Collections

Collections are abstract aggregates of artifacts. To be able to make meaningful use of the system, they need to be assigned categories, each of which has some additional key-value data.

Some additional key-value data is associated with each item in a collection. The structure of that data also depends on the category used for the collection.

Items in collections may be looked up using various names, depending on the category. These names are analogous to URL routing in web applications (and indeed could be used by debusine’s URL routing, as well as when inspecting the collection directly): a name resolves to at most one item at a time, and an item may be accessible via more than one name. The existence of multiple “lookup names” that resolve to an item does not imply duplicates of that item or any associated artifacts.

Data and per-item data key names are used in pydantic models, and must therefore be valid Python identifiers.

Category debian:archive

This collection represents a Debian archive (a.k.a. repository).

  • Data:

    • may_reuse_versions: if true, versions of packages in this archive may be reused provided that the previous packages with that version have been removed; this should be false for typical user-facing archives to avoid confusing behaviour from apt, but it may be useful to set it to true for experimental archives

  • Valid items:

    • debian:suite collections

  • Per-item data: none

  • Lookup names:

    • name:NAME: the suite whose name property is NAME

    • source-version:NAME_VERSION: the source package named NAME at VERSION.

    • binary-version:NAME_VERSION_ARCH: the set of binary packages on ARCH whose srcpkg_name property is NAME and whose version property is VERSION.

  • Constraints:

    • there may be at most one package with a given name and version (and architecture, in the case of binary packages) active in the collection at a given time, although the same package may be in multiple suites

    • each poolified file name resulting from an active artifact may only refer to at most one concrete file in the collection at a given time (this differs from the above constraint in the case of source packages, which contain multiple files that may overlap with other source packages)

    • if may_reuse_versions is false, then each poolified file name in the collection may only refer to at most one concrete file, regardless of whether conflicting files are active or removed

Category debian:suite

This collection represents a single suite in a Debian archive. Its name is the name of the suite.

  • Data:

    • release_fields: dictionary of static fields to set in this suite’s Release file

    • may_reuse_versions: if true, versions of packages in this suite may be reused provided that the previous packages with that version have been removed; this should be false for typical user-facing suites to avoid confusing behaviour from apt, but it may be useful to set it to true for experimental suites

  • Valid items:

    • debian:source-package artifacts

    • debian:binary-package artifacts

  • Per-item data:

    • srcpkg_name: for binary packages, the name of the corresponding source package (copied from underlying artifact for ease of lookup and to preserve history)

    • srcpkg_version: for binary packages, the version of the corresponding source package (copied from underlying artifact for ease of lookup and to preserve history)

    • package: the name from the package’s Package: field (copied from underlying artifact for ease of lookup and to preserve history)

    • version: the version of the package (copied from underlying artifact for ease of lookup and to preserve history)

    • architecture: for binary packages, the architecture of the package (copied from underlying artifact for ease of lookup and to preserve history)

    • component: the component (e.g. main or non-free) in which this package is published

    • section: the section (e.g. python) for this package

    • priority: for binary packages, the priority (e.g. optional) for this package

  • Lookup names:

    • source:NAME: the current version of the source package named NAME.

    • source-version:NAME_VERSION: the source package named NAME at VERSION.

    • binary:NAME_ARCH the current version of the binary package named NAME on ARCH.

    • binary-version:NAME_VERSION_ARCH the binary package named NAME at VERSION on ARCH.

  • Constraints:

    • there may be at most one package with a given name and version (and architecture, in the case of binary packages) active in the collection at a given time

    • each poolified file name resulting from an active artifact may only refer to at most one concrete file in the collection at a given time (this differs from the above constraint in the case of source packages, which contain multiple files that may overlap with other source packages)

    • if may_reuse_versions is false, then each poolified file name in the collection may only refer to at most one concrete file, regardless of whether conflicting files are active or removed

Category debian:environments

Todo

The definition of this category is not yet fully agreed. We’ll revisit it when we’re closer to being able to try out an implementation so that we can see how the lookup mechanisms will work.

This collection represents a group of debian:system-tarball and/or debian:system-image artifacts, such as the tarballs used by build daemons across each suite and architecture.

In the short term, there will be one debian:environments collection per distribution vendor with the collection name set to the name of the vendor (e.g. “debian”), so that it can be looked up by the vendor’s name. This is subject to change.

  • Data: none

  • Valid items:

    • debian:system-tarball artifacts

    • debian:system-image artifacts

  • Per-item data:

    • codename: codename of the distribution version (copied from underlying artifact for ease of lookup and to preserve history, but may be overridden to reuse the same tarball for another distribution version)

    • arch: architecture name (copied from underlying artifact for ease of lookup and to preserve history)

    • variant: an optional identifier indicating what kind of tarball or image this is; for example, an image optimized for use with autopkgtest might have its variant set to “autopkgtest”

  • Lookup names:

    • tarball:CODENAME:ARCH: the current system tarball for codename CODENAME and architecture ARCH

    • tarball:CODENAME:ARCH:VARIANT: the current system tarball for codename CODENAME, architecture ARCH, and variant VARIANT

    • image:CODENAME:ARCH: the current system image for codename CODENAME and architecture ARCH

    • image:CODENAME:ARCH:VARIANT: the current system image for codename CODENAME, architecture ARCH, and variant VARIANT

  • Constraints:

    • there may be at most one active tarball or image respectively with a given vendor, codename, variant and architecture at a given time