{"id":283,"date":"2020-06-13T16:20:58","date_gmt":"2020-06-13T14:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/camilomatajira.wordpress.com\/?p=283"},"modified":"2025-06-11T20:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T20:56:39","slug":"how-to-create-a-python-debian-package-with-dh-virtualenv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/camilo.matajira.com\/?p=283","title":{"rendered":"How to create a Python Debian package with dh-virtualenv"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Problem to solve:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I wrote a Python application that is supposed to run on Debian 9\/10.
The application uses Python 3.5, but has some newer external dependencies.
The application cannot be dockerized. What is the appropriate way to deploy it to production servers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the problem is that despite Python’s popularity, there is no official way of doing this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The solution:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Doing my research, I found that some enterprises are building .deb files to distribute their applications to production. Specifically, I found that Spotify created dh-virtualenv as a tool to simplify the process of creating Debian packages for their python projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I always wanted to create a Debian package. So I tried this approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I must say, that the documentation to create a .deb package for Python is not the best. You can find tutorials to create packages for compiled languages, but for Python is hard to find.
The best tutorial that I found is the following from Py3g<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The application to be packaged as .deb:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To learn to use dh-virtualenv I decided to package an old project with a certain complexity.
My sudoku solver application is an accumulation of technologies that I wanted to learn at the time. Including Flask, Tkinter, and Requests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The code is not structured as a package (in the Python sense). It has a requirements file but not a setup.py. It does not have a init<\/strong>.py either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step #1: Backup your code<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Work on a copy of your source code. At this moment my code look like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.
\u251c\u2500\u2500 README.md
\u251c\u2500\u2500 requirements.txt
\u2514\u2500\u2500 src
\u251c\u2500\u2500 cell.py
\u251c\u2500\u2500 gui_tkinter.py
\u251c\u2500\u2500 solver_api.py
\u251c\u2500\u2500 sudoku.py
\u2514\u2500\u2500 tests.py<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step #2: Get cookiecutter and the dh-virtualev:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Part of the complexity of building a Debian package is dealing with the boiler-plate of files that you need to create.
You can get an excellent template by using cookiecutter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/circle><\/circle><\/circle><\/g><\/svg><\/span>