Copy published PPA packages from one release pocket to another.
We build a few Debian packages containing various helpful scripts (i.e. the packages have Architecture: all and do not need to be recompiled when system library versions change). We want them to be available for all supported Ubuntu releases. So we upload a version built for the oldest supported LTS release to our PPA and use this script to copy the built packages to all other releases in the same PPA::
ppa-copy-packages -O pov -s xenial -t bionic disco -p pov-admin-tools ...
I do the same thing with gtimelog, which is a pure Python program and also doesn't need to be recompiled::
ppa-copy-packages -O gtimelog -s xenial -t bionic disco -p gtimelog
And sometimes, when I'm feeling brave, I try this trick with C programs such as pwsafe::
ppa-copy-packages -O mg -s xenial -t bionic disco -p pwsafe
Authentication is taken care of by launchpadlib_, which opens a browser window on first run and asks you to log in and authorize its access token (which is stored in the system keyring for your convenience).
.. _launchpadlib: https://pypi.org/project/launchpadlib/
::
$ ppa-copy-packages -h usage: ppa-copy-packages [-h] [--version] [-v] [-q] [-n] [-w] [-b] [--debug] -O OWNER [-N NAME] -p NAME [NAME ...] -s SERIES -t SERIES [SERIES ...] [--architectures ARCH [ARCH ...]] [--pocket POCKET] [--launchpad-instance INSTANCE]
copy Ubuntu PPA packages from one release pocket to another
optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit --version show program's version number and exit -v, --verbose More verbose output (can be stacked) -q, --quiet Less verbose output -n, --dry-run Don't make any changes -w, --wait Wait for pending packages to be published -b, --browse Open the PPA page in a browser, don't do anything else. --debug Very verbose logging, for debugging this script
PPA selection: -O OWNER, --owner OWNER owner of the PPA -N NAME, --name NAME name of the PPA (default: ppa) -p NAME [NAME ...], --packages NAME [NAME ...] names of packages to copy -s SERIES, --source-series SERIES source series (e.g. xenial) -t SERIES [SERIES ...], --target-series SERIES [SERIES ...] target series (e.g. bionic) --architectures ARCH [ARCH ...] architectures to check for published binaries (default is ['i386', 'amd64']) --pocket POCKET pocket name (you probably don't want to change this; default is Release) --launchpad-instance INSTANCE Launchpad instance (default: production)