Debra: Make Debian packages with Ruby

Because I found the process of making Debian packages a little long winded. It does seem to work well for my use case: building binary packages of web applications on a CI server.

Also, I'm still learning the Debian packaging system so wouldn't recommend this for serious use, just your own packages.

Install

$: sudo gem install debra

Create a Debfile in your projects directory

# Debfile
Debra do

	# Specify the files to be included (just a Rake::FileList delegate)
	files "etc/**/*"

	# Specify your control file fields
	# See http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html
	control do 
	    package       "my-package"
	    version       "0.1"
	    section       "base"
	    priority      "optional"
	    architecture  "all"
	    depends       "apache2, apache2-dev"
	    maintainer    "My Name <me@example.com>"
	    description   %q{My Pacakge Title
			Extended description goes here ...
		} 
	end
	
	# Specify preinst, postinst, prerm, postrm files like this
	postinst %q{#!/bin/bash			
		
service apache restart
					
	}

end

Build your file

$: sudo debra

Usage: debra [options]
    -h, --help                       Show this message
    -v, --verbose                    Run verbosely
    -f, --file file                  Load a specific Debfile
        --version                    Show version

See the examples directory

(GPLv3)

Copyright (C) 2009 Matt Haynes

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see <w