Arch Linux

netjiro

Member

Registered: 2023-11-22

Posts: 3

is it possible to re-pack/re-sign packages with new key? (automated)

Is it possible (automated) to unpack-repack-sign or simply re-sign packages with a new key?

A customer of mine is relying on software from an internal (3y+ old) frozen snapshot of arch [core,extra,multilib] packages.

They made no provisions for keeping it up to date with community.
Now they want to get back to using community keyring.

Is there a way they can repack / re-sign their snapshot packages with their own key?

Remaining on frozen software is not a good idea, but currently:
business reality is not allowing update for compliance reasons.

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,414

Re: is it possible to re-pack/re-sign packages with new key? (automated)

Now they want to get back to using community keyring.

Why is that?

netjiro

Member

Registered: 2023-11-22

Posts: 3

Re: is it possible to re-pack/re-sign packages with new key? (automated)

Why is that?

A few of their customers are asking for straight forward access to wider arch community software.

I am unfortunately not that arch-skilled, so this was the (somewhat) straight forward solution I thought of.
Very Happy for any suggestions!
Hopefully I'm missing something simple and obvious

If they can have all their old snapshot software signed by themselves, then there are no issues for the customers to update select parts of system to work with modern software. In reality, of course, limited to how painful that gets.

Last edited by netjiro (2023-11-22 16:22:05)

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 11,587

Re: is it possible to re-pack/re-sign packages with new key? (automated)

...to update select parts of system to work with modern software.

This is a partial update, and is specifically not supported in Arch. Arch takes almost no steps to guard against updating to incompatible versions, you WILL destroy your system doing this.

netjiro

Member

Registered: 2023-11-22

Posts: 3

Re: is it possible to re-pack/re-sign packages with new key? (automated)

you WILL destroy your system

Thank you!
Very important!
Did not know.

I will take a chat with the guys and push it.

Last edited by netjiro (2023-11-22 17:14:19)