The SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT environment variable

Lin-Buo-Ren · December 21, 2018, 4:24pm

Synopsis

Handle the chosen build provider.

Description

To determine the build environment, SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT is retrieved from the environment and used to determine the build provider. An environment can be forced by use of force_provider during initialization. The default environment is multipass unless the snapcraft is run inside docker for which the preferred environment will be to use the host.

Valid values are:

host: the host will drive the build.
managed-host: the host will drive the build, but work best for discardable build providers.
multipass: a vm driven by multipass will be created to drive the build.

Note

Previously the value lxd is supported but was dropped in Snapcraft 3.0, as a workaround you can create an LXD container manually and set the SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT environment variable to host in the container.

Also refer: Bug #1809481 “Feature Request: Re-implement the LXD build environment” : Bugs : Snapcraft

Relevant snapcraft source

github.com

snapcore/snapcraft/blob/024c634/snapcraft/cli/env.py#L22-L38


class BuilderEnvironmentConfig:
    """Handle the chosen build provider.
    To determine the build environment, SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT is
    retrieved from the environment and used to determine the build
    provider. An environment can be forced by use of force_provider
    during initialization. The default environment is multipass
    unless the snapcraft is run inside docker for which the preferred
    environment will be to use the host.
    Valid values are:
    - host: the host will drive the build.
    - managed-host: the host will drive the build, but work best for discardable
                    build providers.
    - multipass: a vm driven by multipass will be created to drive the build.
    """