Re: [Wp-mirror-list] en.wikipedia image sizes and templates

[Jason Cooper]

Kent,

On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 02:37:16PM -0500, wp mirror wrote:
> 1) Packaging
> 
> I will want to think carefully about package naming to avoid collision
> with the LTS version currently maintained by Debian. Perhaps
> `mediawiki-latest,' `mediawiki-latest-extention-scribunto,' and so on
> would work well.

The manpage for deb-version may be of interest to you:

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/maverick/man5/deb-version.5.html

Ubuntu has been maintaining their own versions of packages on top of
Debian for many years so they have great examples for how to avoid
conflicts and to establish package preferences and priorities.

> The actual mechanics of packaging are not too involved:  clone the GIT
> repository, find the appropriate HEAD, dh_make, and so forth.  I
> expect the process to be similar to packaging `mediawiki-mwxml2sql'
> earlier this year. The folks at WMF are most helpful.
> 
> 2) Repository
> 
> This step will be new to me.  Several tools are described by Debian
> <https://wiki.debian.org/HowToSetupADebianRepository>.
> My initial impression is that `reprepro' will get the job done.

Yes, this is what I've used in the past.  There are some caveats, like
Release/Release.gpg vs. InRelease.  One has the PGP signature of the
Release file as a separate file, the other has the signature embedded
into the file.

There are also ways of streamlining repository PGP key installation.
Some repositories have a separate package for it so that they can then
add a second key later by upgrading the package.  I think this is
typically done in the post-install file.

> 3) Hosting
> 
> I will inquire to see if WMF could host the repository.
> 
> Developers.  Perhaps this should be a shell account to which
> developers would be given credentials.  Of course, the account would
> have to have `git,' `reprepro,' and other utilities so that the
> repository could be built and maintained there.

For the size of the codebase, I don't think this is necessary.  I don't
foresee there being more than a few patches a month, which you should be
able to handle on your own.

Also, I personally prefer to keep my repositories (deb packages or git) on
a local, private machine and push new versions (rsync/ssh for deb repos,
git/ssh for git) to the public server.  This way, if the public server
is ever compromised, you just wipe it out, re-install, and push the code
back up.

hth,

Jason.