SMEServer as a Build Server

This article is about using a bare SME Server as a development server for SME Server packages or contributed packages.

This article is only about setting up your smeserve build server. To use it, you should follow one of the other articles (e.g. Simple Package Modification)

The Server

This is what I did after reading a number of older wiki articles re: developing and amending packages as well as development environment setup.

I started with a standard SME Server 10.x install (as a VM)

• 1 CPU
• 4GB Ram
• 16MB Video
• 8GB disk (partitioned without LVM so that any future upgrades are easier)
• 1 LAN card

I then configured the server as:

• Server Only (I don't want any build tools on my gateway.....)
• Static IP (my preference)
• Do NOT supply dhcp

Log into the server manager panel to

• configure ssh
• add a developer user

Now we ssh into our server as root, to finish setting up our developer user:

db accounts setprop <userid> Shell /bin/bash
chsh -s /bin/bash <userid>

and install the tools they'll need

yum --enablerepo=smeaddons install smeserver-extrarepositories-epel
yum install cvs rsh rpm-build
yum --enablerepo=smedev,epel,extras install plague-client mock python-ctypes glances e-smith-devtools smeserver-mock
signal-event post-upgrade; signal-event reboot

Now you need to login as your developer and set them up:

You will need to tweak their shell for CVS access and whilst there, why not make it a little friendlier :)

cat <<_EOT > ~/.bashrc
# .bashrc
# Developer environment

export CVS_RSH=ssh # tell CVS to use ssh

# DO NOT set CVSROOT

alias rm='rm -i'
alias cp='cp -i --preserve=timestamps'
alias mv='mv -i'

# Source global definitions
if [ -f /etc/bashrc ]; then
	. /etc/bashrc
fi
_EOT

cat <<_EOT > ~/.bash_profile
# .bash_profile

# Get the aliases and functions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
	. ~/.bashrc
fi

# User specific environment and startup programs

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin

export PATH
_EOT

You will have to log out and back in for this to take effect. Create their working directories

mkdir -p ~/{smeserver,smecontribs}

Developer access

You don't need to have developer access to copy out source, local compiles, etc., but you do need it if you are going to want to save changes back into cvs or git.

• SME Server code is stored in the CVS on  http://shell.koozali.org and in the future in git on https://src.koozali.org. To be able to work on your code in the SME Server CVS repository you need an account on Koozali.org. With this account the development team can give you access to the CVS repository.

• After your Koozali.org account has been created you can ask the development team to give you developer access to smecontribs. Create a bug in the Bug Tracker as usual.
• You will be sent your shell keys (store in ~/.ssh/) and plague keys (store in ~/.buildsys/)

When they have koozali shell and buildsys access, you'll need to set up their configs

For shell.koozali.org (cvs)

nano ~/.ssh/config

Host shell.koozali.org koozalishell
Hostname shell.koozali.org
User <userid>
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/<my_id_file>
ForwardAgent yes
Port 222

Host buildsys
Hostname buildsys.koozali.org
User <userid>
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/<my_id_file>
ForwardAgent yes
Port 222

If you didn't have an existing ~/.ssh/config file you may need to change the permissions

chmod 0600 ~/.ssh/config

For buildsys

nano ~/.plague-client.cfg

[Certs]
user-cert = ~/.buildsys/plague-cert.pem
user-ca-cert = ~/.buildsys/ca-koozali.org.pem
server-ca-cert = ~/.buildsys/ca-koozali.org.pem

[Server]
use_ssl = yes
address = https://buildsys.koozali.org:8887
allow_uploads = yes
upload_user = <your koozali user id>

[User]
email = <your email address>

You should check that the keys have the correct permissions or change them

chmod 0600 ~/.buildsys/*

You will have to log out and back in for this to take effect.

To check that plague is working

plague-client list_builders

Builders:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 build64-1.contribs.org      x86_64 amd64 ia32e noarch i386 i486 i586 i686 athlon available
 build32-1.contribs.org      i386 i486 i586 i686 athlon noarch  available