1 .TH dgit 1 "" "Debian Project" "dgit"
3 dgit \- git integration with the Debian archive
7 [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fBclone\fP [\fIdgit\-opts\fP]
8 \fIpackage\fP [\fIsuite\fP] [\fB./\fP\fIdir|\fB/\fP\fIdir\fR]
11 [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fBfetch\fP|\fBpull\fP [\fIdgit\-opts\fP]
15 [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fBbuild\fP|\fBsbuild\fP|\fBbuild-source\fP
19 [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fBpush\fP [\fIdgit\-opts\fP]
23 [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fBrpush\fR \fIbuild-host\fR\fB:\fR\fIbuild-dir\fR
27 [\fIdgit\-opts\fP] \fIaction\fR ...
30 treats the Debian archive as a version control system, and
31 bidirectionally gateways between the archive and git. The git view of
32 the package can contain the usual upstream git history, and will be
33 augmented by commits representing uploads done by other developers not
34 using dgit. This git history is stored in a canonical location known
37 which lives outside the Debian archive (currently, on Alioth).
39 The usual workflow is: 1. clone or fetch; 2. make and commit changes
40 in git as desired; 3. run dgit build, dgit sbuild or dgit
41 build-source, or generate the source and binary packages for upload
42 some other way; 4. do pre-upload tests of the proposed upload; 5. run
45 \fBdgit clone\fR \fIpackage\fP [\fIsuite\fP] [\fB./\fP\fIdir|\fB/\fP\fIdir\fR]
46 Consults the archive and dgit-repos to construct the git view of
53 in a new directory (named
56 also, downloads any necessary orig tarballs.
58 The suite's git tip is
59 left on the local branch
61 ready for work, and on the corresponding dgit remote tracking branch.
64 remote will be set up to point to the package's dgit-repos tree
65 for the distro to which
69 \fBdgit fetch\fR [\fIsuite\fP]
70 Consults the archive and git-repos to update the git view of
71 history for a specific suite (and downloads any necessary orig
72 tarballs), and updates the remote tracking branch
73 .BR remotes/dgit/dgit/ \fIsuite\fR.
74 If the current branch is
76 then dgit fetch defaults to
78 otherwise it parses debian/changelog and uses the suite specified
81 \fBdgit pull\fR [\fIsuite\fP]
82 Does dgit fetch, and then merges the new head of the remote tracking
84 .BI remotes/dgit/dgit/ suite
85 into the current branch.
90 with some suitable options. Options and argumments after build
91 will be passed on to dpkg-buildpackage. It is not necessary to use
92 dgit build when using dgit; it is OK to use any approach which ensures
93 that the generated source package corresponds to the relevant git
96 Tagging, signing and actually uploading should be left to dgit push.
98 \fBdgit build-source\fR ...
99 Builds the source package, and a changes file for a prospective
100 source-only upload, using
102 The output is left in
103 .IR package \fB_\fR version \fB.dsc\fR
105 .IR package \fB_\fR version \fB_source.changes\fR.
107 Tagging, signing and actually uploading should be left to dgit push.
110 Print a usage summary.
112 \fBdgit sbuild\fR ...
113 Constructs the source package, uses
115 to do a binary build, and uses mergechanges to merge the source and
116 binary changes files. Options and argumments after sbuild will be
117 passed on to sbuild. Changes files matching
118 .IB package _ version _*.changes
119 in the parent directory will be removed; the output is left in
120 .IR package \fB_\fR version \fB_multi.changes\fR.
122 Tagging, signing and actually uploading should be left to dgit push.
124 \fBdgit git-build\fR ...
127 with some suitable options. Options and argumments after git-build
128 will be passed on to git-buildpackage.
130 Tagging, signing and actually uploading should be left to dgit push.
132 \fBdgit push\fR [\fIsuite\fP]
133 Does an `upload', pushing the current HEAD to the archive (as a source
134 package) and to dgit-repos (as git commits). The package must already
135 have been built ready for upload, with the .dsc and .changes
136 left in the parent directory.
138 In more detail: dgit push checks that the current HEAD corresponds to
139 the .dsc. It then pushes the HEAD to the suite's dgit-repos branch,
140 makes a signed git tag, edits the .dsc to contain the dgit metadata
141 field, runs debsign to sign the upload (.dsc and .changes), pushes the
142 signed tag, and finally uses dput to upload the .changes to the
145 dgit push always uses the package, suite and version specified in the
146 debian/changelog and the .dsc, which must agree. If the command line
147 specifies a suite then that must match too.
149 If dgit push fails while uploading, it is fine to simply retry the
150 dput on the .changes file at your leisure.
152 \fBdgit rpush\fR \fIbuild-host\fR\fB:\fR\fIbuild-dir\fR [\fIpush args...\fR]
153 Pushes the contents of the specified directory on a remote machine.
154 This is like running dgit push on build-host with build-dir as the
155 current directory; however, signing operations are done on the
156 invoking host. This allows you to do a push when the system which has
157 the source code and the build outputs has no access to the key.
159 However, the build-host must be able to ssh to the dgit repos. If
160 this is not already the case, you must organise it separately, for
161 example by the use of ssh agent forwarding.
163 The remaining arguments are treated just as dgit push would handle
166 build-host and build\-dir can be passed as separate
167 arguments; this is assumed to be the case if the first argument
168 contains no : (except perhaps on in [ ], to support IPv6 address
171 You will need similar enough versions of dgit on the build-host and
172 the invocation host. The build-host needs gnupg installed, with your
173 public key in its keyring (but not your private key, obviously).
176 Looks to see if the tree is one which dpkg-source cannot properly
177 represent. If it isn't, dgit will fix it up for you (in quilt terms,
178 by making a new debian/ patch containing your unquilty changes) and
179 make a commit of the changes it has made.
181 This is normally done automatically by dgit build and dgit push.
184 Prints version information and exits.
188 Go through the motions, fetching all information needed, but do not
189 actually update the output(s). For push, dgit does
190 the required checks and leaves the new .dsc in a temporary file,
191 but does not sign, tag, push or upload.
194 Go through many more of the motions: do everything that doesn't
195 involve either signing things, or making changes on the public
201 for signing the tag and the upload.
204 does not sign tags or uploads (meaningful only with push).
208 Specifies that we should process source package
210 rather than looking in debian/control or debian/changelog.
211 Valid with dgit fetch and dgit pull, only.
213 .BR --clean=git | -wg
214 The source tree should be cleaned, before building a source package
215 with one of the build options, using
216 .BR "git clean -xdf" .
217 This will delete all files which are not tracked by git.
219 .BR --clean=none | -wn
220 Do not clean the tree before building a source package. If there are
221 files which are not in git, a subsequent dgit push will fail.
223 .BR --clean=dpkg-source | -wd
224 Use dpkg-buildpackage to do the clean, so that the source package
225 is cleaned by dpkg-source running the package's clean target.
226 This is the default. It requires the package's build dependencies.
229 The package may be new in this suite. Without this, dgit will
233 Do not complain if the working tree does not match your git HEAD.
234 This can be useful with build, if you plan to commit later. (dgit
235 push will still ensure that the .dsc you upload and the git tree
236 you push are identical, so this option won't make broken pushes.)
238 This option may not work properly on `3.0 (quilt)' packages, as in
239 that case dgit needs to use and perhaps commit parts of your working
243 Do not fix up source format `3.0 (quilt)' metadata. If you use this
244 option and the package did in fact need fixing up, dgit push will
248 Prints debugging information to stderr. Repeating the option produces
249 more output (currently, up to -DD is meaningfully different).
252 Specifies a git configuration option. dgit itself is also controlled
253 by git configuration options.
255 .RI \fB-v\fR version "|\fB_\fR | " \fB--since-version=\fR version |\fB_\fR
258 option to pass to dpkg-genchanges, during builds. Changes (from
259 debian/changelog) since this version will be included in the built
260 changes file, and hence in the upload. If this option is not
261 specified, dgit will query the archive and use the latest version
262 uploaded to the intended suite.
266 inhibits this, so that no -v option will be passed to dpkg-genchanges
267 (and as a result, only the last stanza from debian/changelog will
268 be used for the build and upload).
270 .RI \fB-m\fR maintaineraddress
271 Passed to dpkg-genchanges (eventually).
273 .RI \fB--ch:\fR option
274 Specifies a single additional option to pass, eventually, to
277 .RI \fB--curl=\fR program |\fB--dput=\fR program |...
278 Specifies alternative programs to use instead of
283 .BR dpkg-buildpackage ,
284 .BR dpkg-genchanges ,
292 For dpkg-buildpackage, dpkg-genchanges, mergechanges and sbuild,
293 this applies only when the program is invoked directly by dgit.
295 For dgit, specifies the command to run on the remote host when dgit
296 rpush needs to invoke a remote copy of itself. (dgit also reinvokes
297 itself as the EDITOR for dpkg-source --commit; this is done using
298 argv[0], and is not affected by --dgit=).
300 For ssh, the default value is taken from the
304 environment variables, if set (see below). And, for ssh, when accessing the
305 archive and dgit-repos, this command line setting is overridden by the
307 .BI dgit-distro. distro .ssh
310 (which can in turn be overridden with -c). Also, when dgit is using
311 git to access dgit-repos, only git's idea of what ssh to use (eg,
315 .RI \fB--curl:\fR option |\fB--dput:\fR option |...
316 Specifies a single additional option to pass to
321 .BR dpkg-buildpackage ,
322 .BR dpkg-genchanges ,
328 Can be repeated as necessary.
330 For dpkg-buildpackage, dpkg-genchanges, mergechanges and sbuild,
331 this applies only when the program is invoked directly by dgit.
332 Usually, for passing options to dpkg-genchanges, you should use
333 .BR --ch: \fIoption\fR.
335 See notes above regarding ssh and dgit.
337 NB that --gpg:option is not supported (because debsign does not
338 have that facility). But see -k.
340 .BR -d "\fIdistro\fR | " --distro= \fIdistro\fR
341 Specifies that the suite to be operated on is part of distro
343 This overrides the default value found from the git config option
344 .BR dgit-suite. \fIsuite\fR .distro .
345 The only effect is that other configuration variables (used
346 for accessing the archive and dgit-repos) used are
347 .BR dgit-distro. \fIdistro\fR .* .
349 If your suite is part of a distro that dgit already knows about, you
350 can use this option to make dgit work even if your dgit doesn't know
351 about the suite. For example, specifying
353 will work when the suite is an unknown suite in the Debian archive.
355 To define a new distro it is necessary to define methods and URLs
356 for fetching (and, for dgit push, altering) a variety of information both
357 in the archive and in dgit-repos. How to do this is not yet
358 documented, and currently the arrangements are unpleasant. See
362 Specifies the .changes file which is to be uploaded. By default
363 dgit push looks for single .changes file in the parent directory whose
364 filename suggests it is for the right package and version - or,
365 if there is a _multi.changes file, dgit uses that.
369 pathname contains slashes, the directory part is also used as
371 .BR --build-products-dir ;
372 otherwise, the changes file is expected in that directory (by
376 .BI --build-products-dir= directory
377 Specifies where to find the built files to be uploaded.
378 By default, dgit looks in the parent directory
381 .BI --existing-package= package
382 dgit push needs to canonicalise the suite name. Sometimes, dgit
383 lacks a way to ask the archive to do this without knowing the
384 name of an existing package. Without --new we can just use the
385 package we are trying to push. But with --new that will not work, so
388 or use the value of this option. This option is not needed with the
389 default mechanisms for accessing the archive.
392 Print a usage summary.
394 .BI --initiator-tempdir= directory
395 dgit rpush uses a temporary directory on the invoking (signing) host.
396 This option causes dgit to use
398 instead. Furthermore, the specified directory will be emptied,
399 removed and recreated before dgit starts, rather than removed
400 after dgit finishes. The directory specified must be an absolute
404 Do not delete the destination directory if clone fails.
405 .SH WORKFLOW - SIMPLE
406 It is always possible with dgit to clone or fetch a package, make
407 changes in git (using git-commit) on the suite branch
408 .RB ( "git checkout dgit/" \fIsuite\fR)
409 and then dgit push. You can use whatever gitish techniques you like
410 to construct the commit to push; the only requirement is that it is a
411 descendant of the state of the archive, as provided by dgit in the
412 remote tracking branch
413 .BR remotes/dgit/dgit/ \fIsuite\fR.
415 If you are lucky the other uploaders have also used dgit and
416 integrated the other relevant git history; if not you can fetch it
417 into your tree and cherry-pick etc. as you wish.
418 .SH WORKFLOW - INTEGRATING BETWEEN DGIT AND OTHER GIT HISTORY
419 If you are the maintainer of a package dealing with uploads made
420 without dgit, you will probably want to merge the synthetic commits
421 (made by dgit to represent the uploads) into your git history.
422 Normally you can just merge the dgit branch into your own master, or
423 indeed if you do your work on the dgit local suite branch
425 you can just use dgit pull.
427 However the first time dgit is used it will generate a new origin
428 commit from the archive which won't be linked into the rest of your
429 git history. You will need to merge this.
431 If last upload was in fact made with git, you should usually proceed
432 as follows: identify the commit which was actually used to build the
433 package. (Hopefully you have a tag for this.) Check out the dgit
435 .RB ( "git checkout dgit/" \fIsuite\fR)
436 and merge that other commit
437 .RB ( "git merge debian/" \fIversion\fR).
438 Hopefully this merge will be trivial because the two trees should
439 be the same. The resulting branch head can be merged into your
441 .RB ( "git checkout master && git merge dgit/" \fIsuite\fR).
443 If last upload was not made with git, a different approach is required
444 to start using dgit. First, do
446 (or clone) to obtain a git history representation of what's in the
447 archive and record it in the
448 .BI remotes/dgit/dgit/ suite
449 tracking branch. Then somehow, using your other git history
450 plus appropriate diffs and cherry picks from the dgit remote tracking
451 branch, construct a git commit whose tree corresponds to the tree to use for the
452 next upload. If that commit-to-be-uploaded is not a descendant of the
453 dig remote tracking branch, check it out and say
454 .BR "git merge -s ours remotes/dgit/dgit/" \fIsuite\fR;
455 that tells git that we are deliberately throwing away any differences
456 between what's in the archive and what you intend to upload.
459 to actually upload the result.
461 You may use any suitable git workflow with dgit, provided you
462 satisfy dgit's requirements:
464 dgit maintains a pseudo-remote called
466 with one branch per suite. This remote cannot be used with
471 repository for each package contains one ref per suite named
472 \fBrefs/dgit/\fR\fIsuite\fR. These should be pushed to only by
473 dgit. They are fast forwarding. Each push on this branch
474 corresponds to an upload (or attempted upload).
476 However, it is perfectly fine to have other branches in dgit-repos;
477 normally the dgit-repos repo for the package will be accessible via
478 the remote name `origin'.
480 dgit push will also (by default) make signed tags called
482 and push them to dgit-repos, but nothing depends on these tags
485 dgit push can operate on any commit which is a descendant of the
486 current dgit/suite tip in dgit-repos.
488 Uploads made by dgit contain an additional field
490 in the source package .dsc. (This is added by dgit push.)
491 This specifies a commit (an ancestor of the dgit/suite
492 branch) whose tree is identical to the unpacked source upload.
494 Uploads not made by dgit are represented in git by commits which are
495 synthesised by dgit. The tree of each such commit corresponds to the
496 unpacked source; there is an origin commit with the contents, and a
497 psuedo-merge from last known upload - that is, from the contents of
498 the dgit/suite branch.
500 dgit expects repos that it works with to have a
502 remote. This refers to the well-known dgit-repos location
503 (currently, the dgit-repos project on Alioth). dgit fetch updates
504 the remote tracking branch for dgit/suite.
506 dgit does not (currently) represent the orig tarball(s) in git. The
507 orig tarballs are downloaded (by dgit clone) into the parent
508 directory, as with a traditional (non-gitish) dpkg-source workflow.
509 You need to retain these tarballs in the parent directory for dgit
512 To a user looking at the archive, changes pushed using dgit look like
513 changes made in an NMU: in a `3.0 (quilt)' package the delta from the
514 previous upload is recorded in a new patch constructed by dpkg-source.
515 .SH READ-ONLY DISTROS
516 Distros which do not maintain a set of dgit history git repositories
517 can still be used in a read-only mode with dgit. Currently Ubuntu
518 is configured this way.
519 .SH PACKAGE SOURCE FORMATS
520 If you are not the maintainer, you do not need to worry about the
521 source format of the package. You can just make changes as you like
522 in git. If the package is a `3.0 (quilt)' package, the patch stack
523 will usually not be represented in the git history.
525 If you are the maintainer of a non-native package, you currently have
526 two sensible options:
528 Firstly, you can regard your git history as primary, and the archive
529 as an export format. For example, you could maintain topic branches
530 in git and a fast-forwarding release branch; or you could do your work
531 directly in a merging way on the
533 branches. If you do this you should probably use a `1.0' format
534 source package if you can. In the archive, the delta between upstream
535 will be represented in the single Debian patch.
537 Secondly, you can use `3.0 (quilt)', and regard your quiltish patch
538 stack in the archive as primary. You will have to use other tools
539 besides dgit to import and export this patch stack. But see below:
540 .SH FORMAT 3.0 (QUILT)
541 For a format `3.0 (quilt)' source package, dgit may have to make a
542 commit on your current branch to contain metadata used by quilt and
545 This is because (i) the `3.0 (quilt)' source format cannot represent
546 certain trees, and (ii) packing up a tree in `3.0 (quilt)' and then
547 unpacking it does not always yield the same tree. Instead,
548 dpkg-source insists on the trees having extra quilty metadata and
549 patch files in the debian/ and .pc/ directories, which dpkg-source
552 dgit will automatically work around this braindamage for you when
553 building and pushing. The only thing you need to know is that dgit
554 build, sbuild, etc., may make a new commit on your HEAD. If you're
555 not a quilt user this commit won't contain any changes to files you
558 You can explicitly request that dgit do just this fixup, by running
561 We recommend against the use of `3.0 (quilt)'.
562 .SH FILES IN THE SOURCE PACKAGE BUT NOT IN GIT
563 This section is mainly of interest to maintainers who want to use dgit
564 with their existing git history for the Debian package.
566 Some developers like to have an extra-clean git tree which lacks files
567 which are normally found in source tarballs and therefore in Debian
568 source packages. For example, it is conventional to ship ./configure
569 in the source tarball, but some people prefer not to have it present
570 in the git view of their project.
572 dgit requires that the source package unpacks to exactly the same
573 files as are in the git commit on which dgit push operates. So if you
574 just try to dgit push directly from one of these extra-clean git
575 branches, it will fail.
577 As the maintainer you therefore have the following options:
580 Persuade upstream that the source code in their git history and the
581 source they ship as tarballs should be identical. Of course simply
582 removing the files from the tarball may make the tarball hard for
585 One answer is to commit the (maybe autogenerated)
586 files, perhaps with some simple automation to deal with conflicts and
587 spurious changes. This has the advantage that someone who clones
588 the git repository finds the program just as easy to build as someone
589 who uses the tarball.
592 Have separate git branches which do contain the extra files, and after
593 regenerating the extra files (whenever you would have to anyway),
594 commit the result onto those branches.
597 Provide source packages which lack the files you don't want
598 in git, and arrange for your package build to create them as needed.
599 This may mean not using upstream source tarballs and makes the Debian
600 source package less useful for people without Debian build
603 Of course it may also be that the differences are due to build system
604 bugs, which cause unintended files to end up in the source package.
605 dgit will notice this and complain. You may have to fix these bugs
606 before you can unify your existing git history with dgit's.
608 dgit looks at the following git config keys to control its behaviour.
609 You may set them with git-config (either in system-global or per-tree
610 configuration), or provide
612 on the dgit command line.
614 .BI dgit-suite. suite .distro
616 .BI dgit.default.distro
618 .BI dgit-distro. distro .username
620 .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-url
622 .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-user
624 .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-host
626 .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-proto
628 .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-path
630 .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-check
632 .BI dgit-distro. distro .git-create
634 .BI dgit-distro. distro .upload-host
636 .BI dgit-distro. distro .mirror
638 .BI dgit-distro. distro .archive-query
640 .BI dgit-distro. distro .archive-query-default-component
642 .BI dgit-distro. distro .sshpsql-user
644 .BI dgit-distro. distro .sshpsql-host
646 .BI dgit-distro. distro .sshpsql-dbname
648 .BI dgit-distro. distro .ssh
650 .BI dgit-distro. distro .keyid
654 .BR dgit-distro. \fIdistro\fR . *
655 .SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
657 .BR DGIT_SSH ", " GIT_SSH
658 specify an alternative default program (and perhaps arguments) to use
659 instead of ssh. DGIT_SSH is consulted first and may contain arguments;
660 if it contains any whitespace will be passed to the shell. GIT_SSH
661 specifies just the program; no arguments can be specified, so dgit
662 interprets it the same way as git does.
664 also the --ssh= and --ssh: options.
666 .BR gpg ", " dpkg- "..., " debsign ", " git ", " curl ", " dput ", " LWP::UserAgent
667 and other subprograms and modules used by dgit are affected by various
668 environment variables. Consult the documentaton for those programs
671 We should be using some kind of vhost/vpath setup for the git repos on
672 alioth, so that they can be moved later if and when this turns out to
675 dgit push should perhaps do `git push origin', or something similar,
678 Debian does not have a working rmadison server, so to find out what
679 version of a package is in the archive, or to canonicalise suite
680 names, we ssh directly into the ftpmaster server and run psql there to
683 The mechanism for checking for and creating per-package repos on
684 alioth is a hideous bodge. One consequence is that dgit currently
685 only works for people with push access.
687 Debian Maintainers are currently not able to push, as there is not
688 currently any mechanism for determining and honouring the archive's
689 ideas about access control. Currently only DDs can push.
691 dgit's representation of format `3.0 (quilt)' source packages does not
692 represent the patch stack. Currently the patch series representation
693 cannot round trip through the archive. Ideally dgit would represent a
694 quilty package with an origin commit of some kind followed by the
695 patch stack as a series of commits followed by a pseudo-merge (to make
696 the branch fast-forwarding). This would also mean a new `dgit
697 rebase-prep' command or some such to turn such a fast-forwarding
698 branch back into a rebasing patch stack, and a `force' option to dgit
699 push (perhaps enabled automatically by a note left by rebase-prep)
700 which will make the required pseudo-merge.
702 If the dgit push fails halfway through, it should be restartable and
703 idempotent. However this is not true for the git tag operation.
704 Also, it would be good to check that the proposed signing key is
705 available before starting work.
707 dgit's handling of .orig.tar.gz is not very sophisticated. Ideally
708 the .orig.tar.gz could be transported via the git repo as git tags.
709 Doing this is made more complicated by the possibility of a `3.0
710 (quilt)' package with multiple .orig tarballs.
712 dgit's build functions, and dgit push, should not make any changes to
713 your current HEAD. Sadly this is necessary for packages in the `3.0
714 (quilt)' source format. This is ultimately due to design problems in
715 quilt and dpkg-source.
717 There should be an option which arranges for the `3.0 (quilt)'
718 autocommit to not appear on your HEAD, but instead only in the
719 remote tracking suite branch.
721 The option parser requires values to be cuddled to the option name.
723 dgit assumes knowledge of the archive database. (The information dgit
724 needs is not currently available via any public online service with a
725 well-defined interface, let alone a secure one.)
727 --dry-run does not always work properly, as not doing some of the git
728 fetches may result in subsequent actions being different. Doing a
729 non-dry-run dgit fetch first will help.
735 \fBgit-buildpackage\fP(1),
736 \fBdpkg-buildpackage\fP(1),
738 https://wiki.debian.org/Alioth
~ianmdlvl / dgit.git / blob