Create Tectonic

[probonopd]

https://github.com/xtaniguchimasaya/tectonic-appimage
tectonic-typesetting/tectonic#280 (comment)

[probonopd]

Why are we getting AppRun: Permission denied? Might be a bug in our test setup?

[pkgw]

We now have official release artifacts: https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic/releases/download/v0.1.11/Tectonic-0.1.11-x86_64.AppImage

[probonopd]

FATAL: Key Categories is not in .desktop file exactly once

Please see #2.

[probonopd]

Is this a command line app? If yes, the desktop file also needs Terminal=true.

me@host:~$ Downloads/Tectonic-0.1.11-x86_64.AppImage 
error: The following required arguments were not provided:
    <INPUT>

USAGE:
    Tectonic-0.1.11-x86_64(1).AppImage <INPUT> --chatter <LEVEL> --format <PATH> --outfmt <FORMAT> --pass <PASS>

For more information try --help

[pkgw]

Thanks @probonopd . I've updated the AppImage — does it lint now?

[probonopd]

Unfortunately no, so let's have a look by hand:

me@host:~$ ./Tectonic-0.1.11-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract '*.desktop'
squashfs-root/tectonic.desktop
TODO: Implement inode.base.inode_type 10
me@host:~$ ./Tectonic-0.1.11-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-version
Version: d185526

Oops, we have (hopefully) fixed this in the meantime.

d185526 is very old (from October), why are you not using the latest continuous appimagetool?

Anyway, on to analyzing:

# Mount it
me@host:~$ ./Tectonic-0.1.11-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-mount &
[1] 13474
me@host:~$ /tmp/.mount_Tectonf5hZp2

# Check its desktop file
me@host:~$ cat /tmp/.mount_Tectonf5hZp2/tectonic.desktop 
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Tectonic
Comment=Tectonic is a modernized, complete, self-contained TeX/LaTeX engine, powered by XeTeX and TeXLive.
TryExec=tectonic
Exec=tectonic %F
Icon=tectonic
MimeType=image/svg+xml;

No Categories=...; there.

[pkgw]

OK. I think the problem is that I made the image with an old AppDir. What's the expected usage of the AppDir — should I basically be recreating it every time I make an image? I was thinking maybe it would be a long-lived directory that stored any extra resource files we'd need, but I'm getting the impression I should just be making it with mktemp -d.

I don't know anything about AppImage so I'm just using the tooling that @xtaniguchimasaya had:

linuxdeploy-x86_64.AppImage:
	wget https://github.com/linuxdeploy/linuxdeploy/releases/download/continuous/$@ -O $(MAKEFILEDIR)/$@
	chmod +x $(MAKEFILEDIR)/$@

Should this become https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/releases/download/continuous/appimagetool-x86_64.AppImage instead? Looks like the command line options are different but presumably I can figure out how to adapt ...

[probonopd]

What's the expected usage of the AppDir — should I basically be recreating it every time I make an image?

Yes.

Using linuxdeploy is fine, I have opened an issue there so that they will hopefully update their appimagetool soon which will make the --appimage-extract work as intended.

[pkgw]

@probonopd Thanks, OK, I've been reading a bit more and learning more how this system works. Take 3 imminent.

[pkgw]

@probonopd Is there a fixed URL to download an AppImage of zsync2? There are continuous releases available on GitHub but the filenames contain the commit hash, so I can't hardcode a simple URL to pull down the AppImage. (I'm envisioning a script that will use zsync2 to pull down the latest linuxdeploy before making the Tectonic appimage.)

Edit Never mind, it's not too hard to use the GitHub API. This script is going to be a bit silly, but hey.

[probonopd]

What do you need zsync2 for? The linuxdeploy AppImage comes with zsyncmake which is all that is needed.

[pkgw]

I'm using zsync2 to efficiently pull down the latest linuxdeploy AppImage. Here's the script I put together.

Anyway, I've uploaded another new AppImage. I think this one should have a good desktop file.

[probonopd]

That doesn't make sense, at least not if you want to generate the AppImages as part of your Travis CI builds (as would make most sense). The entire Travis CI build system gets "thrown away" after each run anyway. So just download it from scratch each time.

[pkgw]

That's a good point. I'm running the script manually a lot right now, but hopefully that won't be the case going forward ...

[pkgw]

There is now a "continuous" release: https://github.com/tectonic-typesetting/tectonic/releases/tag/continuous . Hopefully the AppImage passes all lints but I haven't checked personally.

[probonopd]

Bug in worker.sh? Or Firejail?

[probonopd]

Permission denied. Why?

[pkgw]

@probonopd I don't know anything about the infrastructure here — is this problem likely to be something about how we create our AppImage, or unrelated?

[probonopd]

To be honest, I don't know yet. May well have to do with firejail which I am using, but I am not sure yet.

On which kind of system are you producing your AppImage? Which filesystem is that system using? (ext4/btrfs?)

[pkgw]

On which kind of system are you producing your AppImage? Which filesystem is that system using? (ext4/btrfs?)

We're generating it in Travis CI (script here), and it looks like that means ext4.

[probonopd]

This is strange... don't know what is causing this. The issue is most likely not on your end.

[probonopd]

I can confirm that this is related to running in Firejail:

me@host:~$ wget -c -q "https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageHub/releases/download/deps/firejail.tar.gz" ; sudo tar xf firejail.tar.gz -C /
me@host:~$ sudo chown root:root /usr/bin/firejail ; sudo chmod u+s /usr/bin/firejail # suid
me@host:~$ firejail --quiet --noprofile --net=none --appimage Downloads/tectonic-continuous-x86_64.AppImage 
/bin/bash: /run/firejail/appimage/.appimage-10595/AppRun: Permission denied

# Without Firejail it works:

me@host:~$ Downloads/tectonic-continuous-x86_64.AppImage 
error: The following required arguments were not provided:
    <INPUT>

USAGE:
    tectonic-continuous-x86_64.AppImage <INPUT> --chatter <LEVEL> --format <PATH> --outfmt <FORMAT> --pass <PASS>

For more information try --help

Does the application need any unusual/special permissions? If not, we might need to ask the Firejail team how to debug this.

[pkgw]

@probonopd No, Tectonic should not need anything at all unusual. It accesses the network and saves files in a cache directory in $HOME, I guess?

[probonopd]

I think this is a Firejail issue not related to Tectonic. Let's see to which conclusion the discussion in netblue30/firejail#2690 will come.