Bazel for all builds

While the march has begun to get out of packaging Hell has begun by just using a contained & throttled process on a host via containers(docker/lxd) or just simple User Space and the benefits of SELinux/AppArmor, you will still need to package and distribute packaged builds in at least the near future. Bazel is your best friend in this area. Use it.

https://bazel.build/

There are many tools for building packages but many of them suck, especially in Debian land.
Bazel is a wonderful tool built, backed and used by Google.

Getting Started

https://docs.bazel.build/versions/master/getting-started.html

Bazel for deb & rpm packages

Example for Shell

https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/tree/master/examples/shell

Simple example extending simple shell example above

Get examples

git clone https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel
cd bazel

Edit shell example BUILD file

nano examples/shell/BUILD

# shell example BUILD text
package(default_visibility = ["//visibility:public"])

sh_binary(
    name = "bin",
    srcs = ["bin.sh"],
    deps = [
        ":lib",
        "@bazel_tools//tools/bash/runfiles",
    ],
)

sh_library(
    name = "lib",
    data = [
        "data/file.txt",
        "lib.sh",
    ],
    deps = ["@bazel_tools//tools/bash/runfiles"],
)

sh_test(
    name = "test",
    size = "small",
    srcs = ["test.sh"],
    data = ["data/test_file.txt"],
    deps = [
        ":lib",
        "@bazel_tools//tools/bash/runfiles",
    ],
)

filegroup(
    name = "srcs",
    srcs = glob(["**"]),
)

# Add in packaging output.
load("@bazel_tools//tools/build_defs/pkg:pkg.bzl", "pkg_tar", "pkg_deb")

pkg_tar(
    name = "bazel-bin",
    strip_prefix = "/src",
    package_dir = "/usr/bin",
    # srcs = ["//src:bazel"],
    srcs = ["bin.sh"],
    mode = "0755",
)

pkg_tar(
    name = "bazel-tools",
    strip_prefix = "/",
    package_dir = "/usr/share/lib/bazel/tools",
    # srcs = ["//tools:package-srcs"],
    srcs = ["bin.sh"],
    mode = "0644",
)

pkg_tar(
    name = "debian-data",
    srcs = ["bin.sh"],
    extension = "tar.gz",
    deps = [
        ":bazel-bin",
        ":bazel-tools",
    ],
)

pkg_deb(
    name = "bazel-debian",
    architecture = "amd64",
    built_using = "bazel (0.1.1)",
    data = ":debian-data",
    depends = [
        "zlib1g-dev",
        "unzip",
    ],
    description_file = "debian/description",
    homepage = "http://bazel.build",
    maintainer = "The Bazel Authors <bazel-dev@googlegroups.com>",
    package = "bazel",
    version = "0.1.1",
)

Populate the following files with the appropriate information for deb package build lintian.

ref: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/dreq.en.html

debian/description
debian/control
debian/copyright
debian/changelog
debian/rules

Run some commands

bazel build examples/shell:bin
bazel build examples/shell:lib
bazel build examples/shell:bazel-bin
bazel build examples/shell:bazel-tools
bazel build examples/shell:debian-data
bazel build examples/shell:bazel-debian
bazel test examples/shell:test

Run lintian

lintian bazel-bin/examples/shell/bazel_0.1.1_amd64.deb

https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/dreq.en.html

Get the output

ls bazel-bin/examples/shell/

Notice how much better this is than the garbage build libraries that Debian has.

WIP - Builder script.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -exo pipefail
# https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/dreq.en.html
D="examples/shell"
DD="scripts/packages/debian"
mkdir $D/debian || true

for i in $(find scripts/packages/debian/ -type f | grep -v "BUILD"); do
        cp $i $D/debian/ || true
done


bazel build $D:bin
bazel build $D:lib
bazel build $D:bazel-bin
bazel build $D:bazel-tools
touch examples/shell/debian/description
bazel build $D:debian-data
bazel build $D:bazel-debian
bazel test $D:test
lintian bazel-bin/examples/shell/bazel_0.1.1_amd64.deb
dpkg-deb --contents bazel-bin/examples/shell/bazel_0.1.1_amd64.deb

Other Useful Commands

example

https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/blob/master/scripts/packages/debian/BUILD

dpkg-deb --contents bazel-bin/examples/shell/bazel_0.1.1_amd64.deb dpkg-deb --extract bazel-bin/examples/shell/bazel_0.1.1_amd64.deb

Bazel

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