repopulator

A portable Python library to generate binary software repositories

Purpose

Ever needed to build an APT package repository on Fedora? Or perhaps a DNF repository on Debian? How about a FreeBSD repository on Windows or Mac? This library allows you to do all these things and more. And yes, you can do it even on Windows if you are so inclined for some reason.

All binary package repositories have their own tools that usually range from being "non-portable" to "portable with lots of effort to limited platforms only". On the other hand, it is often convenient to build software packages in a Map/Reduce fashion where a single host collects multiple packages built for different platforms to produce binary repositories. Such a host will necessarily need to be able to build repositories for "foreign" packages. This library is an attempt to enable such a scenario. It provides both programmatic and command-line access.

Requirements

• Python >= 3.9
• If you plan to build repositories that require GPG signing, the gpg command needs to be available in the PATH
• If you plan to build repositories that require private key signing, OpenSSL > 3.0 libraries need to be available on your platform

Supported repository formats

• APT
• RPM
• Pacman
• Alpine apk
• FreeBSD pkg

Installing

pip install repopulator

Documentation

Documentation for the API and command-line syntax is available at https://gershnik.github.io/repopulator/

Examples

APT

Programmatic

from repopulator import AptRepo, PgpSigner

repo = AptRepo()

package1 = repo.add_package('/path/to/awesome_3.14_amd64.deb')
package2 = repo.add_package('/path/to/awesome_3.14_arm64.deb')

dist = repo.add_distribution('jammy')

repo.assign_package(package1, dist, component='main')
repo.assign_package(package2, dist, component='main')

signer = PgpSigner('name_of_key_to_use', 'password_of_that_key')

repo.export('/path/of/new/repo', signer)

Command-line

repopulator apt -o /path/of/new/repo -k name_of_key_to_use -w password_of_that_key \
  -d jammy -c main \
  -p /path/to/awesome_3.14_amd64.deb /path/to/awesome_3.14_arm64.deb

RPM

Programmatic

from repopulator import RpmRepo, PgpSigner

repo = RpmRepo()
repo.add_package('/path/to/awesome-3.14-1.el9.x86_64.rpm')
repo.add_package('/path/to/awesome-3.14-1.el9.aarch64.rpm')

signer = PgpSigner('name_of_key_to_use', 'password_of_that_key')

repo.export('/path/of/new/repo', signer)

Command-line

repopulator rpm -o /path/of/new/repo -k name_of_key_to_use -w password_of_that_key \
  -p /path/to/awesome-3.14-1.el9.x86_64.rpm /path/to/awesome-3.14-1.el9.aarch64.rpm

Pacman

Programmatic

from repopulator import PacmanRepo, PgpSigner

repo = PacmanRepo('myrepo')
repo.add_package('/path/to/awesome-3.14-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst')
repo.add_package('/path/to/another-1.2-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst')

signer = PgpSigner('name_of_key_to_use', 'password_of_that_key')

repo.export('/path/of/new/repo', signer)

Command-line

repopulator pacman -o /path/of/new/repo -k name_of_key_to_use -w password_of_that_key \
    -n myrepo -p /path/to/awesome-3.14-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst /path/to/another-1.2-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Alpine apk

Programmatic

from repopulator import AlpineRepo, PkiSigner

repo = AlpineRepo('my repo description')
repo.add_package('/path/to/awesome-3.14-r0.apk')
repo.add_package('/path/to/another-1.23-r0.apk')

signer = PkiSigner('/path/to/private/key', 'password_or_None')

# Unlike the `pkg` tool, we do not parse the signer name out of the private key filename
# so you can name your key files whatever you wish
repo.export('/path/of/new/repo', signer, signer_name = 'mymail@mydomain.com-1234abcd')

Command-line

repopulator alpine -o /path/of/new/repo -d 'my repo description' \
  -k /path/to/private/key.rsa -w password_of_that_key \
  -s 'mymail@mydomain.com-1234abcd' \
  -p /path/to/awesome-3.14-r0.apk /path/to/another-1.23-r0.apk

FreeBSD pkg

Programmatic

from repopulator import FreeBSDRepo, PkiSigner

repo = FreeBSDRepo()
repo.add_package('/path/to/awesome-3.14.pkg')
repo.add_package('/path/to/another-1.2.pkg')

signer = PkiSigner('/path/to/private/key', 'password_or_None')

repo.export('/path/of/new/repo', signer)

Command-line

repopulator freebsd -o /path/of/new/repo \
  -k /path/to/private/key -w password_of_that_key \
  -p /path/to/awesome-3.14.pkg /path/to/another-1.2.pkg