debian git packaging with git upstream

Update

There is an easier method to do all this using gbp-clone as described here. Ah !

Then to build the package, you just need to suggest git-buildpackage where to find the pristin-tar :

git-buildpackage --git-upstream-branch=upstream/master

or you could simply describe (as suggested) the layout in debian/gbp.conf.

Easy !!!

I’ve found a lot of different recipes and howtos about git debian packaging, but I failed to find one simple recipe to create a debian package from scratch when upstream is using git. Of course the following is a big patchwork from many different sources.

First we need to do a bit of administrative work to setup the repository :

mkdir yourpackage
cd yourpackage
git init --shared

Then, since I’m interested in tracking upstream development branch I’m going to add a remote branch to my repo:

git remote add upstream git://the.url/here.git

at this point I need to fetch upstream and create a branch for it.

git fetch upstream
git checkout -b upstream upstream/master

Now in my repo I have a master branch and an upstream branch. So far, so good. Let’s add the debian branch based on master:

git checkout master
git checkout -b debian master

It’s in the debian branch where I’m going to keep the debian related files. I’m finally read for hacking git add / git commit / git remove ...

When I’m done, I can switch to master, merge the debian branch into it and use git-buildpackage to build the package.

git checkout master
git branch 
  debian
* master
  upstream

git merge debian
git-buildpackage

Suppose I want to put everything on gitourious for example. I’ll create an acocunt, set up my ssh pub key and then I’ve to add an origin ref in my .git/config . Something like :

[remote "origin"]
       url = git@gitorious.org:debian-stuff/yourpackage.git
       fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
[branch "master"]
       remote = origin
       merge = refs/heads/master

The only thing left to do is to push everything on gitourious. the —all is important.

git push --all

People willing to pull your work from girourious have to follow the following script :

$git clone git@gitorious.org:debian-stuff/yourpackage.git
$cd yourpackage
$git branch -a
* master
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/debian
  remotes/origin/master
  remotes/origin/upstream
$git checkout -t origin/debian
$git checkout -t origin/upstream
$git branch -a
  debian
  master
* upstream
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/debian
  remotes/origin/master
  remotes/origin/upstream
$git checkout master
$git-buildpackage

Maybe there is an easier way to pull all remote branches at once, but I’m not aware of it. Any better way ?