Overview

At Infinidat, we write products in Python, and not just a bunch of scripts. We want our products to be isolated from global Python installations and site-packages.

The solution we came with is as follows:

• Bundle the interpreter itself in the application, along with all the dependencies.
• If there are binary dependencies, compile it when building the application package

This is our buildout recipe for creating the platform-specific packages.

This recipe, along with our isolated python builds, provides the following features:

• building operating systems packages for Python projects: ** RPM packages on RedHat-based linux distributions ** DEB packages on Debian-based linux distributions, altough we test it only on Ubuntu ** MSI packages for Windows, starting from Windows NT 5.0
• creating single-file, statically-linked, portable, executables for console scripts
• building a static library of the interpreter along with all the 3rd-party dependcies

What deployment solution should I use

If you need to build a shared library but want to write it in Python, then you can pack the Python code as a static library and link you shared library with it.

If you need to a sinlge standalone, no-installation-required executable then use the executable recipe.

if you need a full Python interpreter, or access to package resources, then you should pack your Python project in an OS package.

Using this recipe

In order create an application with proper packaging, you'll need more than just this recipe.

• Obtain projector from https://github.com/Infinidat/infi.projector
• Create a project using projector, build the development environment using the isolated python option.
• Add company attribute to the project section in your buildout.cfg.
• Run projector devenv pack; this will build all the sections in buildout.cfg that either of the recipes of this module. ** the default recipe: infi.recipe.application_packager, will build the OS package depending on the operating system. ** instead, you can explicitly define one of the following recipes: *** infi.recipe.application_packager.deb *** infi.recipe.application_packager.msi *** infi.recipe.application_packager.rpm

At the end, OS packages will be available under the parts directory, and single-file executables and static libraries will be placed under dist.

To debug exceptions, add 'pdb = true' to the recipe. The results are stored under the follwing directories:

• parts. stores the deb, msi and rpm intermediate files and final packages
• build/Python-<x.y.z>. the Python source
• build/static. this this where we copy to all the static libraries from the isolated python that will link the static python with
• build/dependencies. this is where all the dependencies are being built

Recipe configuration options

Under the pack recipe in your buildout.cfg, you can define the following options:

Key	Applied to	Default value	Description
pdb	deb, msi, rpm	false	enter pdb if exception is raise for post mortem
dependent-scripts	deb, msi, rpm	false
eggs	deb, msi, rpm	<project name>
scripts	deb, msi, rpm	<empty list>
gui-scripts	deb, msi, rpm	<empty list>
minimal-packages	deb, msi, rpm		Adds code to the entry point wrapper that tries to use less packages
shortcuts-icon	msi	~/.msi-ui/icon.exe	Icon file in EXE binary format to be used as icon for shortcuts
shrink-cache-dist	deb, msi, rpm	true	delete sources from .cache/dist that are under the install-requires tree
deb-dependencies	deb		List of debian packages to be required prior installing your package
sign-executables-and-msi	msi	false	Digitally signed the MSI using Authenticode certificate
pfx-file	msi	~/.authenticode/certificate.pfx	Absolute location of the certificate file
pfx-password-file	msi	~/.authenticode/certificate-password.txt	Absolute locaton for the private txt of the certificate
timestamp-url	msi	http://timestamp.digicert.com/scripts/timstamp.dll	Timestamp server
require-administrative-privileges	msi	false
require-administrative-privileges-gui	msi	false
install-on-windows-server-2016	msi	true
install-on-windows-server-2012-r2	msi	true
install-on-windows-server-2012	msi	true
install-on-windows-server-2008-r2	msi	true
install-on-windows-server-2008	msi	true
install-on-windows-server-2003	msi	false
install-on-windows-10	msi	false
install-on-windows-8	msi	false
install-on-windows-8.1	msi	false
install-on-windows-7	msi	false
install-on-windows-vista	msi	false
install-on-windows-xp	msi	false
add-remove-programs-icon	msi	~/.msi-ui/icon.ico	ICO file to use in the add/remove program applet
msi-banner-bmp	msi	~/.msi-ui/WixUIBanner.bmp	Top banner
msi-dialog-bmp	msi	~/.msi-ui/WixUIDialog.bmp	Background bitmap used on the welcome and completion dialogs
startmenu-shortcuts	msi	[]	['shortcut_name' = 'executable_name', ...]
rpm-dependencies	rpm		List of redhat packages to be required prior installing your package
python-source-url	executable, static_library	ftp://python.infinidat.com/python/sources/Python-2.7.6.tgz	tgz archive for Python
LINKFLAGS	executable, static_library		extra flags to pass (as a string) to pystick
CC	executable, static_library		extra flags to pass (as a string) to pystick
CXX	executable, static_library		extra flags to pass (as a string) to pystick
PATH	executable, static_library		extra flags to pass (as a string) to pystick
LD_LIBRARY_PATH	executable, static_library		extra flags to pass (as a string) to pystick
LIBRARY_PATH	executable, static_library		extra flags to pass (as a string) to pystick
LIBS	executable, static_library		extra flags to pass (as a string) to pystick
always-build	executable, static_library		always build from scratch, even when artifacts exist on disk
exclude-eggs	executable, static_library	[]	eggs not to include in the build
existing-installdir	msi	None	path to registry value to look for installation directory
custom-installdir	msi	None	override if want to use something other than [EXISTINGINSTALLDIR]
eula-rtf	msi	None	path to end-user license agreement RTF file
documentation-url	msi	None	gives the user an option to launch the online docs after install

Using the installers

The basic flow of the installer is as follows:

• Copy all the files to the target directory. The target directory is either /opt/<company>/<product name> or `%ProgramFiles%<company><product name>
• Run get-pip
• Run bootstrap
• Create the executable scripts
• Run the user-defined post install script, if was defined in buildout.cfg

The uninstall procedure is:

• Run the user-defined pre uninstall script
• Delete all the files that were copied during the installation, and remove temporary python files
• If the installation directory is empty, delete it

Testing installations

This module also provides Installer classes that'll help you create integration tests for your installer, and to test it out before going to production.

Debugging installations

The buildout logs are available at:

• /var/log/ if writable, else /tmp/
• %TEMP% if exists or %SystemRoot%\Windows\Temp

The installer accept two variables:

Name	Description
NO_CUSTOM_ACTIONS	Disables scripts during install/uninstall, just creates/deletes files
DEBUG_CUSTOM_ACTIONS	Verbose logging

To use these (example):

• Redhat/CentOS: NO_CUSTOM_ACTIONS=1 rpm ....
• Windows: msiexec /i ... NO_CUSTOM_ACTIONS=1

Using fixed installation directory in Windows

In some cases, you'd want to install the product in a specific location, without giving the end-user a choice to change that.

When you set a value to custom-installdir, this will change the UI to jump from the welcome dialog to the verify-installation dialog.

Looking for installation directory inside the Windows Registry

If you want to install the product under a directory that's written in the registry, add the following items to the buildout recipe:

• existing-installdir: HKLM\Software\Key\SubKey\Value
• custom-insalldir: [EXISTINGINSTALLDIR]

Checking out the code

Run the following:

easy_install -U infi.projector
projector devenv build

Python 3 support

Python 3 support is experimental at this stage.