How to create and manage an AUR package. #AUR #ARCH #makepkg #PKGBUILD

Creating an AUR Package.md

Creating an AUR Package

Maintainer: Keil Miller Jr

How to create and manage an AUR package.

The following link should be read:

• Creating packages
• AUR submission guidelines

Prerequisites

• Part of this section is directly taken from Authentication

$ pacman -S base-devel
$ nano ~/.ssh/config
--------------------
Host aur.archlinux.org
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/aur
  User aur
--------------------
$ ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/aur

Contents of public key need to be copied to profile in My Account page accessible from aur.archlinux.org.

Clone Repo

• Part of this section is directly taken from Creating package repositories

If you are creating a new package from scratch, establish a local Git repository and an AUR remote by cloning the intended pkgbase. If the package does not yet exist, the following warning is expected:

$ mkdir ~/abs
$ cd ~/abs
$ git clone ssh://aur@aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase.git

Cloning into 'pkgbase'...
warning: You appear to have cloned an empty repository.
Checking connectivity... done.

Add remote to existing package

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ git remote add label ssh://aur@aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase.git

.gitignore

There are only 2 files required for an AUR package, unless you wish to add patches. This .gitignore file might help. Ignore everything, and call required files directly.

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ touch .gitignore
$ nano .gitignore

*
!.SRCINFO
!PKGBUILD

Create PKGBUILD

PKGBUILD is an "Arch Linux package build description file." It will include package related variables, most oif which are self explanitory.

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ cp /usr/share/pacman/PKGBUILD.proto PKGBUILD

Make appropriate changes to PKGBUILD.

Adding md5sums to PKGBUILD

updpkgsums will perform an in place update of the checksums in the path specified by [build file], defaulting to PKGBUILD in the current working directory.

This should be done every time the source changes. Your source should change with pkgver.

$ updpkgsums

Patching

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ rm -r src`
$ makepkg --nobuild` # Make package, but do not build source. Will run `prepare()` function, so do not include an unwanted patch.
$ cp -r src src.new`
$ code src.new # Make changes to new source directory
$ diff -Naur src src.new > package.diff

Testing

Terminal

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ makepkg
$ sudo pacman -U [package].pkg.tar.xz # Install
$ pacman -R [pkgname] # Uninstall

Pamac

• Install: Three Vertical Dot Icon > Install Local Packages > [package] > Open
• Uninstall: Search Icon > [package] > select package > remove

Generate .SRCINFO

• Part of this section is directly taken from Creating package repositories*

.SRCINFO files contain package metadata in a simple, unambiguous format, so that tools such as the AUR's Web back-end or AUR helpers may retrieve a package's metadata without parsing the PKGBUILD directly.

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ makepkg --printsrcinfo > .SRCINFO

Pushing to AUR repository

Before pushing to AUR repository, make sure the following are updated:

• PKGBUILD > pkgver
• PKGBUILD > pkgrel
• PKGBUILD > source
• PKGBUILD > md5sums
• Regenerate .SRCINFO

$ makepkg --printsrcinfo > .SRCINFO
$ git add PKGBUILD .SRCINFO
$ git commit -m "useful commit message"
$ git push