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 =head1 DEBHELPER CONFIG FILES
43 Many debhelper commands make use of files in F<debian/> to control what they
44 do. Besides the common F<debian/changelog> and F<debian/control>, which are
45 in all packages, not just those using debhelper, some additional files can
46 be used to configure the behavior of specific debhelper commands. These
47 files are typically named debian/package.foo (where "package" of course,
48 is replaced with the package that is being acted on).
51 dh_installdocs uses files named debian/package.docs to list the documentation
52 files it will install. See the man pages of individual commands for details
53 about the names and formats of the files they use.
55 Note that if a package is the first (or only) binary package listed in
56 debian/control, debhelper will use debian/foo if no debian/package.foo
59 In some rare cases, you may want to have different versions of these files
60 for different architectures. If files named debian/package.foo.arch
61 exist, where "arch" is the same as the output of "dpkg --print-architecture",
62 then they will be used in preference to other, more general files.
64 In many cases, these config files are used to specify various types of
65 files. Documentation or example files to install, files to move, and so on.
66 When appropriate, in cases like these, you can use standard shell wildcard
67 characters ('?' and '*' and '[..]' character classes) in the files.
69 =head1 SHARED DEBHELPER OPTIONS
71 The following command line options are supported by all debhelper programs.
75 =item B<-v>, B<--verbose>
77 Verbose mode: show all commands that modify the package build directory.
81 Do not really do anything. If used with -v, the result is that the command
82 will output what it would have done.
84 =item B<-a>, B<--arch>
86 Act on all architecture dependent packages.
88 =item B<-i>, B<--indep>
90 Act on all architecture independent packages.
92 =item B<->I<ppackage>, B<--package=>I<package>
94 Act on the package named "package". This option may be specified multiple
95 times to make debhelper operate on a given set of packages.
97 =item B<-s>, B<--same-arch>
99 This is a smarter version of the -a flag, that is used in some rare
100 circumstances. It understands that if the control file lists "Architecture: i386"
101 for the package, the package should not be acted on on other architectures. So
102 this flag makes the command act on all "Architecture: any" packages, as well
103 as on any packages that have the current architecture explicitly specified.
104 Contrast to the -a flag, which makes the command work on all packages that
105 are not architecture independant.
107 =item B<-N>I<package>, B<--no-package=>I<package>
109 Do not act on the specified package even if an -a, -i, or -p option lists
110 the package as one that should be acted on.
112 =item B<-P>I<tmpdir>, B<--tmpdir=>I<tmpdir>
114 Use "tmpdir" for package build directory. The default is debian/<package>
116 =item B<--mainpackage=>I<package>
118 This little-used option changes the package which debhelper considers the
119 "main package", that is, the first one listed in debian/control, and the
120 one for which debian/foo files can be used instead of the usual
121 debian/package.foo files.
125 =head1 COMMON DEBHELPER OPTIONS
127 The following command line options are supported by some debhelper programs.
128 See the man page of each program for a complete explanation of what each
135 Do not modify postinst/postrm/etc scripts.
137 =item B<-X>I<item>, B<--exclude=>I<item>
139 Exclude an item from processing. This option may be used multiple times,
140 to exclude more than one thing.
144 Makes files or other items that are specified on the command line take effect
145 in ALL packages acted on, not just the first.
151 =head2 Multiple binary package support
153 If your source package generates more than one binary package, debhelper
154 programs will default to acting on all binary packages when run. If your
155 source package happens to generate one architecture dependent package, and
156 another architecture independent package, this is not the correct behavior,
157 because you need to generate the architecture dependent packages in the
158 binary-arch debian/rules target, and the architecture independent packages
159 in the binary-indep debian/rules target.
161 To facilitate this, as well as give you more control over which packages
162 are acted on by debhelper programs, all debhelper programs accept the
163 B<-a>, B<-i>, B<-p>, and B<-s> parameters. These parameters are cumulative.
164 If none are given, debhelper programs default to acting on all packages listed
167 See F</usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/rules.multi> for an example of how to
168 use this in a package that generates multiple binary packages.
170 =head2 Automatic generation of debian install scripts
172 Some debhelper commands will automatically generate parts of debian
173 maintainer scripts. If you want these automatically generated things
174 included in your existing debian maintainer scripts, then you need to add
175 "#DEBHELPER#" to your scripts, in the place the code should be added.
176 "#DEBHELPER#" will be replaced by any auto-generated code when you run
179 If a script does not exist at all and debhelper needs to add something to
180 it, then debhelper will create the complete script.
182 All debhelper commands that automatically generate code in this way let it
183 be disabled by the -n parameter (see above).
185 Note that the inserted code will be shell code, so you cannot directly use
186 it in a perl script. If you would like to embed it into a perl script, here
187 is one way to do that (note that I made sure that $1, $2, etc are set with
190 my $temp="set -e\nset -- @ARGV\n" . << 'EOF';
193 system ($temp) / 256 == 0
194 or die "Problem with debhelper scripts: $!";
196 =head2 Automatic generation of miscellaneous dependencies.
198 Some debhelper commands may make the generated package need to depend on
199 some other packages. For example, if you use L<dh_installdebconf(1)>, your
200 package will generally need to depend on debconf. Or if you use
201 L<dh_installxfonts(1)>, your package will generally need to depend on a
202 particular version of xutils. Keeping track of these miscellaneous
203 dependencies can be annoying since they are dependant on how debhelper does
204 things, so debhelper offers a way to automate it.
206 All commands of this type, besides documenting what dependencies may be
207 needed on their man pages, will automatically generate a substvar called
208 ${misc:Depends}. If you put that token into your debian/control file, it
209 will be expanded to the dependencies debhelper figures you need.
211 This is entirely independent of the standard ${shlibs:Depends} generated by
212 L<dh_makeshlibs(1)>, and the ${perl:Depends} generated by L<dh_perl(1)>.
213 You can choose not to use any of these, if debhelper's guesses don't match
216 =head2 Package build directories
218 By default, all debhelper programs assume that the temporary directory used
219 for assembling the tree of files in a package is debian/<package>.
221 Sometimes, you might want to use some other temporary directory. This is
222 supported by the -P flag. For example, "dh_installdocs -Pdebian/tmp", will
223 use debian/tmp as the temporary directory. Note that if you use -P, the
224 debhelper programs can only be acting on a single package at a time. So if
225 you have a package that builds many binary packages, you will need to also
226 use the -p flag to specify which binary package the debhelper program will
229 =head2 Debhelper compatibility levels
231 From time to time, major non-backwards-compatible changes need to be made
232 to debhelper, to keep it clean and well-designed as needs change and its
233 author gains more experience. To prevent such major changes from breaking
234 existing packages, the concept of debhelper compatability levels was
235 introduced. You tell debhelper which compatability level it should use, and
236 it modifies its behavior in various ways.
238 You tell debhelper what compatability level to use by writing a number to
239 debian/compat. For example, to turn on V4 mode:
241 % echo 4 > debian/compat
243 These are the available compatablity levels:
249 This is the original debhelper compatability level, and so it is the default
250 one. In this mode, debhelper will use debian/tmp as the package tree
251 directory for the first binary package listed in the control file, while using
252 debian/<package> for all other packages listed in the control file.
253 This mode is deprecated.
257 In this mode, debhelper will consistently use debian/<package>
258 as the package tree directory for every package that is built.
262 This mode works like V2, with the following additions:
268 Debhelper config files support globbing via * and ?, when appropriate. To
269 turn this off and use those characters raw, just prefix with a backslash.
273 dh_makeshlibs makes the postinst and postrm scripts call ldconfig.
277 Every file in etc/ is automatically flagged as a conffile by dh_installdeb.
283 This is the reccommended mode of operation. It does everything V3 does,
290 dh_makeshlibs -V will not include the debian part of the version number in
291 the generated dependancy line in the shlibs file.
295 You are encouraged to put the new ${misc:Depends} into debian/control to
296 suppliment the ${shlibs:Depends} field. In particular, the new
297 dh_installinit feature needs a versioned dependency on sysvinit.
301 dh_fixperms will make all files in bin/ directories and in etc/init.d
306 dh_link will correct existing links to conform with policy.
312 =head2 Doc directory symlinks
314 Sometimes it is useful to make a package not contain a /usr/share/doc/package
315 directory at all, instead placing just a dangling symlink in the binary
316 package, that points to some other doc directory. Policy says this is ok if
317 your package depends on the package whose doc directory it uses. To
318 accomplish this, just don't tell debhelper to install any documentation
319 files into the package, and use dh_link to set up the symlink (or do it by
320 hand), and debhelper should do the right thing: notice it is a dangling
321 symlink and not try to install a copyright file or changelog.
325 In general, if any debhelper program needs a directory to exist under
326 debian/, it will create it. I haven't bothered to document this in all the
327 man pages, but for example, dh_installdeb knows to make debian/<package>/DEBIAN/
328 before trying to put files there, dh_installmenu knows you need a
329 debian/<package>/usr/lib/menu/ before installing the menu files, etc.
331 Once your package uses debhelper to build, be sure to add
332 debhelper to your Build-Depends line in debian/control. You should
333 build-depend on a verson of debhelper equal to (or greater than) the
334 debhelper compatability level your package uses. So if your package used
335 compatability level 4:
337 Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 4)
345 Set to 1 to enable verbose mode. Debhelper will output every command it runs
346 that modifies files on the build system.
350 Temporarily specifies what compatibility level debhelper should run at,
351 overriding any value in debian/compat.
355 Set to 1 to enable no-act mode.
359 Anything in this variable will be prepended to the command line
360 arguments of all debhelper commands. This is useful in some situations,
361 for example, if you need to pass -p to all debhelper commands that will be
362 run. If you use DH_OPTIONS, be sure to build depend on "debhelper >= 1.1.17" --
363 older debhelpers will ignore it and do things you don't want them to. One very
364 good way to set DH_OPTIONS is by using "Target-specific Variable Values" in
365 your debian/rules file. See the make documentation for details on doing this.
367 =item DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE
369 If set, this adds the value the variable is set to to the -X options of all
370 commands that support the -X option. Moreover, dh_builddeb will rm -rf
371 anything that matches the value in your package build tree.
373 This can be useful if you are doing a build from a CVS source tree, in
374 which case setting DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS will prevent any CVS directories
375 from sneaking into the package you build. Or, if a package has a source
376 tarball that (unwisely) includes CVS directories, you might want to export
377 DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS in debian/rules, to make it take effect wherever
378 your package is built.
386 =item F</usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/>
388 A set of example debian/rules files that use debhelper.
390 =item L<http://kitenet.net/programs/debhelper/>
398 Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>