Winter 2011 Handout - Koji Setup Documentation

Status

This page status is: DRAFT.

Title

Koji Setup Documentation

Participants

Todd Westacott

Introduction

Many people are interested in setting up a Koji Build System to test software packages on different architectures. Most of these people will turn to the Koji documentation on the Fedora wiki for guidance but find it hard to follow when they run into problems. This project addressed the need to provide a better explanation as to how someone with very little exposure to Koji could setup their own build system. The goal of the project was to test the setup process which was already documented and ensure that all of the steps work and will result in a working Koji Build System.

Approach

My approach to this project was to walk through the process of setting up a complete Koji Build System on the CDOT machines to test if the existing documentation worked and was correct. The intention was to make notes along the way of what steps worked well and which ones did not work. If a step did not work correctly I would turn to the Koji community and the internet for help. Once I found the correct step I would document it. I would also make note of any steps which were unclear and needed to be explained further. Once the Koji Build System was complete I would have a complete set of steps which I know will work. As an added measure I was also able to obtain some notes from Paul Whalen who setup the existing Koji Build System on Hong Kong and from Anthony Boccia who is working on a related project to migrate the existing Koji Build System to the Open RD system.

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges with this project is that most of the existing documentation on the Fedora Wiki was written for a person that had some background knowledge of how Koji Build Systems work and how the different components worked together. Alot of the instructions also assume a certain amount of information and don't provide enough details. Another big challenge with this project is that the community of users who do have a good ammount of knowledge regarding Koji is relatively small so it does become difficult at times to find answers to any issues you might run into.

Results

The result of this project was that I was successful in finding all of the correct steps to setup a complete Koji Build System and verify that those steps work. I was also able to gain a good understand of how all of the Koji components work together. This allowed me to add a good ammount of detail to the existing documentation and provide a better documentation for users who would like to setup their own Koji Build System in the future.

Links

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Koji

http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/Koji_Setup_Documentation

https://fedorahosted.org/koji/wiki