NAME¶

tag2upload - protocol for uploading to Debian via signed git tag

INTRODUCTION¶

tag2upload is a scheme that allows an authorised Debian package maintainer to update a package in the Debian archive, by pushing an appropriate signed git tag.

Typically these tags are created with git-debpush, and interpreted by "dgit-repos-server --tag2upload".

However, the tags are plain git tags, with small amounts of additional metadata, so they could be made by other tooling.

This document defines the syntax and semantics of the tag.

BASICS¶

A signed git tag is an instruction to the tag2upload service if the tag message contains a line looking like this:

 [dgit ... please-upload ...]

The tag must be signed by an authorised uploader, for the relevant package. The tagged object must be a git commit. Metadata about the intended operation is obtained from both the tag message and the referenced git tree object.

GIT METADATA¶

The git tag's name must be "DISTRO/VERSION", where VERSION is in the Debian package version number transformed to be valid for git as specified in DEP-14, and DISTRO is the distribution name (the DEP-14 "vendor", "debian" for Debian).

The email address from git's "tagger" field (ie, the author of the tag, from git's point of view) will be emailed any error reports.

TAG2UPLOAD IN-TAG METADATA¶

tag2upload reuses a tag metadata format, and some metadata semantics, from dgit.

Metadata lines are in the form "[dgit ...]". The brackets must be at the start and end of the line. Inside the brackets, after "dgit", are space separated metadata items.

Each metadata item is "keyword" or "keyword=value". Keywords start with one of the characters "- + . = 0-9 a-z". Items may not contain whitespace. Any metadata line whose first item starts with a double quote """ is reserved for future expansion, and the whole line is ignored.

The placement and ordering of metadata items is not relevant, unless specified otherwise here. Some metadata items may be repeated. Unknown keywords are ignored.

"please-upload"

Declares that this tag is indeed an instruction to a tag2upload service, to produce and upload a source package based on the commit at which the tag points.

The relevant git objects will also be pushed to a canonical server belonging to the targeted distro (in Debian's case, *.dgit.debian.org).

"distro=DISTRO"

Specifies an intended distribution, to which the package is to be uploaded. May be repeated.

Each tag2upload instance ignores tags which do not mention that instance's DISTRO. So for a tag to be effective, at least one distro= must be present.

(Note that DISTRO also appears in the tag name, so uploading to multiple distros necessarily involves several tags, although they may have the same tag message.)

"upstream"=COMMITID "upstream-tag"=TAG

Identifies the upstream source code to be used.

This corresponds to the "orig" in the source package. The orig tarball will be generated with "git archive", as invoked by "git deborig".

Both or neither of these must be supplied. TAG must be fetchable from the same repo as the tag2upload tag, and must resolve to COMMMITID.

If these are omitted, any necessary orig must already be present in the target source package archive. With "baredebian" quilt modes, this option is mandatory.

(This metadata item might be ignored if the git tree specifies a native source package format, or if the targeted archive already contains a suitable orig.)

"--quilt=QUILT-MODE"

Specifies the git tree format in use, for a "3.0 (quilt)" source package.

The semantics are the same as for the identically-named dgit option.

If this option is not specified, the default is "quilt=linear" (depending on the distro and configuration).

"--deliberately=..."

The semantics are the same as for the identically-named dgit option. Unused or unknown deliberately options are ignored.

"split"

Instructs the tag2upload service that this upload is to be made in "split git view" mode:

When converting from git to a source package, and in order to push and upload, it may be necessary to make changes -- both to tree content and to git history. For example, it may be necessary to apply quilt patches, or to make the git branch fast-forwarding from previous history in the targeted suite.

"split" instructs the tag2upload service to make these changes, and push git commits representing these changes to only its canonical target repository. I.e., the suite branch in the canonical target repository may contain additional changes, but these will not be automatically pushed back to a maintainer-owned git repository (eg salsa.debian.org). The git history on the canonical target repository is always descended from the form supplied by the tagger; it can be readily obtained using dgit.

Under the current implementation, this metadata item is mandatory, because the service is not capable of doing anything else.

IN-TREE METADATA¶

The source package name, target suite(s), and version number, are obtained from debian/changelog.

The package and version must correspond to debian/control, or it is an error.

CONTENTS OF THE TREE¶

The tree must be in the form of an unpacked Debian source package.

For a non-native source package format, the upstream files must correspond to any upstream commit specified, or the orig already present in the archive -- either patched or unpatched, according to the quilt mode.

Mismatches will cause the tag2upload service's processing to fail.

REPLAY¶

Uploading is intended to be an idempotent process.

Thus, the tag2upload tag is an instruction to upload only if the supplied version is later than the one in the targeted suite.

Old tags, specifying old versions, will be rejected (although replay attempts might generate some error mail to the tagger).

INVOCATION AND QUEUEING¶

Normally, arrangements will be made so that the tag2upload service becomes aware of new git tags, in relevant repositories; for example, by means of webhooks.

If this mechanism fails, the tagging user may need to manually provoke the tag2upload service into rescanning the relevant repository.

CREDITS¶

tag2upload was designed by Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk> and Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name>.

SEE ALSO¶

dgit(1), git-debpush(1).