.TH dgit 1 "" "Debian Project" "dgit" .SH NAME dgit \- git integration with the Debian archive . .SH SYNOPSIS .B dgit [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fBclone\fP [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fIpackage\fP [\fIsuite\fP] [\fB./\fP\fIdir|\fB/\fP\fIdir] .br .B dgit [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fBfetch\fP|\fBpull\fP [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] [\fIsuite\fP] .br .B dgit [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fBbuild\fP|\fBsbuild\fP [\fIbuild\-opts\fp] .br .B dgit [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fBpush\fP [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] [\fIsuite\fP] .br .B dgit [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fIaction\fR ... .SH DESCRIPTION .B dgit treats the Debian archive as a version control system, and bidirectionally gateways between the archive and git. The git view of the package can contain the usual upstream git history, and will be augmented by commits representing uploads done by other developers not using dgit. This git history is stored in a canonical location known as .B dgit-repos which lives outside the Debian archive (currently, on Alioth). The usual workflow is: 1. clone or fetch; 2. make and commit changes in git as desired; 3. run dgit build or dgit sbuild, or generate the source and binary packages for upload some other way; 4. do pre-upload tests of the proposed upload; 5. run dgit push. .TP \fBdgit clone\fR \fIpackage\fP [\fIsuite\fP] [\fB./\fP\fIdir|\fB/\fP\fIdir] Consults the archive and dgit-repos to construct the git view of history for .I package in .I suite .RB ( sid by default) in a new directory (named .BI ./ package by default); also, downloads any necessary orig tarballs. The suite's git tip is left on the local branch .BI dgit/ suite ready for work, and on the corresponding dgit remote tracking branch. Also, the .B origin remote will be set up to point to the package's dgit-repos tree for the distro to which .I suite belongs. .TP \fBdgit fetch\fR [\fIsuite\fP] Consults the archive and git-repos to update the git view of history for a specific suite (and downloads any necessary orig tarballs), and updates the remote tracking branch .BR remotes/dgit/ \fIsuite\fR. If the current branch is .BI dgit/ suite then dgit fetch defaults to .IR suite ; otherwise it parses debian/changelog and uses the suite specified there. .TP \fBdgit pull\fR [\fIsuite\fP] Does dgit fetch, and then merges the new head of the remote tracking branch .BI remotes/dgit/ suite into the current branch. .TP \fBdgit build\fR ... Runs .B git-buildpackage with some suitable options. Options and argumments after build will be passed on to git-buildpackage. It is not necessary to use dgit build when using dgit; it is OK to use any approach which ensures that the generated source package corresponds to the relevant git commit. Tagging and signing should be left to dgit push. .TP \fBdgit sbuild\fR ... Constructs the source package, and uses sbuild to do a binary build, and uses mergechanges to merge the source and binary changes files. Options and argumments after sbuild will be passed on to sbuild. Changes files matching .IB package _ version _*.changes in the parent directory will be removed; the output is left in .IR package \fB_\fR version \fB_multi.changes\fR. .TP .B dgit push Does an `upload', pushing the current HEAD to the archive (as a source package) and to dgit-repos (as git commits). The package must already have been built ready for upload, with the .dsc and .changes left in the parent directory. In more detail: dgit push checks that the current HEAD corresponds to the .dsc. It then pushes the HEAD to the suite's dgit-repos branch, makes a signed git tag, edits the .dsc to contain the dgit metadata field, runs debsign to sign the upload (.dsc and .changes), pushes the signed tag, and finally uses dput to upload the .changes to the archive. For a format `3.0 (quilt)' source package, dgit push may also have to make a commit on your current branch to contain quilt metadata. It will do this automatically if necessary. You can explicitly request that dgit do just this dgit quilt-fixup. dgit push always uses the package, suite and version specified in the debian/changelog and the .dsc, which must agree. If dgit push fails while uploading, it is fine to simply retry the dput on the .changes file at your leisure. .TP .B dgit quilt-fixup Looks to see if there is quilt patch metadata left over by dpkg-source -b, and if so makes a git commit of it. This is normally done automatically by dgit push. dgit quilt-fixup takes no additional arguments. Note that it will only process a patch generated by dpkg-source for the most recent version (according to the debia/changelog). It is not normally necessary to run dgit quilt-fixup explicitly; where necessary it is done as part of dgit push. .SH WORKFLOW - SIMPLE It is always possible with dgit to clone or fetch a package, make changes in git (using git-commit) on the suite branch .RB ( "git checkout dgit/" \fIsuite\fR) and then dgit push. You can use whatever gitish techniques you like to construct the commit to push; the only requirement is that it is a descendant of the state of the archive, as provided by dgit in the remote tracking branch .BR remotes/dgit/ \fIsuite\fR. If you are lucky the other uploaders have also used dgit and integrated the other relevant git history; if not you can fetch it into your tree and cherry-pick etc. as you wish. .SH WORKFLOW - INTEGRATING BETWEEN DGIT AND OTHER GIT HISTORY If you are the maintainer of a package dealing with uploads made without dgit, you will probably want to merge the synthetic commits (made by dgit to represent the uploads) into your git history. Normally you can just merge the dgit branch into your own master, or indeed if you do your work on the dgit local suite branch .BI dgit/ suite you can just use dgit pull. However the first time dgit is used it will generate a new origin commit from the archive which won't be linked into the rest of your git history. You will need to merge this. If last upload was in fact made with git, you should usually proceed as follows: identify the commit which was actually used to build the package. (Hopefully you have a tag for this.) Check out the dgit branch .RB ( "git checkout dgit/" \fIsuite\fR) and merge that other commit .RB ( "git merge debian/" \fIversion\fR). Hopefully this merge will be trivial because the two trees should be the same. The resulting branch head can be merged into your working branches .RB ( "git checkout master && git merge dgit/" \fIsuite\fR). If last upload was not made with git, a different approach is required to start using dgit. First, do .B dgit fetch (or clone) to obtain a git history representation of what's in the archive and record it in the .BI remotes/dgit/ suite tracking branch. Then somehow, using your other git history plus appropriate diffs and cherry picks from the dgit remote tracking branch, construct a git commit whose tree corresponds to the tree to use for the next upload. If that commit-to-be-uploaded is not a descendant of the dig remote tracking branch, check it out and say .BR "git merge -s ours remotes/dgit/" \fIsuite\fR; that tells git that we are deliberately throwing away any differences between what's in the archive and what you intend to upload. Then run .BR "dgit push" to actually upload the result. .SH MODEL You may use any suitable git workflow with dgit, provided you satisfy dgit's requirements: dgit maintains a pseudo-remote called .BR dgit , with one branch per suite. This remote cannot be used with plain git. The .B dgit-repos repository for each package contains one ref per suite named \fBrefs/dgit/\fR\fIsuite\fR. These should be pushed to only by dgit. They are fast forwarding. Each push on this branch corresponds to an upload (or attempted upload). However, it is perfectly fine to have other branches in dgit-repos; normally the dgit-repos repo for the package will be accessible via the remote name `origin'. dgit push will also (by default) make signed tags called .BI debian/ version and push them to dgit-repos, but nothing depends on these tags existing. dgit push can operate on any commit which is a descendant of the current dgit/suite tip in dgit-repos. Uploads made by dgit contain an additional field .B Vcs-Dgit-Master in the source package .dsc. (This is added by dgit push.) This specifies a commit (an ancestor of the dgit/suite branch) whose tree is identical to the unpacked source upload. Uploads not made by dgit are represented in git by commits which are synthesised by dgit. The tree of each such commit corresponds to the unpacked source; there is an origin commit with the contents, and a psuedo-merge from last known upload - that is, from the contents of the dgit/suite branch. dgit expects repos that it works with to have a .B dgit remote. This refers to the well-known dgit-repos location (currently, the dgit-repos project on Alioth). dgit fetch updates the remote tracking branch for dgit/suite. dgit does not (currently) represent the orig tarball(s) in git; nor does it represent the patch statck of a `3.0 (quilt)' package. The orig tarballs are downloaded and kept in the parent directory, as with a traditional (non-gitish) dpkg-source workflow. To a user looking at the archive, changes pushed using dgit look like changes made in an NMU: in a `3.0 (quilt)' package the delta from the previous upload is recorded in a new patch constructed by dpkg-source. .SH PACKAGE SOURCE FORMATS If you are not the maintainer, you do not need to worry about the source format of the package. You can just make changes as you like in git. If the package is a `3.0 (quilt)' package, the patch stack will usually not be represented in the git history. If you are the maintainer of a non-native package, you currently have two sensible options: Firstly, you can regard your git history as primary, and the archive as an export format. For example, you could maintain topic branches in git and a fast-forwarding release branch; or you could do your work directly in a merging way on the .BI dgit/ suite branches. If you do this you should probably use a `1.0' format source package. In the archive, the delta between upstream will be represented in the single Debian patch. Secondly, you can regard your quiltish patch stack in the archive as primary. You will have to use other tools besides dgit to import and export this patch stack. For `3.0 (quilt)' packages, dgit has to do more work to work around some braindamage in way dpkg-source handles changes made to this format. See also the BUGS section. We recommend against the use of `3.0 (quilt)'. .SH OPTIONS .TP .BR --dry-run | -n Go through the motions, fetching all information needed, but do not actually update the output(s). For push, dgit does the required checks and leaves the new .dsc in a temporary file, but does not sign, tag, push or upload. .TP .BI -k keyid Use .I keyid for signing the tag and the upload. .TP .BR --no-sign does not sign tags or uploads (meaningful only with push). .TP .TP .BI -p package Specifies that we should process source package .I package rather than looking in debian/control or debian/changelog. Valid with dgit fetch and dgit pull, only. .TP .BR -N | --new The package may be new in this suite. Without this, dgit will refuse to push. .TP .BI -D Prints debugging information to stderr. Repeating the option produces more output (currently, up to -DD is meaningfully different). .TP .BI -c name = value Specifies a git configuration option. dgit itself is also controlled by git configuration options. .TP .RI \fB--dget=\fR program |\fB--dput=\fR program |... Specifies alternative programs to use instead of .BR dget , .BR dput , .BR debsign , .BR dpkg-buildpackage .BR sbuild , or .BR mergechanges . .TP .RI \fB--dget:\fR option |\fB--dput:\fR option |... Specifies a single additional option to pass to .BR dget , .BR dput , .BR debsign , .BR dpkg-buildpackage .BR sbuild , or .BR mergechanges . Can be repeated as necessary. .TP .BR -d "\fIdistro\fR | " --distro= \fIdistro\fR Specifies that the suite to be operated on is part of distro .IR distro . This overrides the default value found from the git config option .BR dgit-suite. \fIsuite\fR .distro . The only effect is that other configuration variables (used for accessing the archive and dgit-repos) used are .BR dgit-distro. \fIdistro\fR .* . If your suite is part of a distro that dgit already knows about, you can use this option to make dgit work even if your dgit doesn't know about the suite. For example, specifying .B -ddebian will work when the suite is an unknown suite in the Debian archive. To define a new distro it is necessary to define methods and URLs for fetching (and, for dgit push, altering) a variety of information both in the archive and in dgit-repos. How to do this is not yet documented, and currently the arrangements are unpleasant. See BUGS. .TP .BI -C changesfile Specifies the .changes file which is to be uploaded. By default dgit push looks for single .changes file in the parent directory whose filename suggests it is for the right package and version - or, if there is a _multi.changes file, dgit uses that. .TP .BI --existing-package= package dgit push needs to canonicalise the suite name. But currently there is no way to ask the archive to do this without knowing the name of an existing package. Without --new we can just use the package we are trying to push. But with --new that will not work, so we guess .B dpkg or use the value of this option. .TP .BR -h | --help Print a usage summary. .SH SEE ALSO \fBdget\fP(1), \fBdput\fP(1), \fBdebsign\fP(1), \fBgit-config\fP(1), \fBgit-buildpackage\fP(1), \fBdpkg-buildpackage\fP(1), .br https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth .SH CONFIGURATION dgit looks at the following git config keys to control its behaviour. You may set them with git-config (either in system-global or per-tree configuration), or provide .BI -c key = value on the dgit command line. .TP .BI dgit-suite. suite .distro .TP .BI dgit.default.distro .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .username .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-url .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-user .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-host .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-proto .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-path .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-check .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-create .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .upload-host .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .mirror .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .archive-query .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .archive-query-default-component .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .sshdakls-user .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .sshdakls-host .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .sshdakls-dir .TP .BI dgit-distro. distro .ssh .TP .BR dgit.default. * for each .BR dgit-distro. \fIdistro\fR . * .SH BUGS We should be using some kind of vhost/vpath setup for the git repos on alioth, so that they can be moved later if and when this turns out to be a good idea. Debian Policy needs to be updated to describe the new Vcs-Dgit-Master field (and to specify that it is an RC bug for that field to refer to an unavailable commit). The method of canonicalising suite names is bizarre. See the .B --existing-package option for one of the implications. dgit push should perhaps do `git push origin', or something similar, by default. Debian does not have a working rmadison server, so to find out what version of a package is in the archive, or to canonicalise suite names, we ssh directly into the ftpmaster server. The mechanism for checking for and creating per-package repos on alioth is a hideous bodge. One consequence is that dgit currently only works for people with push access. Debian Maintainers are currently not able to push, as there is not currently any mechanism for determining and honouring the archive's ideas about access control. Currently only DDs can push. dgit's representation of format `3.0 (quilt)' source packages does not represent the patch stack. Currently the patch series representation cannot round trip through the archive. Ideally dgit would represent a quilty package with an origin commit of some kind followed by the patch stack as a series of commits followed by a pseudo-merge (to make the branch fast-forwarding). This would also mean a new `dgit rebase-prep' command or some such to turn such a fast-forwarding branch back into a rebasing patch stack, and a `force' option to dgit push (perhaps enabled automatically by a note left by rebase-prep) which will make the required pseudo-merge. If the dgit push fails halfway through, it should be restartable and idempotent. However this is not true for the git tag operation. Also, it would be good to check that the proposed signing key is available before starting work. dgit's handling of .orig.tar.gz is not very sophisticated. Ideally the .orig.tar.gz could be transported via the git repo as git tags. Doing this is made more complicated by the possibility of a `3.0 (quilt)' package with multiple .orig tarballs. `3.0 (quilt)' packages have an additional difficulty: if these are edited in the most normal way, and then fed to dpkg-buildpackage, dpkg-source will add extra quilt patch metadata to the source tree during the source package build. This extra metadata is then of course not included in the git history. So dgit push needs to commit it for you, to make sure that the git history and archive contents are identical. That this is necessary is a bug in the `3.0 (quilt)' format. There should be an option which arranges for the `3.0 (quilt)' autocommit to not appear on your HEAD, but instead only in the remote tracking suite branch. There should at the very least be some advice in the manpage about how to use dgit when the signing key is not available on the same machine as the build host. The option parser requires values to be cuddled to the option name. dgit assumes knowledge of the archive layout. There appears to be no sane way to find the path in the archive pool of the .dsc for a particular suite. I'm assured that the archive layout is a `well known algorithm' by now. --dry-run often does not work with fetch, even though this is a logically plausible request. (It fails, instead.)