Metatools

Metatools (git) (pypi) is the framework used by Funtoo Linux to create meta-repo and autogenerate ebuilds. It is a foundational tool for Funtoo Linux development.

The current version of metatools is 1.0.0, released on Jan 30, 2022.

Installation

To install metatools, emerge it:

root # emerge metatools

Once of the dependencies of metatools is MongoDB. Before using metatools, ensure mongodb is started and running:

root # rc-update add mongodb default
root # rc

Autogen Setup

The command in metatools that performs autogeneration locally is called doit. Prior to using this command locally, it's recommended to create an ~/.autogen file under your user account that contains a GitHub personal access token. This will allow doit to use it when querying GitHub and will prevent doit from hitting API limits:

   ~/.autogen

authentication:
  api.github.com:
    username: danielrobbins
    password: <insert access token string here>

For more information on setting up GitHub personal access tokens, see: https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/creating-a-personal-access-token

Autogen Usage

Funtoo's meta-repo is defined in the kit-fixups repository (git), which is the starting point for all autogeneration of ebuilds.

To perform your first doit run, enter into the appropriate kit-fixups directory and run the doit command:

user $ cd development/kit-fixups/core-kit/curated
user $ doit
[INFO 21:02:35] Fetched https://git-scm.com/download/linux 6042 bytes
[INFO 21:02:35] Created: dev-vcs/git/git-2.35.1.ebuild
[INFO 21:02:35] Fetched https://api.github.com/repos/hashicorp/vagrant_cloud/tags 9513 bytes
[INFO 21:02:36] Created: dev-ruby/vagrant_cloud/vagrant_cloud-2.0.3.ebuild
[INFO 21:02:36] Fetched https://api.github.com/repos/distcc/distcc/releases 34549 bytes
[INFO 21:02:36] Created: sys-devel/distcc/distcc-3.4.ebuild
[INFO 21:02:36] Fetched https://api.github.com/repos/dbrgn/tealdeer/releases 151336 bytes
[INFO 21:02:36] Fetched https://api.github.com/repos/tmux/tmux/releases 94211 bytes
[INFO 21:02:36] Created: app-misc/tmux/tmux-3.2a.ebuild
[INFO 21:02:36] Fetched https://api.github.com/repos/lotabout/skim/releases 225892 bytes
[INFO 21:02:36] Fetched https://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/c/ca-certificates/ 7174 bytes
[INFO 21:02:36] Created: app-misc/ca-certificates/ca-certificates-20211016.ebuild
[INFO 21:02:36] Fetched https://api.github.com/repos/jarun/nnn/releases 564842 bytes
[INFO 21:02:36] Fetched https://api.github.com/repos/netwide-assembler/nasm/tags 13895 bytes
[INFO 21:02:36] Created: app-misc/nnn/nnn-4.4.ebuild
[INFO 21:02:36] Fetched https://api.github.com/repos/doxygen/doxygen/tags?per_page=100 46121 bytes

What you are seeing above is output from the doit command, which will:

1. Find all autogens (autogen.yaml and autogen.py files) in the current directory tree
2. Execute them using multiple threads, which in turn will cause doit to:
3. Query upstream Web sites and APIs (like GitHub) for current versions of source code, and:
4. Fetch all source code artifacts (distfiles), and:
5. Auto-create ebuilds for these packages, along with Manifests.

Funtoo contributors will use the doit command locally to test their autogens and ensure their proper operation before submitting a PR.