Ever since I started using Debian I have meant to try and create a debian package for various reasons,
a) I am just a curious bugger.
b) I am just a curious bugger.
today was my chance to have a go and see what exactly it involves or should I say what it involves to create a very minimal package.
The reason for this is that I have written a Content Management System that uses about 20 Perl modules some internal some external and rather than worry when it comes to the install or an upgrade we have decided to stick the whole thing in subversion and then wrap each release in a debian package. We have several sites to run this from so the more we can automate the better particularly if I can get the automatic testing sorted. Using subversion and the debian packages the whole system should be relatively low maintainance as far as upgrades are concerned and this is important. We don’t want to scrub ourselves into the upgrade corner and find we have neither the time or the budget to spend time on an upgrade. We want it automated for us and although it might be a pain in the arse to put in place it will pay dividends when we come to change things later.
We also have a postgres schema and some config files that need taking care of but as I found out today this is relatively simple using the debian packaging tools.
I suppose I should write a simple howto about how I did it because using the debian new maintainers guide is not really the best tutorial for those wishing to package their own application for internal use. I imagine there are some other tutorials around but I didn’t find them.