tetra – builds RPMs for Java software
tetra
is a tool to help you build RPM packages for Java projects.
Packaging of Java projects is sometimes hard - mainly because build tools like Maven partially overlap with distro ones like RPM.
See MOTIVATION.md for further information.
Installation
You need:
- Ruby 2.7.0 or later;
- git with your credentials set in ~/.gitconfig (name and email);
- some basic Unix commands: bash, unzip, tar;
- a JDK that can compile whatever software you need to package;
- Fedora only: packages to compile native gems, use
yum install ruby-devel gcc-c++ zlib-devel
;
Install tetra
via RubyGems:
gem install tetra
Workflow
Building a package with tetra
is quite unusual — this is a deliberate choice, so don't worry. Basic steps are:
-
tetra init <package name> package_sources.tar.gz
to initialize the project and unpack original sources; -
cd
into the newly created<package name>
directory - if anything other than
ant
andmvn
is needed in order to build the project, add it to thekit/
directory in binary form; - execute
tetra dry-run
, which will open a bash subshell. Build your project, and when you are done conclude by exiting the subshell withCtrl+D
; -
cd
into the directory that containspom.xml
and executetetra generate-all
: tetra will scaffold spec files and tarballs.
Done!
How can that possibly work?
During the dry-run tetra
:
- saves your bash history, so that it can use it later to scaffold a build script;
- keeps track of changed files, in particular produced jars, which are included in the spec's
%files
section; - saves files downloaded from the Internet (eg. by Maven) and packs them to later allow networkless builds.
Note that with tetra
you are not building all dependencies from source - build dependencies are aggregated in a
binary-only "kit" package. This is typically sufficient to fulfill open source licenses and to have a repeatable,
networkless build.
A commons-collections walkthrough
First, grab the sources:
wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/commons/collections/source/commons-collections4-4.4-src.tar.gz
Second, create a new tetra
project named commons-collections
based on those sources:
tetra init commons-collections commons-collections4-4.0-src.tar.gz
cd commons-collections/src/commons-collections4-4.0-src
Third, you need to show tetra
how to build your package. Run tetra dry-run
and a new subshell will open, in there do
anything you would normally do to build the package (in this case, run Maven):
tetra dry-run
mvn package
^D
Note that you don't even need to install Maven - tetra
bundles a copy in kit/
and uses it by default!
Also note that this being a dry-run build, sources will be brought back to their original state after it finishes to
ensure repeatability.
Finally, generate build scripts, spec files and tarballs in the packages/
directory:
tetra generate-all
Note that tetra
will generate files for the commons-collections package and all binary-only build-time dependencies in
the packages/
folder.
In-depth information
In more complex cases building a package will require some special tweaks. We are trying to cover the most common in the SPECIAL_CASES.md file.
An in-depth discussion of this project's motivation is available in the MOTIVATION.md file.
Status
tetra
is considered stable. At the moment tetra
is tested on openSUSE.
Sources
tetra
's Git repo is available on GitHub.
License
MIT license.