Developer's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for PostgreSQL
- Last updated: Wed Sep 6 20:12:13 EDT 2006
+ Last updated: Mon Oct 16 15:24:36 EDT 2006
Current maintainer: Bruce Momjian (bruce@momjian.us)
1.14) How are RPMs packaged?
- This was written by Lamar Owen:
+ This was written by Lamar Owen and Devrim Gündüz:
- 2001-05-03
+ 2006-10-16
As to how the RPMs are built -- to answer that question sanely
- requires me to know how much experience you have with the whole RPM
+ requires us to know how much experience you have with the whole RPM
paradigm. 'How is the RPM built?' is a multifaceted question. The
- obvious simple answer is that I maintain:
+ obvious simple answer is that we maintain:
1. A set of patches to make certain portions of the source tree
'behave' in the different environment of the RPMset;
2. The initscript;
5. The spec file that throws it all together. This is not a trivial
undertaking in a package of this size.
- I then download and build on as many different canonical distributions
- as I can -- currently I am able to build on Red Hat 6.2, 7.0, and 7.1
- on my personal hardware. Occasionally I receive opportunity from
- certain commercial enterprises such as Great Bridge and PostgreSQL,
- Inc. to build on other distributions.
-
- I test the build by installing the resulting packages and running the
- regression tests. Once the build passes these tests, I upload to the
- postgresql.org ftp server and make a release announcement. I am also
- responsible for maintaining the RPM download area on the ftp site.
-
- You'll notice I said 'canonical' distributions above. That simply
+ PGDG RPM Maintainer builds the SRPM and announces the SRPM to the
+ pgsqlrpms-hackers list. This is a list where package builders are
+ subscribed. Then, the builders download the SRPM and rebuild it on
+ their machines.
+
+ We try to build on as many different canonical distributions as we
+ can. Currently we are able to build on Red Hat Linux 9, RHEL 3 and
+ above, and all Fedora Core Linux releases.
+
+ To test the binaries, we install them on our local machines and run
+ regression tests. If the package builders uses postgres user to build
+ the rpms, then it is possible to run regression tests during RPM
+ builds.
+
+ Once the build passes these tests, the binary RPMs are sent back to
+ PGDG RPM Maintainer and they are pushed to main FTP site, followed by
+ a release announcement to pgsqlrpms-* lists, pgsql-general and
+ pgsql-announce lists.
+
+ You will notice we said 'canonical' distributions above. That simply
means that the machine is as stock 'out of the box' as practical --
that is, everything (except select few programs) on these boxen are
installed by RPM; only official Red Hat released RPMs are used (except
compiler is used -- and only the standard official kernel is used as
well.
- For a time I built on Mandrake for RedHat consumption -- no more.
- Nonstandard RPM building systems are worse than useless. Which is not
- to say that Mandrake is useless! By no means is Mandrake useless --
- unless you are building Red Hat RPMs -- and Red Hat is useless if
- you're trying to build Mandrake or SuSE RPMs, for that matter. But I
- would be foolish to use 'Lamar Owen's Super Special RPM Blend Distro
- 0.1.2' to build for public consumption! :-)
-
- I _do_ attempt to make the _source_ RPM compatible with as many
- distributions as possible -- however, since I have limited resources
- (as a volunteer RPM maintainer) I am limited as to the amount of
- testing said build will get on other distributions, architectures, or
- systems.
-
- And, while I understand people's desire to immediately upgrade to the
- newest version, realize that I do this as a side interest -- I have a
- regular, full-time job as a broadcast
- engineer/webmaster/sysadmin/Technical Director which occasionally
- prevents me from making timely RPM releases. This happened during the
- early part of the 7.1 beta cycle -- but I believe I was pretty much on
- the ball for the Release Candidates and the final release.
-
- I am working towards a more open RPM distribution -- I would dearly
- love to more fully document the process and put everything into CVS --
- once I figure out how I want to represent things such as the spec file
- in a CVS form. It makes no sense to maintain a changelog, for
- instance, in the spec file in CVS when CVS does a better job of
- changelogs -- I will need to write a tool to generate a real spec file
- from a CVS spec-source file that would add version numbers, changelog
- entries, etc to the result before building the RPM. IOW, I need to
- rethink the process -- and then go through the motions of putting my
- long RPM history into CVS one version at a time so that version
- history information isn't lost.
+ PGDG RPM Building Project does not build RPMs for Mandrake .
+
+ We usually have only one SRPM for all platforms. This is because of
+ our limited resources. However, on some cases, we may distribute
+ different SRPMs for different platforms, depending on possible
+ compilation problems, especially on older distros.
+
+ Please note that this is a volunteered job -- We are doing our best to
+ keep packages up to date. We, at least, provide SRPMs for all
+ platforms. For example, if you do not find a RHEL 4 x86_64 RPM in our
+ FTP site, it means that we do not have a RHEL 4 x86_64 server around.
+ If you have one and want to help us, please do not hesitate to build
+ rpms and send to us :-)
+ http://pgfoundry.org/docman/view.php/1000048/98/PostgreSQL-RPM-Install
+ ation-PGDG.pdf has some information about building binary RPMs using
+ an SRPM.
+
+ PGDG RPM Building Project is a hosted on pgFoundry :
+ http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgsqlrpms. We are an open community,
+ except one point : Our pgsqlrpms-hackers list is open to package
+ builders only. Still, its archives are visible to public. We use a CVS
+ server to save the work we have done so far. This includes spec files
+ and patches; as well as documents.
As to why all these files aren't part of the source tree, well, unless
- there was a large cry for it to happen, I don't believe it should.
- PostgreSQL is very platform-agnostic -- and I like that. Including the
- RPM stuff as part of the Official Tarball (TM) would, IMHO, slant that
- agnostic stance in a negative way. But maybe I'm too sensitive to
- that. I'm not opposed to doing that if that is the consensus of the
- core group -- and that would be a sneaky way to get the stuff into CVS
- :-). But if the core group isn't thrilled with the idea (and my
- instinct says they're not likely to be), I am opposed to the idea --
- not to keep the stuff to myself, but to not hinder the
- platform-neutral stance. IMHO, of course.
-
- Of course, there are many projects that DO include all the files
- necessary to build RPMs from their Official Tarball (TM).
+ there was a large cry for it to happen, we don't believe it should.
1.15) How are CVS branches managed?
<H1>Developer's Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for
PostgreSQL</H1>
- <P>Last updated: Wed Sep 6 20:12:13 EDT 2006</P>
+ <P>Last updated: Mon Oct 16 15:24:36 EDT 2006</P>
<P>Current maintainer: Bruce Momjian (<A href=
"mailto:bruce@momjian.us">bruce@momjian.us</A>)<BR>
<H3 id="item1.14">1.14) How are RPMs packaged?</H3>
- <P>This was written by Lamar Owen:</P>
+ <P>This was written by Lamar Owen and Devrim Gündüz:</P>
- <P>2001-05-03</P>
-
- <P>As to how the RPMs are built -- to answer that question sanely
- requires me to know how much experience you have with the whole RPM
- paradigm. 'How is the RPM built?' is a multifaceted question. The
- obvious simple answer is that I maintain:</P>
+ <P>2006-10-16</P>
+ <P>
+ As to how the RPMs are built -- to answer that question sanely
+ requires us to know how much experience you have with the whole RPM
+ paradigm. 'How is the RPM built?' is a multifaceted question. The
+ obvious simple answer is that we maintain:</P>
<OL>
<LI>A set of patches to make certain portions of the source tree
'behave' in the different environment of the RPMset;</LI>
trivial undertaking in a package of this size.</LI>
</OL>
- <P>I then download and build on as many different canonical
- distributions as I can -- currently I am able to build on Red Hat
- 6.2, 7.0, and 7.1 on my personal hardware. Occasionally I receive
- opportunity from certain commercial enterprises such as Great
- Bridge and PostgreSQL, Inc. to build on other distributions.</P>
-
- <P>I test the build by installing the resulting packages and
- running the regression tests. Once the build passes these tests, I
- upload to the postgresql.org ftp server and make a release
- announcement. I am also responsible for maintaining the RPM
- download area on the ftp site.</P>
-
- <P>You'll notice I said 'canonical' distributions above. That
- simply means that the machine is as stock 'out of the box' as
- practical -- that is, everything (except select few programs) on
- these boxen are installed by RPM; only official Red Hat released
- RPMs are used (except in unusual circumstances involving software
- that will not alter the build -- for example, installing a newer
- non-RedHat version of the Dia diagramming package is OK --
- installing Python 2.1 on the box that has Python 1.5.2 installed is
- not, as that alters the PostgreSQL build). The RPM as uploaded is
- built to as close to out-of-the-box pristine as is possible. Only
- the standard released 'official to that release' compiler is used
- -- and only the standard official kernel is used as well.</P>
-
- <P>For a time I built on Mandrake for RedHat consumption -- no
- more. Nonstandard RPM building systems are worse than useless.
- Which is not to say that Mandrake is useless! By no means is
- Mandrake useless -- unless you are building Red Hat RPMs -- and Red
- Hat is useless if you're trying to build Mandrake or SuSE RPMs, for
- that matter. But I would be foolish to use 'Lamar Owen's Super
- Special RPM Blend Distro 0.1.2' to build for public consumption!
- :-)</P>
-
- <P>I _do_ attempt to make the _source_ RPM compatible with as many
- distributions as possible -- however, since I have limited
- resources (as a volunteer RPM maintainer) I am limited as to the
- amount of testing said build will get on other distributions,
- architectures, or systems.</P>
-
- <P>And, while I understand people's desire to immediately upgrade
- to the newest version, realize that I do this as a side interest --
- I have a regular, full-time job as a broadcast
- engineer/webmaster/sysadmin/Technical Director which occasionally
- prevents me from making timely RPM releases. This happened during
- the early part of the 7.1 beta cycle -- but I believe I was pretty
- much on the ball for the Release Candidates and the final
- release.</P>
-
- <P>I am working towards a more open RPM distribution -- I would
- dearly love to more fully document the process and put everything
- into CVS -- once I figure out how I want to represent things such
- as the spec file in a CVS form. It makes no sense to maintain a
- changelog, for instance, in the spec file in CVS when CVS does a
- better job of changelogs -- I will need to write a tool to generate
- a real spec file from a CVS spec-source file that would add version
- numbers, changelog entries, etc to the result before building the
- RPM. IOW, I need to rethink the process -- and then go through the
- motions of putting my long RPM history into CVS one version at a
- time so that version history information isn't lost.</P>
-
- <P>As to why all these files aren't part of the source tree, well,
- unless there was a large cry for it to happen, I don't believe it
- should. PostgreSQL is very platform-agnostic -- and I like that.
- Including the RPM stuff as part of the Official Tarball (TM) would,
- IMHO, slant that agnostic stance in a negative way. But maybe I'm
- too sensitive to that. I'm not opposed to doing that if that is the
- consensus of the core group -- and that would be a sneaky way to
- get the stuff into CVS :-). But if the core group isn't thrilled
- with the idea (and my instinct says they're not likely to be), I am
- opposed to the idea -- not to keep the stuff to myself, but to not
- hinder the platform-neutral stance. IMHO, of course.</P>
-
- <P>Of course, there are many projects that DO include all the files
- necessary to build RPMs from their Official Tarball (TM).</P>
+ <P>PGDG RPM Maintainer builds the SRPM and announces the SRPM to the
+ pgsqlrpms-hackers list. This is a list where package builders are
+ subscribed. Then, the builders download the SRPM and rebuild it on their
+ machines.</P>
+
+ <P>We try to build on as many different canonical distributions as we can.
+ Currently we are able to build on Red Hat Linux 9, RHEL 3 and above,
+ and all Fedora Core Linux releases.</P>
+
+ <P>To test the binaries, we install them on our local machines and run
+ regression tests. If the package builders uses postgres user to build the
+ rpms, then it is possible to run regression tests during RPM builds.</P>
+
+ <P>Once the build passes these tests, the binary RPMs are sent back to PGDG
+ RPM Maintainer and they are pushed to main FTP site, followed by a
+ release announcement to pgsqlrpms-* lists, pgsql-general and
+ pgsql-announce lists.</P>
+
+ <P>You will notice we said 'canonical' distributions above. That simply
+ means that the machine is as stock 'out of the box' as practical --
+ that is, everything (except select few programs) on these boxen are
+ installed by RPM; only official Red Hat released RPMs are used (except
+ in unusual circumstances involving software that will not alter the
+ build -- for example, installing a newer non-RedHat version of the Dia
+ diagramming package is OK -- installing Python 2.1 on the box that has
+ Python 1.5.2 installed is not, as that alters the PostgreSQL build).
+ The RPM as uploaded is built to as close to out-of-the-box pristine as
+ is possible. Only the standard released 'official to that release'
+ compiler is used -- and only the standard official kernel is used as
+ well.</P>
+
+ <P>PGDG RPM Building Project does not build RPMs for Mandrake .</P>
+
+ <P>We usually have only one SRPM for all platforms. This is because of our
+ limited resources. However, on some cases, we may distribute different
+ SRPMs for different platforms, depending on possible compilation problems,
+ especially on older distros.</P>
+
+ <P>Please note that this is a volunteered job -- We are doing our best to
+ keep packages up to date. We, at least, provide SRPMs for all platforms.
+ For example, if you do not find a RHEL 4 x86_64 RPM in our FTP site, it
+ means that we do not have a RHEL 4 x86_64 server around. If you have one
+ and want to help us, please do not hesitate to build rpms and send to us :-)
+ http://pgfoundry.org/docman/view.php/1000048/98/PostgreSQL-RPM-Installation-PGDG.pdf
+ has some information about building binary RPMs using an SRPM.</P>
+
+ <P>PGDG RPM Building Project is a hosted on pgFoundry :
+ <a href="http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgsqlrpms">http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgsqlrpms</a>.
+ We are an open community, except one point : Our pgsqlrpms-hackers list is open
+ to package builders only. Still, its archives are visible to public.
+ We use a CVS server to save the work we have done so far. This includes
+ spec files and patches; as well as documents.</P>
+
+ <P>As to why all these files aren't part of the source tree, well, unless
+ there was a large cry for it to happen, we don't believe it should.</P>
<H3 id="item1.15">1.15) How are CVS branches managed?</H3>
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