So, now we have had a look at building metapackages, let's have som fun with "real" packages. This will be a short tutorial on packaging Debian packages. I should point out that I'm using a Kali based build system, so some things might be different if you're building on something else.
For this tutorial, we're going to build a package with a man page, so we can install it on a lot of machines, without to much work.
The first thing we need to do, is make a directory, named like the package we're creating. Mine is called blackdragon-docs-logitacker-1.0.
#make package dir
mkdir blackdragon-docs-logitacker-1.0
#Jump into package dir
cd blackdragon-docs-logitacker-1.0The next thing we need to do is make a couple of skeleton files we need for later. We use the dh_make command for that, like so
nx@xeon:~/dev/blackdragon-docs-logitacker-1.0$ dh_make --native
Type of package: (single, indep, library, python)
[s/i/l/p]?
select "i"
Maintainer Name : nx
Email-Address : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Date : Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:03:30 +0100
Package Name : blackdragon-docs-logitacker
Version : 1.0
License : gpl3
Package Type : indep
Are the details correct? [Y/n/q]
Type "y"
Currently there is not top level Makefile. This may require additional tuning
Done. Please edit the files in the debian/ subdirectory now.
Now we have a directory called debian, let's see what's in that, and go through it, and talk about it.
nx@xeon:~/dev/blackdragon-docs-logitacker-1.0/debian$ ls
blackdragon-docs-logitacker.cron.d.ex changelog manpage.1.ex postinst.ex prerm.ex README.source source
blackdragon-docs-logitacker.doc-base.EX control manpage.sgml.ex postrm.ex README rules
blackdragon-docs-logitacker-docs.docs copyright manpage.xml.ex preinst.ex README.Debian salsa-ci.yml.ex
There,s a lot of files in here, but we'll only need a couple of them, and they are changelog, control, copyright, rules, and the readme files. All the files ending in ex, should be deleted, since they are example files we don't need.
# delete example files
rm *.ex
rm *.EX
rm *.docs
# Check what we have
ls
changelog control copyright README README.Debian README.source rules source
source is a directory, and can be deleted, but I keep it around, it doesn't matter. But, we need to make a directory to store our man page in, so step back, so you're in the base package directory.
cd ..
/dev/blackdragon-docs-logitacker-1.0$ ls
debianHere, I make a directory called data, and in there I place my files, so I know where they are. We need it later, when we're going to write the install file.
#Make directory
mkdir data
In the data directory, I place my man page file. Here it's called logitacker.7.gz, So, we place it on the host system in /usr/share/man/man7/, remember this path for later
Next, we start of by editing the control under the debian directory. file. This is the file that controls the build, so open it in your editor, and let's go.
# Control file, before editing
nx@xeon:~/dev/blackdragon-docs-logitacker-1.0/debian$ cat control
Source: blackdragon-docs-logitacker
Section: unknown
Priority: optional
Maintainer: nx <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 13)
Standards-Version: 4.5.1
Homepage: <insert the upstream URL, if relevant>
#Vcs-Browser: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/blackdragon-docs-logitacker
#Vcs-Git: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/blackdragon-docs-logitacker.git
Rules-Requires-Root: no
Package: blackdragon-docs-logitacker
Architecture: all
Depends: ${misc:Depends}
Description: <insert up to 60 chars description>
<insert long description, indented with spaces>
# Control file, after editing
nx@xeon:~/dev/blackdragon-docs-logitacker-1.0/debian$ cat control
Source: blackdragon-docs-logitacker
Section: misc
Priority: optional
Maintainer: nx <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 13)
Standards-Version: 4.5.1
Homepage: https://www.blackdragon.se
Rules-Requires-Root: no
Package: blackdragon-docs-logitacker
Architecture: all
Depends: ${misc:Depends}
Description: Blackdragon Logitacker man page
This package provides the man page for the Logitacker Project.
Remember that Description lines start with a space, and empty lines with a space and a .
When you're done, save the file, and let's move on to the changelog file. Let's have a look at it.
cat changelog
blackdragon-docs-logitacker (1.0) unstable; urgency=medium
* Initial Release.
-- nx <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:03:30 +0100
We could change something here, and add notes about the changes we made. I leave it be, since this is the first release, so nothing has changed really.
Next, we could change the copyright file, I leave it be for now, since this is just an internal package.
So, now we need to write an install file, that takes care of installing our man page onto the host. First we make the file
touch installOpen it in your text editor, and let's define some rules for our content. Remember our data is in the data directory, and we want it in /usr/share/man/man7/. We need one line in the install file, and it's this one.
data/* /usr/share/man/man7/That's it. jump one directory back, so you're in the base directory, named after your package. The one where you got two folders, debian and data, and call the build with
# Build command
dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc
# Output from the build command, yours will be different :)
dpkg-buildpackage: info: source package blackdragon-docs-logitacker
dpkg-buildpackage: info: source version 1.0
dpkg-buildpackage: info: source distribution unstable
dpkg-buildpackage: info: source changed by nx <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
dpkg-buildpackage: info: host architecture amd64
dpkg-source --before-build .
debian/rules clean
dh clean
dh_clean
dpkg-source -b .
dpkg-source: info: using source format '3.0 (native)'
dpkg-source: info: building blackdragon-docs-logitacker in blackdragon-docs-logitacker_1.0.tar.xz
dpkg-source: info: building blackdragon-docs-logitacker in blackdragon-docs-logitacker_1.0.dsc
debian/rules binary
dh binary
dh_update_autotools_config
dh_autoreconf
create-stamp debian/debhelper-build-stamp
dh_prep
dh_install
dh_installdocs
dh_installchangelogs
dh_installman
dh_perl
dh_link
dh_strip_nondeterminism
dh_compress
dh_fixperms
dh_missing
dh_installdeb
dh_gencontrol
dh_md5sums
dh_builddeb
dpkg-deb: building package 'blackdragon-docs-logitacker' in '../blackdragon-docs-logitacker_1.0_all.deb'.
dpkg-genbuildinfo
dpkg-genchanges >../blackdragon-docs-logitacker_1.0_amd64.changes
dpkg-genchanges: info: including full source code in upload
dpkg-source --after-build .
dpkg-buildpackage: info: full upload; Debian-native package (full source is included)
# Check if the packages are there
cd ..
ls
ls
blackdragon-docs-logitacker_1.0_all.deb
# Output changed a bit, there will be more types, but the one we want is package.deb So, now there's one thing left, and that is to test if we can install it, and remove it. We can do that with dpkg -i
root@xeon:/home/nx/dev# dpkg -i blackdragon-docs-logitacker_1.0_all.deb
Vælger tidligere fravalgt pakke blackdragon-docs-logitacker.
(Læser database ... 706053 filer og kataloger installeret i øjeblikket.)
Gør klar til at udpakke blackdragon-docs-logitacker_1.0_all.deb ...
Udpakker blackdragon-docs-logitacker (1.0) ...
Sætter blackdragon-docs-logitacker (1.0) op ...
Behandler udløsere for man-db (2.9.4-2) ...
# Check if we got a man page
apropos logitacker
logitacker (7) - (ukendt emne)
And we did, so out package is working. Let's see if we can remove it
dpkg --purge blackdragon-docs-logitacker
(Læser database ... 706058 filer og kataloger installeret i øjeblikket.)
Afinstallerer blackdragon-docs-logitacker (1.0) ...
Behandler udløsere for man-db (2.9.4-2) ...
root@xeon:/home/nx/dev# man logitacker
Ingen manualindgang for logitacker
And yes, it did uninstall cleanly, so our package worksIf you made it to the end, pat yourself on the back, well done :) Now, you know how to package for Kali, and Debian. The same method should apply to all Debian based distro's without to much changing, so try it out :)