Go package guidelines - ArchWiki

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# Go package guidelines

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This article or section is a candidate for moving to developer-manual:package-guidelines/go.

Notes: This page is being migrated to the Developer Manual. Further changes should be contributed via merge request. (Discuss in Talk:Go package guidelines)

This document covers standards and guidelines on writing PKGBUILDs for Go.

## General guidelines

### Package naming

Use `go-modulename` if the package provides a program that is strongly coupled to the Go ecosystem. For other applications, use only the program name.

Note The package name should be entirely lowercase.

## Building

### Dependencies

Go 1.11 introduced the initial support for go modules. This allows Go upstream code to declare dependencies and pin them to the given project version. Currently our packaging efforts utilize this to vendor dependencies.

#### Upstream project without go modules

For upstream code that does not utilise Go modules, the following workaround exists. Consider filing an issue upstream.

    PKGBUILD

    url=https://github.com/upstream_user/upstream_project

    prepare() {
      cd "$pkgname-$pkgver"
      go mod init "${url#https://}" # strip https:// from canonical URL
      go mod tidy
    }

Note Any such hacks makes the package unreproducible as modules will change between package builds.

#### Upstream project with go modules

By default, go will use `GOPATH` to download and store go modules. It will grow the user `~/go` directory.

To keep all go modules in the package build environment, you can add a prepare step to configure `GOPATH="${srcdir}"`, and download the go modules in the package src directory.

    PKGBUILD

    prepare() {
      cd "${pkgname}-${pkgver}"
      export GOPATH="${srcdir}"
      go mod download -modcacherw
    }

### Flags and build options

Go does not automatically pass system build flags (`CFLAGS`, `LDFLAGS`, etc.) to its C toolchain. To compile Go binaries with RELRO and other hardening flags, `CGO_CFLAGS`, `CGO_LDFLAGS`, and related variables must be explicitly set in the build environment.

    export CGO_CPPFLAGS="${CPPFLAGS}"
    export CGO_CFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
    export CGO_CXXFLAGS="${CXXFLAGS}"
    export CGO_LDFLAGS="${LDFLAGS}"
    export GOFLAGS="-buildmode=pie -trimpath -ldflags=-linkmode=external -mod=readonly -modcacherw"

    # or alternatively you can define some of these flags from the CLI options
    go build \
        -trimpath \
        -buildmode=pie \
        -mod=readonly \
        -modcacherw \
        -ldflags "-linkmode external -extldflags \"${LDFLAGS}\"" \
        .

Note Most Makefiles written for Go applications overwrite `GOFLAGS` and do not pass the above flags to the compiler. If the upstream project uses a Makefile, it must either be patched to respect these flags or be bypassed in favor of invoking `go build` directly.

#### Flag meaning

- `-buildmode=pie` enables PIE compilation for binary hardening.
- `-trimpath` important for reproducible builds so full build paths and module paths are not embedded.
- `-mod=readonly` ensure the module files are not updated in any go actions.
- `-modcacherw` is not important, but it ensures that go modules creates a write-able path. Default is read-only.

Tip When package sources include a `vendor` directory with `modules.txt`, the `-mod` flag can safely be changed to `-mod=vendor`.
Warning It is up to the packager to verify the build flags are passed correctly to the compiler. Read the `Makefile` if there is one.

#### Supporting debug packages

Enabling debug packages with source listing and proper symbol look ups require a few modifications to the default buildflags.

- Removal of `-trimpath` to ensure source paths are rewritten in the binary
- Include `-compressdwarf=false` in `-ldflags` to ensure we can parse the DWARF headers as current tooling does not support compressed headers.
- Ensure `-linkmode=external` as the internal linker go uses does not embed a build-id into the binary.
- Include `GOPATH="${srcdir}"` so makepkg can include the source code for all modules.

The above options should produce a debug package with proper detached symbols and source listings which can then be picked up by the debugger.

    export CGO_CPPFLAGS="${CPPFLAGS}"
    export CGO_CFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
    export CGO_CXXFLAGS="${CXXFLAGS}"
    export CGO_LDFLAGS="${LDFLAGS}"
    export GOPATH="${srcdir}"
    export GOFLAGS="-buildmode=pie -mod=readonly -modcacherw"

    go build -ldflags "-compressdwarf=false -linkmode external" .

### Output directory

There are currently a few ways to build all go binaries in a project.

    build(){
        cd "$pkgname-$pkgver"
        go build -o output-binary .
    }

`...` is a shorthand for the compiler to recursively descend into the directory and find all binaries. It can be used in conjunction with a output directory to build everything.

    prepare(){
        cd "$pkgname-$pkgver"
        mkdir -p build
    }

    build(){
        cd "$pkgname-$pkgver"
        go build -o build ./cmd/...
    }

## Sample PKGBUILD

    pkgname=foo
    pkgver=0.0.1
    pkgrel=1
    pkgdesc='Go PKGBUILD Example'
    arch=('x86_64')
    url="https://example.org/$pkgname"
    license=('GPL')
    makedepends=('go')
    source=("$url/$pkgname-$pkgver.tar.gz")
    sha256sums=('1337deadbeef')

    prepare(){
      cd "$pkgname-$pkgver"
      mkdir -p build/
    }

    build() {
      cd "$pkgname-$pkgver"
      export GOPATH="${srcdir}"
      export CGO_CPPFLAGS="${CPPFLAGS}"
      export CGO_CFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
      export CGO_CXXFLAGS="${CXXFLAGS}"
      export CGO_LDFLAGS="${LDFLAGS}"
      export GOFLAGS="-buildmode=pie -trimpath -ldflags=-linkmode=external -mod=readonly -modcacherw"
      go build -o build ./cmd/...
    }

    check() {
      cd "$pkgname-$pkgver"
      go test ./...
    }

    package() {
      cd "$pkgname-$pkgver"
      install -Dm755 build/$pkgname "$pkgdir"/usr/bin/$pkgname
    }

## Example packages

- podman
- k9s
- helm

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