Sharing only build packages for private code about conan

[memsharded]

Yes, there should be several ways, depending on your use case. The recommended use case to create packages from source is to use the source() method to specify the source code origin, something like:

def source(self):
    self.run("git clone https://..../repo.git")

Then, uploading the conanfile.py can be done without problems.
If the repository specified in the source() method is private, only you or the people you give access to your source repo will be allowed to retrieve such source code and build binaries. Just upload your built binaries to conan.io, and you are done. If someone requests binaries from a configuration not provided by you, it might try to build from source and call that source() method, and it will fail due to the lack of permissions. Is this what you need?

[Prinkesh]

Yes this is how i am using it right now . I was trying to figure out a way so that i don't even need to share the location of source repo .
user develops a library builds packages for the library using conan and uploads the generated packages only with required package info and not the build functionality to a central conan server . So now other users can just consume the package and they cannot rebuild the packages .

[lasote]

It's a little tricky but:

1. build your packages
2. upload all (conan upload x/y@user/channel --all)
3. Edit the conanfile and remove the source
4. upload just the conanfile (conan upload x/y@user/channel) without --all option

All the packages will be available to the users but the recipe will be incomplete so no one will be able to build the packages or know its origin. It doesn't sound too much like open source...

[Prinkesh]

Yes thought of that . Thanks for helping out .
The tool is great to use and manage dependencies and having control over what reaches the end users would be good for sharing proprietary packages .

[memsharded]

What @lasote propose is a good option, but you should probably search and replace in all conanfile.py inside your home ~/.conan/data folder for the URLs you want to hide.

But there are other possibilities, that can automate the process:

• Request the remote repo URL in the source() method, something like:

def source(self):
    print "Introduce repo URL"
    url = raw_input()
    self.run("git clone %s" % url)

In this way, you are absolutely sure that nobody except package creators can read the URL.

• You can also try to do a replace in file on the conanfile.py itself:

from conans import tools

def source(self):
    self.run("git clone https://URL")
    tools.replace_in_file("../export/conanfile.py", "https://URL", "Hidden URL")
    tools.replace_in_file("conanfile.py", "https://URL", "Hidden URL")

I haven't tried these options, but this is one of the good things that the package recipe is python, you can do whatever you want in that file. Please tell me if you try any and have any problem.

[memsharded]

Hi @Prinkesh, did you tried any of these approaches? I wonder if they worked (I think the first one is especially simple and effective), or whether it is still necessary to look for better solutions. Otherwise, perhaps the issue could be closed by now.

[Prinkesh]

The first method works well . Thanks for help .