djpig's world

packages.debian.org status and development

Copy of a mail I sent to debian-www earlier today. I don't think it warrants posting to -devel-announce, but I post it here to make it visible to people not usually following debian-www.

Since I seem to sense an increased stream of offers to help out with packages.d.o coming my way (but maybe that is just wishful thinking ;) I wanted to give a short update on the development of the current code and the status of the infrastructure so that nobody can claim he wanted to help but failed due to lack of information.

• The code in the CVS is seriously lacking in many regards, especially update and CGI speed. It runs pretty stable though and since we excluded robots from using the CGI scripts it seems to run with at least enough speed to keep any big complaints from rising. (If anyone is interested, packages.d.o currently has about 200,000 page hits a day, with a notable decrease – up to 50,000 – during the etch freeze and a similar increase after release)
• packages.d.o is currently run on puccini.d.o, this host is exclusivly used for this purpose. Adminstration is be done by group pkg_maint, current members are Martin 'Joey' Schulze and me.
• The same code is also used to create the page packages.ubuntu.com, see branch ubuntu in CVS. packages.ubuntu.com is run a private server of mine and only administrated by me.
• Everybody with write access to the website has also write access to this part of the CVS. The code run on packages.d.o is updated once a day during the update cron job. Since there is no staging ground for changes, any commits should be made with extreme care...
• Last year Jeroen van Wolffelaar and I started to develop a new version with the goal to make dynamic page generation possible which allows for faster update of information and more flexible presentation. We coordinated our work by using a SVN repository located at svn.wolffelaar.nl.
• This development was stalled several times when he and/or I had no time to actively pursue it.
• In April 2007 I decided to revive the development to get the code in a state ready for deployment. Since I was by then inititated in the wonders of distributed scm, I decided to move the code to yet another repository, namely git (for cloning use git://source.djpig.de/git/packages.git) There is also a ubuntu branch there but it is in a rather sorry state atm regarding site layout.
• I think the new code is currently in a state where it could be safely deployed to packages.d.o but I'm currently waiting for an etch upgrade of the host since the code has grown some dependencies on stuff only available in etch. The next possibility for this to happen is probably during Debconf.
• I don't know yet how to handle the SCM stuff when the code is to be deployed.
• You can try out this new code base at packages.debian.net (Might be slightly out-of-date sometimes since I don't run the cronjob as often as possible to give packages.ubuntu.com more ressources)
• Bug reports and patches against this version are very much welcome, please send them directly to me (but feel free to CC debian-www if you want to have an open discussion on the matter in question).
• Bug reports and patches against the version currently in use should be directed to the BTS as usual.
• If there is interest we can make a little improvised BoF about packages.d.o at Debconf.

Created 2007-06-02 by Frank Lichtenheld, category /en/devel/debian. permanent link, 4 comment(s)