Provided by: devscripts_2.23.7_all 
NAME
debbisect - bisect snapshot.debian.org
DESCRIPTION
usage: debbisect [-h] [-d] [-v] [--cache CACHE] [--nocache] [--port PORT]
[--depends DEPENDS] [--qemu QEMU] [--architecture ARCHITECTURE] [--suite SUITE] [--components
COMPONENTS] [--no-find-exact-package] [--ignore-cached-results] good bad script
Execute a script or a shell snippet for a known good timestamp and a known bad timestamp and then bisect
the timestamps until a timestamp from snapshot.debian.org is found where the script first fails.
Environment variables are used to tell the script which timestamp to test. See ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
below. At the end of the execution, the files debbisect.log.good and debbisect.log.bad are the log files
of the last good and last bad run, respectively. By default, a temporary caching mirror is executed to
reduce bandwidth usage on snapshot.debian.org. If you plan to run debbisect multiple times on a similar
range of timestamps, consider setting a non-temporary cache directory with the --cache option.
The program has three basic modes of operation. In the first, the given script is responsible to set up
everything as needed:
$ ./debbisect "last week" today script.sh
$ diff -u debbisect.log.good debbisect.log.bad
If also the --depends option is given, then a chroot of the correct timestamp will be created each time
and the script will receive as first argument the path to that chroot. Additionally, this mode allows
debbisect to figure out the exact package that was responsible for the failure instead of only presenting
you the last good and first bad timestamp.
Lastly, you can also provide the --qemu option. In this mode, your test will be create a qemu virtual
machine of the correct timestamp each time. The script will receive the correct ssh config to log into a
host named qemu and execute arbitrary commands.
positional arguments:
good good timestamp -- see section TIMESTAMPS for valid formats
bad bad timestamp -- see section TIMESTAMPS for valid formats
script test script -- can either be a shell code snippet or an executable script. A non zero exit code
indicates failure. When also --depends is used, then the first argument to the script will be the
chroot directory. When --qemu is used, then the first argument to the script will an ssh config
for a host named qemu.
options:
-h, --help
show this help message and exit
-d, --debug
Print lots of debugging statements
-v, --verbose
Be verbose
--cache CACHE
cache directory -- by default $TMPDIR is used
--nocache
disable cache
--port PORT
manually choose port number for the apt cache instead of automatically choosing a free port
--depends DEPENDS
Comma separated list of binary packages the test script requires. With this option, the test
script will run inside a chroot with the requested packages installed.
--qemu QEMU
Create qemu virtual machine and pass a ssh config file to the test script. This argument takes a
commaseparated series of key=value pairs to specify the virtual machine memory size (via memsize)
and the virtual machine disksize (via disksize). Sizes are measured in bytes or with common unit
suffixes like M or G. To pick the default values (disksize=4G,memsize=1G) the shorthand 'defaults'
can be passed.
--architecture ARCHITECTURE
Chosen architecture when creating the chroot with --depends or --qemu (default: native
architecture)
--suite SUITE
Chosen suite when creating the chroot with --depends or --qemu (default: unstable)
--components COMPONENTS
Chosen components (separated by comma or whitespace) when creating the chroot with --depends or
--qemu (default: main)
--no-find-exact-package
Normally, when the --depends argument is given so that debbisect takes care of managing
dependencies, the precise package that introduced the problem is determined after bisection by
installing the packages that differ between the last good and first bad timestamp one by one. This
option disables this feature.
--ignore-cached-results
Perform a run for a timestamp even if a log file for it exists in the current directory
TIMESTAMPS
Valid good and bad timestamp formats are either:
> the format used by snapshot.debian.org
> ISO 8601 (with or without time, seconds and timezone)
> RFC 2822 (used in debian/changelog)
> all formats understood by the Python dateutil module (if installed)
> all formats understood by the Python parsedatetime module (if installed)
Without specifying the timezone explicitly, the local offset is used.
Examples (corresponding to the items in above list, respectively):
> 20200313T065326Z
> 2020-03-13T06:53:26+00:00
> Fri, 29 Nov 2019 14:00:08 +0100
> 5:50 A.M. on June 13, 1990
> two weeks ago
The earliest timestamp that works with debbisect should be 2006-08-10.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables are available to the test script:
DEBIAN_BISECT_MIRROR Contains the caching mirror address.
DEBIAN_BISECT_EPOCH Contains an integer representing the unix epoch of the
current timestamp. The value of this variable can
directly be assigned to SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH.
DEBIAN_BISECT_TIMESTAMP Contains a timestamp in the format used by
snapshot.debian.org. Can also be generated from
DEBIAN_BISECT_EPOCH via: date --utc --date=@$DEBIAN_BISECT_EPOCH +%Y%m%dT%H%M%SZ
DEBIAN_BISECT_* All environment variables starting with DEBIAN_BISECT_
are passed to the test script.
EXAMPLES
Just run "do_something" which runs the test and returns a non-zero exit on failure.
$ ./debbisect "last week" today "mmdebstrap --customize-hook='chroot \"\$1\" do_something'
unstable - \$DEBIAN_BISECT_MIRROR >/dev/null"
$ diff -u debbisect.log.good debbisect.log.bad
Since the command can easily become very long and quoting very involved, lets instead use a script:
$ cat << END > script.sh
> #!/bin/sh
> set -exu
> mmdebstrap \
> --verbose \
> --aptopt='Acquire::Check-Valid-Until "false"' \
> --variant=apt \
> --include=pkga,pkgb,pkgc \
> --customize-hook='chroot "$1" dpkg -l' \
> --customize-hook='chroot "$1" do_something' \
> unstable \
> - \
> $DEBIAN_BISECT_MIRROR \
> >/dev/null
> END
$ chmod +x script.sh
$ ./debbisect --verbose --cache=./cache "two years ago" yesterday ./script.sh
$ diff -u debbisect.log.good debbisect.log.bad
$ rm -r ./cache
This example sets Acquire::Check-Valid-Until to not fail on snapshot timestamps from "two years ago",
uses the "apt" variant (only Essential:yes plus apt), installs the packages required for the test using
--include, runs "dpkg -l" so that we can see which packages differed in the logs at the end and uses
--cache=cache so that the apt cache does not get discarded at the end and the command can be re-run
without downloading everything from snapshot.debian.org again.
If you want to build a source package you can use the script shipped by devscripts as
/usr/share/doc/devscripts/examples/debbisect_buildsrc.sh and either use it unmodified like this:
$ DEBIAN_BISECT_SRCPKG=mysrc ./debbisect "two years ago" yesterday >
/usr/share/doc/devscripts/examples/debbisect_buildsrc.sh
or use the script as a starting point to do your own custom builds.
Once debbisect has finished bisecting and figured out the last good and the first bad timestamp, there
might be more than one package that differs in version between these two timestamps. debbisect can figure
out which package is the culprit if you hand it control over installing dependencies for you via the
--depends option. With that option active, the script will not be responsible to set up a chroot itself
but is given the path to an existing chroot as the first argument. Here is a real example that verifies
the package responsible for Debian bug #912935:
$ ./debbisect --depends=botch "2018-11-17" "2018-11-22" 'chroot "$1" botch-dose2html
--packages=/dev/null --help'
[...] test upgrading python3-minimal 3.6.7-1 -> 3.7.1-2...
upgrading python3-minimal triggered the problem
If you want to run above test under qemu, then you would run:
$ ./debbisect --depends=botch --qemu=defaults "2018-11-17" "2018-11-22" 'ssh -F "$1" qemu botch-
dose2html --packages=/dev/null --help'
In the last two examples we omitted the --cache argument for brevity. But please make use of it to reduce
the load on snapshot.debian.org.
AUTHOR
Written by Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues <josch@debian.org>
debbisect 2.23.7 December 2023 DEBBISECT(1)