piuparts - .deb installation, upgrade, and removal testing suite

piuparts [-apvV] [-d distro] [-i filename] [-I regexp] [-l logfile] [-m url] [package]...

piuparts tests that Debian packages handle installation, upgrading, and removal correctly. It does this by creating a minimal Debian installation in a chroot, and installing, upgrading, and removing packages in that environment, and comparing the state of the directory tree before and after. piuparts reports any files that have been added, removed, or modified during this process.

piuparts is meant as a quality assurance tool for people who create Debian packages to test them before they upload them to the Debian package archive.

By default, piuparts can do three different tests:

1.

A simple install-purge test within one Debian distribution (chosen with the -d option, unstable by default). It sets up the chroot with the desired distribution, then installs and purges the packages, and reports problems.

2.

A simple install-upgrade-purge test within one Debian distribution. This test is like the install-purge test, but install the packages first via apt-get and then from the package files given on the command line. If the command line has package names (option -a used), or the packages are not known to apt-get (new packages), this test is skipped, otherwise it is performed automatically.

3.

An upgrade test between Debian releases. This test is enabled by using the -d option multiple times and disables the other two tests. It sets up the chroot with the first distribution named, then upgrades it to each successive one, and then remembers the directory tree state at the end. After this, it starts over with the chroot of the first distribution, installs the desired packages (via apt-get), and does the successive upgrading (via apt-get dist-upgrade). Then, if package files (and not just package names) were given on the command line, it installs them. Finally, it reports problems against the state of the directory tree at the last distribution compared with the state without the packages having been installed. This test can be quite slow to execute.

Note that this does not work with experimental, because apt-get does not automatically upgrade to packages in experimental. To test a particular package or group of packages in experimental, use the second test.

Command line arguments are names of package files by default (e.g., piuparts_1.0-1_all.deb) or names of packages, if the -a option is given.

piuparts outputs to the standard output some log messages to show what is going on. Use the -v option to get more detailed messages, such as the output of commands piuparts runs. If a log file is used, all messages always go to that.

piuparts needs to be run as root.

Options must come before the other command line arguments.

-a, --apt

The package arguments on the command line are to be treated as package names and installed via apt-get instead of being names of package files, to be installed via dpkg -i.

-b tarball, --basetgz=tarball

Use tarball as the contents of the initial chroot, instead of building a new one with debootstrap.

-d name, --distribution=name

Which Debian distribution to use: a code name (sarge, etch, sid) or experimental. The default is sid (i.e, unstable).

-i filename, --ignore=filename

Add a filename to the list of filenames to be ignored when comparing changes before and after installation. By default, piuparts ignores files that always change during a package installation and uninstallation, such as dpkg status files. The filename should be relative to the root of the chroot (e.g., var/lib/dpkg/status). This option can be used as many times as necessary.

-I regexp, --ignore-regexp=regexp

Add a regular expression pattern to the list of patterns for filenames to when comparing changes before and after installation. This option can be used as many times as necessary.

-k, --keep-tmpdir

Don't remove the temporary directory for the chroot when the program ends.

-l filename, --log-file=filename

Write log file to filename in addition to the standard output.

-m url, --mirror=url

Which Debian mirror to use. The default is the first mirror named in /etc/apt/sources.list or http://ftp.debian.org/ if none is found. This option may be used multiple times to use multiple mirrors. Only the first mirror is used with debootstrap.

The 'components' that are used for a mirror can also be set with this option: a space separated list within the same argument (so you need to quote the entire argument in the shell). If no components are given explicitly, the usual Debian components are used (main, contrib, and non-free). For the mirrors read from /etc/apt/sources.list, the components are read from the same place.

Note that file: addresses do not currently work, since the files aren't accessible from within the chroot and Lars has been too lazy to add bind mounting support.

-n, --no-ignores

Forget all built-in and other ignores that have been set so far. Any -i or -I arguments that come after this one will be obeyed, but none of the ones that come before.

-p, --pbuilder

Use /var/cache/pbuilder/base.tgz as the base tarball. This is a shorthand so that you don't need to use -b for it.

-s filename, --save=filename

Save the chroot, after it has been set up, into filename. It can then be used with -b.

-t directory, --tmpdir=directory

Use directory as the place where temporary files and directories are created. The default is the environment variable TMPDIR, or /tmp if not set.

-v, --verbose

This option no longer has any meaning, but it is still accepted for backwards compatibility.

-V, --version

Write out the version number of the program.

Assume that you have just built a new version of your Debian package, to be uploaded to Debian unstable. It is in ../foo_1.0-2_i386.deb and you would like to know whether it installs and uninstalls properly. Here's what you would do:

piuparts ../foo_1.0-2_i386.deb

If the package exists in the Debian archive already, the above command also tests that it upgrades properly.

To do the same test, but using a particular mirror, and only the main component, you would do this:

piuparts -m 'http://gytha/debian main' ../foo_1.0-2_i386.deb

If you want to test that a package installs properly in the stable (sarge) Debian release, then can be upgraded to the testing (etch) and unstable (sid) versions, and then uninstalled without problems, you would give the following command:

piuparts -a -d sarge -d etch -d sid foo

TMPDIR

Location for temporary files and directories. If not set, use /tmp. See also the -t (--tmpdir) option.

Outputs of commands run by piuparts are limited to the last megabyte. To change this limit, the source code needs to be edited.

pbuilder(1), debootstrap(8)

Lars Wirzenius (liw@iki.fi).