Here we describe updates that are a rebase of NSS where all three packages need to be be updated. Most updates are simply new releases to incorporate downstream patches, usually for nss only, and may not require all the special precautions that are described here. The rationale for the split of softokn off from nss that occurred in 3.12.4 is described here https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/SplitSoftoknFromNSS.
For a full update of three packages you will need to build them in this order: nss-util, nss-softokn, and nss. On some occassions nspr would be part of the bundle and must be built first.
In Rawhide the buildroot is updated frequently and we also have chained builds. This is not the case on the stable branches - or on the branch for the next fedora release after the alpha branching. In these cases one must wait for one package to be tagged into the buildroot before one can build the subsequent one. Often you will have some urgency. The procedures is to open a ticket asking that the package you built be added to the buildroot and wait until so to proceed to the next one.
WARNING 1: Don't try shortcuts. Do not introduce a BuildRequire that is lower than the Require just so to be able to build the next package right away. It may build but will likely cause breakage later on when you try to install and some package that depends on nss or any of its siblings will fail to install or to build. All three packages have devel sub-packages. The version used for BuildRequire must the one used for Requires.
One must coordinate with release engineering to progressively add packages to the buildroot. It takes waiting. Furthermore, before sending request to release engineering one must get some assurance that all builds will succeed and and will not cause conflicts and avoid repeated requests. Preflight and testing are necessary.
Scratch builds do not help in testing because they will not get installed into the buildroot and we are building several packages which depend on previous ones.
One approach could be to use multiple system builds and installs in various VM's. Once you have downloaded the packages, a 'yum --nogpgcheck localupdate packages-we-have-so-far' is one way to accomplish this. All dependencies must be satisfied and no conflicts shuould result.
A better way is to do mockbuilds and add the packages to our local buildroot as we go along. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Using_Mock_to_test_package_builds#Building_packages_that_depend_on_packages_not_in_a_repository
Let's expand on how we can follow the procedure outlined above for NSS.
Building nss, nss-sotokn and nss-util using mock.
(If you haven't done so add ourself to the mock group usermod -a -G mock myusername)
Use Mock outside your git sandbox to build nss-util
Make nss-util using mock and also create the srpms for nss-softokn and nss which we will build inside the sandbox.
# Building nss-util
cd {path-to-your-git-checkout}/nss-util
fedpkg srpm
mock -r fedora-rawhide-x86_64 --rebuild nss-util-{v}-{r}.fc15.src.rpm
cd ../nss-softokn; fedpkg srpm
cd ../nss; fedpkg srpm
Use Mock inside your git sandbox to build nss-softokn and nss First, initialize the mock repository:
mock -r fedora-rawhide-x86_64 --init
Install the packages needed to build nss-softokn and nss (named in BuildRequires) from the yum repositories and local RPMs.
mock -r fedora-rawhide-x86_64 --install \
sqlite-devel zlib-devel pkgconfig gawk psmisc perl nss-devel
mock -r fedora-rawhide-x86_64 --install nss-util-{v}-{r}.fc15.rpm \
nss-util-devel-{v}-{r}.fc15.rpm
Copy in the nss-softokn source RPM into /tmp (we'll copy in and do a build inside the shell, to work around the checks that detect that the packages aren't in the repository):
mock -r fedora-rawhide-x86_64 --copyin /PATH/TO/NSS_SOFTOKN_SRPM_NAME /tmp mock -r fedora-rawhide-x86_64 --copyin /PATH/TO/NSS_SRPM_NAME /tmp
Shell into the mock environment and perform the builds:
mock -r fedora-rawhide-x86_64 --shell
cd
rpmbuild --rebuild /tmp/nss-softokn-{v}-{r}.fc15.src.rpm
Prepare to Build nss First add yourself as a user, password doesn't matter, to run the build (and test) as yourself not root. If the system doesn't find you it will run as root and this will cause two tests to fail.
userdd yourname
cd /builddir/build/rpms
rpm -Uhv nss-softokn-{v}-{r}.fc15.rpm nss-softokn-freebl-{v}-{r}.fc15.rpm nss-softokn-devel-{v}-{r}.fc15.rpm nss-softokn-freebl-devel-{v}-{r}.fc15.rpm
QESTION: Do we need this step?
Now we are ready to build nss
cd
su yourname
rpmbuild --rebuild /tmp/nss-{v}-{r}.fc15.src.rpm
The nss build will take some time because we run all tests Once it suceeds you can install it and try a client application The results are in /home/yourname/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64
exit (bring you back to being root)
cd /home/yourname/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64
rpm -Uhv {list-of-rpms}
su yourname
rpm -q curl will confirm that it is installed, use it to access a site
$ curl https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bodhi_Guide
Now we are confident that the real builds will work. We haven't done much testing. Can we build another packkage that is a client of nss? crypto-utils is a simple client that we could build in our environment. curl is another.
The Koji builds should be done in reverse order starting with Rawhide. In Rawhide we are lucky and can and should take advange of chained builds.
# Chained build of nss for Rawhide fedpkg chain-build nss-util nss-softokn
Once the build succeeds wait for all packages to be in the build root. Here one could do a verification that packages that dependd on nss would not be broken by our update. A scratch build of one of them is a good test. A scratch build of xulrunner would proceed as follows.
# Chained build of nss for Rawhide fedkg clone xulrunner fedpkg srpm fedpkg scratch-build --srpm path_to_xulrunner_srpm
There should be no problems with xumrunner or any other package we try.
Now we can proceed to the stable branches. These will take longer as they must be done one by one.