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Re: Debian package examples for Java software

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Peter —

I'm not a debian java maintainer (or DD at all), I'm just someone who
has used Debian and derivatives for 25 years.  So take this with a
grain of salt.

The reason you're getting resistance to your request — apart from
social stuff, on which I won't comment — is that the technical
obstacles are not really anything to do with Java.  Debian binary
packaging (nevermind source) isn't just binaries and scripts, it's
also mutations to a system-wide dpkg database that doesn't have a
concept of user-specific content.  The function of the --root= flag
isn't to support a user-specific database, it's to allow manipulation
of a whole separate root filesystem mounted at that location, and
without having a full userland there and chrooting into it, you're not
going to be running anything with significant system dependencies (i.
e., anything).

What I would recommend in 2024 is that you package your software as a
private .deb — which is fairly straightforward, even if you have
binary blobs that aren't built during the package build — and then
install that inside a suitable base debian container image.  Docker is
one way to do that (and the docker engine is free-as-in-beer and
root-optional if you don't need complicated networking); there are
others.  One reasonable choice, based on minideb, is the Bitnami image
found at https://hub.docker.com/r/bitnami/java .

I greatly prefer maintaining a debian packaging setup, developing
locally, and installing via dpkg inside a container with controlled
dependencies over open-coding stuff in a Dockerfile.  And I'd use the
same base image for Java and non-Java applications (packaged
separately), for ease of maintenance; go ahead and add a real Python
on top of the base Java container image (if you choose bitnami, see
https://github.com/bitnami/containers/blob/main/bitnami/python/3.12/debian-12/Dockerfile
for how to do this).  Be aware that this is not a Debian-packaged
python — you can do that instead, but it's a different path — but
you're using virtualenv and `python -m pip install -r
requirements.txt` (as a user that is not the runtime user) for all
your version-locked library dependencies anyway, right?  If not, well,
YMMV.  (The needs of a Python application packager are not the needs
of the debian-python team either.  There is some merit in maintaining
your own debian repo with custom-built version-locked system-Python
library packages too — I've done it, for good and sufficient reason,
along with the Java analogue — but you're going to have to learn a lot
about Debian if you go down that road.)

I lurk but rarely post on any of the Debian lists.  Email me directly
if I can be of further assistance.

Cheers,
- Michael

On Sat, Sep 14, 2024 at 12:26 PM Peter Bittner <peter.bittner@gmx.net> wrote:
>
> > If you tell us what you want to package, we can tell you a good example
> > out of more than 50.000 packages
>
> I'm really looking for generic examples. My motivation is using a
> standard, widespread convention or otherwise popular tooling for
> deploying software (which - at work - is not open source). So that new
> developers don't need to learn "the process". When you see a "debian"
> folder in a repository you probably already guess that the project
> will build a .deb package. When you see a .deb package you can easily
> guess how it will be installed.
>
> One of the softwares is a Java Web application (delivered to us as a
> .jar and some accompanying files) that is deployed into a JBoss
> application server preinstalled on the host. The other is actually not
> even Java software, it's a bunch of shell scripts and two Python CLI
> applications that are installed from an internal PyPI index. So, it's
> all about copying files somewhere and performing installation
> activities that are encapsulated in the .deb file.
>
> > > location where it has write access. The scenario is, I have users that
> > > must install the software on a managed machine. The system
> > > administrators manage the operating system as such, the users install
> > > and run their software in user space.
> >
> > As far as I know NO WAY to do so.
>
> Let me mention that for my use case it's sufficient that we assume
> there are no dependencies, or that if we have unresolved dependencies
> (e.g. most notably a JRE) the installation process aborts brutally.
>
> Doing some research I found a few interesting discussions:
> - https://askubuntu.com/questions/339/how-can-i-install-a-package-without-root-access
> - https://askubuntu.com/questions/193695/installing-packages-into-local-directory
>
> The two suggested solutions are using `--force-not-root` or simply
> unpacking the .deb archive file:
>
>     dpkg -i --force-not-root --root=$HOME package.deb
>     ar p package.deb data.tar.xz | tar xJv --strip-components=2 -f -
>
> The latter will certainly not run pre- or post-install scripts, which
> is one of the reasons I want to do the packaging, though. (Encapsulate
> the installation logic in the installation package itself!)
>
> Now I would need a simple packaging setup to verify that those
> commands actually work for my use case.
>
> Peter
>

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Thread

Debian package examples for Java software Peter Bittner <peter.bittner@gmx.net> - 2024-09-14 12:10 +0200
  Re: Debian package examples for Java software Mechtilde Stehmann <mechtilde@debian.org> - 2024-09-14 15:30 +0200
    Re: Debian package examples for Java software Peter Bittner <peter.bittner@gmx.net> - 2024-09-14 18:10 +0200
      Re: Debian package examples for Java software Mechtilde Stehmann <mechtilde@debian.org> - 2024-09-14 19:10 +0200
        Re: Debian package examples for Java software Peter Bittner <peter.bittner@gmx.net> - 2024-09-14 21:30 +0200
          Re: Debian package examples for Java software Mechtilde Stehmann <mechtilde@debian.org> - 2024-09-14 22:00 +0200
            Re: Debian package examples for Java software Geert Stappers <stappers@stappers.nl> - 2024-09-14 22:50 +0200
          Re: Debian package examples for Java software "Michael K. Edwards" <m.k.edwards@gmail.com> - 2024-09-14 23:30 +0200
            Re: Debian package examples for Java software "Michael K. Edwards" <m.k.edwards@gmail.com> - 2024-09-15 00:00 +0200
            Re: Debian package examples for Java software Peter Bittner <peter.bittner@gmx.net> - 2024-09-15 17:10 +0200
              Re: Debian package examples for Java software "Michael K. Edwards" <m.k.edwards@gmail.com> - 2024-09-15 18:10 +0200
  Re: Debian package examples for Java software Emmanuel Bourg <ebourg@apache.org> - 2024-09-17 01:30 +0200

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