The Open Build Service (OBS) is a generic system to build and distribute binary packages from sources in an automatic, consistent and reproducible way. You can release packages as well as updates, add-ons, appliances and entire distributions for a wide range of operating systems and hardware architectures. More information can be found on openbuildservice.org.
The OBS consists of a backend and a frontend. The backend implements all the core functionality (i.e. building packages). The frontend provides a web application and XML API for interacting with the backend. Additionally there is a command line client (osc) for the API which is developed in a separate repository.
The Open Build Service is Free Software and is released under the terms of the GPL, except where noted. Additionally, 3rd-party content (like, but not exclusively, the webui icon theme) may be released under a different license. Please check the respective files for details.
You can discuss with the OBS Team via IRC on the channel #opensuse-buildservice. Or you can use our mailing list [email protected].
The OBS source code repository is hosted on Github and organized like this:
dist Files relevant for our distribution packages
docs Documentation, examples and schema files
src/api Rails app (Ruby on Rails)
src/backend Backend code (Perl)
There are 3 scenarios for which you can setup an OBS instance. Running it in production for your users, for development on it and for executing the test suite.
To run the OBS in production we recommend using our OBS appliance which is the whole package: a recent and stable Linux Operating System (openSUSE) bundled and pre-configured with all the server and OBS components you need to get going.
If an appliance isn’t an option for you, read on for how to setup OBS with packages or from the source code repository.
The OBS needs a SQL database for persistent and a memcache daemon for volatile data.
Here is an example on how to setup MariaDB on the openSUSE Linux Distribution. If you use another Linux distribution or another OS please refer to your manuals on how to get this running.
- Install the mysql package:
zypper in mariadb
- Start the database permanently:
systemctl enable mysql.service
systemctl start mysql.service
- Secure the database and set a database (root) password:
mysql_secure_installation
WARNING: If you use the SQL database for other services, too, then it's recommended to add a separate SQL user.
Here is an example on how to setup memcached on the openSUSE Linux Distribution. If you use another Linux distribution or another OS please refer to your manuals on how to get this running.
- Install the memcachd package:
zypper in memcached
- Start the memcache daemon permanently:
systemctl enable memcached
systemctl start memcached
The OBS backend is not a monolithic server, it consists of multiple daemons that fulfill different tasks and is written mostly in Perl.
We maintain an OBS package repository which provides all the necessary packages and dependencies to run an OBS backend on the SUSE Linux Enterprise or openSUSE operating systems. We highly recommend, and in fact only test these host systems, for OBS backend installations. Here is an example on how to setup the backend on the openSUSE Linux Distribution.
WARNING: The following commands start services which are accessible from the outside. Do not do this on a system connected to an untrusted network!
- Install the packages
zypper ar -f http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/OBS:/Server:/2.5/openSUSE_13.1/OBS:Server:2.5.repo
zypper in obs-server
- Start the repository server
systemctl enable obsrepserver.service
systemctl start obsrepserver.service
- Start the source server
systemctl enable obssrcserver.service
systemctl start obssrcserver.service
- Start the scheduler
systemctl enable obsscheduler.service
systemctl start obsscheduler.service
- Start the dispatcher
systemctl enable obsdispatcher.service
systemctl start obsdispatcher.service
- Start the publisher
systemctl enable obspublisher.service
systemctl start obspublisher.service
- Start one or more workers
systemctl enable obsworker.service
systemctl start obsworker.service
- Start the signer in case you want to sign packages (OPTIONAL)
systemctl enable obssigner.service
systemctl start obssigner.service
- Start the warden in case you want to monitor workers (OPTIONAL)
systemctl enable obswarden.service
systemctl start obswarden.service
All OBS backend daemons can also be started on individual machines in your network. Especially for large scale OBS installations this is the recommended setup. You can configure all of this in the file
/usr/lib/obs/server/BSConfig.pm
To not burden your OBS backend daemons with the unpredictable load package builds can produce (think someone builds a monstrous package like LibreOffice) you should not run OBS workers on the same host as the rest of the backend daemons. Here is an example on how to setup a remote OBS worker on the openSUSE Linux Distribution.
- Install the worker packages
zypper ar -f http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/OBS:/Server:/2.5/openSUSE_13.1/OBS:Server:2.5.repo
zypper in obs-worker
- Configure the OBS repository server address In the file
/etc/sysconfig/obs-server
change a variable OBS_REPO_SERVERS to the hostname of the machine where the repository server is running.
OBS_REPO_SERVERS="myreposerver.example:5252"
- Start the worker
systemctl enable obsworker
systemctl start obsworker
Check src/backend/README how to run the backend from the source code repository.
The OBS frontend is a Ruby on Rails application that collects the OBS data and serves the HTML and XML views.
We maintain an OBS package repository which provides all the necessary packages and dependencies to run an OBS frontend on the SUSE Linux Enterprise or openSUSE operating systems. We highly recommend, and in fact only test these host systems, for OBS frontend installations. Here is an example on how to setup the frontend on the openSUSE Linux Distribution.
- Install the packages
zypper ar -f http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/OBS:/Server:/2.5/openSUSE_13.1/OBS:Server:2.5.repo
zypper in obs-api
- Configure the database password you have set previously.
In */srv/www/obs/api/config/database.yml* ``` production: adapter: mysql2 database: api_production username: root password: YOUR_PASSWORD encoding: utf8 ```
- Allow anonymous access to your API
In */srv/www/obs/api/config/options.yml* ``` allow_anonymous: true read_only_hosts: [ "127.0.0.1", 'localhost' ] ```
- Setup the production databases and log permissions
RAILS_ENV=production rake -f /srv/www/obs/api/Rakefile db:create
RAILS_ENV=production rake -f /srv/www/obs/api/Rakefile db:setup
chown -R wwwrun.www /srv/www/obs/api/{log,tmp}
- Setup the Apache webserver In the apache2 configuration file
/etc/sysconfig/apache2
append the following apache modules to the variable APACHE_MODULES
APACHE_MODULES="... passenger rewrite proxy proxy_http xforward headers"
and enable SSL in the APACHE_SERVER_FLAGS by adding
APACHE_SERVER_FLAGS="-DSSL"
The obs-api package comes with an apache configuration file.
/etc/apache2/vhosts.d/obs.conf
- Enable the xforward mode.
In */srv/www/obs/api/config/options.yml*: ``` use_xforward: true ```
- Create a self-signed SSL certificate
mkdir /srv/obs/certs
openssl genrsa -out /srv/obs/certs/server.key 1024
openssl req -new -key /srv/obs/certs/server.key -out /srv/obs/certs/server.csr
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in /srv/obs/certs/server.csr -signkey /srv/obs/certs/server.key -out /srv/obs/certs/server.crt
cat /srv/obs/certs/server.key /srv/obs/certs/server.crt > /srv/obs/certs/server.pem
- Trust this certificate on your host
cp /srv/obs/certs/server.pem /etc/ssl/certs/
c_rehash /etc/ssl/certs/
- Start the web server permanently
systemctl enable apache2
systemctl start apache2
- Start the OBS delayed job daemon
systemctl enable obsapidelayed.service
systemctl start obsapidelayed.service
- Check out your OBS frontend By default, you can see the HTML views on port 443 (e.g: https://localhost) and the repos on port 82 (once some packages are built). The default admin user is "Admin" with the password "opensuse".
❤️ Your Open Build Service Team