DOKK / manpages / debian 12 / git-debpush / git-debpush.1.en
git-debpush(1) git-debpush git-debpush(1)

git-debpush - create & push a git tag with metadata for an ftp-master upload

git debpush [option...]

git-debpush is a wrapper around git-tag(1) and git-push(1). It helps you create and push a specially formatted signed tag which indicates that the tagged commit should be pushed (or "uploaded") to a Debian-style archive.

Typically, your git server will be configured to notify an intermediary service of the new tag that you pushed. That service will then fetch your tag, check your PGP signature, do any conversion that's needed (such as producing and signing a .dsc and .changes), and upload the result to the Debian-style archive.

git-debpush is only for source-only uploads.

git-debpush is designed such that for regular uploads of your package, you should be able to just invoke it without passing any command line arguments. After you've built and tested some .debs, run dch(1) to finalise your changelog and committed the result, just type "git debpush", and the intermediary service and your distribution's autobuilder network will take care of the rest.

The most common exception to this is the first time you use git-debpush for a non-native package. You will need to pass a quilt mode option to inform the intermediary service which git branch format you are using, for example

    % git debpush --gbp

if you are using the git branch format typically used with gbp(1). See "QUILT MODE OPTIONS", below, for the available quilt mode options.

Aside from a few sanity checks to help avoid broken uploads, git-debpush does not do anything with the information provided by the quilt mode option. It simply embeds the corresponding quilt mode in its generated tag, for use by the intermediary service.

Future invocations of git-debpush will try to read the quilt mode out of the tag generated by git-debpush for your previous upload. You can override that on the command line by passing a quilt mode option, which always takes precedence.

git-debpush needs to tell the intermediary git service whether this is a native or non-native package. Given historical Debian practices, it is not sufficient for either git-debpush or the intermediary service to rely on the version number in debian/changelog.

If you are using one of the 3.0 source package formats, git-debpush will just look in debian/source/format to determine whether the package is native or non-native, and you can ignore this section of the manpage.

If you are using the 1.0 source package format -- either debian/source/format does not exist, or contains the string "1.0" -- then git-debpush must be told whether the package is native or non-native. We do this using debian/source/options. If your package is non-native, execute

    % echo "-sn" >>debian/source/options

If your package is native, execute

    % echo "-sk" >>debian/source/options

(With source format 1.0, dpkg-source(1) decides whether the package is native or non-native based on the presence of absence of an orig.tar in .., but git-debpush is a pure git tool that never looks at tarballs.)

You are using the 'unapplied' branch format, typically used with gbp(1).
You are using git-dpm(1)'s branch format.
You are using the 'bare debian' branch format, with the upstream source in the form of an upstream tag.

--quilt=baredebian+git is an alias for --quilt=baredebian.

You are using the 'manually maintained applied' branch format or similar, and each commit touching the upstream source not already represented in debian/patches should be added as a new patch.
You are using the 'manually maintained applied' branch format or similar, and you want all changes to the upstream source to be squashed into a single patch in debian/patches.
Tell the intermediary service to try --quilt=linear, and if that cannot succeed, fall back to --quilt=smash.
You are using the 'manually maintained applied' branch format or similar, and you don't want debian/patches to be touched by the intermediary service.

If all commits touching the upstream source are not already represented in debian/patches, the intermediary service will fail to upload your package.

Just tag, don't push.
Passed on to git-tag(1).
Where to place the tag, i.e., what you want to release. If unspecified, we put the tag on whatever HEAD points to.

Note that this need not actually be a branch, but any committish (see gitglossary(7)). The option name is chosen to fit what is by far the most common case.

When pushing a non-native package, git-debpush needs a tag for the upstream part of your package.

By default git-debpush asks git-deborig(1), which searches for a suitable tag based on the upstream version in debian/changelog.

Where to push tags and branches. If unspecified, use the remote which git would use if you typed "git push BRANCH".
What distribution name to embed in the signed tag. Defaults to "debian".
Ignore the results of all checks designed to prevent broken uploads.
Override individual checks designed to prevent broken uploads. May be specified more than once.

Using --force or --force=check might cause the upload to fail at some later point in the process.

Valid values for check are:

Permit uploading to a different suite than the target of the most recent upload made with git-debpush (e.g. when uploading to Debian unstable after uploading to Debian experimental).
Ignore the fact that the upstream tag is not an ancestor of the branch to be tagged (skipping this check is implied by --quilt=baredebian).
Ignore any differences between the upstream source in the upstream tag and the upstream source in the branch to be tagged (this check is only run when using --quilt=gbp or --quilt=unapplied).
Ignore any failures of the following two checks:
  • With --quilt=gbp, --quilt=unapplied, --quilt=baredebian, --quilt=dpm, and --quilt=nofix, the quilt patches should apply cleanly to the upstream source with git-apply(1).
  • With --quilt=dpm and --quilt=nofix, applying the quilt patches to the upstream source should produce exactly the source tree to be tagged.
Permit upload to a suite called UNRELEASED.
Ignore apparently pushing the dgit view of a package (as produced by dgit clone) to the maintainer branch, where the dgit view and the maintainer view of the package are not identical.
Ignore the fact that the branch to be pushed seems to be a git-debrebase(1) branch in an unstitched state (see git-debrebase(5)).
Ignore the fact that HEAD is to be tagged, but HEAD is detached (this check is only run when --branch=HEAD or no --branch option is specified).

Git branch formats in use by Debian maintainers: <https://wiki.debian.org/GitPackagingSurvey>

git-debpush and this manpage were written by Sean Whitton <spwhitton@spwhitton.name> with much input from Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>.

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