content/wiki/pkg/pools.md

On this page, you will find information about MatterLinux package pools.

Structure

A pool contains:

• Packages (.mpf files)
• Package signatures (.mpf.sig files)
• Pool info file (INFO)
• Package list file (LIST)

Package files and signatures

MatterLinux pools contain at least two package. Each package also has a PGP signature that can be used to verify the package. These signatures belong to public key fingerprint specified in the pool metadata.

Pool info file

Pool info file contains information about the pool itself. This information includes

• Pool name
• Pool size
• Pool maintainer
• Pool public key (used for package signatures)

This info file can be found in the at the root of the pool. For example the pool info file for https://pkgs.matterlinux.xyz/base is located at https://pkgs.matterlinux.xyz/base/INFO. INI format is used for this file.

Package list file

A list containing all the package information can be found in an archive file named LIST. This file is located at the root of the pool. For example the package list for https://pkgs.matterlinux.xyz/base is located at https://pkgs.matterlinux.xyz/base/LIST.

This archive has the following structure:

list
├── package-one_version 
│   └── DATA
├── package-two_version
│   └── DATA 
...

The DATA file contains the information for that specific package and it's extracted from packages. To learn more about these please check out the page for packages.

Pool sources

Source for a pool has a simple structure. It also contains all the source files for all the packages in that pool. For example lets take a look the structure of the base pool source:

base
├── dist
│   ├── acl_2.3.1.mpf
│   ├── acl_2.3.1.mpf.sig
│   ├── INFO
│   ...
│   ├── LIST
│   ├── sed_4.9.mpf
│   ├── sed_4.9.mpf.sig
│   ...
├── LICENSE.txt
├── README.md
├── pool.sh
├── sign-dist.sh
└── src
    ├── acl
    │   └── pkg.sh
    ├── attr
    │   └── pkg.sh
    ├── autoconf
    │   └── pkg.sh
    ├── automake
    │   └── pkg.sh
    ├── bash
    │   ├── pkg.sh
    │   ├── skelprof
    │   └── skelrc
    ...

Let's break this down:

• LICENSE.txt: License used for the pool. All the packages in the pool should use a license compatible with this license.
• README.md: README file. Contains a small description about the pool.
• pool.sh: Pool script contains information about the pool, used to build the pool info file.
• src: Contains package sources (package scripts, extra patches, configuration files etc.)
• dist: Contains the compiled (built) packages.
• sign-dist.sh: An extra shell script that you can find in the official pools. It is just a small script that is used to sign all the packages in the dist directory if they are built without the signatures.

Using different pools

MatterLinux releases offer 2 different pools, base and desktop. There are also development/testing base and desktop pools (named "next"). URLs for these pools and the mirrors can be found at the mirrors page.

These pools can provide packages for users, these packages can be managed using the MatterLinux package manager (mp).

Building an already existing pool

To build an already existing pool, such as the base or the desktop pool, first you will need to download the pool's source. Source for the base and the desktop pool can be found on MatterLinux Git Server.

After downloading the pool source, you will need to install the mp-pool tool, which is the tool used for building MatterLinux pools. To do so please follow the steps here.

Finally to build the pool:

$ mp-pool <pool dir>

You will mostly likely want to disable package signing though, as you are probably not the owner of the pool:

$ mp-pool --no-sign <pool dir>

Hosting pools

Unlike most of the package managers, mp does not use HTTP, FTP or RSYNC to communicate with the pools. It has it's own custom protocol named MPTP. Pools are hosted over this protocol using pooler.

To get host a pool using pooler, download and install the pooler by following the instructions on the README. It's also in the official pools so you can install it with mp as well. After installing it, you can simply host the pool by running:

$ pooler <pool dir>

This will start the MPTP server on port 0.0.0.0:5858. You can also host multiple pools by specifying them:

$ pooler <pool dir 1> <pool dir 2> <pool dir 3>

Note that each pool needs to have a unique name for in order to host multiple pools using the same pooler instance.

If you want to change the service address, you can do so by using the -h and the -p flag:

$ pooler -h 0.0.0.0 -p 5566 <pool dir>

You can also specify host names for your pools:

$ pooler <pool dir 1>::p1.example.com <pool dir 2>::p2.example.com

Creating a new pool

If you want to create an unofficial pool, setup the directory structure for the source pool as explained above. Then create a pool.sh script, you can copy one from the official pools and edit it.

After adding your packages and building them with mp-pool, you can host it using pooler. I suggest you also host them on a HTTP or a FTP server just to make them easier to access. Doing so will also allow other people to use matter-mirror tool to mirror your pool.

Also you can add your unofficial pool to this wiki page by creating an issue.