1. Contributing to RPM Fusion

So, you've decided to become a contributor to RPM Fusion? This guide will lead you through your first package submission and teach you how to update your package(s) in the future. Please also have a look on the Fedora counterpart https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Join_the_package_collection_maintainers

2. Becoming a RPM Fusion contributor

Having packaging experience in Fedora is much preferred, but newcomers are welcome too. However if you are a newcomer (i.e. you're not a Fedora sponsored packager) you must first get sponsored, which means find someone to guide you while you learn the procedures.

2.1. Create a Bugzilla Account

In either scenario you should create your first RPM Fusion package and submit it for review as described below. The review process is handled through Bugzilla, as will be any bugs reported against your packages.

Make sure you have an account in Bugzilla.

The email address that you use for your Bugzilla account should be the same email address as you use for all other things related to RPM Fusion.

2.2. Join the Mailing List

Once this is done, join the Developers Mailing Lists and introduce yourself there. Include a link to the review request for your first package in your introduction, and if you're a newcomer also mention that you need someone to sponsor you.

If you have questions about the packaging process, this is the place to ask.

Also join the RPM Fusion GIT commits mailing list. The GIT commits mailing list is used for commit messages from the GIT repository. You should subscribe to this list to track the changes to all the packages.

3. Submitting a new package

3.1. Read the packaging guidelines

RPM Fusion follows the Fedora packaging guidelines, make sure you've read and understood these:

• Naming Guidelines

• Guidelines

other docs that may be useful

• Package maintainers

• Installing packager tools

It is also a good idea to read the items which will be checked during the review of your package and to verify yourself that these are all ok:

• Review Guidelines

Please read the Kmod standard if you will be packaging an external kernel module:

• Kmods2: Packaging kernel modules

3.2. Create a package review request

Before posting a review request, you should upload your SRPM and SPEC file to any accessible location on the internet.

Before your package can become part of RPM Fusion it must first be reviewed, create a new bug report as follows :

• Choose "Package Reviews" as Product.
• Choose "Review Requests" as Component.

• Set Summary to: "Review request: %{name} - %{summary}", with %{name} and %{summary} from the package.

• Put the following in the Description:
  • Full URLs to the spec file and source rpm of the package.
  • A short description for the package (usually, the %description from the spec file).
  • Why this package is not eligible to be included in Fedora.

  • The output rpmlint gives on both the source and binary packages. Explain for each message why you've chosen to ignore it.

  • Mention if this is your first RPM Fusion package.
  • Mention that you are seeking a sponsor if you are not a Fedora sponsored packager or an RPM Fusion sponsored packager.

• The request should also be set to block the tracker bug: RF_NEW (bug #2). This way, other contributors can easily check for packages that need reviewing. If you want to help others by doing reviews yourself go to bug #2.

• If you are seeking a sponsor you must also be set to block the tracker bug: NEEDSPONSORS (bug #30). Thus, some potential sponsors will look at the NEEDSPONSORS bug to find packages to review. The only allowed sponsors in RPM Fusion are Fedora sponsors.

Please do not submit more than one package per per Bugzilla entry. It would be very very difficult to follow the review otherwise. If you have related packages, it can be handy to trace all the dependencies using the "Depends On" or "Block" Bugzilla features.

3.3. Wait for your package to be reviewed

As time permits, a reviewer will review your package. A reviewer is either a Fedora sponsored packager or an RPM Fusion only sponsored packager. If you need a sponsor, the reviewer must be a Fedora sponsors. Sometimes other people add a few comments, this does not constitute a review.

When a proper review gets done the reviewer will assign the bug to him, remove the blocker on RF_NEW and set it to block the tracker bug RF_REVIEW (bug #3). This indicates that a review is in progress.

The reviewer should follow the Fedora Review Guidelines as close as possible, obviously taking into account any differences between Fedora and RPM Fusion. As RPM Fusion is more permissive with the content it allows, exceptions to these guidelines are allowed in some circumstances but care and common sense should prevail. The reviewer should ensure that any deviations from the Fedora Packaging Guidelines are sane and justified in the package they are reviewing. If in doubt, please ask on the RPM Fusion mailing list. The reviewer should inform the contributor of any changes that need to be made to their package, if any. The contributor should update their package as necessary, including bumping the release version and submit the new SPEC file and source rpm URL. The reviewer should verify the changes. This is repeated as many times as necessary until the contributor and reviewer are happy with the final package.

3.4. Get an RPM Fusion Account

Create an account in the RPM Fusion Account System

• Visit the account system home: https://admin.rpmfusion.org/accounts/

• Click on New account and fill in the blanks.

• fas email must be the same of bugzilla email (to allow be added as PoC).

• After you create your account, please be sure to sign the CLA (if you click on the "My Account" link in the top right, you should see CLA: CLA Done).

• Edit your account and upload your Public RSA SSH Key (see man ssh-keygen for more information) which is required for CVS authorization.
  

• It takes up to 24 hours before the new key is synced with the rest of the infrastructure.

• Once you get email confirmation that your account has been created and you're a member of the cla_done group, return to edit your account:

  • Apply for the packager group ==> https://admin.rpmfusion.org/accounts/group/view/packager .

  • Once this is done, your account will show up as "pending" to all of the RPM Fusion sponsors (who will receive an email).

  • When you are sponsored, you will be automatically added/approved to the rpmfusionbugs group as well. This will allow you to make changes to the state of bugs in Bugzilla, which is what you'll need to do to get them checked in. It will also allow you to do complete package reviews, including approving packages yourself!

3.5. Your package gets approved

When the reviewer approves the package, he adds a comment saying that the package has been approved, he removes the blocker RF_REVIEW bug and sets fedora-review flag to "+". (only RPM Fusion packagers can do this).

After that, you can submit a package admin request in RPM Fusion pkgdb as in Fedora.

As a reminder, the namespace tag specifies the repository in which you want to import your package:

• free for Open Source Software (as defined by the Fedora Licensing Guidelines) which the Fedora project cannot ship due to other reasons

• nonfree for redistributable software that is not Open Source Software (as defined by the Fedora Licensing Guidelines); this includes software with publicly available source-code that has "no commercial use"-like restrictions. A free package that depends on a nonfree package goes to this repository too.

3.6. Install RPMFusion packager tools and set your environment

Before starting next steps (importing your package or request a build) install rpmfusion-packager and rfpkg

sudo dnf install rpmfusion-packager

This provides a set of utilities that helps a RPMFusion packager in setting up automatically their environment to access to the git-dist and build server. The package already includes installation of others useful packages like the rfpkg. And after, just run rpmfusion-packager-setup with no options as a non-root user.

rpmfusion-packager-setup

Next, set your environment :

Start ssh-agent to ensure that git uses your id_rsa key:

ssh-agent $SHELL

or

keychain -q ~/.ssh/id_rsa

3.7. Import your package

Once the git module has been created, the package must be imported.
The only file that you have to import is the "src.rpm" file, no more and one at a time.

Then, checkout the common tool and import your SRPM as follow :

rfpkg clone <namespace>/<my_new_package>
cd <my_new_package>
rfpkg import ~/foo.src.rpm
rfpkg ci -c 
rfpkg new-sources my_packager-1.0.tar.gz
rfpkg commit
rfpkg push

During the GIT import procedure, your source files will be automatically tagged for the requested branch.

<namespace> is the section where your git module should be imported/go (free or nonfree).

3.8. Request a build

If you have already setup your environment (see two items ago), go on and request a build. Move to the directory where the source files are:

rfpkg clone free/my_package
cd my_package
vim my_package.spec

You may also request a scratch build to test build before do a git commit and push .

rfpkg --release f34 scratch-build --arches ppc64le --srpm

And finally upload source , commit changes and push it

rfpkg new-sources my_packager-1.0.tar.gz
rfpkg commit
rfpkg push

Then request a build to the koji server

rfpkg build

This will trigger a build request for the branch. Easy! You can check the status of the build process from the koji web interface.

Once the package built successfully, go back to your bug review and add a comment to the review to notify the import and build have been done correctly. Then close the bug as RESOLVED FIXED.

If there is a request for your package in the RPM Fusion Wishlist, please remove the related entry and commit the change in the wiki with a comment saying that the package is now in RPM Fusion.

3.9. If SSL certificate expired

If during import you get the following error:

Could not execute import_srpm: (35, 'Peer reports failure of signature verification or key exchange.')

Since rpmfusion-packager-0.6.1 we got rpmfusion-cert

rpmfusion-cert -v for verify

rpmfusion-cert -n to create a new certificate

If ~/.rpmfusion-server-ca.cert or ~/.rpmfusion-upload-ca.cert were generated before Apr 24 2018 (due these certificates has expired), you need update them, first remove them with rm ~/.rpmfusion-upload-ca.cert and ~/.rpmfusion-server-ca.cert, next run fedora-package-setup and after renew your client cert with rpmfusion-cert -n

The old method which is download manually a client-side certificate from: https://admin.rpmfusion.org/accounts/user/gencert and save it as ~/.rpmfusion.cert still working, if you need it for some reason as alternative.

4. Co-maintaining an existing package

You can offer to co-maintain a package in RPM Fusion. Please see Fedora's documentation on co-maintainership. To get commit privileges to an existing package, see "Package Change Requests for existing packages" in the CVS Requests documentation.

Even if you don't have an RPM Fusion account, it can be useful to anonymously checkout a package's GIT module for various reasons. In such case, you can use the following command :

rfpkg clone -a <namespace>/<module>

where <namespace> is either free or nonfree and <module> is the package's name.

5. Updating an existing package

Make sure you have your environment set as in the Import your package subsection. You can then follow the Fedora Package Update HOWTO.

Example:

# Set the environment:
rfpkg clone <namespace>/<module>

# Download the new upstream source and save it to the branch directory you are updating (if applies):
cd module
wget -N http://dl.sf.net/foo/foo-0.0.2.tar.bz2

# Upload the tarball to an external lookaside cache (not yet working)
rfpkg new-sources "foo-0.0.2.tar.bz2"

# Small patches, initscripts or otherwise plain text files can be commited directly to GIT:
git add foo-fix-the-bar.patch

# Change the required things in the specfile:
emacs foo.spec

# Check that the changes you made are correct:
git diff 

# Create a changelog entry (clog) and commit the changes:
rfpkg ci -c

# check what you going to push 
git show

# Tag and request build (ex make tag build ) :
rfpkg push 

#we may also do: rfpkg tag (but not required)
rfpkg build

# Resubmit a failed build:
koji-rpmfusion resubmit <taskID>  (note is not the buildID) 

# or as alternative 
git checkout f24; rfpkg build; git checkout master

#"rfpkg build" is safe because check before if we already built it, if build is already
#done, reply something like: 
#Could not execute build: Package mpgtx-1.3.1-9.fc23 has already been
#built
#Note: You can skip this check with --skip-nvr-check. See help for more
#info.

A package built for devel (i.e. rawhide) will directly go to the "devel" repository.

A package built for a stable release (e.g. f24, f23) will go to the "updates-testing" repository. You'll have to wait a period ranging from 10 to 14 days for your package to be transferred to the "updates" repository. It's a manual action, somebody real actually does that, so don't panic.

You can also find packages which are built but not yet pushed here: http://koji.rpmfusion.org/mash/

6. Requesting a new branch for a package

You can request new branches for a package at https://admin.rpmfusion.org/pkgdb

7. Retiring a package

In order to retire a branch of a package, the maintainer needs to delete all but a dead.package file containing an explanation of why the package/branch has been retired.

A package cannot be retired in stable branches, only in master (rawhide) and branched (e.g. f31 until Fedora 31 is released). An EL branch can be retired at any time.

Once that's done, the maintainer must file a bugzilla ticket in the '''Infrastructure''' product and '''Repo''' component asking the package to be blocked in koji.

This can be done using the following command:

rfpkg retire

At this time, the command cannot retire the package in pkgdb. You need to orphan then retire it manually from the web interface on the related branches.

Then file a ticket for the package to be properly retired in koji.

8. Orphaning a package

FIXME : Work out and describe the process to orphan a package.

9. Requesting a buildroot override

You can use the following command to request a buildroot override :

koji-rpmfusion tag-build f2?-{,non}free-override your_rpmfusion_build_nvr

After wait for repo be ready:

koji-rpmfusion wait-repo f2?-{,non}free-build --build=your_rpmfusion_build_nvr

Exemplify

koji-rpmfusion tag-build f25-free-override VirtualBox-5.1.4-3.fc25
koji-rpmfusion wait-repo f25-free-build --build=VirtualBox-5.1.4-3.fc25

It's not possible to tag a fedora package, that's a manual task. In this case, please file a bug in product "Infrastructure" and component "Build System".

It is currently not possible to expire a buildroot override, but that is being worked on.

10. Requesting a buildroot override but for one package from Fedora

As we do not build with updates-testing repos enabled, it's sometime needed for a package to be build and pushed in sync with others fedora packages.

Please submit a specific bug for the package you want to build and block this bug: https://bugzilla.rpmfusion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4501

11. Making the build available in the repository

RPM Fusion doesn't use Bodhi like Fedora to request moving package to testing repository then stable repository.
Packages are pushed manually by the admins from time to time.

12. Manually moving a package from testing repository to updates repository

In some rare cases, packages needs to be moved in sync with packages in Fedora. For example, chromium, qt-webengine, etc.... For such cases, and only such cases, one can move a package using koji-rpmfusion move-build command.

Here is an example :

koji-rpmfusion move-build f29-free-updates-testing f29-free-updates package-version-release

WARNING: Never move a package from candidate to testing, or from updates to stable. Only testing to stable is safe, because packages in candidate have not been signed yet.

CategoryContributing