How to Publish Packages to AUR

What is AUR?

The Arch User Repository (AUR) is a community-driven repository for Arch Linux and its derivatives. It contains user-created packages, often referred to as PKGBUILDs, which are essentially recipes for building and installing software not found in the official Arch Linux repositories. These packages can be built from source using tools like makepkg and installed with pacman.

What is a PKGBUILD File?

A PKGBUILD file is a shell script used by the Arch Linux package manager, makepkg, to build and package software. It contains instructions and metadata for creating an installable package from source code or other files. Essentially, it’s a recipe for building and packaging software on Arch Linux.

Example one:

# Maintainer: stabldev <thestabldev@gmail.com> # maintainer information

pkgname=torrra # package name
pkgver=1.1.0 # package version
pkgrel=2 # release number of the package version
pkgdesc="A Python tool that lets you find and download torrents without leaving your CLI." # project description
arch=('any') # supported architecture
url="https://github.com/stabldev/torrra" # project homepage
license=('MIT') # project license
depends=( # your project dependencies
  'libtorrent-rasterbar'
  'python'
  'python-diskcache'
  'python-httpx'
  'python-platformdirs'
  'python-textual'
  'python-tomli-w'
)
makedepends=('python-build' 'python-installer' 'python-wheel' 'python-hatchling') # dependencies need for building your project
source=("https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/source/${pkgname:0:1}/$pkgname/$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.gz") # source to download your code from
sha256sums=('6f6ad553c857008a57b534001e0bcb851fb307fdc882a920afa841273a56296d') # for verification

build() { # build steps
    cd "$pkgname-$pkgver"
    python -m build --wheel --no-isolation
}

package() { # package steps
    cd "$pkgname-$pkgver"
    python -m installer --destdir="$pkgdir" dist/*.whl
    install -Dm644 LICENSE -t "$pkgdir/usr/share/licenses/$pkgname/"
}

Create AUR Repostiory

Generate a dedicated SSH key-pair

First thing you need is an AUR account. But before that- let’s create a ssh key-pair for authenticating into aur, just like how we do it for GitHub. For that run this command:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "aur" -f ~/.ssh/id_aur

• -t ed25519: specifies the key type (modern and recommended).
• -C "aur": adds a comment for easier identification.
• -f ~/.ssh/id_aur: saves the key as id_aur (you can choose a different name if you want).

You’ll see output like:

Generating public/private ed25519 key pair.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/user/.ssh/id_aur
Your public key has been saved in /home/user/.ssh/id_aur.pub

Add the public key to your AUR account

• Register an AUR account from here using your email address.
• Go to “My Account”.
• Paste the contents of ~/.ssh/id_aur.pub into the “SSH Public Key” field.

To get the contents, run:

cat ~/.ssh/id_aur.pub

Configure SSH to use this key for the AUR

Edit (or create) your SSH config file:

nano ~/.ssh/config

Add this block:

Host aur.archlinux.org
    User aur
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_aur

Clone Repo using SSH

Finally, we can clone the AUR repo using:

git clone ssh://aur@aur.archlinux.org/<package-name>.git

Make sure to enter your package name in place of <package-name and AUR will create a repo for you.

Make Changes and Publish

If you don’t have a PKGBUILD file, then create it. Use the above PKGBUILD file example and make your changes. You can search around aur for getting dependency names.

Once you have a proper PKGBUILD file, you need to update the sha256sums field with a proper sha-key. You can use updpkgsums for doing this, It downloads the source from the specified source path and update the field accordingly.

Run:

updpkgsums

For development/testing, you can add SKIP. But, it is recommended to add a proper sha-key.

.SRCINFO

After PKGBUILD, .SRCINFO is the file we need. It is auto-generated from the details we specified on PKGBUILD file. You can create it by running the command:

makepkg --printsrcinfo > .SRCINFO

You need to run this command everytime you make changes to PKGBUILD file.

With these two files, you are almost done.

Commit and Push

Just like git, do commit the changes and push to master branch.

git commit -m "chore: release v1.0.0"
git push origin -u master

And that’s it! You can see your package at https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/<package_name>

Things to Keep in Mind

• Always run that command to auto-generate a .SRCINFO after everytime you update PKGBUILD.
• If you’ve changed something on the build file, like dependencies- then increment the pkgrel number from the build file to force a new update.
• Don’t update sha256sums field manually, use updpkgsums to auto-update it.