The Dose-Debcheck PrimerPietro Abate, Roberto Di Cosmo, Ralf Treinen, Stefano ZacchiroliOctober 28, 2016 |
The dose-debcheck tool determines, for a set of package control stanzas, called the repository, whether packages of the repository can be installed relative to the repository. Typically, the repository is a Packages file of a Debian suite. The installability check is by default performed for all package stanzas in the repository, but may be also be restricted to a subset of these.
This primer applies to version 5.0.1 of dose-debcheck.
Debian control stanzas are defined in deb-control (5). For dose-debcheck only the following fields are relevant, all others are ignored:
In particular, Recommends and Suggests are ignored by dose-debcheck. Also, dose-debcheck does not check for the presence of fields that are required by Debian policy but that are not relevant for the task of dose-debcheck, like Maintainer or Description.
Also note that dose-debcheck is slightly more liberal than the Debian policy in accepting input, and hence cannot be used to check strict policy conformance of package stanzas.
A repository is a set of package stanzas. This set may be given to dose-debcheck in form of a single file or as several files, in the latter case the repository is constituted by all stanzas in all input files (see Section 3). dose-debcheck assures that the repositories has two important properties:
In the following, when we speak of a package, we mean a precise package stanza that is identified by a name, a version, and an architecture, like the package of name gcc in version 4:4.3.2-2 and for architecture amd64. The stanza with name gcc and version 4:4.4.4-2 for architecture amd64 would constitute a different package.
If the input contains several stanzas with the same name, version and architecture then all but the last such stanza are dropped, and a warning message is issued.
Example: The following input does not constitute a repository:
Package: abc Version: 42 Architecture: amd64 Depends: xyz Package: abc Version: 42 Architecture: amd64 Depends: pqr
The reason is that the triple (abc,42,amd64) is not unique. dose-debcheck will warn us that it only accepts the second stanza and drops the first one from its input:
(W)Debian: the input contains two packages with the same name, version and architecture (abc,42,amd64). Only the latter will be considered.
In order to understand what installability exactly means for us we need a little bit of theory. Let R be a repository (see Section 1). An R-installation set, or sometimes simply called an R-installation, is a subset I of R that has the following four properties:
Hence, the notion of an installation captures the idea that a certain set of packages may be installed together on a machine, following the semantics of binary package relations according to the Debian Policy. The foundation requirement expresses that essential packages must be installed; it is formulated in a way that also caters to the (extremely rare) case that a package changes its Essential value between different versions. The foundation property may be switched off by giving the option --deb-ignore-essential.
Example: Let R be the following repository:
Package: a
Version: 1
Depends: b (>= 2) | v
Package: a
Version: 2
Depends: c (> 1)
Package: b
Version: 1
Conflicts: d
Package: c
Version: 3
Depends: d
Conflicts: v
Package: d
Version: 5
Provides: v
Conflicts: v
The following subsets of R are not R-installation sets:
Examples of R-installation sets are
A package (p,n) is said to be installable in a repository R if there exists an R-installation set I that contains (p,n).
Example: In the above example, (a,1) is R-installable since it is contained in the R-installation set {(a,1), (d,5) }.
However, (a,2) is not R-installable: Any R-installation set containing (a,2) must also contain (c,3) (since it is the only package in R that can satisfy the dependency of (a,2) on c (>1), and in the same way it must also contain (d,5). However, this destroys the peace as (c,3) and (d,5) are in conflict. Hence, no such R-installation set can exist.
One also should keep in mind that, even when two packages are R-installable, this does not necessarily mean that both packages can be installed together. A set P of packages is called R-co-installable when there exists a single R-installation set extending P.
Example: Again in the above example, both (b,1) and (d,5) are R-installable; however they are not R-co-installable.
See Section 6 on how co-installability can be encoded.
dose-debcheck accepts several different options, and also arguments.
dose-debcheck [option] ... [file] ...
The package repository is partionend into a background and a foreground. The foreground contains the packages we are actually interested in, the background contains packages that are just available for satisfying dependencies, but for which we do not care about installability.
All arguments are interpreted as filenames of Packages input files,
the contents of which go into the foreground. If no argument is given
then metadata of foreground packages is read from standard input. In
addition, one may specify listings of foreground packages with the
option --fg=<filename>, and listings of background packages
with the option --bg=<filename>. Input from files (but not from
standard input) may be compressed with gzip or bzip2, provided
dose-debcheck was compiled with support for these compression libraries.
The option -f and -s ask for a listing of uninstallable, resp. installable packages. The option -e asks for an explanation of each reported case. The exact effect of these options will be explained in Section 4.
Example: We may check whether packages in non-free are installable, where dependencies may be satisfied from main or contrib:
dose-distcheck -f -e \
--bg=/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.fr.debian.org_debian_dists_sid_main_binary-amd64_Packages\
--bg=/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.fr.debian.org_debian_dists_sid_contrib_binary-amd64_Packages\
/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.fr.debian.org_debian_dists_sid_non-free_binary-amd64_Packages
The initial distinction between foreground and background packages is
modified when using the --checkonly option. This option takes
as value a comma-separated list of package names, possibly qualified
with a version constraint. The effect is that only packages that match
one of these package names are kept in the foreground, all others are
pushed into the background.
Example:
dose-debcheck --checkonly "libc6, 2ping (= 1.2.3-1)" Packages
Co-installability of packages can be easily checked with the
--coinst option. This option takes as argument a
comma-separated list of packages, each of them possibly with a version
constraint. In that case, dose-debcheck will check whether the packages
specified are co-installable, that is whether it is possible to
install these packages at the same time (see
Section 2.3).
Note that it is possible that the name of a package, even when
qualified with a version constraint, might be matched by several
packages with different versions. In that case, co-installability will
be checked for each combination of real packages that match the
packages specified in the argument of the --coinst option.
Example: Consider the following repository (architectures are omitted for clarity):
Package: a Version: 1 Package: a Version: 2 Package: a Version: 3 Package: b Version: 10 Package: b Version: 11 ...
Executing the command debcheck --coinst a (>1), b on this
repository will check co-installability of 4 pairs of packages: there
are two packages that match a (>1), namely package a in
versions 2 and 3, and there are two packages that match b. Hence,
the following four pairs of packages will be checked for co-installability:
Mathematically speaking, the set of checked tuples is the Cartesian product of the denotations of the single package specifications.
Some options affect the notion of installability:
Other options concern Multiarch:
Filtering out packages is a different operation than pushing packages into the background (Section 3.2): Background packages are still available to satisfy dependencies, while filtering out a package makes it completely invisible.
Other options controlling the output are explained in detail in Section 4. A complete listing of all options can be found in the dose-debcheck(1) manpage.
The output of dose-debcheck is in the YAML format, see Section 6.2 for how to parse the output.
Without any particular options, dose-debcheck just reports some statistics:
Example:
% dose-debcheck rep1 background-packages: 0 foreground-packages: 4 total-packages: 4 broken-packages: 1
With the options --failures and --successes, dose-debcheck reports findings of the requested kind for all packages in the foreground. These options may be used alone or in combination. In any case, the status field tells whether the package is found to be installable (value ok) or non-installable (value broken).
Example:
% dose-debcheck --failures --successes rep1 report: - package: a version: 1 architecture: amd64 source: a (= 1) status: broken - package: a version: 2 architecture: amd64 source: a (= 2) status: ok - package: b version: 1 architecture: amd64 source: b (= 1) status: ok - package: c version: 3 architecture: amd64 source: c (= 3) status: ok background-packages: 0 foreground-packages: 4 total-packages: 4 broken-packages: 1
With an additional --explain option, an explanation is given with each finding.
An explanation of installability simply consists of an installation set in the sense of Section 2 containing the package in question.
Example:
% dose-debcheck --explain --successes rep1
report:
-
package: a
version: 2
architecture: amd64
source: a (= 2)
status: ok
installationset:
-
package: c
version: 3
architecture: amd64
-
package: a
version: 2
architecture: amd64
-
package: b
version: 1
architecture: amd64
source: b (= 1)
status: ok
installationset:
-
package: b
version: 1
architecture: amd64
An installation set contains all essential packages (see Section 2), which may blow up the output of installability. Giving the option --deb-ignore-essential will avoid this, but will also alter the notion of installability in some corner cases (for instance, when a package needs a version of an essential package that is not available in the repository).
Installability of a package is much easier to explain than non-installability. The reason for this is that in the former case we just have to give one installation that our tool has found, while in the latter case we have to explain why all possible attempts to install the package must fail. The first consequence of this observation is that the explanation in case of non-installability may consist of several components.
Example: Consider the following repository consisting of only two packages:
Package: a Version: 1 Depends: b | c Package: c Version: 3 Conflicts: a
To explain why package (a,1) is not installable we have to say why all possible alternative ways to satisfy its dependency must fail:
There may be several ways to satisfy dependencies due to alternatives in the dependencies in packages. Alternatives may occur in dependencies in different forms:
There is one component in the explanation for every possible way to choose among these alternatives in the dependencies.
There are only two possible reasons why an attempt to satisfy dependencies may fail:
Each component of the explanation is either a missing package, or a conflict.
A component of the explanation that corresponds to the case of a missing package consist of two stanzas:
Example: An explanation might look like this:
package: libgnuradio-dev
version: 3.2.2.dfsg-1
architecture: all
source: gnuradio (= 3.2.2.dfsg-1)
status: broken
reasons:
-
missing:
pkg:
package: libgruel0
version: 3.2.2.dfsg-1+b1
architecture: amd64
unsat-dependency: libboost-thread1.40.0 (>= 1.40.0-1)
depchains:
-
depchain:
-
package: libgnuradio-dev
version: 3.2.2.dfsg-1
Architecture: all
Depends: libgnuradio (= 3.2.2.dfsg-1)
-
package: libgnuradio
ersion: 3.2.2.dfsg-1
architecture: all
depends: libgnuradio-core0
-
package: libgnuradio-core0
version: 3.2.2.dfsg-1+b1
architecture: amd64
depends: libgruel0 (= 3.2.2.dfsg-1+b1)
This tells us that libgnuradio-dev in version 3.2.2.dfsg−1 is not installable, due to the fact that package libgruel0 in version 3.2.2.dfsg−1+b1 has a dependency libboost-thread1.40.0 (>= 1.40.0-1) that is not matched by any package in the repository. The dependency chain tells why package libgnuradio-dev in the given version might want to install libgruel0.
The depchains component gives all possible dependency chains (depchains, for short) from the root package (libgnuradio-dev in the above example) to the one where a direct dependency is not matched by any package (libgruel0 in the example). We do not include the last node in the dependency chain to avoid a useless repetition.
In general there may be more then one path to reach a certain package from a given root package, in that case dose-debcheck will unroll all of them.
Example: In the following repository, package a is not installable since the dependency of package d cannot be satisfied:
Package: a Architecture: amd64 Version: 1 Depends: b|c Package: b Architecture: amd64 Version: 1 Depends: d Package: c Architecture: amd64 Version: 3 Depends: d Package: d Architecture: amd64 Version: 42 Depends: x
There are two different ways how a arrives at a dependency on d. dose-debcheck reports the problem once, but lists the two paths from a to d:
% dose-debcheck -e -f --checkonly a rep1
report:
-
package: a
version: 1
architecture: amd64
source: a (= 1)
status: broken
reasons:
-
missing:
pkg:
package: d
version: 42
architecture: amd64
unsat-dependency: x
depchains:
-
depchain:
-
package: a
version: 1
architecture: amd64
depends: b | c
-
package: b
version: 1
architecture: amd64
depends: d
-
depchain:
-
package: a
version: 1
architecture: amd64
depends: b | c
-
package: c
version: 3
architecture: amd64
depends: d
The other possible cause of a problem is a conflict. In that case, the explanation consists of a conflict stanza giving the two packages that are in direct conflict with each other. Next, we have two depchain stanzas that lead to the first, resp. the second of these directly conflicting packages.
Example:
package: a
version: 1
status: broken
reasons:
-
conflict:
pkg1:
package: e
version: 1
pkg2:
package: f
version: 1
depchain1:
-
depchain:
-
package: a
version: 1
depends: b
-
package: b
version: 1
depends: e
depchain2:
-
depchain:
-
package: a
version: 1
depends: d
-
package: d
version: 1
depends: f
The first part of the dose-debcheck report is as before with details about the broken package. Since this is a conflict, and all conflicts are binary, we give the two packages involved in the conflict first. Packages f and e are in conflict, but they are not direct dependencies of package a . For this reason, we output the two paths that from a lead to f or e. All dependency chains for each conflict are together. Again, since there might be more than one way from a to reach the conflicting packages, we can have more then one depchain.
If a conflict occurs between two packages that are both reached through non-trivial dependency chains then we sometimes speak of a deep conflict.
In case of a co-installability query (with the option --coinst), the distinction between background and foreground does no longer make sense since the checks now apply to tuples of packages, and not to individual packages. As a consequence, the summary looks a bit different in this case:
Example: In the following example, there are 3 different versions of package aa, two different versions of package bb and two packages with other names, giving rise to 6 pairs of packages to check for co-installability. Two pairs out of these 6 are found not co-installable:
% ./debcheck --coinst "aa,bb" coinst.packages total-packages: 7 total-tuples: 6 broken-tuples: 2
Listings of co-installable, or non co-installable packages when requested with the options -s/--successes, resp. -f/--failures, are similar as before but now start on the word coinst instead of package. Explanations are as before:
Example:
% ./debcheck --coinst "aa,bb" -s -f -e coinst.simple
report:
-
coinst: aa (= 2) , bb (= 11)
status: ok
installationset:
-
package: aa
version: 2
architecture: all
-
package: bb
version: 11
architecture: all
-
package: cc
version: 31
architecture: all
-
coinst: aa (= 1) , bb (= 11)
status: broken
reasons:
-
conflict:
pkg1:
package: aa
version: 1
architecture: all
source: aa (= 1)
unsat-conflict: cc
pkg2:
package: cc
version: 31
architecture: all
source: cc (= 31)
depchain2:
-
conflict:
pkg1:
package: aa
version: 1
architecture: all
source: aa (= 1)
unsat-conflict: cc
pkg2:
package: cc
version: 31
architecture: all
source: cc (= 31)
depchain1:
depchain2:
-
depchain:
-
package: bb
version: 11
architecture: all
depends: cc
total-packages: 5
total-tuples: 2
broken-tuples: 1
Exit codes 0-63 indicate a normal termination of the program, codes 64-127 indicate abnormal termination of the program (such as parse errors, I/O errors).
In case of normal program termination:
dose-debcheck only tests whether any package in the foreground set is installable. However, sometimes one is interested in knowing whether several packages are co-installable, that is whether there exists an installation set that contains all these packages. One might also be interested in an installation that does not contain a certain package.
This can be encoded by creating a pseudo-package that represents the query.
Example: We wish to know whether it is possible to install at the same time a and b, the latter in some version ≥ 42, but without installing c. We create a pseudo package like this:
Package: query Version: 1 Architecture: all Depends: a, b(>= 42) Conflicts: c
Then we check for installability of that package with respect to the repository:
echo "Package: query\nVersion: 1\nArchitecture: all\nDepends: a, b(>=42)\nConflicts: c" | dose-debcheck --bg=repository
(Beware: This might not do exactly what you want, see below!)
The problem with this encoding is as follows: if we ask dose-debcheck for installability of some package depending on a then this dependency can a priori be satisfied by any of the available versions of package a, or even by some other package that provides a as a virtual package. Virtual packages can be excluded by exploiting the fact that, in Debian, virtual packages are not versioned. As a consequence, any package relation (like Depends) containing a version constraint can only be matched by a real package, and not by a virtual package. This means that the dependency on b (>= 42) in the above example already can only be matched by a real package. If we also want to restrict dependency on a to real packages only without knowing its possible versions, then we may write Depends: a (>=0) | a(<0).
Example: If we wish to know whether it is possible to install at the same time some version of package a and some version of package b, under the condition that these are real packages and not virtual packages, then we may construct the following pseudo-package and check its installability:
Package: query Version: 1 Architecture: all Depends: a(>=0) | a(<0), b(>=0) | b(<0)
Note that it is in theory possible, though admittedly quite unlikely, that a package has a version number smaller than 0 (example: 0∼).
However, if we have several versions of package a and several versions of package b then the above pseudo-package is installable if it is possible to install at the same time some version of a and some version of b. If we want instead to check co-installability of any combination of versions of package a with versions of package b then the --coinst option (see Section 3.3) is better suited for the task.
Debcheck’s output can be easily parsed from a Python program by using the YAML parser (needs the Debian package python-yaml).
Example: If you have run debcheck with the option -f (and possibly with the -s option in addition) you may obtain a report containing one non-installable package (name and version) per line like this:
import yaml
doc = yaml.load(file('output-of-distcheck', 'r'))
if doc['report'] is not None:
for p in doc['report']:
if p['status'] == 'broken':
print '%s %s is broken' (p['package'], p['version'])
A complete example of a python script that constructs a set of pseudo-packages, runs dose-debcheck on it, and then processes the output is given in the directory doc/examples/potential-file-overwrites.
Exit codes allow for a convenient integration of installation checks as tests in shell scripts.
Example:
Suppose that you want to check installability of all .deb files
in the current directory with respect to the repository
unstable.packages before uploading your package described in
mypackage.changes:
find . -name "*.deb" -exec dpkg-deb --info '{}' control \; -exec echo ""\; | \
dose-debcheck --bg unstable.packages && dput mypackage.changes
Jérôme Vouillon is the author of the solving engine. He also wrote the first version of the program (called debcheck and rpmcheck at that time), which was released in November 2005.
The initial development of this tool was supported by the research project Environment for the development and Distribution of Open Source software (EDOS), funded by the European Commission under the IST activities of the 6th Framework Programme. Further development and maintenance of the software, together with new applications building on top of it, was funded by the research project Managing the Complexity of the Open Source Infrastructure (Mancoosi), funded by the European Commission under the IST activities of the 7th Framework Programme, grant agreement 214898.
The work on this software was partly performed at IRILL, the Center for Research and Innovation on Free Software.
The dose-debcheck tool, the underlying theory and its application, was described in [MBD+06].
The paper [TZ08] gives an overview of the theory, and explains how dose-debcheck is used for various aspect of quality assurance in Debian.
Checking the relationships between software components is of course also possible and useful for other models of software packages than Debian packages. In fact, the dose-debcheck tool is only one flavor of a more general tool called dose-distcheck which may perform these checks as well for RPM packages and Eclipse plugins, and in the future possibly for even more formats. These formats have many things in common, and the authors of dose-debcheck are convinced that the right architecture for tools dealing with logical aspects of packages is a modular one. Such a modular architecture should be centered around a common universal format for describing the relationships between packages. This architecture is described in [ACTZ11].
Copyright © 2010, 2011, 2012
Pietro Abate <pietro.abate@pps.univ-paris-diderot.fr>,
Ralf Treinen <ralf.treinen@pps.univ-paris-diderot.fr>,
and Université Paris-Diderot, for this documentation.
This documentation is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
The software itself is, of course, free software. You can redistribute and/or modify dose-distcheck (including dose-debcheck), as well as the underlying library called dose, under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. A special linking exception to the GNU Lesser General Public License applies to the library, see the precise licence information of dose for details.
This document was translated from LATEX by HEVEA.