brew

The brew module installs Homebrew / Linuxbrew on your system and ensures the package manager remains updated and maintained. This module also sets up systemd services to periodically update the installed Brew packages.

Features

• Downloads Brew in build-time & installs it in run-time.
• Sets up systemd services to automatically update Brew to the latest version.
• Sets up systemd services to automatically upgrade Brew packages.
• Sets up bash and fish completions for Brew.

How it works

Build-time:

• Necessary Brew package dependency gcc & zstd is installed if not present in the base image.
• Brew tarball is downloaded from Universal Blue ‘packages’ GitHub releases.
• Brew tarball is extracted to /usr/share/homebrew/.
• /usr/share/homebrew/ permissions are set to the default user (UID/GID 1000).
• brew-update & brew-upgrade SystemD service timers are enabled (by default).
• A fix for path conflicts between system & brew packages with the same name is applied by adding Brew to path only in interactive shells, unlike what Brew does by default.
• Set option that Brew’s shell environment can’t be ran as root, respecting Homebrew’s recommendation that only user with UID/GID 1000 can manage Brew.
• Brew bash & fish shell completions are copied to /etc/profile.d/brew-bash-completions.sh & /usr/share/fish/vendor_conf.d/brew-fish-completions.fish.
• tmpfiles.d configuration homebrew.conf is written with these directory locations:
  • /var/lib/homebrew/
  • /var/cache/homebrew/
  • /home/linuxbrew/
• brew-setup service is enabled.

Run-time:

tmpfiles.d homebrew.conf:

• This configuration is telling SystemD to: automatically create these necessary directories on every system boot if not available & to give them permissions of the default user (UID 1000):
  • /var/lib/homebrew/
  • /var/cache/homebrew/
  • /home/linuxbrew/

brew-setup:

• brew-setup installs brew in runtime.
  SystemD service checks if main directory used by Brew exists (/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/) & if brew-setup state file exists (/etc/.linuxbrew).
• If one of those paths don’t exist, then extracted Brew tarball is copied from /usr/share/homebrew/ to /home/linuxbrew/.
• Permissions to /home/linuxbrew/ are set to the default user (UID/GID 1000).
• Empty file /etc/.linuxbrew is created, which indicates that brew-setup (installation) is successful & which allows setup to run again on next boot when removed.

Rest of the setup:

• brew-update runs at the specified time to update Brew to the latest version.
• brew-upgrade runs at the specified time to upgrade Brew packages.
  It additionally unlinks conflicting Brew dependencies if installed, like systemd & dbus, to prevent crucial system programs being preferred by Brew.

Development

Setting DEBUG=true inside brew.sh will enable additional output for debugging purposes during development.

Uninstallation

Removing the brew module from the recipe is not enough to get it completely removed.
On a booted system, it’s also necessary to run the brew uninstallation script.

Either a local-user can execute this script manually or the image-maintainer may make it automatic through a custom systemd service.

Uninstallation script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash


if [[ -d "${HOME}/cache/Homebrew/" ]]; then
  echo "Removing '$HOME/cache/Homebrew/' directory"
  rm -r "${HOME}/cache/Homebrew/"
else
  echo "'${HOME}/cache/Homebrew/' directory is already removed"
fi


if [[ -d "/var/lib/homebrew/" ]]; then
  echo "Removing '/var/lib/homebrew/' directory"
  sudo rm -rf "/var/lib/homebrew/"
else
  echo "'/var/lib/homebrew/' directory is already removed"
fi
if [[ -d "/var/cache/homebrew/" ]]; then
  echo "Removing '/var/cache/homebrew/' directory"
  sudo rm -rf "/var/cache/homebrew/"
else
  echo "'/var/cache/homebrew/' directory is already removed"
fi
## This is the main directory where brew is located
if [[ -d "/var/home/linuxbrew/" ]]; then
  echo "Removing '/home/linuxbrew/' directory"
  sudo rm -rf "/var/home/linuxbrew/"
else
  echo "'/home/linuxbrew/' directory is already removed"
fi


if [[ -f "/etc/.linuxbrew" ]]; then
  echo "Removing empty '/etc/.linuxbrew' file"
  sudo rm -f "/etc/.linuxbrew"
else
  echo "'/etc/.linuxbrew' file is already removed"
fi

Credits

Thanks a lot to Bluefin custom image maintainer m2giles, who made this entire module possible.
In fact, the module’s logic of installing & updating/upgrading Brew is fully copied from him & Bluefin, we just made it easier & more convenient to use for BlueBuild users.

Example configuration

type: brew
nofile-limits: true # increase nofile limits
brew-analytics: false # disable telemetry

Configuration options

auto-update: (optional boolean)

Whether to auto-update the Brew binary using a systemd service.

Default: true

update-interval: (optional string)

Defines how often the Brew update service should run. The string is passed directly to OnUnitInactiveSec in systemd timer. (Syntax: [‘1d’, ‘6h’, ‘10m’]).

Default: 6h

update-wait-after-boot: (optional string)

Time delay after system boot before the first Brew update runs. The string is passed directly to OnBootSec in systemd timer. (Syntax: [‘1d’, ‘6h’, ‘10m’]).

Default: 10min

auto-upgrade: (optional boolean)

Whether to auto-upgrade all installed Brew packages using a systemd service.

Default: true

upgrade-interval: (optional string)

Defines how often the Brew upgrade service should run. The string is passed directly to OnUnitInactiveSec in systemd timer. (Syntax: [‘1d’, ‘6h’, ‘10m’]).

Default: 8h

upgrade-wait-after-boot: (optional string)

Time delay after system boot before the first Brew package upgrade runs. The string is passed directly to OnBootSec in systemd timer. (Syntax: [‘1d’, ‘6h’, ‘10m’]).

Default: 30min

nofile-limits: (optional boolean)

Whether to increase nofile limits (limits for number of open files) for Brew installations. When set to true, it increases the nofile limits to prevent certain “I/O heavy” Brew packages from failing due to “too many open files” error. However, it’s important to note that increasing nofile limits can have potential security implications for malicious applications which would try to abuse storage I/O. Defaults to false for security purposes.

https://serverfault.com/questions/577437/what-is-the-impact-of-increasing-nofile-limits-in-etc-security-limits-conf

Default: false

brew-analytics: (optional boolean)

Whether to enable Brew analytics. The Homebrew project uses analytics to anonymously collect the information about Brew usage & your system in order to improve the experience of Brew users.

Default: true