EPP/Obsolete/How to build a package locally

Note: The contents of this page is obsolete, but it may still contain some interesting tid-bits.

This information was for the Ganymede release and is not used in the new p2-director based build in the Galileo release! For information about the Galileo release see EPP/Galileo_Packages#Local_Package_Build.

How to Get Started?

1. Download the EPP RCP package from the Eclipse Download page or another package that includes the PDE features
2. Download the EPP Packaging Team Project Set and import the projects. It includes two projects:
   1. org.eclipse.epp.config with some demo configuration files
   2. org.eclipse.epp.packaging.core contains the EPP packager build applications that drives the build PDE packager
3. Create a new EPP configuration file; a format description can be found in EPP/Configuration_File_Format
4. The root files and other basic directories are taken from the platform archives that you have to download manually. For each target platform (win32, linux, ...) you have to put the corresponding Eclipse platform download into the directory that is specified in the rootFileFolder attribute.
5. Create a new launch configuration:
   1. Run > Run configurations... > Eclipse Application
   2. On the main tab, change 'Program to Run' to 'Run an application' and choose org.eclipse.epp.packaging.core.application
   3. On the arguments tab, add the full path to your EPP configuration file at the end of the program arguments
   4. Run the EPP build application

Common Pitfalls

• The build doesn't start? - You are probably behind a proxy and you should set the VM properties in the arguments tab, e.g. '-Dhttp.proxyHost=your.proxy.net -Dhttp.proxyPort=8080'
• The configuration files provided by org.eclipse.epp.config don't work? - These files use absolute paths and no http connections to update sites where possible to speed up the build within the eclipse.org infrastructure, but the URL to the update sites is included in the comments of those files.
• My build fails with Unable to find plug-in: X.Y, but this plug-in is available? - In most cases, this is due to the fact that there are dependency conflicts between different bundles or bundle versions.
• I can install the same feature set manually with the update manager, starting with a simple platform archive, but the EPP build doesn't work? - See above. The update manager checks during its installation process, if the feature requirements are met. Sometimes the feature is incomplete, not up to date, or inconsistent with the bundles.