How to create and manage an AUR package. #AUR #ARCH #makepkg #PKGBUILD

Creating an AUR Package.md

Creating an AUR Package

Maintainer: Keil Miller Jr

How to create and manage an AUR package.

The following link should be read:

• Creating packages
• AUR submission guidelines

Prerequisites

• Part of this section is directly taken from Authentication

$ pacman -S base-devel
$ nano ~/.ssh/config
--------------------
Host aur.archlinux.org
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/aur
  User aur
--------------------
$ ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/aur

Contents of public key need to be copied to profile in My Account page accessible from aur.archlinux.org.

Clone Repo

• Part of this section is directly taken from Creating package repositories

If you are creating a new package from scratch, establish a local Git repository and an AUR remote by cloning the intended pkgbase. If the package does not yet exist, the following warning is expected:

$ mkdir ~/abs
$ cd ~/abs
$ git clone ssh://aur@aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase.git

Cloning into 'pkgbase'...
warning: You appear to have cloned an empty repository.
Checking connectivity... done.

Add remote to existing package

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ git remote add label ssh://aur@aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase.git

.gitignore

There are only 2 files required for an AUR package, unless you wish to add patches. This .gitignore file might help. Ignore everything, and call required files directly.

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ touch .gitignore
$ nano .gitignore

*
!.SRCINFO
!PKGBUILD

Create PKGBUILD

PKGBUILD is an "Arch Linux package build description file." It will include package related variables, most oif which are self explanitory.

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ cp /usr/share/pacman/PKGBUILD.proto PKGBUILD

Make appropriate changes to PKGBUILD.

Adding md5sums to PKGBUILD

updpkgsums will perform an in place update of the checksums in the path specified by [build file], defaulting to PKGBUILD in the current working directory.

This should be done every time the source changes. Your source should change with pkgver.

$ updpkgsums

Patching

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ rm -r src`
$ makepkg --nobuild` # Make package, but do not build source. Will run `prepare()` function, so do not include an unwanted patch.
$ cp -r src src.new`
$ code src.new # Make changes to new source directory
$ diff -Naur src src.new > package.diff

Testing

Terminal

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ makepkg
$ sudo pacman -U [package].pkg.tar.xz # Install
$ pacman -R [pkgname] # Uninstall

Pamac

• Install: Three Vertical Dot Icon > Install Local Packages > [package] > Open
• Uninstall: Search Icon > [package] > select package > remove

Generate .SRCINFO

• Part of this section is directly taken from Creating package repositories*

.SRCINFO files contain package metadata in a simple, unambiguous format, so that tools such as the AUR's Web back-end or AUR helpers may retrieve a package's metadata without parsing the PKGBUILD directly.

$ cd ~/abs/[package]
$ makepkg --printsrcinfo > .SRCINFO

Pushing to AUR repository

Before pushing to AUR repository, make sure the following are updated:

• PKGBUILD > pkgver
• PKGBUILD > pkgrel
• PKGBUILD > source
• PKGBUILD > md5sums
• Regenerate .SRCINFO

$ makepkg --printsrcinfo > .SRCINFO
$ git add PKGBUILD .SRCINFO
$ git commit -m "useful commit message"
$ git push

termux-language-server (the name is misleading) can also be useful when writing a PKGBUILD.

Users of GNU Emacs can use it together with pkgbuild-mode.

Hi, I really appreciate this guide!

Would it be possible to change the wording just under "Clone Repo" to stress you need to come up with your own package name and not clone "pkgbase" literally at that point? Someone made that mistake here and I almost did too. The original wiki entry has italics that are lost in copying over, though perhaps something like [pkgbase] would be better.