xcat-dep/BUILD.md

Build Guide (mockbuild-all.pl)

This guide explains how to use mockbuild-all.pl to build, validate, and package xCAT dependencies and optional xCAT packages into a unified EL10 repository layout. It also documents the operational flags for controlling build, install-check, collection, and packaging behavior.

Purpose

mockbuild-all.pl is the top-level build orchestrator for generating a unified xCAT repository. It builds required dependency RPMs and, by default, xCAT RPMs, then assembles:

• a binary RPM repo tree with repodata
• an SRPM repo tree with repodata
• one binary repo tarball and one SRPM repo tarball

Historical Context

Historically, the deployment flow used separate repositories:

• xcat-core for xCAT packages
• xcat-dep for dependency packages

The current flow produces a single unified xcat repository containing all required packages together.

Placeholder Conventions

This guide uses the following placeholders consistently:

• <REPO_ROOT>: xcat-dep repository root (example: /root/xcat-dep)
• <XCAT_SOURCE>: xCAT source root (example: <REPO_ROOT>/xcat-source-code)
• <ARCH>: output of uname -m (for example: x86_64, ppc64le)
• <OS_ID>: ID field from /etc/os-release (for example: rhel, rocky)
• <REL>: integer major release from VERSION_ID in /etc/os-release (for example: 10)
• <TARGET>: <OS_ID>+epel-<REL>-<ARCH>
• <RUN_ID>: build run identifier (auto-generated if omitted)

Build Pipeline Overview

mockbuild-all.pl orchestrates these build components in parallel:

• <REPO_ROOT>/elilo/mockbuild.pl
• <REPO_ROOT>/grub2-xcat/mockbuild.pl
• <REPO_ROOT>/ipmitool/mockbuild.pl
• <REPO_ROOT>/syslinux/mockbuild.pl
• <REPO_ROOT>/goconserver/mockbuild.pl
• <REPO_ROOT>/mockbuild-perl-packages.pl
• <XCAT_SOURCE>/buildrpms.pl (unless --skip-xcat is set)

Each build path uses mock for chroot isolation. Top-level steps are parallelized by mockbuild-all.pl, and perl dependency builds are also parallelized internally by mockbuild-perl-packages.pl.

mockbuild-all.pl does more than building RPMs. In a default run it performs these stages:

1. Optional chroot cleanup (--scrub-all-chroots)
2. Parallel build execution
3. Optional install/smoke checks inside child builders (disabled with --skip-install)
4. Binary RPM collection into repo/<ARCH>/
5. Source RPM collection into repo-src/
6. createrepo --update on both repo trees
7. Tarball creation for both repo trees
8. Summary generation (summary.txt)

Skip and Control Flags

Use these flags to skip specific operations:

• --skip-install
  • Skips install/smoke checks performed by child builder scripts after RPM build.
• --skip-xcat
  • Skips <XCAT_SOURCE>/buildrpms.pl (xCAT package build step).
• --skip-xcat-dep
  • Skips non-perl xcat-dep package builders (elilo, grub2-xcat, ipmitool-xcat, syslinux-xcat, goconserver).
• --skip-perl
  • Skips <REPO_ROOT>/mockbuild-perl-packages.pl.
• --skip-build
  • Skips all build steps; only runs collection/repo/tarball stages from existing artifact roots.
• --skip-createrepo
  • Skips createrepo --update.
• --skip-tarball
  • Skips tarball creation for both binary and SRPM repos.
• --scrub-all-chroots
  • Runs mock -r <TARGET> --scrub=all before build and collection.
• --collect-dir <PATH>
  • Adds extra artifact roots to the collection phase (repeatable).
• --dry-run
  • Prints planned actions without executing them.

Prerequisites

• Run as root.
• mockbuild-all.pl and package sources present under <REPO_ROOT>.
• xCAT sources present under <XCAT_SOURCE>.

Install baseline tooling:

dnf -y install perl perl-Parallel-ForkManager mock createrepo tar rpm-build rpmdevtools dnf-plugins-core wget git

If you will build xCAT packages (that is, you will not use --skip-xcat), install xCAT build dependencies:

cd <XCAT_SOURCE>
perl buildrpms.pl --install_deps

Validate mock config availability:

mock -r <TARGET> --print-root-path

Target Resolution

--target is optional.

If --target is omitted, mockbuild-all.pl derives <TARGET> from:

• /etc/os-release (ID, VERSION_ID)
• uname -m

Equivalent derivation:

<TARGET> = <OS_ID>+epel-<REL>-<ARCH>

<TARGET> is also passed to mock as the chroot/config identifier:

mock -r <TARGET> ...

Build Full Unified Repository (xCAT + Dependencies)

Use this mode to build dependency packages and xCAT packages together.

cd /root/xcat-dep
perl ./mockbuild-all.pl \
  --repo-root /root/xcat-dep \
  --xcat-source /root/xcat-dep/xcat-source-code \
  --scrub-all-chroots

Notes:

• Install/smoke checks run by default inside child builders.
• Add --skip-install to skip those checks.
• <RUN_ID> is optional; when omitted it is timestamp-based.

Build Unified Repository Without xCAT (--skip-xcat)

Use this mode to build dependency packages only and skip invoking /root/xcat-dep/xcat-source-code/buildrpms.pl.

cd /root/xcat-dep
perl ./mockbuild-all.pl \
  --repo-root /root/xcat-dep \
  --xcat-source /root/xcat-dep/xcat-source-code \
  --scrub-all-chroots \
  --skip-xcat \
  --skip-install

Important behavior:

• --skip-xcat skips the xCAT build step, but collection still scans:
  • <XCAT_SOURCE>/dist/<TARGET>/rpms
• If that path already has xCAT RPMs, they are included in the resulting unified repo.

Common Build Modes

Full unified repo (xCAT + dependencies, with install/smoke checks):

cd <REPO_ROOT>
perl ./mockbuild-all.pl \
  --repo-root <REPO_ROOT> \
  --xcat-source <XCAT_SOURCE> \
  --scrub-all-chroots

Full unified repo (xCAT + dependencies, skip install/smoke checks):

cd <REPO_ROOT>
perl ./mockbuild-all.pl \
  --repo-root <REPO_ROOT> \
  --xcat-source <XCAT_SOURCE> \
  --scrub-all-chroots \
  --skip-install

Dependency-only repo (skip xCAT package build):

cd <REPO_ROOT>
perl ./mockbuild-all.pl \
  --repo-root <REPO_ROOT> \
  --xcat-source <XCAT_SOURCE> \
  --scrub-all-chroots \
  --skip-xcat \
  --skip-install

Collection-only pass from existing build artifacts:

cd <REPO_ROOT>
perl ./mockbuild-all.pl \
  --repo-root <REPO_ROOT> \
  --xcat-source <XCAT_SOURCE> \
  --skip-build

Output Artifacts and Paths

For each run:

• Binary repo path:
  • <REPO_ROOT>/build-output/mockbuild-all/<RUN_ID>/repo/<ARCH>/
• SRPM repo path:
  • <REPO_ROOT>/build-output/mockbuild-all/<RUN_ID>/repo-src/
• Run summary:
  • <REPO_ROOT>/build-output/mockbuild-all/<RUN_ID>/summary.txt
• Binary repo tarball:
  • <REPO_ROOT>/build-output/mockbuild-all/mockbuild-all-<TARGET>-<RUN_ID>.tar.gz
• SRPM repo tarball:
  • <REPO_ROOT>/build-output/mockbuild-all/mockbuild-all-<TARGET>-<RUN_ID>-srpm.tar.gz

Architecture Requirements

mockbuild-all.pl derives architecture from the build host:

• <ARCH> = $(uname -m)

Because of this, to build ppc64le artifacts you must run mockbuild-all.pl on a Power host where:

• uname -m returns ppc64le
• a matching mock config exists for <TARGET> (for example rocky+epel-10-ppc64le)

In short: build ppc64le packages on a Power machine.

Validation Commands

cat <REPO_ROOT>/build-output/mockbuild-all/<RUN_ID>/summary.txt
ls -1 <REPO_ROOT>/build-output/mockbuild-all/<RUN_ID>/repo/<ARCH>/
ls -1 <REPO_ROOT>/build-output/mockbuild-all/<RUN_ID>/repo-src/
ls -1 <REPO_ROOT>/build-output/mockbuild-all/mockbuild-all-<TARGET>-<RUN_ID>.tar.gz
ls -1 <REPO_ROOT>/build-output/mockbuild-all/mockbuild-all-<TARGET>-<RUN_ID>-srpm.tar.gz
find <REPO_ROOT>/build-output/mockbuild-all/<RUN_ID>/build-logs -type f | sort

Common Issues

• Missing xCAT build script: .../buildrpms.pl
  • Ensure <XCAT_SOURCE> points to a valid xCAT source tree.
• WARN: missing dep builder script, skipping: ...
  • Sync the repository; one or more package build scripts are missing.
• mock target not found
  • Validate with mock -r <TARGET> --print-root-path and install the required mock config packages.

References

• mock project repository