The developers of the AlmaLinux distribution kit, which develops a free clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux similar to CentOS, presented a new build system ALBS (AlmaLinux Build System), which is already used in the formation of AlmaLinux 8.6 and 9.0 releases prepared for the x86_64, Aarch64, PowerPC ppc64le and s390x architectures. In addition to building a distribution, ALBS is also used to generate and publish corrective updates (errata), and digitally sign packages. The build system code is written in Python and distributed under the GPLv3 license.
The presented assembly system is based on the developments of CloudLinux, which develops its own commercial distribution based on the RHEL package base. CloudLinux founded the AlmaLinux Project and is a founding member of the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, a non-profit organization designed to develop in a neutral, community-driven environment using a governance model similar to the Fedora Project. To confirm the commitment to the initially declared completely open and transparent development model for the community, the build system code is now completely open, and all AlmaLinux build stages are controlled by the community.
The ALBS system is focused on automating distribution building, package building, package testing, generating digital signatures, and publishing compiled packages in public repositories. The system is aimed at processing all stages of the formation of the distribution as a whole to eliminate errors caused by the human factor. The build system continues the evolution of CloudLinux's internal build system, which has been in use since 2012.
In addition to RPM packages, the DEB format is supported and tools are provided to automate rebranding and modifying rebuild packages. Including the system can be used to create arbitrary distributions based on Ubuntu and Debian. Builds are tested using the Jenkins continuous integration system. The source code of the packages being built is downloaded from the Git repository (in the case of AlmaLinux, changes in RHEL packages are tracked through git.centos.org and transferred to git.almalinux.org and sources.almalinux.org).
For everyone, anonymous access to the AlmaLinux build system is open, which allows you to track all stages of the distribution build. Through the provided interface, you can determine which packages are currently being built, when the package of interest was built, and which packages failed to build. For analysis, a complete build log is available with details at the level of individual packages. Access is currently limited to monitoring the system, but the plan is to launch role-based access control (RBAC) in late July and allow community contributors and maintainers to build their own packages into ALBS.
In the future, it is also expected to support assembly verification using the CodeNotary service, support for the COPR assembly service, support for namespaces to provide projects and organizations with the infrastructure for building their packages, and preparation of tools for automating assembly and publishing images of virtual machines and containers.
Source: opennet.ru