3 debhelper - the debhelper tool suite
7 dh_* [-v] [-a] [-i] [-s] [--no-act] [-ppackage] [-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 '*') 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".
96 =item B<-s>, B<--same-arch>
98 This is a smarter version of the -a flag, that is used in some rare
99 circumstances. It understands that if the control file lists "Architecture: i386"
100 for the package, the package should not be acted on on other architectures. So
101 this flag makes the command act on all "Architecture: any" packages, as well
102 as on any packages that have the current architecture explicitly specified.
103 Contrast to the -a flag, which makes the command work on all packages that
104 are not architecture independant.
106 =item B<-N>I<package>, B<--no-package=>I<package>
108 Do not act on the specified package even if an -a, -i, or -p option lists
109 the package as one that should be acted on.
111 =item B<-P>I<tmpdir>, B<--tmpdir=>I<tmpdir>
113 Use "tmpdir" for package build directory. The default is debian/<package>
117 =head1 COMMON DEBHELPER OPTIONS
119 The following command line options are supported by some debhelper programs.
120 See the man page of each program for a complete explanation of what each
127 Do not modify postinst/postrm/etc scripts.
129 =item B<-X>I<item>, B<--exclude=>I<item>
131 Exclude an item from processing. This option may be used multiple times,
132 to exclude more than one thing.
136 Makes files or other items that are specified on the command line take effect
137 in ALL packages acted on, not just the first.
143 =head2 Multiple binary package support
145 If your source package generates more than one binary package, debhelper
146 programs will default to acting on all binary packages when run. If your
147 source package happens to generate one architecture dependent package, and
148 another architecture independent package, this is not the correct behavior,
149 because you need to generate the architecture dependent packages in the
150 binary-arch debian/rules target, and the architecture independent packages
151 in the binary-indep debian/rules target.
153 To facilitate this, as well as give you more control over which packages
154 are acted on by debhelper programs, all debhelper programs accept the
155 B<-a>, B<-i>, B<-p>, and B<-s> parameters. These parameters are cumulative.
156 If none are given, debhelper programs default to acting on all packages listed
159 See F</usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/rules.multi> for an example of how to
160 use this in a package that generates multiple binary packages.
162 =head2 Automatic generation of debian install scripts
164 Some debhelper commands will automatically generate parts of debian install
165 scripts. If you want these automatically generated things included in your
166 debian install scripts, then you need to add "#DEBHELPER#" to your scripts,
167 in the place the code should be added. "#DEBHELPER#" will be replaced by
168 any auto-generated code when you run dh_installdeb.
170 All scripts that automatically generate code in this way let it be disabled
171 by the -n parameter (see above).
173 Note that the inserted code will be shell code, so you cannot directly use
174 it in a perl script. If you would like to embed it into a perl script, here
175 is one way to do that (note that I made sure that $1, $2, etc are set with
178 my $temp="set -e\\nset -- @ARGV\\n" . << 'EOF';
181 system ($temp) / 256 == 0
182 or die "Problem with debhelper scripts: $!";
184 =head2 Package build directories
186 By default, all debhelper programs assume that the temporary directory used
187 for assembling the tree of files in a package is debian/<package>.
189 Sometimes, you might want to use some other temporary directory. This is
190 supported by the -P flag. For example, "dh_installdocs -Pdebian/tmp", will
191 use debian/tmp as the temporary directory. Note that if you use -P, the
192 debhelper programs can only be acting on a single package at a time. So if
193 you have a package that builds many binary packages, you will need to also
194 use the -p flag to specify which binary package the debhelper program will
197 =head2 Debhelper compatability levels
199 From time to time, major non-backwards-compatible changes need to be made
200 to debhelper, to keep it clean and well-designed as needs change and its
201 author gains more experience. To prevent such major changes from breaking
202 existing packages, the DH_COMPAT environment variable was introduced.
203 DH_COMPAT may be set to a number, to determine which major revision of
204 debhelper should be used. There are currently 3:
210 Setting DH_COMPAT=1 (or leaving it unset) causes debhelper to act in
211 compatability mode. It will use debian/tmp as the package tree
212 directory for the first binary package listed in the control file, while using
213 debian/<package> for all other packages listed in the control file.
214 This mode is deprecated.
218 Setting DH_COMPAT=2 causes debhelper to consistently use debian/<package>
219 as the package tree directory for every package that is built.
223 This is the reccommended mode of operation.
224 Setting DH_COMPAT=3 does everything V2 does, plus:
230 Debhelper config files support globbing via * and ?, when appropriate. To
231 turn this off and use those characters raw, just prefix with a backslash.
235 dh_makeshlibs makes the postinst and postrm scripts call ldconfig.
239 Every file in etc/ is automatically flagged as a conffile by dh_installdeb.
245 =head2 Doc directory symlinks
247 Sometimes it is useful to make a package not contain a /usr/share/doc/package
248 directory at all, instead placing just a dangling symlink in the binary
249 package, that points to some other doc directory. Policy says this is ok if
250 your package depends on the package whose doc directory it uses. To
251 accomplish this, just don't tell debhelper to install any documentation
252 files into the package, and use dh_link to set up the symlink (or do it by
253 hand), and debhelper should do the right thing: notice it is a dangling
254 symlink and not try to install a copyright file or changelog.
258 In general, if any debhelper program needs a directory to exist under
259 debian/, it will create it. I haven't bothered to document this in all the
260 man pages, but for example, dh_installdeb knows to make debian/<package>/DEBIAN/
261 before trying to put files there, dh_installmenu knows you need a
262 debian/<package>/usr/lib/menu/ before installing the menu files, etc.
264 If you are generating a debian package that has arch-indep and
265 arch-dependent portions, and you are using dh_movefiles to move the
266 arch-indep files out of debian/tmp, you need to make sure that dh_movefiles
267 does this even if only the arch-dependent package is being built (for
268 ports to other architectures). I handle this in the example rules file
269 "rules.multi" by calling dh_movefiles in the install target.
271 Once your package uses debhelper to build, be sure to add
272 debhelper to your Build-Depends line in debian/control.
280 Set to 1 to enable verbose mode. Debhelper will output every command it runs
281 that modifies files on the build system.
285 Specifies what compatability level debhelper should run at. See above.
289 Set to 1 to enable no-act mode.
293 Anything in this variable will be prepended to the command line
294 arguments of all debhelper commands. This is useful in some situations,
295 for example, if you need to pass -p to all debhelper commands that will be
296 run. If you use DH_OPTIONS, be sure to build depend on "debhelper >= 1.1.17" --
297 older debhelpers will ignore it and do things you don't want them to. One very
298 good way to set DH_OPTIONS is by using "Target-specific Variable Values" in
299 your debian/rules file. See the make documentation for details on doing this.
307 =item F</usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/>
309 A set of example debian/rules files that use debhelper.
311 =item http://kitenet.net/programs/debhelper/
319 Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>