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Psud0nym · Documentation

This will (of course) need more work. It may need separating into to documents. Input is encouraged and expected.

Psud0nym · Documentation

#How-To: Create a Debian package and a Debian repository

Debian packages and repositories are everywhere, yet many people don’t understand that creating them is actually pretty easy. While there are dozens of tutorials out there, none of them seemed to really show a good step-by-step. This is a quick tutorial on how to create a Debian package from scratch, and how to create a simple Debian repository.

##Content

1. Demo package ‘netutils’
2. Create a Debian package
2.1. Create the debian/ directory
2.2. Build the first (empty) package
2.3. Install the (empty) package
2.4. Adding files and updating the changelog
2.5. Updating the description and adding dependencies
3. Create and use a Debian repository
3.1. dpkg -i vs. apt-get install
3.2. Locally configured Debian/APT repositories (/etc/apt/sources.list.d/*.list)
3.3. The APT cache and Packages/Packages.gz files
3.4. Creating a local Debian repository
3.5. Adding the local Debian repository and installing via apt-get install
3.6. Listing and installing older versions
3.7. Normal/typical repository layout

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll create a package called netutils with a command called ipaddr. The purpose of the command will be to get the external IP address, just like this:

# Target command 'ipaddr' as part of the
	# to-be-built 'netutils' package
	$ ipaddr
	82.143.12.32

2. Create a Debian package

Let’s start by creating the empty project directory netutils/. This folder will contain both the source code and the Debian build instructions.

2.1. Create the debian/ directory

For now, we’ll use the dh_make command to create the debian/ directory:

# Create empty project folder
	$ mkdir -p Debian/netutils
	$ cd Debian/netutils

# Create debian/ folder with example files (.ex)

$ dh_make \
	  --native \
	  --single \
	  --packagename netutils_1.0.0 \
	  --email phil@example.com

This created the debian/ folder. Explore them! Especially the example files (*.ex) as well as most importantly the files:

debian/control
	/changelog
	debian/rules

There are maaaany files, and Debian documented all of them in the Debian Maintainer’s Guide. For now, we don’t care about the rest of them, but here’s a list of all the created files:

$ find debian/ | sort
	debian/
	debian/changelog
	debian/compat
	debian/control
	debian/copyright
	debian/netutils.cron.d.ex
	debian/netutils.default.ex
	debian/netutils.doc-base.EX
	debian/docs
	debian/init.d.ex
	debian/manpage.1.ex
	debian/manpage.sgml.ex
	debian/manpage.xml.ex
	debian/menu.ex
	debian/postinst.ex
	debian/postrm.ex
	debian/preinst.ex
	debian/prerm.ex
	debian/README
	debian/README.Debian
	debian/README.source
	debian/rules
	debian/source
	debian/source/format
	debian/watch.ex

2.2. Build the first (empty) package

As you can see there are a lot of files to tweak the package, but for now we’ll ignore all that and build an empty package. The dpkg-buildpackage command can be used to do that:

# Build empty package
	$ dpkg-buildpackage

That’s it! That command built four files:

# Explore the files that got built

 $ ls -1 ../netutils_*
	../netutils_1.0.0_amd64.changes
	../netutils_1.0.0_amd64.deb
	../netutils_1.0.0.dsc
	../netutils_1.0.0.tar.gz

.tar.gz: Source package, contains the contents of the netutils/ folder
.deb: Debian package, contains the installable package
.dsc/.changes: Signature files, cryptographic signatures of all files

Obviously, the most interesting file (for now) is the .deb file.

Let’s examine the contents with the dpkg -c (aka dpkg --contents) command:

# Listing the contents with 'dpkg --contents'
	$ dpkg -c ../netutils_1.0.0_amd64.deb 
	drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2015-10-18 14:52 ./
	drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2015-10-18 14:52 ./usr/
	drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2015-10-18 14:52 ./usr/share/
	drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2015-10-18 14:52 ./usr/share/doc/
	drwxr-xr-x root/root         0 2015-10-18 14:52 ./usr/share/doc/netutils/
	-rw-r--r-- root/root       141 2015-10-18 14:47 ./usr/share/doc/netutils/changelog.gz
	-rw-r--r-- root/root       183 2015-10-18 14:47 ./usr/share/doc/netutils/README.Debian
	-rw-r--r-- root/root      1401 2015-10-18 14:47 ./usr/share/doc/netutils/copyright

Nothing really in the package except the default changelog, copyright and README file. Instead of just listing the contents, we can also extract a Debian archive to a local location with dpkg -x (aka dpkg --extract):

# Extract the archive without installing it

	$ dpkg -x ../netutils_1.0.0_amd64.deb ../netutils_extracted
	$ find ../netutils_extracted/
	../netutils_extracted/
	../netutils_extracted/usr
	../netutils_extracted/usr/share
	../netutils_extracted/usr/share/doc
	../netutils_extracted/usr/share/doc/netutils
	../netutils_extracted/usr/share/doc/netutils/copyright
	../netutils_extracted/usr/share/doc/netutils/changelog.gz
	../netutils_extracted/usr/share/doc/netutils/README.Debian

2.3. Install the (empty) package

Enough playing around with the .deb file. Let’s install it with the dpkg -i (aka dpkg --install) command:

# Install the (empty) package
	$ sudo dpkg -i ../netutils_1.0.0_amd64.deb 
	Preparing to unpack ../netutils_1.0.0_amd64.deb ...
	Unpacking netutils (1.0.0) ...
	Setting up netutils (1.0.0) ...
	Done.

That installed the package. Check out that it was actually installed by listing the installed packages with dpkg -l (aka dpkg --list). The list itself will contain all installed (or half-installed/configured) packages on the system, so we’ll use grep to limit the output:

# Proof that it's actually installed
	$ dpkg -l | grep netutils
         ii  netutils    1.0.0       amd64    <insert up to 60 chars description>
	# ^^  ^       ^           ^           ^
	#  ||   |         |            |            |
	#  ||   |         |            |             - Description
	#  ||   |         |             - Architecture
	#  ||   |          - Version
	#  ||   - Package name
	#  | - Actual/current package state (n = not installed, i = installed, ...)
	#  - Desired package state (i = install, r = remove, p = purge, ...)

The columns in the list are desired package state, actual package state, package name, package version, package architecture and a short package description. If all is well, the first column will contain ii, which means that the package is properly installed. The dpkg-query man page (man dpkg-query) contains all the possible desired/actual state values.

Now that the package is installed, you can list its contents with the dpkg -L (aka dpkg --listfiles) command. Unlike dpkg -c, it only works for installed packages:

# List of installed Debian package contents
	$ dpkg -L netutils 
	/.
	/usr
	/usr/share
	/usr/share/doc
	/usr/share/doc/netutils
	/usr/share/doc/netutils/copyright
	/usr/share/doc/netutils/changelog.gz
	/usr/share/doc/netutils/README.Debian

2.4. Adding files and updating the changelog

Okay, enough with the empty package. Let’s now add actual files to our package. To do that, let’s create a folder files/ and use it to mirror the Linux filesystem structure. In that folder, let’s create our script files/usr/bin/ipaddr:

 $ mkdir -p files/usr/bin
	$ touch files/usr/bin/ipaddr
	$ chmod +x files/usr/bin/ipaddr
	$ vi files/usr/bin/ipaddr

# Script contents see below

Obviously, you can add whatever you want to your script, but for the sake of this tutorial, we’ll go with a short script to grab the public IP address from a service called ipify. It provides an API to return the IP address in various formats. We’ll grab it with curl in JSON and then use jq to parse out the ‘ip’ field:

Create script 'files/usr/bin/ipaddr'

#!/bin/bash
	curl --silent 'https://api.ipify.org?format=json' | jq .ip --raw-output

If we were to rebuild the package now, the dpkg-buildpackage command wouldn’t know which files to include in the package. So we’ll create the debian/install file to list directories to include (e.g. vi debian/install):

Create file 'debian/install' to tell dpkg-buildpackage what files to include

files/usr/* usr

This basically means that everything in the files/usr/ folder will be installed at /usr/ on the target file system when the package is installed.

Once this is done, we could just rebuild and reinstall the package, but let’s go one step further and update the version of the package to 1.1.0. Versions are handled by the debian/changelog file. You can update it manually, or use the dch script (short for “Debian changelog”) to do so:

Update debian/changelog

# We changed the package, let's update the version and changelog for it to 1.1.0
	$ dch -im
        # Opens the editor ...
	$ cat debian/changelog 

	netutils (1.1.0) unstable; urgency=medium

	  * Added 'ipaddr' script

	 -- Philipp Heckel <phil@example.com>  Sun, 18 Oct 2015 15:55:42 +0100

	netutils (1.0.0) unstable; urgency=low

	  * Initial Release.

	 -- Philipp Heckel <phil@example.com>  Sun, 18 Oct 2015 15:06:29 +0100

While the changelog looks just like a dumb text file, Debian uses it to manage the version number of the package, as well as to define the distribution(s) that the package is built for (here: “unstable”). Furthermore, it defines who has to sign the package (name of changelog editor).

After that, let’s rebuild and reinstall the package:

Rebuild and reinstall the package

# Rebuild & re-install package
	$ dpkg-buildpackage
	$ sudo dpkg -i ../netutils_1.1.0_amd64.deb
	$ dpkg -l | grep netutils
	ii  netutils       1.1.0          amd64        <insert up to 60 chars description>

Looks like it installed correctly. Let’s check if the ipaddr script is where it’s supposed to be. And then let’s try to run it:

# Proof that it's where it's supposed to be
	$ which ipaddr
	/usr/bin/ipaddr 
	# Now let's run it
	$ ipaddr
	/usr/bin/ipaddr: line 3: jq: command not found

Oops! We forgot that not every system might have jq installed. Let’s add it as a dependency!

2.5. Updating the description and adding dependencies

Each Debian package can depend on other packages. In the case of our ipaddr script, we use the curl and jq commands, so the ‘netutils’ package depends on these commands.

Since typically the command name is different from the package name, it might be necessary to find the actual package name. This can be done with the dpkg -S (aka dpkg --search) command:

# Find the full path for the 'curl' command
	$ which curl
	/usr/bin/curl
	# Seems that the 'curl' command is contained in a package called 'curl'
	$ dpkg -S /usr/bin/curl
	curl: /usr/bin/curl
	# The same can be done for 'jq' if it's installed.

To add the dependencies to the ‘netutils’ package, edit the Depends: section in the debian/control file (e.g. via vi debian/control):

Edit sections 'Depends' and 'Description' in 'debian/control'

 Source: netutils
	Section: utils
	Priority: optional
	Maintainer: Philipp Heckel <phil@example.com>
	Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 8.0.0)
	Standards-Version: 3.9.4		 

	Package: netutils
	Architecture: any
	Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, curl, jq
	Description: Network management tools
	  Includes various tools for network management.

That’s it. All that’s left (again) is to update the version to 1.2.0, rebuild the package and reinstall it:

Rebuild and reinstall the package

# Rebuild & re-install package
	$ dch -im
	$ dpkg-buildpackage
	$ sudo dpkg -i ../netutils_1.2.0_amd64.deb 

	Preparing to unpack ../netutils_1.2.0_amd64.deb ...

	Unpacking netutils (1.2.0) over (1.1.0) ...

	dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of netutils:

	 netutils depends on jq; however:

	  Package jq is not installed.

	dpkg: error processing package netutils (--install):

	 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

	Errors were encountered while processing:	 netutils

Wow. What happened here?

Well, unlike apt-get install, the dpkg -i command does not automatically resolve and install missing dependencies. It just complains about them. That is perfectly normal and expected. In fact, it gives us the perfect opportunity to check the package state (like we did above):

Invalid package state, as indicated by 'iU'

# The package is in an invalid state:
	$ dpkg -l | grep netutils

	    iU  netutils  1.2.0      amd64        Network management tools
	# ^^                                    ^
	# ||                                    |
	# ||                                    - Yay! , the new description
	# | - Actual package state is 'U' / 'Unpacked'
	#  - Desired package state is 'i' / 'install'

As you can see by the output, the desired state for the package is ‘i’ (= installed), but the actual state is ‘U’ (= Unpacked). That’s not good. Luckily though, dependencies can be automatically resolved by apt-get install -f (aka apt-get install --fix-broken):

Fixing broken/invalid package state and dependencies

$ sudo apt-get install -f
	The following extra packages will be installed:
	  jq
	The following NEW packages will be installed
	  jq
	0 to upgrade, 1 to newly install, 0 to remove and 11 not to upgrade.
	1 not fully installed or removed.
	Selecting previously unselected package jq.
	Preparing to unpack .../jq_1.3-1.1ubuntu1_amd64.deb ...
	Unpacking jq (1.3-1.1ubuntu1) ...
	Setting up jq (1.3-1.1ubuntu1) ...
	Setting up netutils (1.2.0) ...

Finally, it’s installed correctly. Now let’s test it:

Testing the 'ipaddr' script

# The package is installed correctly ('ii')
	$ dpkg -l | grep netutils
   	ii  netutils  1.2.0      amd64        Network management tools
	# And it seems to work!
	$ ipaddr
	82.143.12.32

3. Create and use a Debian repository

3.1. dpkg -i vs. apt-get install

So why did we use dpkg -i and not apt-get install? Because apt-get install looks in all the configured Debian repositories; it does not look for files. And as of right now, there is no Debian repository serving the netutils package:

No Debian repository serving the 'netutils' package

# There is no Debian repo serving the 'netutils' package!
	$ sudo apt-get install netutils
	Reading package lists... Done
	Building dependency tree       
	Reading state information... Done
	E: Unable to locate package netutils

3.2. Locally configured Debian/APT repositories (/etc/apt/sources.list.d/*.list)

So where does ‘apt-get install’ look? How does it know where to retrieve/download the packages and its dependencies from?

APT repositories are configured in the files /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*.list. On a typical Debian/Ubuntu system, there are quite a few of them:

APT repositories are configured in /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*.list

$ find /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/
	/etc/apt/sources.list
	/etc/apt/sources.list.d/
	/etc/apt/sources.list.d/syncany.list
	/etc/apt/sources.list.d/archive.philippheckel.com.list
	/etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
	...

Each of these files contains a list of Debian repositories:

$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 

	deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty main restricted universe multiverse
	#   ^                                                ^       ^
	#   |                                                  |        |
	#    - Main URL/source                        |        - Component list (e.g. main, universe, ...)
	#                                                       - Distribution (e.g. precise, trusty, release, ...)

3.3. The APT cache and Packages/Packages.gz files

Whenever apt-get update is called, all of these repos are checked for new versions. The APT cache (see apt-cache command) is refreshed:

Refreshing the APT cache with 'apt-get update'

$ apt-get update | grep Packages
	Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com trusty/main amd64 Packages
	...

The ‘Hit’ actually means that it downloaded/checked the Packages.gz file (in the example above from the URL http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/ … ckages.gz). The file looks like this:

$ curl -s http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/trusty/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | zcat | head -n 14
	Package: account-plugin-aim
	Priority: optional
	Section: gnome
	Installed-Size: 941
	Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
	Original-Maintainer: Debian Telepathy maintainers <pkg-telepathy-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
	Architecture: amd64
	Source: empathy
	Version: 3.8.6-0ubuntu9
	Replaces: account-plugin-empathy
	Depends: empathy (= 3.8.6-0ubuntu9), telepathy-haze, mcp-account-manager-uoa, unity-asset-pool (>> 0.8.24daily13.03.20.1)
	Breaks: account-plugin-empathy
	Filename: pool/main/e/empathy/account-plugin-aim_3.8.6-0ubuntu9_amd64.deb
	Size: 8838
	...

Looks familiar? Yes! A Packages.gz file looks very, very similar to the debian/control file in our package. And that’s no coincidence.

3.4. Creating a local Debian repository

So in a nutshell, all we need to create a Debian repository is a Packages.gz file and a way to expose this file — either via HTTP or locally. Easy, easy, easy!

For the sake of this tutorial, let’s create a local repository at /tmp/repo and copy all the netutils_*.deb files to it. Once that is done, we’ll create a Packages.gz file using the dpkg-scanpackages command:

$ mkdir /tmp/repo
	$ cp ../netutils_*.deb /tmp/repo/
	$ cd /tmp/repo
	$ dpkg-scanpackages -m . | gzip --fast > Packages.gz

That’s it. Let’s check what the Packages.gz file looks like:

$ zcat /tmp/repo/Packages.gz
	$ zcat Packages.gz 
	Package: netutils
	Version: 1.0.0
	Architecture: amd64
	Maintainer: Philipp Heckel <phil@example.com>
	Installed-Size: 2
	Filename: ./netutils_1.0.0_amd64.deb
	Size: 1994
	MD5sum: 1de1a751a5bc0c9892e3e7c7740c57a9
	SHA1: 2ea91ec16519638fcfd371d1530fe13aaa123f49
	SHA256: c40ea5184715e6d6cdf946fd66e84c19c4b0d7f516fe6842d57da385af7fc180
	Section: unknown
	Priority: optional
	Homepage: <insert the upstream URL, if relevant>
	Description: <insert up to 60 chars description>
	 <insert long description, indented with spaces>

	Package: netutils
	Version: 1.1.0
	Architecture: amd64
	Maintainer: Philipp Heckel <phil@example.com>
	Installed-Size: 2
	Depends: curl, jq
	Filename: ./netutils_1.1.0_amd64.deb
	...

3.5. Adding the local Debian repository and installing via apt-get install

All that’s left is to add that repository to the local APT config by adding a *.list file, e.g. at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/local.list:

Local repository definition in file '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/local.list'

deb file:/tmp/repo ./

Now we can install the netutils package via apt-get install:

Installing the 'netutils' package via apt-get

# Update the APT cache and install the package
	$ apt-get update
	$ sudo apt-get install netutils
	# Yup, it works
	$ ipaddr
	82.143.12.32

3.6. Listing and installing older versions

Maybe you noticed that the Packages.gz file contained multiple versions of the package. That means that we can actually list and install specific/older versions of the package if we wanted to.

Let’s explore what versions we could install. This can be done with apt-cache policy or apt-cache madison:

# You can use 'apt-cache policy' to display all available versions
	$ apt-cache policy netutils
	netutils:
	  Installed: 1.2.0
	  Candidate: 1.2.0
	  Version table:
	 *** 1.2.0 0
		500 file:/tmp/repo/ ./ Packages
		100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
	     1.1.0 0
		500 file:/tmp/repo/ ./ Packages
	     1.0.0 0
		500 file:/tmp/repo/ ./ Packages

	# The 'apt-cache madison' command does the same
	$ apt-cache madison netutils
	 netutils |      1.2.0 | file:/tmp/repo/ ./ Packages
	 netutils |      1.1.0 | file:/tmp/repo/ ./ Packages
	 netutils |      1.0.0 | file:/tmp/repo/ ./ Packages

By default apt-get install always picks the newest one, but by doing apt-get install netutils=1.0.0, we could tell it to install version 1.0.0:

Downgrading a package

$ sudo apt-get install netutils=1.0.0
	Reading package lists... Done
	Building dependency tree       
	Reading state information... Done
	The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
	  netutils
	0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 1 to downgrade, 0 to remove and 13 not to upgrade.
	Need to get 0 B/1,994 B of archives.
	After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
	Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
	dpkg: warning: downgrading netutils from 1.2.0 to 1.0.0
	(Reading database ... 208809 files and directories currently installed.)
	Preparing to unpack ..././netutils_1.0.0_amd64.deb ...
	Unpacking netutils (1.0.0) over (1.2.0) ...
	Setting up netutils (1.0.0) ...

3.7. Normal/typical repository layout

Our local repository is very basic. It does not have the same sophisticated structure of a normal repository such as the main upstream Ubuntu repository. Normal repositories looks more like this:

Layout of a standard Debian repository (excerpt)

$ find dists/trusty/ -maxdepth 3; find pool/ -maxdepth 1
	dists/trusty
	dists/trusty/Release.gpg
	dists/trusty/Release
	dists/trusty/InRelease
	dists/trusty/main
	dists/trusty/main/binary-amd64
	dists/trusty/main/binary-amd64/Packages
	dists/trusty/main/binary-amd64/Release
	dists/trusty/main/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2
	dists/trusty/main/binary-amd64/Packages.diff
	dists/trusty/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz
	dists/trusty/main/Contents-amd64.bz2
	dists/trusty/main/Contents-amd64
	dists/trusty/main/Contents-amd64.gz
	dists/trusty/Contents-amd64.bz2
	dists/trusty/Contents-amd64
	dists/trusty/Contents-amd64.gz
	pool/
	pool/main

If you really wanted to, you could create that structure yourself. For the fun of it, let’s do that with our repository at /tmp/repo. Remember, this is what it looks like:

Previously created simple structure

$ find /tmp/repo/ | sort
	/tmp/repo/
	/tmp/repo/netutils_1.0.0_amd64.deb
	/tmp/repo/netutils_1.1.0_amd64.deb
	/tmp/repo/netutils_1.2.0_amd64.deb
	/tmp/repo/Packages.gz

Now to “transform” it:

Creating the typical repository structure (manually)

# Delete the old Packages.gz file
	$ rm Packages.gz
	# Create new structure
	$ mkdir -p pool/main/n dists/trusty/main/binary-{amd64,i386}
	$ mv *.deb pool/main/n
	# Create new Packages.gz files
	$ dpkg-scanpackages -m pool | gzip > dists/trusty/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz
	dpkg-scanpackages: info: Wrote 3 entries to output Packages file.	 
	$ dpkg-scanpackages -m pool | gzip > dists/trusty/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz
	dpkg-scanpackages: info: Wrote 3 entries to output Packages file.

After that, the directory structure of our almost-proper repository looks like this:

Almost-proper repository for netutils

# find /tmp/repo/ | sort
	/tmp/repo/
	/tmp/repo/dists
	/tmp/repo/dists/trusty
	/tmp/repo/dists/trusty/main
	/tmp/repo/dists/trusty/main/binary-amd64
	/tmp/repo/dists/trusty/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz
	/tmp/repo/dists/trusty/main/binary-i386
	/tmp/repo/dists/trusty/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz
	/tmp/repo/pool
	/tmp/repo/pool/main
	/tmp/repo/pool/main/n
	/tmp/repo/pool/main/n/netutils_1.0.0_amd64.deb
	/tmp/repo/pool/main/n/netutils_1.1.0_amd64.deb
	/tmp/repo/pool/main/n/netutils_1.2.0_amd64.deb

Then, we obviously need to update our sources .list file at /etc/apt/sources.list.d/local.list:

New sources file with distribution and component at '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/local.list'

deb file:/tmp/repo trusty main

——-

Source: https://blog.heckel.xyz/2015/10/18/how- … e-netutils

Debian sources: https://wiki.debian.org/HowToPackageForDebian

Psud0nym · Documentation

I think corrects the tags you mentioned?

Psud0nym · Documentation

For these first two steps, many people have better results with ‘aptitude’ finding a resolution.
This command may help, but it is not installed by default in Devuan. If you recall it and install it after the broken package situation is resolved, it is worth trying.
*PACKAGE is meant to be a package name that is broken. Replace a package name when using the commands.

Step one:

sudo apt-get update –fix-missing
sudo dpkg –configure -a
sudo apt-get install -f

Step two:

sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update

you may need to delete the lock files. Lock files are used to keep resources available for certain programs – it helps prevent other programs from accessing files at the same time. This can be done by simply deleting the lockfile list:

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/lock

Step three:

sudo apt-get remove PACKAGE

It probably won’t be successful, but it is worth trying before removing it forcefully.

Depending on the errors you get when trying to remove the package normally, you might be able to identify the broken package using dpkg and grep:

dpkg -l | grep ^..r

This command lists all packages, then grep lists any results containing the ‘r’ flag in the third field, which means “reinst-required” (reinstall required). If the broken package shows up, you will be able to remove it.

Execute the following command to forcefully remove the package from your machine. Don’t forget to enter your password to authorize the deletion. Replace with the name of the broken package.

sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq PACKAGE
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update

After that, try to install the package from scratch. It should install normally now.

Last try step:
This pair of commands will remove the packages scripts to be performed before and after installation/removal of a package, then remove it from the database of installed packages.

mv /var/lib/dpkg/info/PACKAGE.* /tmp/
dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq PACKAGE

Source: http://www.piprime.fr/1480/manually-rem … an-ubuntu/

Source: http://www.iasptk.com/ubuntu-fix-broken … -solution/

Source: https://www.rosehosting.com/blog/how-to … -debian-9/

Psud0nym · Documentation

It has been a few years gone by for me now, but I recall Aptly being a way to mirror/merge and publish multiple mirrors locally and over the net/LAN.
perhaps a short guide on this would be hepful those interested in using the distribution build kit. It also supports adding local packages to the repository. it seems that this may be a great boon for those that develop custom packages.

Aptly is in the repository already.

Psud0nym · Off-topic

thezeit wrote:

I finished upgrading to my new hacker resistant model.
https://s33.postimg.cc/x1m8aw06n/proxy. … go.com.jpg

"hacker resistant" ? what algorithms are you using on that system

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#1 Re: Documentation » manual packaging and repository » 2018-10-13 19:58:36

#2 Documentation » manual packaging and repository » 2018-10-13 19:55:31

#3 Re: Documentation » Correcting Broken Packages » 2018-10-10 16:25:45

#4 Documentation » Correcting Broken Packages » 2018-10-10 16:03:59

#5 Re: Documentation » apt-mirror config for a local Devuan repo » 2018-09-18 15:04:13

#6 Re: Off-topic » Show your desktop (rebooted) » 2018-09-11 20:20:51

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