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AUR Packages (Arch Linux)

Skywire is packaged for Arch Linux through the AUR. There are two AUR pkgbases — skywire-bin (prebuilt binary) and skywire (from source) — plus a repository/provisioning package, skyrepo. Each pkgbase's git tree also carries variant *.PKGBUILD recipes that produce the auto-update packages and the Debian .debs published to the apt repo, so the AUR trees are the single source of packaging truth for both distros.

All are maintained by Moses Narrow. Note that every recipe builds/installs from the upstream module path github.com/skycoin/skywire regardless of which fork the working tree is checked out from.

Quick pick

You want… Install
The stable release, fastest install (no compiler) skywire-bin
A locally-compiled build (musl-static, release tag) skywire
A build tracking the develop branch skywire via git.PKGBUILD
Automatic daily source rebuilds skywire-autoupdate (see Auto-Update)
The Skycoin apt repo + provisioning helpers skyrepo

pkgbase skywire-bin — prebuilt binary

Installs the prebuilt release binary downloaded from the GitHub release (releases/download/v<ver>/skywire-v<ver>-linux-<arch>.tar.xz, per-arch source_*). No Go toolchain needed. provides/conflicts = skywire, so it is interchangeable with the from-source package. Binary lands at /opt/skywire/bin/skywire with /usr/bin symlinks. optdepends: redis, postgresql, jq.

It installs only the runtime systemd units — skywire.service, skywire-autoconfig.service, the deployment-service group (skywire-{sn,ar,rf,tpd,dmsgd,dmsg,sd}.service), dmsgpty-tcp.socket + dmsgpty-tcp@.service, a user unit, plus sysusers.d/tmpfiles.d entries. It does not install any auto-update units — those come from the separate skywire-autoupdate / skywire-docker-autopull packages.

Variant recipes in the same tree:

  • PKGBUILD → skywire-bin (the above).
  • cc.deb.PKGBUILD → repackages the release tarballs into per-arch .debs (amd64/arm64/armhf/armel/riscv64/i386) for the apt repo. Shared deb scripts do sysusers/tmpfiles setup, setcap, generate /etc/skywire.conf, run skywire autoconfig, and try-restart the service.
  • autoupdate.PKGBUILD / autoupdate.deb.PKGBUILD → the skywire-autoupdate package.
  • docker-autopull.PKGBUILD / docker-autopull.deb.PKGBUILD → the skywire-docker-autopull package.

pkgbase skywire — from source

Builds skywire from source with a musl static link: go install github.com/skycoin/skywire/cmd/skywire@v<ver> with CC=musl-gcc and -linkmode external -extldflags '-static'. makedepends=(git go>=1.24 musl kernel-headers-musl) (plus npm when REBUILDUI=1). It pulls the service/desktop/icon files from a nested skywire-bin AUR checkout, so it installs the same runtime units as skywire-bin. It also installs the skywire-autoconfig script to /opt/skywire/scripts and /usr/bin.

Variant recipes in the same tree:

  • PKGBUILD → skywire, from the release tag.
  • git.PKGBUILD → develop-branch build; pkgver() derived from go list -m github.com/skycoin/skywire@develop, builds cmd/skywire@develop.
  • deb.PKGBUILD → from-source Debian .deb.
  • dev.PKGBUILD → develop-branch .deb (sources deb.PKGBUILD + git.PKGBUILD).
  • systray-git.PKGBUILD → the systray build variant.

Auto-update packages (from the skywire-bin tree)

These are produced by variant recipes above but are worth calling out as distinct installable packages. See Auto-Update Mechanisms for what their timers do.

  • skywire-autoupdate — depends=(skywire-bin go). Installs /usr/bin/skywire-update + /usr/bin/skywire-docker-update and their service/timer pairs. Its .install creates the unprivileged skywire-build user and enables skywire-update.timer.
  • skywire-docker-autopull — its own package, depends=(docker docker-compose). Installs skywire-docker-autopull.service + .timer (every 5 min) that pulls skycoin/skywire:test and recreates the compose stack.

pkgbase skyrepo — apt repo + provisioning

arch=('any'). Registers the Skycoin apt repository source list and GPG key (48F19E5157BE6014D80A47328D6D51BC4AD7AE64), ships the opt-in unattended-upgrades example files, and a first-boot install-skywire.service (one-shot apt reinstall skywire-bin). It also absorbs the former skybian provisioning payload (skymanager, skybian-reset, skyenv, MOTD snippets) and therefore Replaces/Conflicts/Provides skybian.

Despite a lockstep-versioning comment in the PKGBUILD, the three pkgbases are versioned independently in practice (e.g. skywire-bin and the from-source skywire track different points, and skyrepo its own).

Relationship to the Debian apt repo

The apt repo build scripts (in the apt-repo project) drive the *.deb.PKGBUILD variants above with makepkg and publish the resulting .debs via reprepro — one publish script per package (updskywirebin.sh, updskywire.sh, updskywireautoupdate.sh, updskywiredockerautopull.sh). So the AUR PKGBUILD trees are also the upstream of the Debian packages; a packaging change made once in the AUR tree flows to both Arch and Debian users.