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The XBPS source packages manual

This article contains an exhaustive manual of how to create new source packages for XBPS, the Void Linux native packaging system.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The void-packages repository contains all source packages that are the recipes to download, compile and build binary packages for Void. Those source package files are called templates.

The template files are GNU bash shell scripts that must define some required/optional variables and functions that are processed by xbps-src (the package builder) to generate the resulting binary packages.

By convention, all templates start with a comment briefly explaining what they are. In addition, pkgname and version can't have any characters in them that would require them to be quoted, so they are not quoted.

A simple template example is as follows:

# Template file for 'foo'

pkgname=foo
version=1.0
revision=1
build_style=gnu-configure
short_desc="A short description max 72 chars"
maintainer="name <email>"
license="GPL-3"
homepage="http://www.foo.org"
distfiles="http://www.foo.org/foo-${version}.tar.gz"
checksum="fea0a94d4b605894f3e2d5572e3f96e4413bcad3a085aae7367c2cf07908b2ff"

The template file contains definitions to download, build and install the package files to a fake destdir, and after this a binary package can be generated with the definitions specified on it.

Don't worry if anything is not clear as it should be. The reserved variables and functions will be explained later. This template file should be created in a directory matching $pkgname, i.e: void-packages/srcpkgs/foo/template.

If everything went fine after running

$ ./xbps-src pkg <pkgname>

a binary package named foo-1.0_1.<arch>.xbps will be generated in the local repository hostdir/binpkgs.

Quality Requirements

Follow this list to determine if a piece of software or other technology may be permitted in the Void Linux repository. Exceptions to the list are possible, and may be accepted, but are extremely unlikely. If you believe you have an exception, start a PR and make an argument for why that particular piece of software, while not meeting the below requirements, is a good candidate for the Void packages system.

  1. System: The software should be installed system-wide, not per-user.

  2. Compiled: The software needs to be compiled before being used, even if it is software that is not needed by the whole system.

  3. Required: Another package either within the repository or pending inclusion requires the package.

Package build phases

Building a package consist of the following phases:

  • setup This phase prepares the environment for building a package.

  • fetch This phase downloads required sources for a source package, as defined by the distfiles variable or do_fetch() function.

  • extract This phase extracts the distfiles files into $wrksrc or executes the do_extract() function, which is the directory to be used to compile the source package.

  • configure This phase executes the configuration of a source package, i.e GNU configure scripts.

  • build This phase compiles/prepares the source files via make or any other compatible method.

  • check This optional phase checks the result of the build phase for example by running make -k check.

  • install This phase installs the package files into the package destdir <masterdir>/destdir/<pkgname>-<version>, via make install or any other compatible method.

  • pkg This phase builds the binary packages with files stored in the package destdir and registers them into the local repository.

  • clean This phase cleans up the package (if defined).

xbps-src supports running just the specified phase, and if it ran successfully, the phase will be skipped later (unless its work directory ${wrksrc} is removed with xbps-src clean).

Package naming conventions

Libraries

Libraries are packages which provide shared objects (*.so) in /usr/lib. They should be named like their upstream package name with the following exceptions:

  • The package is a subpackage of a front end application and provides shared objects used by the base package and other third party libraries. In that case it should be prefixed with 'lib'. An exception from that rule is: If an executable is only used for building that package, it moves to the -devel package.

Example: wireshark -> subpkg libwireshark

Libraries have to be split into two sub packages: <name> and <name>-devel.

  • <name> should only contain those parts of a package which are needed to run a linked program.

  • <name>-devel should contain all files which are needed to compile a package against this package. If the library is a sub package, its corresponding development package should be named lib<name>-devel

Language Modules

Language modules are extensions to script or compiled languages. Those packages do not provide any executables themselves, but can be used by other packages written in the same language.

The naming convention to those packages is:

<language>-<name>

If a package provides both, a module and a executable, it should be split into a package providing the executable named <name> and the module named <language>-<name>. If a package starts with the languages name itself, the language prefix can be dropped. Short names for languages are no valid substitute for the language prefix.

Example: python-pam, perl-URI, python-pyside

Language Bindings

Language Bindings are packages which allow programs or libraries to have extensions or plugins written in a certain language.

The naming convention to those packages is:

<name>-<language>

Example: gimp-python, irssi-perl

Programs

Programs put executables under /usr/bin (or in very special cases in other .../bin directories)

For those packages the upstream packages name should be used. Remember that in contrast to many other distributions, void doesn't lowercase package names. As a rule of thumb, if the tar.gz of a package contains uppercase letter, then the package name should contain them too; if it doesn't, the package name is lowercase.

Programs can be split into program packages and library packages. The program package should be named as describe above. The library package should be prefix with "lib" (see section Libraries)

Global functions

The following functions are defined by xbps-src and can be used on any template:

  • vinstall() vinstall <file> <mode> <targetdir> [<name>]

    Installs file with the specified mode into targetdir in the pkg $DESTDIR. The optional 4th argument can be used to change the file name.

  • vcopy() vcopy <pattern> <targetdir>

    Copies recursively all files in pattern to targetdir in the pkg $DESTDIR.

  • vmove() vmove <pattern>

    Moves pattern to the specified directory in the pkg $DESTDIR.

  • vmkdir() vmkdir <directory> [<mode>]

    Creates a directory in the pkg $DESTDIR. The 2nd optional argument sets the mode of the directory.

  • vbin() vbin <file> [<name>]

    Installs file into usr/bin in the pkg $DESTDIR with the permissions 0755. The optional 2nd argument can be used to change the file name.

  • vman() vman <file> [<name>]

    Installs file as a man page. vman() parses the name and determines the section as well as localization. Example mappings:

    foo.1 -> ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man/man1/foo.1 foo.fr.1 -> ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man/fr/man1/foo.1 foo.1p -> ${DESTDIR}/usr/share/man/man1/foo.1p

  • vdoc() vdoc <file> [<name>]

    Installs file into usr/share/doc/<pkgname> in the pkg $DESTDIR. The optional 2nd argument can be used to change the file name.

  • vconf() vconf <file> [<name>]

    Installs file into etc in the pkg $DESTDIR. The optional 2nd argument can be used to change the file name.

  • vsconf() vsconf <file> [<name>]

    Installs file into usr/share/examples/<pkgname> in the pkg $DESTDIR. The optional 2nd argument can be used to change the file name.

  • vlicense() vlicense <file> [<name>]

    Installs file into usr/share/licenses/<pkgname> in the pkg $DESTDIR. The optional 2nd argument can be used to change the file name. Note: Non-GPL licenses, MIT, BSD and ISC require the license file to be supplied with the binary package.

  • vsv() vsv <service>

    Installs service from ${FILESDIR} to /etc/sv. The service must be a directory containing at least a run script. Note the supervise symlink will be created automatically by vsv. For further information on how to create a new service directory see The corresponding section the FAQ.

Shell wildcards must be properly quoted, i.e vmove "usr/lib/*.a".

Global variables

The following variables are defined by xbps-src and can be used on any template:

  • makejobs Set to -jX if XBPS_MAKEJOBS is defined, to allow parallel jobs with GNU make.

  • sourcepkg Set to the to main package name, can be used to match the main package rather than additional binary package names.

  • CHROOT_READY Set if the target chroot (masterdir) is ready for chroot builds.

  • CROSS_BUILD Set if xbps-src is cross compiling a package.

  • DESTDIR Full path to the fake destdir used by the source pkg, set to <masterdir>/destdir/${sourcepkg}-${version}.

  • FILESDIR Full path to the files package directory, i.e srcpkgs/foo/files. The files directory can be used to store additional files to be installed as part of the source package.

  • PKGDESTDIR Full path to the fake destdir used by the pkg_install() function in subpackages, set to <masterdir>/destdir/${pkgname}-${version}.

  • XBPS_BUILDDIR Directory to store the source code of the source package being processed, set to <masterdir>/builddir. The package wrksrc is always stored in this directory such as ${XBPS_BUILDDIR}/${wrksrc}.

  • XBPS_MACHINE The machine architecture as returned by uname -m.

  • XBPS_SRCDISTDIR Full path to where the source distfiles are stored, i.e $XBPS_HOSTDIR/sources.

  • XBPS_SRCPKGDIR Full path to the srcpkgs directory.

  • XBPS_TARGET_MACHINE The target machine architecture when cross compiling a package.

  • XBPS_FETCH_CMD The utility to fetch files from ftp, http of https servers.

Available variables

Mandatory variables

The list of mandatory variables for a template:

  • homepage A string pointing to the upstream homepage.

  • license A string matching any license file available in /usr/share/licenses. Multiple licenses should be separated by commas, i.e GPL-3, LGPL-2.1.

  • maintainer A string in the form of name <user@domain>. The email for this field must be a valid email that you can be reached at. Packages using users.noreply.github.com emails will not be accepted.

  • pkgname A string with the package name, matching srcpkgs/<pkgname>.

  • revision A number that must be set to 1 when the source package is created, or updated to a new upstream version. This should only be increased when the generated binary packages have been modified.

  • short_desc A string with a brief description for this package. Max 72 chars.

  • version A string with the package version. Must not contain dashes or underscore and at least one digit is required. Shell's variable substition usage is not allowed.

Optional variables

  • hostmakedepends The list of host dependencies required to build the package, and that will be installed to the master directory. There is no need to specify a version because the current version in srcpkgs will always be required. Example hostmakedepends="foo blah".

  • makedepends The list of target dependencies required to build the package, and that will be installed to the master directory. There is no need to specify a version because the current version in srcpkgs will always be required. Example makedepends="foo blah".

  • checkdepends The list of dependencies required to run the package checks, i.e. the script or make rule specified in the template's do_check() function. Example checkdepends="gtest".

  • depends The list of dependencies required to run the package. These dependencies are not installed to the master directory, rather are only checked if a binary package in the local repository exists to satisfy the required version. Dependencies can be specified with the following version comparators: <, >, <=, >= or foo-1.0_1 to match an exact version. If version comparator is not defined (just a package name), the version comparator is automatically set to >=0. Example depends="foo blah>=1.0". See the Runtime dependencies section for more information.

  • bootstrap If enabled the source package is considered to be part of the bootstrap process and required to be able to build packages in the chroot. Only a small number of packages must set this property.

  • conflicts An optional list of packages conflicting with this package. Conflicts can be specified with the following version comparators: <, >, <=, >= or foo-1.0_1 to match an exact version. If version comparator is not defined (just a package name), the version comparator is automatically set to >=0. Example conflicts="foo blah>=0.42.3".

  • distfiles The full URL to the upstream source distribution files. Multiple files can be separated by whitespaces. The files must end in .tar.lzma, .tar.xz, .txz, .tar.bz2, .tbz, .tar.gz, .tgz, .gz, .bz2, .tar or .zip. To define a target filename, append >filename to the URL. Example: distfiles="http://foo.org/foo-1.0.tar.gz http://foo.org/bar-1.0.tar.gz>bar.tar.gz"

    To avoid repetition, several variables for common hosting sites exist:

    Variable Value
    CPAN_SITE http://cpan.perl.org/modules/by-module
    DEBIAN_SITE http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool
    FREEDESKTOP_SITE http://freedesktop.org/software
    GNOME_SITE http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources
    GNU_SITE http://mirrors.kernel.org/gnu
    KERNEL_SITE http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux
    MOZILLA_SITE http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub
    NONGNU_SITE http://download.savannah.nongnu.org/releases
    PYPI_SITE https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/source
    SOURCEFORGE_SITE http://downloads.sourceforge.net/sourceforge
    UBUNTU_SITE http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool
    XORG_HOME http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/
    XORG_SITE http://xorg.freedesktop.org/releases/individual

  • checksum The sha256 digests matching ${distfiles}. Multiple files can be separated by blanks. Please note that the order must be the same than was used in ${distfiles}. Example checksum="kkas00xjkjas"

  • wrksrc The directory name where the package sources are extracted, by default set to ${pkgname}-${version}.

  • build_wrksrc A directory relative to ${wrksrc} that will be used when building the package.

  • create_wrksrc Enable it to create the ${wrksrc} directory. Required if a package contains multiple distfiles.

  • only_for_archs This expects a separated list of architectures where the package can be built matching uname -m output. Reserved for uses where the program really only will ever work on certain architectures, like binaries sources or when the program is written in assembly. Example only_for_archs="x86_64 armv6l".

  • build_style This specifies the build method for a package. Read below to know more about the available package build methods. If build_style is not set, the package must define at least a do_install() function, and optionally more build phases as such do_configure(), do_build(), etc.

  • configure_script The name of the configure script to execute at the configure phase if ${build_style} is set to configure or gnu-configure build methods. By default set to ./configure.

  • configure_args The arguments to be passed in to the configure script if ${build_style} is set to configure or gnu-configure build methods. By default, prefix must be set to /usr. In gnu-configure packages, some options are already set by default: --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --infodir=/usr/share/info --mandir=/usr/share/man --localstatedir=/var.

  • make_cmd The executable to run at the build phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. By default set to make.

  • make_build_args The arguments to be passed in to ${make_cmd} at the build phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. Unset by default.

  • make_check_args The arguments to be passed in to ${make_cmd} at the check phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. Unset by default.

  • make_install_args The arguments to be passed in to ${make_cmd} at the install-destdir phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. By default set to PREFIX=/usr DESTDIR=${DESTDIR}.

  • make_build_target The target to be passed in to ${make_cmd} at the build phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. Unset by default (all target).

  • make_check_target The target to be passed in to ${make_cmd} at the check phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. By default set to check.

  • make_install_target The target to be passed in to ${make_cmd} at the install-destdir phase if ${build_style} is set to configure, gnu-configure or gnu-makefile build methods. By default set to install.

  • patch_args The arguments to be passed in to the patch(1) command when applying patches to the package sources after do_extract(). Patches are stored in srcpkgs/<pkgname>/patches and must be in -p0 format. By default set to -Np0.

  • disable_parallel_build If set the package won't be built in parallel and XBPS_MAKEJOBS has no effect.

  • keep_libtool_archives If enabled the GNU Libtool archives won't be removed. By default those files are always removed automatically.

  • skip_extraction A list of filenames that should not be extracted in the extract phase. This must match the basename of any url defined in ${distfiles}. Example skip_extraction="foo-${version}.tar.gz".

  • nodebug If enabled -dbg packages won't be generated even if XBPS_DEBUG_PKGS is set.

  • conf_files A list of configuration files the binary package owns; this expects full paths, wildcards will be extended, and multiple entries can be separated by blanks i.e: conf_files="/etc/foo.conf /etc/foo2.conf /etc/foo/*.conf".

  • mutable_files A list of files the binary package owns, with the expectation that those files will be changed. These act a lot like conf_files but without the assumption that a human will edit them.

  • make_dirs A list of entries defining directories and permissions to be created at install time. Each entry should be space separated, and will itself contain spaces. make_dirs="/dir 0750 user group". User and group and mode are required on every line, even if they are 755 root root. By convention, there is only one entry of dir perms user group per line.

  • noarch If set, the binary package is not architecture specific and can be shared by all supported architectures.

  • repository Defines the repository in which the package will be placed. See Repositories for a list of valid repositories.

  • nostrip If set, the ELF binaries with debugging symbols won't be stripped. By default all binaries are stripped.

  • noshlibprovides If set, the ELF binaries won't be inspected to collect the provided sonames in shared libraries.

  • nocross If set, cross compilation won't be allowed and will exit immediately. This should be set to a string describing why it fails, or a link to a travis buildlog demonstrating the failure.

  • restricted If set, xbps-src will refuse to build the package unless etc/conf has XBPS_ALLOW_RESTRICTED=yes. The primary builders for Void Linux do not have this setting, so the primary repositories will not have any restricted package. This is useful for packages where the license forbids redistribution.

  • subpackages A white space separated list of subpackages (matching foo_package()) to override the guessed list. Only use this if a specific order of subpackages is required, otherwise the default would work in most cases.

  • broken If set, building the package won't be allowed because its state is currently broken. This should be set to a string describing why it is broken, or a link to a travis buildlog demonstrating the failure.

  • shlib_provides A white space separated list of additional sonames the package provides on. This appends to the generated file rather than replacing it.

  • shlib_requires A white space separated list of additional sonames the package requires. This appends to the generated file rather than replacing it.

  • nopie Only needs to be set to something to make active, disables building the package with hardening features (PIE, relro, etc). Not necessary for most packages.

  • reverts xbps supports a unique feature which allows to downgrade from broken packages automatically. In the reverts field one can define a list of broken pkgver the resulting package should revert. This field must be defined before version and revision fields in order to work as expected. The versions defined in reverts must be bigger than the one defined in version. Example:

    reverts="2.0_1 2.0_2"
version=1.9
revision=2

  • alternatives A white space separated list of supported alternatives the package provides. A list is composed of three components separated by a colon: group, symlink and target. i.e alternatives="vi:/usr/bin/vi:/usr/bin/nvi ex:/usr/bin/ex:/usr/bin/nvi-ex".

About the many types of depends variable.

So far we have listed three types of depends, there are hostmakedepends, makedepends, and plain old depends. To understand the difference between them, understand this: Void Linux cross compiles for many arches. Sometimes in a build process, certain programs must be run, for example yacc, or the compiler itself for a C program. Those programs get put in hostmakedepends. When the build runs, those will be installed on the host to help the build complete.

Then there are those things for which a package either links against or includes header files. These are makedepends, and regardless of the architecture of the build machine, the architecture of the target machine must be used. Typically the makedepends will be the only one of the three types of depends to include -devel packages, and typically only -devel packages.

The final variable, depends, is for those things the package needs at runtime and without which is unusable, and that xbps can't auto-detect. These are not all the packages the package needs at runtime, but only those that are not linked against. This variable is most useful for non-compiled programs.

Finally, as a general rule, if something compiles the exact same way whether or not you add a particular package to makedepends or hostmakedepends, it shouldn't be added.

Repositories

Repositories defined by Branch

The global repository takes the name of the current branch, except if the name of the branch is master. Then the resulting repository will be at the global scope. The usage scenario is that the user can update multiple packages in a second branch without polluting his local repository.

Package defined Repositories

The second way to define a repository is by setting the repository variable in a template. This way the maintainer can define repositories for a specific package or a group of packages. This is currently used to distinguish between closed source packages, which are put in the nonfree repository and other packages which are at the root-repository.

The following repository names are valid:

  • nonfree: Repository for closed source packages.

Checking for new upstream releases

New upstream versions can be automatically checked using ./xbps-src update-check <pkgname>. In some cases you need to override the sensible defaults by assigning the following variables in a update file in the same directory as the relevant template file:

  • site contains the URL where the version number is mentioned. If unset, defaults to homepage and the directories where distfiles reside.

  • pkgname is the package name the default pattern checks for. If unset, defaults to pkgname from the template.

  • pattern is a perl-compatible regular expression matching the version number. Anchor the version number using \K and (?=...). Example: pattern='<b>\K[\d.]+(?=</b>)', this matches a version number enclosed in <b>...</b> tags.

  • ignore is a space-separated list of shell globs that match version numbers which are not taken into account for checking newer versions. Example: ignore="*b*"

  • version is the version number used to compare against upstream versions. Example: version=${version//./_}

build style scripts

The build_style variable specifies the build method to build and install a package. It expects the name of any available script in the void-packages/common/build-style directory. Please note that required packages to execute a build_style script must be defined via $hostmakedepends.

The current list of available build_style scripts is the following:

  • cmake For packages that use the CMake build system, configuration arguments can be passed in via configure_args. The cmake_builddir variable may be defined to specify the directory for building under build_wrksrc instead of the default build.

  • configure For packages that use non-GNU configure scripts, at least --prefix=/usr should be passed in via configure_args.

  • fetch For packages that only fetch files and are installed as is via do_install().

  • gnu-configure For packages that use GNU configure scripts, additional configuration arguments can be passed in via configure_args.

  • gnu-makefile For packages that use GNU make, build arguments can be passed in via make_build_args and install arguments via make_install_args. The build target can be overridden via make_build_target and the install target via make_install_target. This build style tries to compensate for makefiles that do not respect environment variables, so well written makefiles, those that do such things as append (+=) to variables, should have make_use_env set in the body of the template.

  • go For programs written in Go that follow the standard package structure. The variable go_import_path must be set to the package's import path, e.g. github.com/github/hub for the hub program. If the variable go_get is set to yes, the package will be downloaded with go get. Otherwise (the default) it's expected that the distfile contains the package. In both cases, dependencies will be downloaded with go get.

  • meta For meta-packages, i.e packages that only install local files or simply depend on additional packages. This build style does not install dependencies to the root directory, and only checks if a binary package is available in repositories.

  • R-cran For packages that are available on The Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN). The build style requires the pkgname to start with R-cran- and any dashes (-) in the CRAN-given version to be replaced with the character r in the version variable. The distfiles location will automatically be set as well as the package made to depend on R.

  • ruby-module For packages that are ruby modules and are installable via ruby install.rb. Additional install arguments can be specified via make_install_args.

  • perl-ModuleBuild For packages that use the Perl Module::Build method.

  • perl-module For packages that use the Perl ExtUtils::MakeMaker build method.

  • waf3 For packages that use the Python3 waf build method with python3.

  • waf For packages that use the Python waf method with python2.

  • slashpackage For packages that use the /package hierarchy and package/compile to build, such as daemontools or any djb software.

  • qmake For packages that use Qt4/Qt5 qmake profiles (*.pro), qmake arguments for the configure phase can be passed in via configure_args, make build arguments can be passed in via make_build_args and install arguments via make_install_args. The build target can be overridden via make_build_target and the install target via make_install_target.

For packages that use the Python module build method (setup.py), you can choose one of the following:

  • python-module to build both Python 2.x and 3.x modules

  • python2-module to build Python 2.x only modules

  • python3-module to build Python 3.x only modules

If build_style is not set, the template must (at least) define a do_install() function and optionally more phases via do_xxx() functions.

Environment variables for a specific build_style can be declared in a filename matching the build_style name, i.e:

`common/environment/build-style/gnu-configure.sh`

Functions

The following functions can be defined to change the behavior of how the package is downloaded, compiled and installed.

  • do_fetch() if defined and distfiles is not set, use it to fetch the required sources.

  • do_extract() if defined and distfiles is not set, use it to extract the required sources.

  • post_extract() Actions to execute after do_extract().

  • pre_configure() Actions to execute after post_extract().

  • do_configure() Actions to execute to configure the package; ${configure_args} should still be passed in if it's a GNU configure script.

  • post_configure() Actions to execute after do_configure().

  • pre_build() Actions to execute after post_configure().

  • do_build() Actions to execute to build the package.

  • post_build() Actions to execute after do_build().

  • pre_install() Actions to execute after post_build().

  • do_install() Actions to execute to install the package files into the fake destdir.

  • post_install() Actions to execute after do_install().

  • do_clean() Actions to execute to clean up after a successful package phase.

A function defined in a template has preference over the same function defined by a build_style script.

Build options

Some packages might be built with different build options to enable/disable additional features; The XBPS source packages collection allows you to do this with some simple tweaks to the template file.

The following variables may be set to allow package build options:

  • build_options Sets the build options supported by the source package.

  • build_options_default Sets the default build options to be used by the source package.

  • desc_option_<option> Sets the description for the build option option. This must match the keyword set in build_options. Note that if the build option is generic enough, its description should be added to common/options.description instead.

After defining those required variables, you can check for the build_option_<option> variable to know if it has been set and adapt the source package accordingly. Additionally, the following functions are available:

  • vopt_if() vopt_if <option> <if_true> [<if_false>]

    Outputs if_true if option is set, or if_false if it isn't set.

  • vopt_with() vopt_with <option> [<flag>]

    Outputs --with-<flag> if the option is set, or --without-<flag> otherwise. If flag isn't set, it defaults to option.

    Examples:

    • vopt_with dbus
    • vopt_with xml xml2

  • vopt_enable() vopt_enable <option> [<flag>]

    Same as vopt_with, but uses --enable-<flag> and --disable-<flag> respectively.

  • vopt_conflict() vopt_conflict <option 1> <option 2>

    Emits an error and exits if both options are set at the same time.

The following example shows how to change a source package that uses GNU configure to enable a new build option to support PNG images:

# Template file for 'foo'
pkgname=foo
version=1.0
revision=1
build_style=gnu-configure
configure_args="... $(vopt_with png)"
makedepends="... $(vopt_if png libpng-devel)"
...

# Package build options
build_options="png"
desc_option_png="Enable support for PNG images"

# To build the package by default with the `png` option:
#
# build_options_default="png"

...

The supported build options for a source package can be shown with xbps-src:

$ ./xbps-src show-options foo

Build options can be enabled with the -o flag of xbps-src:

$ ./xbps-src -o option,option1 <cmd> foo

Build options can be disabled by prefixing them with ~:

$ ./xbps-src -o ~option,~option1 <cmd> foo

Both ways can be used together to enable and/or disable multiple options at the same time with xbps-src:

$ ./xbps-src -o option,~option1,~option2 <cmd> foo

The build options can also be shown for binary packages via xbps-query(8):

$ xbps-query -R --property=build-options foo

Permanent global package build options can be set via XBPS_PKG_OPTIONS variable in the etc/conf configuration file. Per package build options can be set via XBPS_PKG_OPTIONS_<pkgname>.

NOTE: if pkgname contains dashes, those should be replaced by underscores i.e XBPS_PKG_OPTIONS_xorg_server=opt.

The list of supported package build options and its description is defined in the common/options.description file.

Runtime dependencies

Dependencies for ELF objects are detected automatically by xbps-src, hence runtime dependencies must not be specified in templates via $depends with the following exceptions:

  • ELF objects using dlopen(3).
  • non ELF objects, i.e perl/python/ruby/etc modules.
  • Overriding the minimal version specified in the shlibs file.

The runtime dependencies for ELF objects are detected by checking which SONAMEs they require and then the SONAMEs are mapped to a binary package name with a minimal required version. The shlibs file in the void-packages/common directory sets up the <SONAME> <pkgname>>=<version> mappings.

For example the foo-1.0_1 package provides the libfoo.so.1 SONAME and software requiring this library will link to libfoo; the resulting binary package will have a run-time dependency to foo>=1.0_1 package as specified in common/shlibs:

# common/shlibs
...
libfoo.so.1 foo-1.0_1
...
  • The first field specifies the SONAME.
  • The second field specified the package name and minimal version required.
  • A third optional field (usually set to ignore) can be used to skip checks in soname bumps.

Dependencies declared via ${depends} are not installed to the master directory, rather are only checked if they exist as binary packages, and are built automatically by xbps-src if the specified version is not in the local repository.

There's a special variant of how virtual dependencies can be specified as runtime dependencies and is by using the virtual? keyword, i.e depends="virtual?vpkg-0.1_1". This declares a runtime virtual dependency to vpkg-0.1_1; this virtual dependency will be simply ignored when the package is being built with xbps-src.

INSTALL and REMOVE files

The INSTALL and REMOVE shell snippets can be used to execute certain actions at a specified stage when a binary package is installed, updated or removed. There are some variables that are always set by xbps when the scripts are executed:

  • $ACTION: to conditionalize its actions: pre or post.
  • $PKGNAME: the package name.
  • $VERSION: the package version.
  • $UPDATE: set to yes if package is being upgraded, no if package is being installed or removed.
  • $CONF_FILE: full path to xbps.conf.
  • $ARCH: the target architecture it is running on.

An example of how an INSTALL or REMOVE script shall be created is shown below:

# INSTALL
case "$ACTION" in
pre)
	# Actions to execute before the package files are unpacked.
	...
	;;
post)
	if [ "$UPDATE" = "yes" ]; then
		# actions to execute if package is being updated.
		...
	else
		# actions to execute if package is being installed.
		...
	fi
	;;
esac

subpackages can also have their own INSTALL and REMOVE files, simply create them as srcpkgs/<pkgname>/<subpkg>.INSTALL or srcpkgs/<pkgname>/<subpkg>.REMOVE respectively.

NOTE: always use paths relative to the current working directory, otherwise if the scripts cannot be executed via chroot(2) won't work correctly.

NOTE: do not use INSTALL/REMOVE scripts to print messages, see the next section for more information.

INSTALL.msg and REMOVE.msg files

The INSTALL.msg and REMOVE.msg files can be used to print a message at post-install or pre-remove time, respectively.

Ideally those files should not exceed 80 chars per line.

subpackages can also have their own INSTALL.msg and REMOVE.msg files, simply create them as srcpkgs/<pkgname>/<subpkg>.INSTALL.msg or srcpkgs/<pkgname>/<subpkg>.REMOVE.msg respectively.

Creating system accounts/groups at runtime

There's a trigger along with some variables that are specifically to create system users and groups when the binary package is being configured. The following variables can be used for this purpose:

  • system_groups This specifies the names of the new system groups to be created, separated by blanks. Optionally the gid can be specified by delimiting it with a colon, i.e system_groups="mygroup:78" or system_groups="foo blah:8000".

  • system_accounts This specifies the names of the new system users/groups to be created, separated by blanks, i.e system_accounts="foo blah:22". Optionally the uid and gid can be specified by delimiting it with a colon, i.e system_accounts="foo:48". Additional variables for the system accounts can be specified to change its behavior:

    • <account>_homedir the home directory for the user. If unset defaults to /var/empty.
    • <account>_shell the shell for the new user. If unset defaults to /sbin/nologin.
    • <account>_descr the description for the new user. If unset defaults to <account> unprivileged user.
    • <account>_groups additional groups to be added to for the new user.
    • <account>_pgroup to set the primary group, by default primary group is set to <account>.

The system user is created by using a dynamically allocated uid/gid in your system and it's created as a system account, unless the uid is set. A new group will be created for the specified system account and used exclusively for this purpose.

32bit packages

32bit packages are built automatically when the builder is x86 (32bit), but there are some variables that can change the behavior:

  • lib32depends If this variable is set, dependencies listed here will be used rather than those detected automatically by xbps-src and depends. Please note that dependencies must be specified with version comparators, i.e lib32depends="foo>=0 blah<2.0".

  • lib32disabled If this variable is set, no 32bit package will be built.

  • lib32files Additional files to be added to the 32bit package. This expect absolute paths separated by blanks, i.e lib32files="/usr/bin/blah /usr/include/blah.".

  • lib32symlinks Makes a symlink of the target filename stored in the lib32 directory. This expects the basename of the target file, i.e lib32symlinks="foo".

  • lib32mode If unset, only shared/static libraries and pkg-config files will be copied to the 32bit package. If set to full all files will be copied to the 32bit package, unmodified.

Subpackages

In the example shown above just a binary package is generated, but with some simple tweaks multiple binary packages can be generated from a single template/build, this is called subpackages.

To create additional subpackages the template must define a new function with this naming: <subpkgname>_package(), i.e:

# Template file for 'foo'

pkgname="foo"
version="1.0"
revision=1
build_style=gnu-configure
short_desc="A short description max 72 chars"
maintainer="name <email>"
license="GPL-3"
homepage="http://www.foo.org"
distfiles="http://www.foo.org/foo-${version}.tar.gz"
checksum="fea0a94d4b605894f3e2d5572e3f96e4413bcad3a085aae7367c2cf07908b2ff"

# foo-devel is a subpkg
foo-devel_package() {
	short_desc+=" - development files"
	depends="${sourcepkg}>=${version}_${revision}"
	pkg_install() {
		vmove usr/include
		vmove usr/lib/*.a
		vmove usr/lib/*.so
		vmove usr/lib/pkgconfig
	}
}

All subpackages need an additional symlink to the main pkg, otherwise dependencies requiring those packages won't find its template i.e:

 /srcpkgs
  |- foo <- directory (main pkg)
  |  |- template
  |- foo-devel <- symlink to `foo`

The main package should specify all required build dependencies to be able to build all subpackages defined in the template.

An important point of subpackages is that they are processed after the main package has run its install phase. The pkg_install() function specified on them commonly is used to move files from the main package destdir to the subpackage destdir.

The helper functions vinstall, vmkdir, vcopy and vmove are just wrappers that simplify the process of creating, copying and moving files/directories between the main package destdir ($DESTDIR) to the subpackage destdir ($PKGDESTDIR).

Subpackages are processed always in alphabetical order; To force a custom order, the subpackages variable can be declared with the wanted order.

Development packages

A development package, commonly generated as a subpackage, shall only contain files required for development, that is, headers, static libraries, shared library symlinks, pkg-config files, API documentation or any other script that is only useful when developing for the target software.

A development package should depend on packages that are required to link against the provided shared libraries, i.e if libfoo provides the libfoo.so.2 shared library and the linking needs -lbar, the package providing the libbar shared library should be added as a dependency; and most likely it shall depend on its development package.

If a development package provides a pkg-config file, you should verify what dependencies the package needs for dynamic or static linking, and add the appropriate development packages as dependencies.

Development packages for the C and C++ languages usually vmove the following subset of files from the main package:

* Header files `usr/include`
* Static libraries `usr/lib/*.a`
* Shared library symbolic links `usr/lib/*.so`
* Cmake rules `usr/lib/cmake`
* Package config files `usr/lib/pkgconfig`

Data packages

Another common subpackage type is the -data subpackage. This subpackage type used to split architecture independent, big(ger) or huge amounts of data from a package's main and architecture dependent part. It is up to you to decide, if a -data subpackage makes sense for your package. This type is common for games (graphics, sound and music), part libraries (CAD) or card material (maps). Data subpackages are almost always noarch=yes. The main package must then have depends="${pkgname}-data-${version}_${revision}", possibly in addition to other, non-automatic depends.

Documentation packages

Packages intended for user interaction do not always unconditionally require their documentation part. A user who does not want to e.g. develop with Qt5 will not need to install the (huge) qt5-doc package. An expert may not need it or opt to use an online version.

In general a -doc package is useful, if the main package can be used both with or without documentation and the size of the documentation isn't really small. The base package and the -devel subpackage should be kept small so that when building packages depending on a specific package there is no need to install large amounts of documentation for no reason. Thus the size of the documentation part should be your guidance to decide whether or not to split off a -doc subpackage.

Python packages

Python packages should be built with the python{,2,3}-module build style, if possible. This sets some environment variables required to allow cross compilation. Support to allow building a python module for multiple versions from a single template is also possible.

To allow cross compilation, the python-devel package (for python 2.7) must be added to hostmakedepends and makedepends. If any other python version is also supported, for example python3.4, those must also be added as host and target build dependencies.

The following variables may influence how the python packages are built and configured at post-install time:

  • pycompile_module: this variable expects the python modules that should be byte-compiled at post-install time. Python modules are those that are installed into the site-packages prefix: usr/lib/pythonX.X/site-packages. Multiple python modules may be specified separated by blanks, i.e pycompile_module="foo blah".

  • pycompile_dirs: this variable expects the python directories that should be byte-compiled recursively by the target python version. This differs from pycompile_module in that any path may be specified, i.e pycompile_dirs="usr/share/foo".

  • pycompile_version: this variable expects the python version that is used to byte-compile the python code (it generates the .py[co] files at post-install time). By default it's set to 2.7 for python 2.x packages.

NOTE: you need to define it only for non-Python modules.

  • python_version: this variable expects the supported Python major version. By default it's set to 2. This variable is needed for multi-language applications (e.g., the application is written in C while the command is written in Python) or just single Python file ones that live in /usr/bin.

Also, a set of useful variables are defined to use in the templates:

Variable Value
py2_ver 2.X
py2_lib /usr/lib/python2.X
py2_sitelib /usr/lib/python2.X/site-packages
py2_inc /usr/include/python2.X
py3_ver 3.X
py3_lib /usr/lib/python3.X
py3_sitelib /usr/lib/python3.X/site-packages
py3_inc /usr/include/python3.Xm

NOTE: it's expected that additional subpkgs must be generated to allow packaging for multiple python versions.

Go packages

Go packages should be built with the go build style, if possible. The go build style takes care of downloading Go dependencies and setting up cross compilation.

The following variables influence how Go packages are built:

  • go_import_path: The import path of the package included in the distfile, as it would be used with go get. For example, GitHub's hub program has the import path github.com/github/hub. This variable is required.
  • go_package: A space-separated list of import paths of the packages that should be built. Defaults to go_import_path.
  • go_get: If set to yes, the package specified via go_import_path will be downloaded with go get. Otherwise, a distfile has to be provided. This option should only be used with -git (or similar) packages; using a versioned distfile is preferred.
  • go_build_tags: An optional, space-separated list of build tags to pass to Go.

Occasionally it is necessary to perform operations from within the Go source tree. This is usually needed by programs using go-bindata or otherwise preping some assets. If possible do this in pre_build(). The path to the package's source inside $GOPATH is available as $GOSRCPATH.

Haskell packages

We build Haskell package using stack from Stackage, generally the LTS versions. Haskell templates need to have host dependencies on ghc and stack, and set build style to haskell-stack.

The following variables influence how Haskell packages are built:

  • stackage: The Stackage version used to build the package, e.g. lts-3.5. Alternatively:
    • You can prepare a stack.yaml configuration for the project and put it into files/stack.yaml.
    • If a stack.yaml file is present in the source files, it will be used
  • make_build_args: This is passed as-is to stack build ..., so you can add your --flag ... parameters there.

Notes

  • Make sure that all software is configured to use the /usr prefix.

  • Binaries should always be installed at /usr/bin.

  • Manual pages should always be installed at /usr/share/man.

  • If a software provides shared libraries and headers, probably you should create a development package that contains headers, static libraries and other files required for development (not required at runtime).

  • If you are updating a package please be careful with SONAME bumps, check the installed files (./xbps-src show-files pkg) before pushing new updates.

  • Make sure that binaries are not stripped by the software, let xbps-src do this; otherwise the debug packages won't have debugging symbols.

Contributing via git

Fork the voidlinux void-packages git repository on github and clone it:

$ git clone [email protected]:<user>/void-packages.git

You can now make your own commits to the forked repository:

$ git add ...
$ git commit ...
$ git push ...

To keep your forked repository always up to date, setup the upstream remote to pull in new changes:

$ git remote add upstream git://github.com/voidlinux/void-packages.git
$ git pull upstream master

Once you've made changes to your forked repository you can submit a github pull request; see https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo for more information.

For commit messages please use the following rules:

  • If you've imported a new package use "New package: <pkgname>-<version>".
  • If you've updated a package use "<pkgname>: update to <version>.".
  • If you've removed a package use "<pkgname>: removed ...".
  • If you've modified a package use "<pkgname>: ...".

Help

If after reading this manual you still need some kind of help, please join us at #xbps via IRC at irc.freenode.net.