[CentOS-devel] CBS/koji new (opt-in) feature : enabling EPEL repositories as external repos

Wed Jun 30 06:50:40 UTC 2021
Fabian Arrotin <arrfab at centos.org>

Based on previous threads on centos-devel and some requests (including
from Hyperscale SIG), we had a look at the best way to let some SIG
build *against* EPEL for some needed Requires:/BuildRequires: dependencies

The first approach was to consider "importing" epel builds/pkgs into
cbs, and let SIGs just "tag-build" in their own tag packages, that would
also have permitted them to cherry-pick some versions and also ship
these pkgs in their SIG repo if needed also a runtime instead of
buildtime, but through some conversations, including with EPEL, we
considered that it wasn't the best path.

Instead, what is now possible is the following : enabling Epel as
externalrepo at *build* time so that if your SIG will *rely* on EPEL
packages, you can already build against it and you can then ensure that
users consuming pkgs from your SIG would  have a dependency on epel
itself (simple idea is to have your centos-release-$sig pkg having a
Requires: on epel-release itself, already available in Extras)

The following EPEL repositories can be enabled (on demand) on CBS :
- epel 7 (x86_64, ppc64le, aarch64)
- epel 8 Everything (x86_64, ppc64le, aarch64)
- epel Next 8 Everything (x86_64, ppc64le, aarch64)

Worth clarifying that we're talking about plain rpm pkgs, no modularity
content at all. (and reminder CBS doesn't have a way to let you build
any module -yet- either)

This was initially requested and tested/validated with the Hyperscale
SIG through this RFE ticket : https://pagure.io/centos-infra/issue/306 ,
so if you want to "opt-in", feel free to also create ticket and we can
enable these external repositories for your next builds

PS: just to clarify : if your SIG had to (re)build some EPEL packages
for your own tags, nothing will change : you'll still have to rebuild
EPEL upstream src.rpm into your tags to see these packages (built on
cbs.centos.org koji) be signed and shipped out, without depending on any
change (like ENVR bump) on upstream EPEL repositories


Kind Regards,
-- 
Fabian Arrotin
The CentOS Project | https://www.centos.org
gpg key: 17F3B7A1 | twitter: @arrfab

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: OpenPGP_signature
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 840 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/attachments/20210630/a4ac9c6a/attachment-0004.sig>