Anatomy of a Gentoo Linux Ebuild

For every package in Gentoo there is at least one ebuild. Ebuilds are scripts that build packages from source.

Header

# Copyright 1999-2005 Gentoo Foundation
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
# $Header: $

Ebuild setup

KEYWORDS

This package has KEYWORDS=~86 which means it is marked unstable for the x86 platform. It will not be emerged unless either an entry in /etc/portage/package.keywords is added or the environment variable ACCEPT_KEYWORDS is set to "~x86". Note: Use of ACCEPT_KEYWORDS is not recommended. Add this line to /etc/portage/package.keywords to build the masked package from the overlay Portage directory.

 =net-misc/sipxportlib-3.0.1 ~x86

RESTRICT

RESTRICT="nomirror" instructs Portage not to download the source traball from the configured Gentoo Linux mirrors, but to use the URL defined in the ebuild. For ebuilds in Portage, this value is normally not set and the source tarballs are downloaded from the standard mirrors.

inherit eutils subversion kde-functions

DESCRIPTION="A native SIP communications system for voice, presence, messaging and collaboration - sipXportLib"
HOMEPAGE="http://www.sipfoundry.org/"
SRC_URI="http://www.sipfoundry.org/temp/sipX/tars/${P}.tar.gz"

LICENSE="LGPL-2"

SLOT="0"
KEYWORDS="~x86"
IUSE="doc latex"
#IUSE="doc latex ssl"
RESTRICT="nomirror"

Dependencies

DEPEND="
	doc? ( >=app-doc/doxygen-1.3.8 )
	>=dev-util/cppunit-1.10.2
	>=sys-devel/libtool-1.4.3
	>=dev-util/pkgconfig-0.15
	>=net-libs/libwww-5.4
	>=dev-libs/libpcre-5.0
	"
	#ssl? ( >=dev-libs/openssl-0.9.7d )

RDEPEND="
	>=dev-libs/libpcre-5.0
	>=net-libs/libwww-5.4
	"
	#ssl? ( >=dev-libs/openssl-0.9.7c )

Unpack the source

src_unpack() {
	unpack ${A}
}

Compile the source

src_compile() {
	econf \
		`use_enable doc doxygen` \
		`use_enable latex latex-docs` \
		--prefix=/usr/sipx \
		--localstatedir=/var \
		--with-sipxportinc=/usr/sipx/include \
		--with-sipxportlib=/usr/sipx/lib \
		--with-sipxmediainc=/usr/sipx/include \
		--with-sipxmedialib=/usr/sipx/lib \
		--with-sipxtackinc=/usr/sipx/include \
		--with-sipxtacklib=/usr/sipx/lib \
		|| die "Error: econf failed"
		#`use_enable ssl sip-tls` \

	emake || die "Error: emake failed"
}

Install

src_install() {
	make DESTDIR=${D} install || die "Error: install failed."
}

Build from an Ebuild

During the debug phase of an ebuild it might be useful to test the different steps one by one.

Digest

Every ebuild contains a digest file with MD5 hashes for all source tarballs. For ebuilds in Portage there is no need to rebuild this file. For ebuilds created or changed locally (in a Portage overlay), you need to re-hash in order to be able to use the ebuild.

ebuild /usr/local/portage/net-misc/sipxportlib/sipxportlib-3.0.1.ebuild digest

Unpack

To just unpack the package and apply any patches.

ebuild /usr/local/portage/net-misc/sipxportlib/sipxportlib-3.0.1.ebuild unpack

Note: patches are usually applied in the unpack phase, but this can be handled differently by every ebuild. Check the ebuild itself to make sure what unpack actually does.

Compile

Unpack and compile the ebuild without actually installing it.

ebuild /usr/local/portage/net-misc/sipxportlib/sipxportlib-3.0.1.ebuild compile

Install

Unpack, compile and install, but do not execute the post-installation hooks.

ebuild /usr/local/portage/net-misc/sipxportlib/sipxportlib-3.0.1.ebuild install

Emerge

Normal emerge (by exact version match).

emerge -av =net-misc/sipxportlib-3.0.1

Create Ebuild Overlay

In order to build from custom ebuilds, you need to setup a Portage overlay. Ebuilds in this directory will have precedence over ebuilds from the standard ebuild directory (/usr/portage). We have created our overlay in /usr/local/portage. The corresponding entry in /etc/make.conf looks like this:

PORTDIR_OVERLAY=/usr/local/portage