This script could be used to prepare a tarball from monitoring-plugins upstream git

git2release

#!/bin/bash
#TMPDIR=/tmp/
# creating temp dir
TMPDIR=`mktemp -d`
trap "rm -rf $TMPDIR" EXIT
# defining some values
DIR=$(pwd)
# git clone git://git.debian.org/git/pkg-nagios/pkg-nagios-plugins.git /tmp/monitoring-plugins.git

case "$1" in
	--release-tarball)
		URL=${2}
		UTARBALL=$(basename ${URL})
		PROJECT=$(basename ${UTARBALL} .tar.gz)
		REPACKURL="https://raw.github.com/waja/pkg-nagios-plugins/master/debian/bin/repack.sh"

		# grab tarball
		wget ${URL} -O ${TMPDIR}/${UTARBALL}
		# create a dir where we extract
		mkdir -p ${TMPDIR}/${PROJECT}
		# extract the tarball
		tar -xzf ${TMPDIR}/${UTARBALL} -C ${TMPDIR}/${PROJECT}
		EXTRACTDIR=$(ls -d ${TMPDIR}/${PROJECT}/*)
		# move all one directory level higher
		mv ${EXTRACTDIR}/* ${EXTRACTDIR}/.. && rm ${EXTRACTDIR}/.git* && rmdir ${EXTRACTDIR}
		# install needed packages
		if [ ! $(apt-cache showsrc nagios-plugins | grep "^Package: nagios-plugins" | wc -l) -gt "0" ]; then sudo echo "deb-src ftp://ftp.de.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/unstable.list && sudo apt-get update; fi
		sudo apt-get build-dep -y -qq --no-install-recommends nagios-plugins
		sudo apt-get install -y -qq --no-install-recommends autoconf automake
		# create release tarball
		cd ${TMPDIR}/${PROJECT}
		tools/setup && ./configure && make dist
		RELEASETAR=$(ls ${TMPDIR}/${PROJECT}/*.tar.gz)
		# download debian repack script
		REPACK=$(basename ${REPACKURL})
		wget ${REPACKURL} -O ${TMPDIR}/${REPACK}
		# repack everything
		chmod +x ${TMPDIR}/${REPACK}
		${TMPDIR}/${REPACK} ${RELEASETAR}
		# copy everything in here
		cp $(ls ${TMPDIR}/${PROJECT}/*.tar.gz) ${DIR}
		;;
	--prepare-debian)
		UTARBALL=${2}
		PROJECT=$(basename $(tar tfz "${UTARBALL}" | head -1))
		if [ -d "${PROJECT}" ] ; then
				echo -n remove "${PROJECT}"? ${RTURN}
			read RTURN
			if [ "$RTURN" == "Y" ] || [ "$RTURN" == "y" ] ; then
				rm -rf "${PROJECT}"
			fi
		fi
		#DEBIANGITURL="git@github.com:waja/pkg-nagios-plugins.git"
		DEBIANGITURL="https://github.com/waja/pkg-nagios-plugins.git -b m-p"
		# extract the tarball
		tar -xzf "${UTARBALL}"
		# fetch latest debian packaging
		git clone ${DEBIANGITURL} "${TMPDIR}"
		# copy over the whole debian packaging
		cp -a "${TMPDIR}"/debian "${PROJECT}"
		# create a symlink to match debian conventions
		# FIXME - the last part of this needs to be approved
		ORIGTAR=$(echo "${UTARBALL}"|sed 's/\.tar\.gz/.orig.tar.gz/'|sed 's/plugins-/plugins_/')
		UTARBALL=$(basename ${UTARBALL})
		[ -L "${ORIGTAR}" ] || ln -s "${UTARBALL}" "${ORIGTAR}"
		if [ ! "$(echo ${DEBIAN_FRONTEND} | grep noninteractive | wc -l)" -gt "0" ]; then
			# fetch build-deps
			sudo apt-get build-dep nagios-plugins
			# add changelog entry and start to build the package
			cd "${PROJECT}" && dch -R && debuild -sa
		fi
		;;
	  *)
		echo "Usage: ${0} [--release-tarball|--prepare-debian]" >&2
		exit 3
		;;
esac