makepkg - ParabolaWiki

# makepkg

Summary
makepkg is a script used to compile and package software for use with pacman or a GUI pacman-wrapper like octopi etc.. This article details its configuration and usage.
Overview
Packages in Parabola are built using makepkg and a custom build script for each package (known as a PKGBUILD). Once packaged, software can be installed and managed with pacman.
Related
Creating Packages
Resources
makepkg(8) Manual Page
makepkg.conf(5) Manual Page

makepkg is used for compiling and building packages suitable for installation with pacman, Parabola's package manager or a GUI pacman-wrapper like octopi etc.. makepkg is a script that automates the building of packages; it can download and validate source files, check dependencies, configure build-time settings, compile the sources, install into a temporary root, make customizations, generate meta-info, and package everything together.

makepkg is provided by the pacman package.

## Configuration

/etc/makepkg.conf is the main configuration file for makepkg. Most users will wish to fine-tune makepkg configuration options prior to building any packages.

### Architecture, compile flags

The MAKEFLAGS, CFLAGS, and CXXFLAGS options are used by make, gcc, and g++ whilst compiling software with makepkg. By default, these options generate generic packages that can be installed on a wide range of machines. A performance improvement can be achieved by tuning compilation for the host machine. The downside is that packages compiled specifically for the compiling host's processor may not run on other machines.

Note: Do keep in mind that not all package build systems will use your exported variables. Some override them in the original Makefiles or the PKGBUILD.

    /etc/makepkg.conf

    ...

    #########################################################################
    # ARCHITECTURE, COMPILE FLAGS
    #########################################################################
    #
    CARCH="x86_64"
    CHOST="x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu"

    #-- Exclusive: will only run on x86_64
    # -march (or -mcpu) builds exclusively for an architecture
    # -mtune optimizes for an architecture, but builds for whole processor family
    CFLAGS="-march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2"
    CXXFLAGS="-march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2"
    LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1,--sort-common,--as-needed,-z,relro,--hash-style=gnu"
    #-- Make Flags: change this for DistCC/SMP systems
    #MAKEFLAGS="-j2"

    ...

The default makepkg.conf CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS are compatible with all machines within their respective architectures.

On x86_64 machines, there are rarely significant enough real world performance gains that would warrant investing the time to rebuild official packages.

As of version 4.3.0, GCC offers the -march=native switch that enables CPU auto-detection and automatically selects optimizations supported by the local machine at GCC runtime. To use it, just modify the default settings by changing the CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS lines as follows:

    # -march=native also sets the correct -mtune=
    CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2"
    CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

Further optimizing for CPU type can theoretically enhance performance because -march= enables all available instruction sets and improves scheduling for a particular CPU. This is especially noticeable when rebuilding applications (for example: audio/video encoding tools, scientific applications, math-heavy programs, etc.) that can take heavy advantage of newer instructions sets not enabled when using the default options (or packages) provided by Parabola.

It is very easy to reduce performance by using "non-standard" CFLAGS because compilers tend to heavily blow up the code size with loop unrolling, bad vectorization, crazy inlining, etc. depending on compiler switches. Unless you can verify/benchmark that something is faster, there is a very good chance it is not!

See the GCC man page for a complete list of available options. The Gentoo Compilation Optimization Guide and Safe Cflags wiki article provide more in-depth information.

#### MAKEFLAGS

The MAKEFLAGS option can be used to specify additional options for make. Users with multi-core/multi-processor systems can specify the number of jobs to run simultaneously. Typically -j2, plus 1 for each additional core/processor is an adequate choice. Some PKGBUILD's specifically override this with -j1, because of race conditions in certain versions or simply because it is not supported in the first place. Packages that fail to build because of this should be reported on the bug tracker after making sure that the error is indeed being caused by your MAKEFLAGS.

See man make for a complete list of available options.

### Package output

Next, one can configure where source files and packages should be placed and identify themselves as the packager. This step is optional; packages will be created in the working directory where makepkg is run by default.

    /etc/makepkg.conf

    ...

    #########################################################################
    # PACKAGE OUTPUT
    #########################################################################
    #
    # Default: put built package and cached source in build directory
    #
    #-- Destination: specify a fixed directory where all packages will be placed
    #PKGDEST=/home/packages
    #-- Source cache: specify a fixed directory where source files will be cached
    #SRCDEST=/home/sources
    #-- Source packages: specify a fixed directory where all src packages will be placed
    #SRCPKGDEST=/home/srcpackages
    #-- Packager: name/email of the person or organization building packages
    #PACKAGER="John Doe <john@doe.com>"

    ...

For example, create the directory:

    $ mkdir /home/$USER/packages

Then modify the PKGDEST variable in /etc/makepkg.conf accordingly.

The PACKAGER variable will set the packager value within compiled packages' .PKGINFO metadata file. By default, user-compiled packages will display:

    pacman -Qi package

    ...
    Packager       : Unknown Packager
    ...

Afterwards:

    pacman -Qi package

    ...
    Packager       : John Doe <john@doe.com>
    ...

This is useful if multiple users will be compiling packages on a system, or you are otherwise distributing your packages to other users.

## Usage

Before continuing, ensure the base-devel group is installed. Packages belonging to this group are not required to be listed as dependencies in PKGBUILD files. Install the "base-devel" group by issuing (as root):

    # pacman -S base-devel

Note: Before complaining about missing (make) dependencies, remember that the base group is assumed to be installed on all Parabola systems. The group "base-devel" is assumed to be installed when building with makepkg.

To build a package, one must first create a PKGBUILD, or build script, as described in Creating Packages, or obtain one from the ABS tree, Arch User Repository, or some other source.

Warning: Only build and/or install packages from trusted sources.
Achtung: Möglichst nur vertrauenswürdige Quellen zum Kompilieren nehmen. Aber wer ist das heutzutage überhaupt noch?

Once in possession of a PKGBUILD, change to the directory where it is saved and issue the following command to build the package described by said PKGBUILD:

    $ makepkg

To have makepkg clean out leftover files and folders, such as files extracted to the $srcdir, add the following option. This is useful for multiple builds of the same package or updating the package version, while using the same build folder. It prevents obsolete and remnant files from carrying over to the new builds.

    $ makepkg -c

If required dependencies are missing, makepkg will issue a warning before failing. To build the package and install needed dependencies automatically, simply use the command:

    $ makepkg -s

Note that these dependencies must be available in the configured repositories; see pacman#Repositories for details. Alternatively, one can manually install dependencies prior to building (pacman -S --asdeps dep1 dep2).

Once all dependencies are satisfied and the package builds successfully, a package file (pkgname-pkgver.pkg.tar.xz) will be created in the working directory. To install, run (as root):

    # pacman -U pkgname-pkgver.pkg.tar.xz

Alternatively, to install, using the -i flag is an easier way of running pacman -U pkgname-pkgver.pkg.tar.xz, as in:

    $ makepkg -i

## Tips and Tricks

### Replace checksums in PKGBUILD automatically

#### Option 1

Here is a very handy script that will generate new checksums for updated files and replace them inside the PKGBUILD in one step.

    #!/bin/bash
    # Script by Falconindy
    # https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=131666

    awk -v newsums="$(makepkg -g)" '
    BEGIN {
      if (!newsums) exit 1
    }

    /^[[:blank:]]*(md|sha)[[:digit:]]+sums=/,/\)[[:blank:]]*$/ {
      if (!i) print newsums; i++
      next
    }

    1
    ' PKGBUILD > PKGBUILD.new && mv PKGBUILD{.new,}

#### Option 2

    setconf PKGBUILD $(makepkg -g 2>/dev/null | pee "head -1 | cut -d= -f1" "cut -d= -f2") ')'

This works fine, but has the disadvantage that it requires the setconf package (just 364 KiB) and doesn't work with multiple sum (both md5sums and sha256sums in the same PKGBUILD, for example).

The speed is as good or better than scripts that uses awk, even though makepkg is called twice.

### WARNING:Referencing $srcdir in PKGBUILD

Somehow, $srcdir of $pkgdir ended up in one of the installed files in your package.

To identify which files, run the following from the makepkg build directory:

    grep -R "$(pwd)/src" pkg/

Link to discussion thread.

## Acknowledgement

This wiki article is based on ArchWiki. We may have removed non-FSDG bits from it.
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