Debianized Source Install

Server NGINX
1

I am running Debian Lenny but want to use the latest stable version of
nginx
but have it “debianized” so all the startup scripts, logrotate, conf
files
etc are in the locations that installing from a debian package would
provide.

I have come up with the following and was wondering if anyone can see
any
problems with it.

aptitude install build-essential libpcre3 libpcre3-dev libpcrecpp0
libssl-dev
zlib1g-dev
aptitude install nginx # Installs version 6.32
cd /usr/src/
wget http://sysoev.ru/nginx/nginx-0.6.35.tar.gz
tar zxvf nginx-0.6.35.tar.gz
cd nginx-0.6.35

The following uses the same config that the debian package uses.

./configure --sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx
–with-http_ssl_module
–prefix=/etc/nginx
–conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
–user=www-data
–group=www-data
–error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log
–http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log
–pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid
–http-client-body-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/body
–http-proxy-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/proxy
–http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/fastcgi
make
mv /usr/sbin/nginx /usr/sbin/nginx.debian
mv objs/nginx /usr/sbin/
/etc/init.d/nginx restart
aptitude hold nginx

Basically it just replaces the nginx binary with the updated version and
uses
the default debian configuration to operate from. It seems to run OK.

When updated versions are released I just run the ./configure and make
and
replace the nginx binary.

Thanks,

James

2

If you have to maintain debian systems and want debianized packages that
are
custom, it is really simple to customize the source package and a bit
more
work to build your own from scratch.

This can be done with any debian package and you can find out a lot more
about it within the debian community and their documentation.
Essentially,
all you need to know is that you can use ‘apt-get source’ to return the
debian source package and build with dpkg-build.

Generally you should build everything as normal users and use fakeroot.
If
you want to build a completely custom debian package from any source
tar.gz
(such as nginx’s), you can use a program called ‘dh_make’.

Google should be able to direct you to plenty of relevent documentation
and
tutorials. If you need further help, try a debian community resource
(and
brace yourself).