How to create a debian from a ROS package

debian_from_ros_pkg.md

How to make a debian from a ROS package

The instructions are based on this answers.ros.org thread.

Get dependencies

You may need the latest pip, follow the official instructions.

Install bloom:

sudo apt-get install python-bloom

or (recommended)

sudo pip install -U bloom

Install fakeroot:

sudo apt-get install fakeroot

Get ready

To make a debian folder structure from the ROS package you must cd into the package to be in the same folder where package.xml file is.

Create debian structure

bloom-generate rosdebian --os-name ubuntu --os-version trusty --ros-distro indigo

You can also let the tool guess some stuff:

bloom-generate rosdebian --ros-distro indigo

You'll get something like this:

~/audio_ws/src/audio_file_player$ bloom-generate rosdebian --os-name ubuntu --os-version trusty --ros-distro indigo
==> Generating debs for ubuntu:trusty for package(s) ['audio_file_player']
No homepage set, defaulting to ''
No historical releaser history, using current maintainer name and email for each versioned changelog entry.
No CHANGELOG.rst found for package 'audio_file_player'
Package 'audio-file-player' has dependencies:
Run Dependencies:
  rosdep key           => trusty key
  rospy                => ['ros-indigo-rospy']
  actionlib_msgs       => ['ros-indigo-actionlib-msgs']
Build and Build Tool Dependencies:
  rosdep key           => trusty key
  rospy                => ['ros-indigo-rospy']
  actionlib_msgs       => ['ros-indigo-actionlib-msgs']
  catkin               => ['ros-indigo-catkin']
==> Placing templates files in the 'debian' folder.
==> In place processing templates in 'debian' folder.
Expanding 'debian/control.em' -> 'debian/control'
Expanding 'debian/changelog.em' -> 'debian/changelog'
Expanding 'debian/compat.em' -> 'debian/compat'
Expanding 'debian/rules.em' -> 'debian/rules'
~/audio_ws/src/audio_file_player$ ls
action  assets  CMakeLists.txt  debian  launch  package.xml  README.md  scripts 
~/audio_ws/src/audio_file_player$ ls debian
changelog  compat  control  rules  source

Create binary debian

Having sourced the necessary dependencies (most probably source /opt/ros/indigo/setup.bash) execute:

fakeroot debian/rules binary

If you get the error:

dh: Command not found

You need to install:

sudo apt-get install dpkg-dev debhelper

In the end you'll get a line like:

dpkg-deb: building package `ros-indigo-audio-file-player' in `../ros-indigo-audio-file-player_0.0.1-0trusty_amd64.deb'.

For anyone looking to automate .deb file creation in their CI, I have made the create-ros-debs-action , to build .deb files from source repositories. The action uses docker-in-docker to build .deb files for any specified ROS2 distributions. The action also tests the created files by installing them and can be enhanced by adding other tests that run before or after the files are created. Please open an issue if there are any feature requests.

To use create-ros-debs-action in your GitHub repository, add the following steps to your workflow file (e.g., .github/workflows/create_debs.yml):

name: Create ROS2 Debs

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  create_debs:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

        # here is the action
        uses: automatika-robotics/create-ros-debs-action@v1
        with:
          dir-name: 'debs'  # Optional, default is 'debs'
          ros-versions-matrix: 'humble iron jazzy'  # Optional, this parameter is a space separated list of strings. Defaults to non-EOL ROS2 versions

        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: ros2-debs
          path: ${{ steps.create-debs.outputs.dir-name }}