Autodist

Autodist is a batch build and distribution management suite for the openmamba RPM-based Linux distribution.

Table of Contents

• Prerequisites and configuration
• Tools
  • autodist
  • autodist-tool
  • autodist-repository
  • autodist-inspect
  • autodist-upstream-updates
  • autodist-git
  • autodist-launcher
  • autodist-distroquery
  • autodist-cleanold
  • autodist-vercmp
  • automaint
  • autoport-chroot
• distdb job format
• Key runtime paths

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Prerequisites and configuration

All scripts source /etc/autodist/config at startup, which defines the core environment variables:

Variable	Description
AUTODIST_ARCHS	Supported architectures (e.g. i586 x86_64)
AUTODIST_REPOSITORIES_LOCAL_REPS	Available local repositories
AUTODIST_REPOSITORIES_REMOTE_REPS	Available remote repositories
LOCAL_REPS_BASE_DIR	Base directory for local repositories (default: /var/autodist)
AUTOBUILD_MAXNUM	Maximum number of batch builds
AUTOBUILD_SKIP_DAYS	Days to wait before retrying a failed build

The file /var/autodist/.autospec holds FTP/HTTPS credentials and repository URLs used for package upload.

autodist-git additionally requires /etc/autodist/config-git in ConfigObj format, containing: GITEA_URL, GITEA_TOKEN, GITEA_ORGANIZATION, REPO_DIR, ARCHIVE_DIR, SRPMS_DIR, COMMITTER_USER, COMMITTER_EMAIL.

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Tools

autodist

Main batch build orchestrator. Reads job/package lists from distdb and invokes autospec through the prepare, update, build, and send pipeline for each package.

autodist [operations ...] [options ...] [job ...] [-- autospec_args] [--- script_args]

Operations

Option	Description
-a, --autobuild	Start full batch build (implies -p -u -b -s --severity 1)
-p, --prepare	Prepare packages (download sources and prepare for update)
-u, --update	Update packages (bump version in spec file)
-b, --build	Build packages via rpmbuild
-i, --install	Install packages on the local system
-s, --send	Send packages to the repository via FTP/HTTPS
--list-jobs	List configured jobs from distdb
--list-pkgs job	List packages for the specified job

Options

Option	Description
-c, --cleanlogs	Clean all logs before starting
-d, --debug	Enable debug output
-h, --help	Print help and exit
-t, --test	Simulate execution without running programs
-q, --quiet	Quiet mode (suppress tail of error logs)
-r, --rebuild	Force package rebuild
-v, --verbose	Verbose output
--force	Pass --force to autospec
--repository REP	Use the given repository as base for operations
--repository-strict	Only prepare packages from the repository specified with --repository
--server NUM	Pass the given server number to autospec for the send operation
--severity NUM	Error handling level: 0=don't stop, 1=skip current job (default), 2=abort
--arch ARCH	Build packages for the specified target architecture
--user USER	Calling user name for Webbuild social messages
--rebuild-srpms	Rebuild SRPMs when sending

Specifying jobs

autodist -b glibc#2.11.1          # build glibc at version 2.11.1
autodist -b kernel-extra          # build the kernel-extra job
autodist -b kernel-packages/lirc  # build lirc package within the kernel-packages job

Build logs are written to /var/autodist/log/.

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autodist-tool

Helper for patch creation, job scheduling, and skipping.

autodist-tool makepatch package [auto|build|update|remove]
autodist-tool schedule [job_regexp]
autodist-tool unschedule [job_regexp]
autodist-tool skip job_regexp

Commands

Command	Description
makepatch package	Show existing patches for the package
makepatch package auto	Automatically create the appropriate patch (update or build) based on current state
makepatch package build	Create a patch for the build phase
makepatch package update	Create a patch for the update phase
makepatch package remove	Remove all patches for the package
schedule	List manually scheduled jobs
schedule job	Schedule a job for automatic update or rebuild
unschedule	List scheduled jobs
unschedule job	Remove a job from the manual schedule
skip job	Exclude a job from automatic builds

Patches are stored under autoupdate/spec-patches-update/ and autoupdate/spec-patches-build/, and if configured, synchronized to the remote repository via curl.

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autodist-repository

RPM repository management: archiving, importing, releasing, verifying, searching, and more.

autodist-repository archive     REPOSITORY PKGS ...
autodist-repository diff        REPOSITORY [PKGS ...] [-d REPOSITORY]
autodist-repository distromatic REPOSITORY
autodist-repository import      REPOSITORY [PKGS ...] [-d REPOSITORY] [-s] [-y]
autodist-repository inspect     REPOSITORY PKGS ... [-d REPOSITORY]
autodist-repository install     REPOSITORY [PKGS ...] [-f]
autodist-repository list
autodist-repository query       REPOSITORY PKGS ...
autodist-repository release     REPOSITORY [PKGS ...] [-d REPOSITORY] [-s] [-y]
autodist-repository restore     REPOSITORY PKGS ...
autodist-repository search      [-i] [-r regexp] STRING
autodist-repository setwarning  REPOSITORY PKG ... -t "TEXT"
autodist-repository verify      REPOSITORY [PKGS ...]

Commands

Command	Description
archive REP PKGS	Archive the specified packages (backup to the old/ directory)
diff REP [PKGS]	Show differences between packages across two repositories (spec, requires, provides, files)
distromatic REP	Extract spec files from SRPMs for the distromatic repository
import REP [PKGS]	Import packages from one repository to another (with backup of the previous version)
inspect REP PKGS	Show spec, requires, and provides of a package in the repository
install REP [PKGS]	Install packages from the local repository onto the system
list	List available repositories
query REP PKGS	Show detailed information about a package in the repository
release REP [PKGS]	Release packages from one repository to another (no backup of the original)
restore REP PKGS	Restore a package from a backup in the old/ directory
search STRING	Search for a package by name across all repositories
setwarning REP PKGS -t "TEXT"	Set a warning message for a package in distromatic
verify REP [PKGS]	Verify the integrity of RPM and SRPM files in the repository

Options

Option	Description
-d REPOSITORY	Destination repository (default: base)
-f	Force the operation
-i	Case-insensitive search (with search only)
-r REGEXP	Filter repositories matching the given regular expression (with search only)
-s	Simulation mode (no changes made)
-t "TEXT"	Warning message text (with setwarning only)
-y	Assume yes to all questions (use with care)

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autodist-inspect

Quick package lookup across distromatic sources, distdb, the legacy list, and all local repositories.

autodist-inspect <package_name>

Output is organized in sections: distromatic sources, distdb, legacy, and for each local repository the matching SRPMs and RPMs.

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autodist-upstream-updates

Checks for upstream package version updates by querying Repology and other sources, and generates the list of packages that need to be updated.

autodist-upstream-updates [-h|-m] [-s] [-u] [-q] [-r repository] [-o repository]

Options

Option	Description
-h	Generate distromatic-compatible HTML output
-m	Report missing packages only
-s	Skip fetching and parsing upstream updates (use cached data)
-u	Output not-up-to-date packages only
-q	Quiet output
-r REPOSITORY	Distromatic base repository (default: base)
-o REPOSITORY	Repository for output data (default: same as -r)

Results are written to autoupdate/upstream-updates.in (list of packages to update) and autoupdate/upstream-updates.missing (upstream packages not present in the repository).

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autodist-git

Syncs RPM package releases to a Gitea instance. Creates or updates a git repository for each package, commits spec files and patches, and creates a tag for each release.

Requires /etc/autodist/config-git with valid Gitea credentials.

Package names containing + are mapped to Plus (e.g. gtk++ → gtkPlusPlus) since + is not valid in git repository names.

autodist-git [-v] <command> [options]

Commands

Command	Description
syncpkg PKGNAME [PKGVER]	Sync a single package to Gitea
archiverepo PKGNAME	Archive the Gitea repository for a package
syncrepo	Sync the entire base repository to Gitea

Global options

Option	Description
-v, --verbose	Verbose output

syncpkg options

Option	Description
-d, --delete	Delete and recreate the existing repository

syncrepo options

Option	Description
--from PKGNAME	Start synchronization from this package name
--to PKGNAME	Stop synchronization at this package name
-d, --delete	Delete and recreate existing repositories

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autodist-launcher

Daemon wrapper with PID-file locking for starting autodist in a controlled way from cron or a system service.

autodist-launcher <autodist_conf>

autodist_conf is the configuration index defined in /etc/autodist/autoport (via AUTOPORT_* arrays). Prevents duplicate instances by checking a PID file under /run/autodist/. Before starting the build it automatically runs:

• distromatic update and srcpkglist generation
• Remote metadata fetch via rclone
• autodist-upstream-updates
• autodist -a --server ...

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autodist-distroquery

Distroquery API helper used by autodist-repository to query the distroquery REST API and output bash-compatible variable assignments for use with eval. Not normally invoked directly by users.

autodist-distroquery package REPO PKG [ARCH]
autodist-distroquery repository REPO

DISTROQUERY_API_URL is read directly from /etc/autodist/config; the script exits with an error if the variable is not set or empty.

Commands

Command	Description
package REPO PKG [ARCH]	Query GET /package/{repo}/{pkg} and output pkg_name, pkg_version, pkg_release, pkg_summary, pkg_group, pkg_license, pkg_url, pkg_description, pkg_size, pkg_buildtime, pkg_arch, pkg_archs, pkg_builds. The effective RPM arch (e.g. noarch) is resolved via a secondary call to GET /package/{repo}/{binarypackage}/{arch}
repository REPO	Query GET /repository/{repo} and output pkg_list with all source package names

Activated by setting DISTROQUERY_API_URL in /etc/autodist/config.

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autodist-cleanold

Periodic cleanup of stale build artifacts from build, source, RPMS, and SRPMS directories. Takes no command-line arguments; age thresholds are read from /etc/autodist/config.

Relevant configuration variables:

Variable	Description
RPMS_CTIME_OLD	Minimum age in days before removing old RPMs
SRPMS_CTIME_OLD	Minimum age in days before removing old SRPMs
SOURCES_CTIME_OLD	Minimum age before removing source files
SOURCES_ARCHIVES_CTIME_OLD	Minimum age before removing source archives (tar.xz, tar.bz2, tar.gz)
SOURCES_PATCH_CTIME_OLD	Minimum age before removing source patches
BUILD_CTIME_OLD	Minimum age before removing build directories
TMP_CTIME_OLD	Minimum age before removing temporary files

Also handles cleanup inside autoport chroot environments and clears ccache and yarn caches.

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autodist-vercmp

RPM EVR (Epoch:Version-Release) version comparison using the standard RPM algorithm. Compatible with both Python 2 and Python 3.

autodist-vercmp <EVR1> <EVR2>
autodist-vercmp <epoch1> <ver1> <release1> <epoch2> <ver2> <release2>
autodist-vercmp   # interactive mode (prompts for input)

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Versions are equal
11	First version is newer
12	Second version is newer

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automaint

Automatic batch repository maintenance. Compares package versions between a staging/source repository and a destination repository, automatically importing updated packages.

automaint -s SOURCE_REPOSITORY -d DEST_REPOSITORY [-p PORT_REPOSITORY] [-t] [-v] [-h]

Options

Option	Description
-s REPOSITORY	Source (staging/autobuild) repository
-d REPOSITORY	Main destination repository
-p REPOSITORY	Porting repository
-t	Test mode (no changes made)
-v	Verbose output
-h	Show help and exit

Imports are performed only for safe updates (minor version bumps, release increments); major version upgrades and dubious beta versions are skipped.

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autoport-chroot

Access to cross-arch chroot environments for building packages on architectures different from the host.

autoport-chroot <chroot_target> [command [args...]]

• If a command is specified, it is executed inside the chroot as the configured user.
• If no command is given, an interactive shell is opened inside the chroot.

Chroot environments are defined in /etc/autodist/autoport via the AUTOPORT_CHROOT, AUTOPORT_ARCH, and AUTOPORT_CHROOT_USER arrays. On x86_64 hosts, chroots for 32-bit architectures are automatically started with linux32.

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distdb job format

Jobs are defined as Bash arrays in distdb files under /etc/autodist/distdb.d/:

# job_name=(packages %flag1,%flag2,...)
qt6=(qt6-qtbase,qt6-qt3d %build_and_install,%continue_on_error)

• Packages are comma-separated in the first array element.
• Flags in the second element control build behaviour.

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Key runtime paths

Path	Content
/etc/autodist/config	Main configuration sourced by all Bash scripts
/etc/autodist/config-git	autodist-git configuration (Gitea credentials and paths)
/etc/autodist/distdb	Main distribution database
/etc/autodist/distdb.d/	Distribution database fragments (.db files)
/etc/autodist/blacklist	Packages excluded from automatic updates
/var/autodist/.autospec	FTP credentials and repository URLs for package upload
/var/autodist/RPM/SPECS/	RPM spec files (~5,000+)
/var/autodist/log/	Build, update, prepare, and send logs
/var/autodist/{repo}/	Per-repository state (distdb, srcpkglist, metadata)
/var/autodist/{repo}/autoupdate/	Scheduling files, spec patches, upstream update lists
/var/autodist/distromatic/	Generated repository metadata
/run/autodist/	PID files for autodist-launcher and autodist

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RPM spec conventions

• The Release field uses the Nmamba suffix (e.g. 4mamba).
• AUTOBUILDREQ-BEGIN / AUTOBUILDREQ-END blocks are auto-managed by autospec — never edit between them manually.
• Vendor and Distribution are set to openmamba.

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License

Copyright (C) 2006-2026 Silvan Calarco <silvan.calarco@mambasoft.it> Released under the terms of the GNU GPL version 3.