[Pkg-dns-devel] Tracking packaging files for knot / knot-resolver in upstream

[Tomas Krizek]

Hi!

I have some news regarding knot / knot-resolver packaging files. We've
started to track them in the upstream repositories [1,2]. They also
contain packaging files for rpm or pacman based package managers. Our
goal is to be able to automate builds and provide upstream packages for
various distros in openSUSE Build Service [3].

I'm the rpm maintainer for these packages, but my experience with debian
packaging is very limited. However, I was able to produce functional
debian packages by using the files from unstable debian and making a few
modifications.

I'm reaching out to you, because I'd like to ask for your help with
maintaining these debian packaging files. I think it'd be best if the
packages we provide in upstream resemble as closely as possible the ones
that are in unstable debian.

I have a few concerns about the long-term maintainability, especially
since we have automated package builds of development snapshots. So far,
we've stumbled upon two pain points.

1. Downstream patches - these are very costly to maintain, as they
require frequent re-bases when files are changed or moved around. It'd
be best if we could eliminate these entirely if possible. I've managed
to eliminate all patches for knot and there's an ongoing effort to
remove/clean up patches for knot-resolver as well [4].

2. *.symbols file - I understand why it's required for stable releases
and I believe we'll be updating this file in our stable upstream
releases. However, updating the symbols file for development snapshots
is time consuming and I don't really see the value in doing so. It seems
to be required by the debian policy, but it doesn't seem to have effect
on the function of the package. My idea is to prepare the development
snapshots without the symbols file [5].

In general, it'd be great if we could keep knot / knot-resolver
consistent between the various distros -- including paths to binaries,
libraries, systemd unit files, tmpfiles, user names etc. We've done a
major cleanup for knot-resolver 2.0 and it'd be great if we could
continue in this direction in the future.

Finally, we'd be very grateful if you could contribute debian packaging
changes to upstream. Perhaps it could even be possible to move most of
the packaging work there and re-use the upstream packaging files for
downstream packaging. That's mostly the approach I went with for rpm
packaging and it works quite well.

Thanks!

[1] - https://gitlab.labs.nic.cz/knot/knot-dns/tree/master/distro/
[2] - https://gitlab.labs.nic.cz/knot/knot-resolver/tree/master/distro/
[3] - https://build.opensuse.org/project/subprojects/home:CZ-NIC
[4] - https://gitlab.labs.nic.cz/knot/knot-resolver/issues/323
[5] - https://gitlab.labs.nic.cz/knot/knot-resolver/merge_requests/524
-- 
Tomas Krizek
PGP: 4A8B A48C 2AED 933B D495  C509 A1FB A5F7 EF8C 4869

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