Packaging a distribution on drupal.org

Last updated February 8, 2012. Created by hunmonk on November 25, 2009.
Edited by webchick, geerlingguy, cr0ss, langworthy. Log in to edit this page.

So you want to provide a Distribution on Drupal.org? Great! Here are the steps.

The drupal.org packaging system will take the code for a project, assemble it into an easily downloadable format, and post it to the project's pages on drupal.org.

Step 1: Pre-requisites

• A Drush make file for your distribution, or Drupal site that you'd like to create a distribution out of.
• Drush 5.x+
• Drupal.org Drush
• A full project node on Drupal.org, of project type "Installation profile"

Step 2: Drush Make file

A Drush Make file is essentially a "recipe" that explains how to gather up all of the pre-requisites for a Drupal installation. You can either create them by hand, or with the generator.

See http://drupal.org/node/1432374 for a full working example of all valid properties supported by Drupal.org's packaging system. You can either create/edit these by hand, or you can auto-generate one in seconds by changing into any working Drupal site's root directory and running the command:

Drush make will inspect your current install and write a distro.make file with the latest stable releases for all of the modules/themes it finds.

TODO: Except for #1432396: Drush make / Drupal.org make core specifications are different? and #1432380: drush generate-makefile and drush verify-makefile are incompatible.

Step 3: Converting to a Drupal.org-specific Drush Make file.

Once you have a valid Drush Make file, the next step is to convert it to one suitable for Drupal.org packaging. The Drupal.org version is essentially the same as a normal Drush Make file, but with the following important differences:

• External libraries are validated against a whitelist of GPL-compatible libraries, since all code distributed from Drupal.org must be GPL compatible.
• Git clones from Drupal.org sandboxes (as opposed to full projects) are not supported. #1432326: Support for git clones from Drupal.org sandboxes
• The includes[] directive is not supported. #1427752: Support drush make includes[]
• Patches hosted off Drupal.org are not supported.
• Modules and themes hosted off Drupal.org are not supported. #1427762: Allow modules/themes not hosted on Drupal.org to be packaged into distribution .make files.
• TODO: Other?

Verify make file

To check whether your make file is Drupal.org-compatible, run the following command:

Note that you must resolve all errors before proceeding. See http://drupal.org/node/1432190 for some common errors and how to fix them.

If all goes well, you should see the following output from Drush:

Convert make file to drupal-org.make file

If you get the following output:

...you are good to go! The converted .make file will look something like this:

Note that if Drush scares you, there is also a web interface for verifying/converting .make files at the bottom of any distribution project page:

Step 4: Committing and releasing

Follow the instructions on your project page's "Version Control" tab to clone your Git repository. You'll need to add your new drupal-org.make file to the root directory:

As a profile maintainer, all you have to check in to Git is the drupal-org.make file, and the packaging script will automatically assemble all of the modules, themes, libraries, and patches it references when creating the downloadable file archive for a given release.

Once that's complete, create a release for your project in the typical way. The packaging system looks in a profile's main directory (the same directory your .profile file is located) for the drupal-org.make file -- if it finds the file, then it will package the contents of the file with the profile.

// TODO: Screenshot of a fully packaged profile.

Step 5: Maintaining your distribution

Blah blah about Documentation. Support. Security/maintenance fixes.