Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

karol · 2012-10-18 13:56:08

Some Unofficial User Repositories don't provide <repo_name>.files.tar.gz for pkgfile to use.
It's not a huge deal if foobar binary is provided by foobar package - I can simply search for 'foobar' packagename with pacman - but sometimes I would have to resort to posting on the forums e.g. when the package in question is called foo-scripts.

I know it means more work for repo maintainers and few people may benefit from it, but I would appreciate it, even if I'm not using this feature very often.
Thanks to all users who maintain their unofficial repositories. It's very handy to be able to just grab a binary with pacman :-)

dolby · 2012-10-18 16:12:07

Thats a good idea. I am confident that repo-add -f in git creates the file by default and you dont have to link to it manually, right?

karol · 2012-10-18 16:29:49

I don't have a repo, I've never used it, I see it's an option, like creating deltas: https://www.archlinux.org/pacman/repo-add.8.html

dolby · 2012-10-18 16:42:59

I use it for my local repos and it doesnt in pacman 4.0.3. Files data are stored in $repo.db.tar.gz and you have to manually ln $repo.db.tar.gz to $repo.files

karol · 2012-10-18 16:57:16

dolby wrote:

I use it for my local repos and it doesnt in pacman 4.0.3. Files data are stored in $repo.db.tar.gz and you have to manually ln $repo.db.tar.gz to $repo.files

Are you sure about the symlink? According to e.g. http://xyne.archlinux.ca/repos/xyne-any/ $repo.db. and $repo.files have different sizes.

dolby · 2012-10-18 17:09:18

I dont know if theres another way but my way works. Also see https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=146653
repo-add -f only accepts db files and tar.*z's as arguments AFAICT. I looked at the source to see how it behaves before i started using it but not thoroughly.

edit: i must be wrong cause official repos have different entries as well. http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/archlinux/testing/os/i686/
edit2: my way seems to be saving valuable space.

Last edited by dolby (2012-10-18 17:15:32)

karol · 2012-10-18 17:36:44

We may have found the reason not everyone is providing $repo.files db - it's not obvious how to create it ;P

man repo-add wrote:

A package database is a tar file, optionally compressed. Valid extensions are “.db” or “.files” followed by an archive extension of “.tar”, “.tar.gz”, “.tar.bz2”, “.tar.xz”, or “.tar.Z”. The file does not need to exist, but all parent directories must exist.

'repo-add':

  -> Computing checksums...
  -> Creating 'desc' db entry...
  -> Creating 'depends' db entry...

'repo-add -f':

  -> Computing checksums...
  -> Creating 'desc' db entry...
  -> Creating 'depends' db entry...
  -> Creating 'files' db entry...

The extra step takes time and space (bigger db).

Last edited by karol (2012-10-18 17:37:19)

karol · 2012-10-18 17:49:30

Seems the answer is to create two dbs: one with 'repo-add' and the other with 'repo-add f' or to symlink them.

dolby · 2012-10-21 04:15:36

Symlinking it though means you lose speed in pacman cause it has to parse a much larger db file for no reason, so like you say above you have to invoke repo-add twice.
One without options for creating the db file read by pacman and one with -f in order to create the files file pkgfile needs.

Allan · 2012-10-21 05:05:10

Th way to do this is...

repo-add foo.db.tar.xz .... - to make the repo db used by pacman

repo-add -f foo.files.tar.xz ... - to make a separate db with the files in it.

This makes a smaller db which is used by pacman (and so all users of the repo...) and a larger one that is used by (e.g.) pkgfile.

Xyne · 2012-10-21 06:21:50

If anyone is interested, I wrote a script a while ago to facilitate public repo management. It's basically a rewrap of different scripts that I use to manage my own repos. It will generate a fully signed repo (packages and databases, including the "files" database by default). You can read more about it and download it here.

There's probably room for improvement. If it proves popular then I may package it. Until then, use xacget to keep your local copy up-to-date.

graysky · 2012-12-03 20:18:07

Allan wrote:

repo-add foo.db.tar.xz .... - to make the repo db used by pacman
repo-add -f foo.files.tar.xz ... - to make a separate db with the files in it.

This makes a smaller db which is used by pacman (and so all users of the repo...) and a larger one that is used by (e.g.) pkgfile.

Thanks Allan. Good advice as always.

EDIT: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/32953

Last edited by graysky (2012-12-03 20:49:15)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-10-18 13:56:08

Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

#2 2012-10-18 16:12:07

Re: Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

#3 2012-10-18 16:29:49

Re: Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

#4 2012-10-18 16:42:59

Re: Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

#5 2012-10-18 16:57:16

Re: Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

#6 2012-10-18 17:09:18

Re: Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

#7 2012-10-18 17:36:44

Re: Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

#8 2012-10-18 17:49:30

Re: Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

#9 2012-10-21 04:15:36

Re: Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

#10 2012-10-21 05:05:10

Re: Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

#11 2012-10-21 06:21:50

Re: Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

#12 2012-12-03 20:18:07

Re: Please consider providing files.tar.gz for your unofficial user repo

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