Making Your Own Solaris Packages!

While there are more than a few ways to pack up and distribute software distro's you've either downloaded and custom-compiled, or built yourself from scratch, if you work on a lot of Solaris boxes, it's nice to be able to produce legitimate "pkg" files to showcase your efforts.

Today, we'll look at how easily this can be done (although, of course, many other methods are much much less drawn-ouot). After reading through this post, you should be able to create your own "pkg" files and even (we'll look at this in some detail in a future post) script out and automate the process with a little ingenuity :)

For the purposes of this post, we'll assume that we're going to build the latest version of PROGRAM (pardon my lack of originality in naming ;)

1. First, ensure that you have the disk space and compile your program with the "--prefix" suffix (pretty much standard now with all publicly available source builds):

cd /tmp/PROGRAM_SOURCE
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/builds/PROGRAM
make
make install

2. Now you should have your program built and installed under /usr/local/builds/PROGRAM, with all the subdirectories beginning there (e.g. /usr/local/builds/PROGRAM/bin, /usr/local/builds/PROGRAM/sbin, etc). Make sure that all the files have the ownership and permissions that you will want them to have when your "pkg" file is complete!

3. Now we'll create the "prototype" file. Add all necessary links (like usr=/usr) for all subdirectories that you want your package to unpack into. We're going to assume that your package is going to unpack into the root directory (/) like most Solaris "pkg" files:

cd /usr/local/builds/PROGRAM
find . -print|pkgproto usr=/usr bin=/bin sbin=/sbin etc=/etc >prototype

4. Then, add pointers to the prototype file. You'll "need" one to the "pkginfo" file that we'll create soon, and you can also create entries for "preinstall," "postinstall" and "checkinstall" files, although they're not completely necessary. "checkinstall" is a good file to have if you want to be able to ensure that your package won't install if it is somehow corrupt or not being installed on a proper system.
Note that the "checkinstall" script is run by the user "nobody," and runs automatically, so your source needs to be accessible for checks by that user in order for it to work correctly. "preinstall" and "postinstall" are run as "root" and prompt the user to run them. You can also add a line to reference a script to check dependencies within the "prototype" file of the form "depend=/path/to/depend/script." Add the following to the top of the /usr/local/builds/PROGRAM/prototype file:

i pkginfo
i checkinstall

5. Now create a "pkginfo" file with the basics:

SUNW_PRODNAME="SunOS"
SUNW_PRODVERS="5.10"
SUNW_PKGTYPE="usr"
PKG="PROGRAM"
NAME="The PROGRAM Progam"
VERSION="1.0"
ARCH="sparc"
VENDOR="XYZ, Inc."
EMAIL="insertyouremailhere"
CATEGORY="system"
ISTATES="S 1 2 3"
RSTATES="S 1 2 3"

Lots of these aren't necessary, and are self explanatory. ISTATES are the acceptable run levels in which the package can be installed. RSTATES are the acceptable run levels in which it can be removed.

6. And create a simple "checkinstall" file as well (both the "pkginfo" and "checkinstall" files need to be in the same directory as the "prototype" file and the software - in our case /usr/local/builds/PROGRAM):

#!/bin/sh

# Sample checkinstall script

platform_should_be="sparc"
platform=`uname -p`
if [ ${platform} != ${platform_should_be} ]
then
echo "PROGRAM can only be installed on ${platform_should_be}"
exit 1
fi
exit 0

7. Now, we're finally ready to create the package with "pkgmk" and "pkgtrans":

cd /usr/local/builds/PROGRAM <--- just in case we wandered off
pkgmk -b `pwd` -d /tmp <--- "-b" is your source base diretory and "-d" indicates the "device" (in this case, the /tmp directory) into which you want to build the actual "pkg" file.
pkgtrans -s /tmp /usr/local/builds/PROGRAM.pkg PROGRAM.pkg <--- The "-s" indicates that you want to translate the PROGRAM.pkg file in /tmp in datastream format as /usr/local/builds/PROGRAM.pkg

Now you're all set to grab the PROGRAM.pkg file from the /usr/local/builds directory and install it with "pkgadd" on any Solaris system you want to (depending, of course, on the restrictions you put in place in your "checkinstall" - and possibly "depend" - script)!

, Mike

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