
OPTIONS
-a, --apt
The package arguments on the command line are to be treated as
package names and installed via apt-get instead of being names
of package files, to be installed via dpkg -i.
-b tarball, --basetgz=tarball
Use tarball as the contents of the initial chroot, instead of
building a new one with debootstrap.
-d name, --distribution=name
Which Debian distribution to use: a code name (sarge, etch, sid)
or experimental. The default is sid (i.e, unstable).
-i filename, --ignore=filename
Add a filename to the list of filenames to be ignored when com-
paring changes before and after installation. By default, piu-
parts ignores files that always change during a package instal-
lation and uninstallation, such as dpkg status files. The
filename should be relative to the root of the chroot (e.g.,
var/lib/dpkg/status).
-l filename, --log-file=filename
Write log file to filename in addition to the standard output.
-m url, --mirror=url
Which Debian mirror to use. The default is
http://ftp.debian.org/.
-p, --pbuilder
Use /var/cache/pbuilder/base.tgz as the base tarball. This is a
shorthand so that you don't need to use -b for it.
-s filename, --save=filename
Save the chroot, after it has been set up, into filename. It can
then be used with -b.
-v, --verbose
Write also debugging log messages (used once) and really verbose
debugging log messages (used twice) to the standard output. If
there are additional log files, they always get all log mes-
sages.
-V, --version
Write out the version number of the program.
EXAMPLES
Assume that you have just built a new version of your Debian package,
to be uploaded to Debian unstable. It is in ../foo_1.0-2_i386.deb and
you would like to know whether it installs and uninstalls properly.
Here's what you would do:
piuparts ../foo_1.0-2_i386.deb
SEE ALSO
pbuilder(1)
AUTHOR
Lars Wirzenius ([EMAIL PROTECTED]).
2005-06-12 piuparts(1)
