Introduction to packaging Rust application

🦀 Intro

As an exercise, today we are going to package a game named battleship-rs developed by Orhun Parmaksız. We will also use the power of OpenSUSE build service to do most of the heavy work.

Before starting, let’s check out the project: it’s hosted on github and if you want to try it out before packaging, it’s a nice game where two people can play in the terminal over a TCP network connection. The initial ship placement, shot tracking, player turns and game state itself is managed from a single Rust process.

For the actual packaging, we will follow the reference documentation on openSUSE wiki.

📦 Prerequisites

Following the OBS guidelines, let’s setup our osc client with a minimal configuration:

$ grep -v '^#' /home/andrea/.config/osc/oscrc

[general]
apiurl = https://api.opensuse.org
ccache = 1
extra-pkgs = vim gdb strace less unzip procps psutils psmisc
show_download_progress = 0

[https://api.opensuse.org]
user=YOURUSERNAME
pass=YOURPASSWORD

🛠️ OBS project setup

Now we can switch to our development directory and create a subproject inside our home folder:

$ cd osc
$ cd home:amanzini
$ osc mkpac battleship-rs 
A    battleship-rs
$ cd battleship-rs

🍲 Configure build system

To properly build a Rust package, we need three items:

a .spec file
a _service file
a cargo_config file

The first one is the classic RPM .spec, the recipe we need for cooking any rpm package. We leverage some macros to make the process smooth and easy. This also makes me notice there isn’t yet a syntax highlighter in Hugo for spec files…🤨

$ cat battleship-rs.spec

Name:           battleship-rs
#               This will be set by osc services, that will run after this.
Version:        0.1.1~0
Release:        0
Summary:        Battleship game implemented in Rust.
License:        MIT
Url:            https://github.com/orhun/battleship-rs
Source0:        %{name}-%{version}.tar.zst
Source1:        vendor.tar.zst
Source2:        cargo_config
BuildRequires:  cargo-packaging
# Disable this line if you wish to support all platforms.
# In most situations, you will likely only target tier1 arches for user facing components.
ExclusiveArch:  %{rust_tier1_arches}

# the name of the actual binary program when differs from the project
%define bin_name battleship

%description
A Battleship game implemented in Rust.
Mainly for package practice

%prep
# The number passed to -a (a stands for "after") should be equivalent to the Source tag number
# of the vendor tarball, 1 in this case (from Source1).
%autosetup -p1 -a1
install -D -m 644 %{SOURCE2} .cargo/config
# Remove exec bits to prevent an issue in fedora shebang checking. Uncomment only if required.
# find vendor -type f -name \*.rs -exec chmod -x '{}' \;

%build
%{cargo_build}

%install
# using cargo_install (only supports bindir)
# %{cargo_install}
# manual process
install -D -d -m 0755 %{buildroot}%{_bindir}
install -m 0755 %{_builddir}/%{name}-%{version}/target/release/%{bin_name} %{buildroot}%{_bindir}/%{bin_name}

# this is useful if you want to run the program internal test suite 
%check
%{cargo_test}

%files
%{_bindir}/%{bin_name}
%license LICENSE
%doc README.md

%changelog

The second one is where the real magic happens. Using this configuration file, OBS is able to run many services on our project. First of all, it can checkout the exact version from git and generate for us a .changes file with the commit messages. Then it can build a compressed archive of the sources and run a special cargo vendor task that manages to make all our dependencies available for an offline build:

$ cat _service

<services>
  <service mode="disabled" name="obs_scm">
    <param name="url">https://github.com/orhun/battleship-rs.git</param>
    <param name="versionformat">@PARENT_TAG@~@TAG_OFFSET@</param>
    <param name="scm">git</param>
    <param name="revision">v0.1.1</param>
    <param name="match-tag">*</param>
    <param name="versionrewrite-pattern">v(\d+\.\d+\.\d+)</param>
    <param name="versionrewrite-replacement">\1</param>
    <param name="changesgenerate">enable</param>
    <param name="changesauthor">andrea.manzini@suse.com</param>
  </service>
  <service mode="disabled" name="tar" />
  <service mode="disabled" name="recompress">
    <param name="file">*.tar</param>
    <param name="compression">zst</param>
  </service>
  <service mode="disabled" name="set_version"/>
  <service name="cargo_vendor" mode="disabled">
     <param name="src">battleship-rs</param>
     <param name="compression">zst</param>
     <param name="update">true</param>
  </service>
</services>

The last item we need is a small file that instructs Rust build system to use vendored dependencies, instead of downloading from the internet.

$ cat cargo_config

[source.crates-io]
replace-with = "vendored-sources"

[source.vendored-sources]
directory = "vendor"

🚢 Fetch upstream source and check in to OBS

The following commands will

run the services to execute the tasks (this will create two .zst archives)
add all the files, included the configuration, to OBS versioning
send everything to the build server

$ osc service runall
$ osc addremove
$ osc checkin

Potentially we are done, build will start on a OBS worker and we can check the build log; If we want to try everything locally, we are ready to

🏗️ Local build

$ osc build

Building battleship-rs.spec for openSUSE_Tumbleweed/x86_64

... [lots of output omitted] ...

build: extracting built packages...
RPMS/x86_64/battleship-rs-0.1.1~0-0.x86_64.rpm
SRPMS/battleship-rs-0.1.1~0-0.src.rpm
OTHER/_statistics
OTHER/rpmlint.log

🎮 Let’s test installation

Since we just packaged a game, why not give it a try ?

$ sudo zypper in battleship-rs-0.1.1~0-0.x86_64.rpm

Refreshing service 'openSUSE'.................................................[done]
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...

The following NEW package is going to be installed:
  battleship-rs

1 new package to install.
Overall download size: 223.4 KiB. Already cached: 0 B. After the operation, additional 574.3 KiB will be used.
Continue? [y/n/v/...? shows all options] (y): 
Retrieving: battleship-rs-0.1.1~0-0.x86_64 (Plain RPM files cache)                                        (1/1), 223.4 KiB    
battleship-rs-0.1.1~0-0.x86_64.rpm:
    Package header is not signed!

battleship-rs-0.1.1~0-0.x86_64 (Plain RPM files cache): Signature verification failed [6-File is unsigned]
Abort, retry, ignore? [a/r/i] (a): i

Checking for file conflicts: .................................................[done]
(1/1) Installing: battleship-rs-0.1.1~0-0.x86_64 .............................[done]
Running post-transaction scripts .............................................[done]

now the package is installed, we can try it out; on the ‘server’ we will see the battlefield and client connections:

$ battleship  
[+] Server is listening on 127.0.0.1:1234
[+] New connection: 127.0.0.1:33692
[+] New connection: 127.0.0.1:41104
[#] Andrea's grid:
   A B C D E F G H I J 
1  • • • • • • • • • • 
2  • • • • • • ▭ ▭ • • 
3  • • • • • • • ▭ ▭ • 
4  • • • • • • • • • • 
5  • ▧ ▧ • • • • • • • 
6  • ▧ ▧ • • • • • • • 
7  • ▧ ▧ • • • • • • • 
8  • • • • • • • • • • 
9  • • △ △ ▭ ▭ ▭ ▭ • • 
10 • • • • • • • • • • 

[#] ilmanzo's grid:
   A B C D E F G H I J 
1  • • • • • • • • • • 
2  • • • • • • • • • ▯ 
3  • • • • • • • • • ▯ 
4  ▭ ▭ • • • • • • • • 
5  • • • • • • • • ▯ • 
6  • • • • • • • • ▯ • 
7  • • • • • • ▭ ▭ • • 
8  • • • • • • • • • • 
9  • • • • • • • • • • 
10 • • • • • • • • • • 

[#] Game is starting.
[#] Andrea's turn.

to actually play the game, we need to spawn two different terminals and contact the server, no cheating allowed :)

$ nc 127.0.0.1 1234
        _    _
     __|_|__|_|__
   _|____________|__
  |o o o o o o o o /
~'`~'`~'`~'`~'`~'`~'`~
Welcome to Battleship!
Please enter your name: ilmanzo
Your opponent is Andrea
Game starts in 3...
Game starts in 2...
Game starts in 1...

   A B C D E F G H I J 
1  • • • • • • • • • • 
2  • • • • • • • • • • 
3  • • • • • • • • • • 
4  • • • • • • • • • • 
5  • • • • • • • • • • 
6  • • • • • • • • • • 
7  • • • • • • • • • • 
8  • • • • • • • • • • 
9  • • • • • • • • • • 
10 • • • • • • • • • • 

   A B C D E F G H I J 
1  • • • • • • • • • • 
2  • • • • • • • • • ▯ 
3  • • • • • • • • • ▯ 
4  ▭ ▭ • • • • • • • • 
5  • • • • • • • • ▯ • 
6  • • • • • • • • ▯ • 
7  • • • • • • ▭ ▭ • • 
8  • • • • • • • • • • 
9  • • • • • • • • • • 
10 • • • • • • • • • • 
Andrea's turn.

🎇 Final toughts

First of all, thanks to Orhun Parmaksız for writing an awesome terminal game!

If you want to get better as packager be sure to read this excellent guide from Michael Vetter.

More details on the history and choices behind Rust packaging in openSUSE are in William Brown’s talk on RustConf 2022

More packaging tutorials on OpenSUSE YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/opensuse

You can find all the files and the project in my home folder on the openSUSE build service. Happy hacking!

🦀 Intro#

📦 Prerequisites#

🛠️ OBS project setup#

🍲 Configure build system#

🚢 Fetch upstream source and check in to OBS#

🏗️ Local build#

🎮 Let’s test installation#

🎇 Final toughts#