Recording TIMESTAMPs in distinfo for reproducible builds work

[Dewayne Geraghty]

On 13 May 2016 at 04:08, Ed Maste <emaste at freebsd.org> wrote:

> Baptiste and I have been looking at reproducible builds in the FreeBSD
> ports tree, and one thing we'll need is a consistent timestamp that
> doesn't change when a port is rebuilt without changes.
>
> We considered a few different ideas, and have settled on experimenting
> with the time 'make makesum' is run.
>
> I have a bsd.port.mk change that I'll commit shortly to record the
> TIMESTAMP when "make makesum" is run.  I want to do this now so that
> this data is collected and stored "for free" along with regular
> distfile updates.  This will allow experimentation and development of
> reproducible package builds with real data.
>
> For now ports that have no distinfo file, and distfile updates done
> without using "make makesum," can just ignore the TIMESTAMP.
>
> -Ed
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A nice idea as the version changes PORTVERSION/REVISION aren't always a
reliable indicator.  If you're trying to tag a port build(s) as being
unchanged from one build cycle to another, how will the changes to
/usr/ports/Mk be tagged?

We currently mtree the /usr/ports/Mk dir/subdirs so we can easily determine
where we need to look if there's a problem and/or we need to revert
something quickly.
Regards, Dewayne