Build Debian Packages GitHub Action

This action builds Debian packages in a clean, flexible environment.

It is mainly a shell wrapper around dpkg-buildpackage, using a configurable Docker image to install build dependencies in and build packages. Resulting .deb files and other build artifacts are moved to a specified place.

In some aspects, this action is comparable to pbuilder and sbuild. It uses Docker containers instead of chroots, though, to set up the clean, predefined build environment.

Important

This action is intended to be used with repositories that are prepared to be packaged in the standard Debian way. This means repositories must provide a debian/ subdirectory that contains information and rules about the package(s) to be built.

If you are looking for an action that packages an arbitrary repository, you might prefer looking for a different action on the GitHub Marketplace.

Usage

Basic Example

on: push

jobs:
  build-debs:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: jtdor/build-deb-action@v1
        env:
          DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS: noautodbgsym
        with:
          buildpackage-opts: --build=binary --no-sign

Input Parameters

All input parameters have a default value or are optional.

apt-opts

Extra options to be passed to apt-get when installing build dependencies and extra packages.

Optional and empty by default.

artifacts-dir

Directory relative to the workspace where the built packages and other artifacts will be moved to.

Defaults to debian/artifacts in the workspace.

before-build-hook

Shell command(s) to be executed after installing the build dependencies and right before dpkg-buildpackage is executed. A single or multiple commands can be given, same as for a run step in a workflow.

The hook is executed with sh -c as the root user inside the build container. The working directory is the workspace. The package contents from the build dependencies and extra-build-deps are available.

Optional and empty by default.

Example use case:

- uses: jtdor/build-deb-action@v1
  with:
    before-build-hook: debchange --controlmaint --local="+ci${{ github.run_id }}~git$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)" "CI build"
    extra-build-deps: devscripts git

buildpackage-opts

Options to be passed to dpkg-buildpackage. See man dpkg-buildpackage.

Optional and empty by default.

docker-image

Name of a Debian-based Docker image to use as build container or path of a Dockerfile in the workspace to build a temporary container from.

Defaults to debian:stable-slim.

extra-build-deps

Extra packages to be installed as “build dependencies”. This should rarely be used, build dependencies should be specified in the debian/control file.

By default, these packages are installed without their recommended dependencies. To change this, pass --install-recommends in apt-opts.

Optional and empty by default.

extra-docker-args

Additional command-line arguments passed to docker run when the build container is started. This might be needed if specific volumes or network settings are required.

Optional and empty by default.

extra-repos

Extra APT repositories to configure as sources in the build environment.

Entries can be given in either format supported by APT: one-line style or deb822 style, see man sources.list.

Optional and empty by default.

extra-repo-keys

Extra keys for APT to trust in the build environment. Useful in combination with extra-repos.

The parameter can be used to pass either one or multiple ASCII-armored keys, or a newline-separated list of paths to key files in ASCII-armored or binary format. Paths to key files must be relative to the workspace.

Optional and empty by default.

host-arch

The architecture packages are built for. If this parameter is set, cross-building (cross-compilation) is automatically set up with apt-get and dpkg-buildpackage as described in the Debian wiki.

Optional and defaults to the architecture the action is run on (likely amd64).

Basic example for a cross-build:

- uses: jtdor/build-deb-action@v1
  with:
    host-arch: i386

setup-hook

Shell command(s) to be executed after setting-up the build environment and right before installing the build dependencies. A single or multiple commands can be given, same as for a run step in a workflow.

The hook is executed with sh -c as the root user inside the build container. The working directory is the workspace.

Optional and empty by default.

source-dir

Directory relative to the workspace that contains the package sources, especially the debian/ subdirectory.

Defaults to the workspace.

Environment Variables

Environment variables work as you would expect. So you can use e.g. the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS variable:

- uses: jtdor/build-deb-action@v1
  env:
    DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS: noautodbgsym

Motivation

There are other GitHub actions that wrap dpkg-buildpackage. At the time of writing, all of them had one or multiple limitations:

• Hard-coding too specific options,
• hard-coding one specific distribution as build environment,
• installing unnecessary packages as build dependencies,
• or expecting only exactly one .deb file.

This action’s goal is to not have any of these limitations.