Fall 2011 SBR600 Weekly Schedule

Tentative Schedule - Fall 2011
Please note that the schedule here is tentative. Week-by-week details will be filled in as the course progresses. This content is also being refactored for easier navigation.

Previous semester: Winter 2011 SBR600 Weekly Schedule

Week 1 (Sep 5) - Introduction, Building from Source, and Creating RPM Packages

Tuesday

Welcome

• About this course
• Introductions

Intro to SBR600 - Software Build & Release

• Brief overview of the Build & Release process
• Introduction to Free Software and Open Source
  • The Free Software Foundation
  • The Open Source Initiative
• Introduction to the Fedora Project
  • Fedora Project
  • Fedora ARM Secondary Architecture project at Seneca and at the Fedora Project
• Course Layout
  • Project-based course
  • Working with Open Source
  • Working with the Fedora Project
  • Communication Tools
  • Course Outline
• How this Course Works
  • SBR600 Communication Tools
  • How coursework is submitted in SBR600
• FUDCon Blacksburg 2012 trip
  • Selection of attendees

To Do

By Monday, September 12:

1. Communication Lab
2. Fedora Installation
3. Build-from-Source Lab

Friday

Using make

• make and Makefiles

RPM Packages

• Differences between managing RPMS and Installing from Source
  • RPMS provide a database of installed software
    • Let you determine what's installed
    • Automatic management of dependencies
    • Identify the origin of files
    • Permit easy update or removal
    • Enable you to verify installation (useful for spotting file corruption and intrusions)
• Contents of an RPM Package

The RPM Database

• Querying the RPM database

Resources

• Two simple makefile examples
• Fedora Package Maintainers page
  • Packaging How-To
• Fedora Linux chapter 5 (see Seneca Library website > eBooks > View All > Safari > Fedora Linux).
• rpmlint
  • Fedora Common Rpmlint issues

To Do

By Monday, January 12:

1. RPM-Writing Lab
2. Send your SSH public key to your professor so he can create accounts for you on the CDOT Development Systems.

Week 2 (September 12) - Using Mock and Koji

Tuesday

Layout of a specfile

• Contents of an RPM spec file

Creating Packages

• RPM Packaging Process

Demo: Creating a Simple Package

• Writing the specfile
• Testing the specfile
  • Using rpmlint

Resources

• Fedora Package Maintainers page
  • Packaging How-To
• Fedora Linux chapter 5 (see Seneca Library website > eBooks > View All > Safari > Fedora Linux).
• rpmlint
  • Fedora Common Rpmlint issues

Field Trip!

• Visit to the CDOT Area

Friday

mock: Testing BuildRequires

It's often difficult to get the BuildRequires in a spec file exactly right, because it's easy to overlook packages that are coincidentally installed on the machine. Mock is used to test that the BuildRequires for a package are complete and accurate, by creating a bare-bones chroot environment containing only the basic build packages plus any packages indicated by BuildRequires lines in the spec file.

Project Selection

This is a project-based course. These projects involve participation in an open-source community.

• Projects are listed on the SBR600 Potential Projects page.
• Select two or three projects that are of interest to you.
  • Do some initial research into what the project involves.
    • Find out who to talk to in the community (start with the initial contacts listed on the project description)
    • See what work has already been done related to that project. Check the Seneca wiki for work by previous SBR600 semesters, the upstream project's wiki and mailing list archives for information about the current state of the project, and the web for related information (similar projects being done by other groups).
    • Join the mailing lists and IRC channels of the upstream community.
  • Update the Fall 2011 SBR600 Participants table with your project information, according to the instructions at the top of that page.
• Your professor will approve your project selection via the |participants page.
• Link your project title on the participants page to a page of the same name to create a project page. Copy the contents of the Sample Project page to your project page and fill in the details.

Over the next 2 weeks, finalize your project plans and get started on your project:

• The project page must be filled in, including your 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 targets.
  • Release 0.1: Proof of concept (e.g., a first draft of a package, a basic script, infrastructure set up on a test system) - Note that this must include the release of something, not just research, and must be done in consultation with the community.
  • Release 0.2: Initial working state - Whatever you are working on -- package, script, infrastructure configuration -- should be working, although it may not be feature-complete, fully deployed, or fully documented. Feedback from the community should be solicited. If there is a review process required to submit upstream, it should be started.
  • Release 0.3: Completed working state - The work is complete and documented. Any upstream review, whether formal or informal, has been completed, feedback has been incorporated into the project, and the work has been committed been
• You must have a strategy in place for reaching your targets.

You will make a brief (3-5 minute) presentation of your project plans on Tuesday, September 27.

Resources

• mock
  • Mock Project page
  • Using Mock to test package builds

ToDo

• Finish building your two RPMs by Monday, September 19 (we'll use them in the next lab) - remember to blog!
• Send your SSH key to your prof by Monday, September 19 (also needed for the next lab)
• Review the SBR600 Potential Projects and start researching the top 2-3 possibilities.

Week 3 (September 19) - Koji and Solving Build Issues

Tuesday

koji: Testing multiple architectures

koji is a client-server system which allows you to queue builds within the Fedora build farm. This permits you to test whether your package builds on several different architectures, which is especially useful when you don't otherwise have access to the machines of that architecture.

Resources

• koji
  • Using Koji

ToDo

• Mock and Koji Lab

Friday

Solving Build Issues

• Reasons for Build Failures
• Solving Build Failures

Week 4 (September 26) - Project Plan Presentations

• Project pages are due.
• Be prepared to give a detailed but brief (3- to 5-minute presentation) on your project plan.

Week 5 (October 3) - Repositories/Distributing

Signing RPM packages

An RPM signature, like the digital signature used on many other software-signing systems, is a private key encryption of a checksum. RPM uses the GPG libraries for signing.

1. Create a GPG key: gpg --gen-key
2. Add the e-mail address associated with your gpg key to the %_gpg_name macro in ~/.rpmmacros -- the line will look like this: %_gpg_name "e-mail-address"
3. Find (or make) some packages to put in your repository. Make sure that the epoch-version-release is higher than that of any package with the same name in the Fedora repositories.
4. Sign those packages with: rpm --addsign packagefile

Creating a YUM repository

A yum repository is just a directory of packages and some metadata.

1. Create a directory that can be served. The protocol used to serve that directory could be http, ftp, nfs, or something else (the files can be served by putting them on a DVD too!). For http, create the directory within /var/www/html
2. Put your signed packages in that directory.
3. Create the repository metadata for that directory: createrepo /name/of/directory

Notice that the repository metadata will be placed in a directory named repodata

Testing

1. Create a new repository file in /etc/yum.repos.d by copying and modifying an existing file in that directory. Keep gpgcheck=1 but comment out the gpgkey file.
2. Confirm that you cannot install from that repository using yum.
3. Uncomment the gpgkey line, and point it to a new file within /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/
4. Create that file by running (as your regular user): gpg --export --armour e-mail-address and saving the output
5. Confirm that you can now install from your repository. You should be asked whether you wish to import the key for your repo.

Repository-release RPM

To make it easier for users to access your repository, create a RPM containing:

1. Your repo file
2. Your GPG key

Take a look at the RPMFusion release RPM for an example.

ToDo

Lab

1. Create an RPM package that will install your repository configuration file and the key.
2. Test it.
3. Blog about this lab, and include a link to your repository RPM package.

Weeks 6 - 13

• Project work