repro-env

Imagine you had a tool that takes a config like this:

```toml

repro-env.toml

[container] image = "rust:1-alpine3.18" ```

and turns it into something like this:

```toml

repro-env.lock

[container] image = "rust@sha256:22760a18d52be83a74f5df8b190b8e9baa1e6ce7d9bda40630acc8ba5328a2fd" ```

You commit both into your git repository to document:

• repro-env.toml: which container image tag you intend to follow (think Cargo.toml)
• repro-env.lock: which specific image you use for your release build (think Cargo.lock)

The .lock file is auto-generated and can be refreshed with a simple command:

repro-env update

The build is executed in a user-namespace with podman (make sure it's installed), the current directory is mounted to /build/ and a given command is executed inside of that directory:

repro-env build -- cargo build

We want to distribute our binary without having to worry about system libraries, so we ask cargo to create static binaries (also enable release optimizations):

repro-env build -- cargo build --release --target x86_64-unknown-linux-musl

This way we also ensure a different build folder is used (target/x86_64-unknown-linux-musl instead of target/) so our normal development doesn't interfere.

The final executable is available at this location:

./target/x86_64-unknown-linux-musl/release/repro-env --help

Download

• repro-env x86_64 statically linked (sha256: 3e5777d952a47d5562d309fd6cb861c0aa4a6a5e45a8aaefa073e702834e9e6d)

With github actions:

yaml - name: Install repro-env run: | wget 'https://github.com/kpcyrd/repro-env/releases/download/v0.3.0/repro-env' echo '3e5777d952a47d5562d309fd6cb861c0aa4a6a5e45a8aaefa073e702834e9e6d repro-env' | sha256sum -c - sudo install -m755 repro-env -t /usr/bin

Packages: Arch Linux

Arch Linux hosts a comprehensive collection of recent compilers at https://archive.archlinux.org. You can create a [packages] section in your repro-env.toml with system = "archlinux" to install additional packages with pacman.

```toml

repro-env.toml

[container] image = "docker.io/library/archlinux"

[packages] system = "archlinux" dependencies = ["rust-musl", "lua"] ```

The resolved repro-env.lock is going to contain the sha256 of the resolved container image you use as a base, and a list of [[package]] that should be installed/upgraded inside of the container before starting the build.

```toml

repro-env.lock

[container] image = "docker.io/library/archlinux@sha256:6568d3f1f278827a4a7d8537f80c2ae36982829a0c6bccff4cec081774025472"

[...]

[[package]] name = "rust" version = "1:1.69.0-3" system = "archlinux" url = "https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/r/rust/rust-1%3A1.69.0-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst" sha256 = "b8eb31a2eb80efab27bb68beab80436ed3e1d235a217c3e24ba973936c95839e" signature = "iIsEABYIADMWIQQGaHodnU+rCLUP2Ss7lKgOUKR3xwUCZExVKBUcaGVmdGlnQGFyY2hsaW51eC5vcmcACgkQO5SoDlCkd8fQkAD6AudRi2qP3WxSn38OOkSRSITciqRevPaVJgrz03JUBEAA/12h9z8dReD07Lqnltx9QTa3Cxppbv7VpJlTCQuavoMG"

[[package]] name = "rust-musl" version = "1:1.69.0-3" system = "archlinux" url = "https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/r/rust-musl/rust-musl-1%3A1.69.0-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst" sha256 = "5a4854cdac8312dbf72fb87795bcc36bfb34e9218944966e5ac2e62319bbcf22" signature = "iIsEABYIADMWIQQGaHodnU+rCLUP2Ss7lKgOUKR3xwUCZExVKRUcaGVmdGlnQGFyY2hsaW51eC5vcmcACgkQO5SoDlCkd8cCMQD/W59RkOVPZDXlnmyY27jW61GC86hXOkSLOKa7XMQtpBoBALSugCkG1clSo/EQDbnuS+UY3268HNBvz6mF6i/hhEsB" ```

Packages: Debian

Debian is a widely accepted choice and hosts an archive of all their packages at https://snapshot.debian.org/. You can create a [packages] section in your repro-env.toml with system = "debian" to install additional packages with apt-get.

```toml

repro-env.toml

[container] image = "debian:bookworm"

[packages] system = "debian" dependencies = ["gcc", "libc6-dev"] ```

Note this only works with official debian packages (not ubuntu).

The resolved repro-env.lock is going to contain the sha256 of the resolved container image you use as a base, and a list of [[package]] that should be installed/upgraded inside of the container before starting the build.

```toml

repro-env.lock

[container] image = "debian@sha256:3d868b5eb908155f3784317b3dda2941df87bbbbaa4608f84881de66d9bb297b"

[[package]] name = "binutils" version = "2.40-2" system = "debian" url = "https://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian/20230115T211934Z/pool/main/b/binutils/binutils2.40-2amd64.deb" sha256 = "83c3e20b53e1fbd84d764c3ba27d26a0376e361ae5d7fb37120196934dd87424"

[[package]] name = "binutils-common" version = "2.40-2" system = "debian" url = "https://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian/20230115T211934Z/pool/main/b/binutils/binutils-common2.40-2amd64.deb" sha256 = "ab314134f43a0891a48f69a9bc33d825da748fa5e0ba2bebb7a5c491b026f1a0"

[...]

```

Bootstrapping

There are no inherent bootstrapping challenges, you can use any recent Rust compiler to build a working repro-env binary. This binary can then setup any other build environment (including it's own) and is able to build a bit-for-bit identical copy of the official release binaries hosted on github.

Reproducible Builds

All pre-compiled binaries can be reproduced from source code:

sh % wget https://github.com/kpcyrd/repro-env/releases/download/v0.3.0/repro-env [...] % sha256sum repro-env 3e5777d952a47d5562d309fd6cb861c0aa4a6a5e45a8aaefa073e702834e9e6d repro-env

Since the build environment is fully documented and tracked in git all we need is checkout the corresponding git tag and run make:

sh % git clone https://github.com/kpcyrd/repro-env % cd repro-env % git checkout v0.3.0 % make % sha256sum target/x86_64-unknown-linux-musl/release/repro-env 3e5777d952a47d5562d309fd6cb861c0aa4a6a5e45a8aaefa073e702834e9e6d target/x86_64-unknown-linux-musl/release/repro-env

License

GPL-3.0-or-later