3 debhelper - the debhelper tool suite
7 B<dh_>I<*> [B<-v>] [B<-a>] [B<-i>] [B<-s>] [B<--no-act>] [B<-ppackage>] [B<-Npackage] [-Ptmpdir>]
11 Debhelper is used to help you build a debian package. The philosophy behind
12 debhelper is to provide a collection of small, simple, and easily
13 understood tools that are used in debian/rules to automate various common
14 aspects of building a package. This means less work for you, the packager.
15 It also, to some degree means that these tools can be changed if debian
16 policy changes, and packages that use them will require only a rebuild to
17 comply with the new policy.
19 A typical debian/rules file that uses debhelper will call several debhelper
20 commands in sequence. Debhelper commands are all named with a "dh_" prefix.
21 Examples of rules files that use debhelper are in
22 F</usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/>
24 To create a new debian package using debhelper, you can just copy one of
25 the sample rules files and edit it by hand. Or you can try the dh-make
26 package, which contains a L<dh_make|dh_make(1)> command that partially
27 automates the process. For a more gentle introduction, the maint-guide debian
28 package contains a tutorial about making your first package using debhelper.
30 =head1 DEBHELPER COMMANDS
32 Here is the complete list of available debhelper commands. See their man
33 pages for additional documentation.
41 If a program's name starts with "dh_", and the program is not on the above
42 list, then it is not part of the debhelper package, but it should still
43 work like the other programs described on this page.
45 =head1 DEBHELPER CONFIG FILES
47 Many debhelper commands make use of files in F<debian/> to control what they
48 do. Besides the common F<debian/changelog> and F<debian/control>, which are
49 in all packages, not just those using debhelper, some additional files can
50 be used to configure the behavior of specific debhelper commands. These
51 files are typically named debian/package.foo (where "package" of course,
52 is replaced with the package that is being acted on).
54 For example, dh_installdocs uses files named debian/package.docs to list
55 the documentation files it will install. See the man pages of individual
56 commands for details about the names and formats of the files they use.
57 Generally, these files will list files to act on, one file per line. Some
58 programs in debhelper use pairs of files and destinations or slightly more
61 Note that if a package is the first (or only) binary package listed in
62 debian/control, debhelper will use debian/foo if no debian/package.foo
65 In some rare cases, you may want to have different versions of these files
66 for different architectures. If files named debian/package.foo.arch
67 exist, where "arch" is the same as the output of "dpkg --print-architecture",
68 then they will be used in preference to other, more general files.
70 In many cases, these config files are used to specify various types of
71 files. Documentation or example files to install, files to move, and so on.
72 When appropriate, in cases like these, you can use standard shell wildcard
73 characters ('?' and '*' and '[..]' character classes) in the files.
75 You can also put comments in these files; lines beginning with "#" are
78 =head1 SHARED DEBHELPER OPTIONS
80 The following command line options are supported by all debhelper programs.
84 =item B<-v>, B<--verbose>
86 Verbose mode: show all commands that modify the package build directory.
90 Do not really do anything. If used with -v, the result is that the command
91 will output what it would have done.
93 =item B<-a>, B<--arch>
95 Act on all architecture dependent packages.
97 =item B<-i>, B<--indep>
99 Act on all architecture independent packages.
101 =item B<->I<ppackage>, B<--package=>I<package>
103 Act on the package named "package". This option may be specified multiple
104 times to make debhelper operate on a given set of packages.
106 =item B<-s>, B<--same-arch>
108 This is a smarter version of the -a flag, that is used in some rare
109 circumstances. It understands that if the control file lists "Architecture: i386"
110 for the package, the package should not be acted on on other architectures. So
111 this flag makes the command act on all "Architecture: any" packages, as well
112 as on any packages that have the current architecture explicitly specified.
113 Contrast to the -a flag, which makes the command work on all packages that
114 are not architecture independent.
116 =item B<-N>I<package>, B<--no-package=>I<package>
118 Do not act on the specified package even if an -a, -i, or -p option lists
119 the package as one that should be acted on.
121 =item B<-P>I<tmpdir>, B<--tmpdir=>I<tmpdir>
123 Use "tmpdir" for package build directory. The default is debian/<package>
125 =item B<--mainpackage=>I<package>
127 This little-used option changes the package which debhelper considers the
128 "main package", that is, the first one listed in debian/control, and the
129 one for which debian/foo files can be used instead of the usual
130 debian/package.foo files.
134 =head1 COMMON DEBHELPER OPTIONS
136 The following command line options are supported by some debhelper programs.
137 See the man page of each program for a complete explanation of what each
144 Do not modify postinst/postrm/etc scripts.
146 =item B<-X>I<item>, B<--exclude=>I<item>
148 Exclude an item from processing. This option may be used multiple times,
149 to exclude more than one thing.
151 =item B<-A>, B<--all>
153 Makes files or other items that are specified on the command line take effect
154 in ALL packages acted on, not just the first.
160 =head2 Multiple binary package support
162 If your source package generates more than one binary package, debhelper
163 programs will default to acting on all binary packages when run. If your
164 source package happens to generate one architecture dependent package, and
165 another architecture independent package, this is not the correct behavior,
166 because you need to generate the architecture dependent packages in the
167 binary-arch debian/rules target, and the architecture independent packages
168 in the binary-indep debian/rules target.
170 To facilitate this, as well as give you more control over which packages
171 are acted on by debhelper programs, all debhelper programs accept the
172 B<-a>, B<-i>, B<-p>, and B<-s> parameters. These parameters are cumulative.
173 If none are given, debhelper programs default to acting on all packages listed
176 See F</usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/rules.multi> for an example of how to
177 use this in a package that generates multiple binary packages.
179 =head2 Automatic generation of debian install scripts
181 Some debhelper commands will automatically generate parts of debian
182 maintainer scripts. If you want these automatically generated things
183 included in your existing debian maintainer scripts, then you need to add
184 "#DEBHELPER#" to your scripts, in the place the code should be added.
185 "#DEBHELPER#" will be replaced by any auto-generated code when you run
188 If a script does not exist at all and debhelper needs to add something to
189 it, then debhelper will create the complete script.
191 All debhelper commands that automatically generate code in this way let it
192 be disabled by the -n parameter (see above).
194 Note that the inserted code will be shell code, so you cannot directly use
195 it in a perl script. If you would like to embed it into a perl script, here
196 is one way to do that (note that I made sure that $1, $2, etc are set with
199 my $temp="set -e\nset -- @ARGV\n" . << 'EOF';
202 system ($temp) / 256 == 0
203 or die "Problem with debhelper scripts: $!";
205 =head2 Automatic generation of miscellaneous dependencies.
207 Some debhelper commands may make the generated package need to depend on
208 some other packages. For example, if you use L<dh_installdebconf(1)>, your
209 package will generally need to depend on debconf. Or if you use
210 L<dh_installxfonts(1)>, your package will generally need to depend on a
211 particular version of xutils. Keeping track of these miscellaneous
212 dependencies can be annoying since they are dependant on how debhelper does
213 things, so debhelper offers a way to automate it.
215 All commands of this type, besides documenting what dependencies may be
216 needed on their man pages, will automatically generate a substvar called
217 ${misc:Depends}. If you put that token into your debian/control file, it
218 will be expanded to the dependencies debhelper figures you need.
220 This is entirely independent of the standard ${shlibs:Depends} generated by
221 L<dh_makeshlibs(1)>, and the ${perl:Depends} generated by L<dh_perl(1)>.
222 You can choose not to use any of these, if debhelper's guesses don't match
225 =head2 Package build directories
227 By default, all debhelper programs assume that the temporary directory used
228 for assembling the tree of files in a package is debian/<package>.
230 Sometimes, you might want to use some other temporary directory. This is
231 supported by the -P flag. For example, "dh_installdocs -Pdebian/tmp", will
232 use debian/tmp as the temporary directory. Note that if you use -P, the
233 debhelper programs can only be acting on a single package at a time. So if
234 you have a package that builds many binary packages, you will need to also
235 use the -p flag to specify which binary package the debhelper program will
238 =head2 Debhelper compatibility levels
240 From time to time, major non-backwards-compatible changes need to be made
241 to debhelper, to keep it clean and well-designed as needs change and its
242 author gains more experience. To prevent such major changes from breaking
243 existing packages, the concept of debhelper compatibility levels was
244 introduced. You tell debhelper which compatibility level it should use, and
245 it modifies its behavior in various ways.
247 Tell debhelper what compatibility level to use by writing a number to
248 debian/compat. For example, to turn on V5 mode:
250 % echo 5 > debian/compat
252 Unless otherwise indicated, all debhelper documentation assumes that you
253 are using the most recent compatability level, and in most cases does not
254 indicate if the behavior is different in an earlier compatability level, so
255 if you are not using the most recent compatability level, you're advised to
256 read below for notes about what is different in earlier compatability
259 These are the available compatibility levels:
265 This is the original debhelper compatibility level, and so it is the default
266 one. In this mode, debhelper will use debian/tmp as the package tree
267 directory for the first binary package listed in the control file, while using
268 debian/<package> for all other packages listed in the control file.
270 This mode is deprecated.
274 In this mode, debhelper will consistently use debian/<package>
275 as the package tree directory for every package that is built.
277 This mode is deprecated.
281 This mode works like V2, with the following additions:
287 Debhelper config files support globbing via * and ?, when appropriate. To
288 turn this off and use those characters raw, just prefix with a backslash.
292 dh_makeshlibs makes the postinst and postrm scripts call ldconfig.
296 Every file in etc/ is automatically flagged as a conffile by dh_installdeb.
300 This mode is deprecated.
310 dh_makeshlibs -V will not include the debian part of the version number in
311 the generated dependency line in the shlibs file.
315 You are encouraged to put the new ${misc:Depends} into debian/control to
316 supplement the ${shlibs:Depends} field.
320 dh_fixperms will make all files in bin/ directories and in etc/init.d
325 dh_link will correct existing links to conform with policy.
331 This is the recommended mode of operation. It does everything V4 does,
338 Comments are ignored in debhelper config files.
342 dh_strip --dbg-package now specifies the name of a package to put debugging
343 symbols in, not the packages to take the symbols from.
347 dh_installdocs skips installing empty files.
353 =head2 Doc directory symlinks
355 Sometimes it is useful to make a package not contain a /usr/share/doc/package
356 directory at all, instead placing just a dangling symlink in the binary
357 package, that points to some other doc directory. Policy says this is ok if
358 your package depends on the package whose doc directory it uses. To
359 accomplish this, just don't tell debhelper to install any documentation
360 files into the package, and use dh_link to set up the symlink (or do it by
361 hand), and debhelper should do the right thing: notice it is a dangling
362 symlink and not try to install a copyright file or changelog.
366 Debhelper includes support for udebs. To create a udeb with debhelper,
367 add "XC-Package-Type: udeb" to the package's stanza in debian/control, and
368 build-depend on debhelper (>= 4.2). Debhelper will try to create udebs that
369 comply with debian-installer policy, by making the generated package files
370 end in ".udeb", not installing any documentation into a udeb, skipping over
371 preinst, postrm, prerm, and config scripts, etc.
375 In general, if any debhelper program needs a directory to exist under
376 debian/, it will create it. I haven't bothered to document this in all the
377 man pages, but for example, dh_installdeb knows to make debian/<package>/DEBIAN/
378 before trying to put files there, dh_installmenu knows you need a
379 debian/<package>/usr/share/menu/ before installing the menu files, etc.
381 Once your package uses debhelper to build, be sure to add
382 debhelper to your Build-Depends line in debian/control. You should
383 build-depend on a version of debhelper equal to (or greater than) the
384 debhelper compatibility level your package uses. So if your package used
385 compatibility level 5:
387 Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 5)
395 Set to 1 to enable verbose mode. Debhelper will output every command it runs
396 that modifies files on the build system.
400 Temporarily specifies what compatibility level debhelper should run at,
401 overriding any value in debian/compat.
405 Set to 1 to enable no-act mode.
409 Anything in this variable will be prepended to the command line arguments
410 of all debhelper commands. This is useful in some situations, for example,
411 if you need to pass -p to all debhelper commands that will be run. One good
412 way to set DH_OPTIONS is by using "Target-specific Variable Values" in your
413 debian/rules file. See the make documentation for details on doing this.
415 =item DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE
417 If set, this adds the value the variable is set to to the -X options of all
418 commands that support the -X option. Moreover, dh_builddeb will rm -rf
419 anything that matches the value in your package build tree.
421 This can be useful if you are doing a build from a CVS source tree, in
422 which case setting DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS will prevent any CVS directories
423 from sneaking into the package you build. Or, if a package has a source
424 tarball that (unwisely) includes CVS directories, you might want to export
425 DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS in debian/rules, to make it take effect wherever
426 your package is built.
428 Multiple things to exclude can be separated with colons, as in
429 DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS:.svn
437 =item F</usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/>
439 A set of example debian/rules files that use debhelper.
441 =item L<http://kitenet.net/programs/debhelper/>
449 Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>