Automatic Debian repository (Xi) updated

[Stephan Bosch]

Hi,

Now that we have a new Dovecot v2.3 release, I've created a new Xi
builder that follows the git master branch to automatically produce
Debian packages for the future Dovecot v2.4. The existing v2.3
repository now follows the master-2.3 branch, meaning that this will
only follow developments/fixes ported to the v2.3 stable release series.
This was already true for the v2.2 oldstable packages.

All repositories now finally have the capability of updating version
numbers automatically based on releases (as it used to be before we
switched to git). This operates a little different than before though:
the normal (alpha) repositories produce packages with a version that has
an "~alpha" suffix. The base version represents the *next* release
version, rather than the current as it was before. So, if the last
Dovecot release was 2.3.0, Xi will release packages with version
2.3.1~alpha0, which is the version we're working towards.

Another development is that the builders for v2.2 and v2.3 also follow
the release-2.x.y branches once these are created. These branches are
forked from the respective master-2.x branch once the first release
candidate for a release is to be created, so that packages produced in
this stream will follow those developments, including the actual release
(and any small patch releases that may follow). Unlike the alpha
packages, rc packages have a base version that matches the release
version. Packages for the release branches are output to separate
repository. While e.g. the repository for automatic packages for Debian
stable is called "stable-auto", the release branch packages are
published to a repository called "stable-rc-auto". The
/etc/apt/sources.list line for that would look as follows:

deb http://xi.dovecot.fi/debian/ stable-rc-auto/dovecot-2.3 main

Keep in mind that, while the rc repositories will have a little more
stability, these are still produced fully automatically without any
regular human supervision. Using these for production systems is
therefore not recommended. Also, since this is a new feature, these
repositories are still to be considered experimental.

IMPORTANT: Much of this work was prepared and tested earlier in the
http://xi.dovecot.fi/debian.new repository. This repository is now shut
down and will not be updated anymore. Therefore, all of you who have
switched to that repository must switch back to the normal one.

As you know, Dovecot now operates a repository with v2.3 packages for
the community edition. Unlike Xi, the production of these packages is
triggered manually and the resulting packages are suitable for
production systems. Xi is still the repository to use if you wish to
follow very recent developments (within the hour!) for testing purposes.

Regards,

Stephan.