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8 Debian GNU/Linux Policy Manual.
9 Copyright (C)1996,1997,1998 Ian Jackson and Christian Schwarz;
10 released under the terms of the GNU
11 General Public License, version 2 or (at your option) any later.
12 Initial version 1996, Ian Jackson, ijackson@gnu.ai.mit.edu
13 Revised November 27, 1996, David A. Morris, bweaver@debian.org
14 New sections March 15, 1997, Christian Schwarz, schwarz@debian.org
15 Reworked/Restructured April-July 1997, Christian Schwarz, schwarz@debian.org
16 Maintainer since 1997, Christian Schwarz, schwarz@debian.org
17 Christoph Lameter contributed the "Web Standard"
18 The debian-policy mailing list has taken responsibility for the
19 contents of this document since September 1998, with the package
20 maintainers responsible for packaging administrivia only.
25 <title>Debian Policy Manual</title>
27 <name>Ian Jackson </name>
28 <email>ijackson@gnu.ai.mit.edu</email>
31 <name>Christian Schwarz</name>
32 <email>schwarz@debian.org</email>
35 <name>revised: David A. Morris</name>
36 <email>bweaver@debian.org</email>
39 <name>The Debian Policy mailing List</name>
40 <email>debian-policy@lists.debian.org</email>
42 <version>version &version;, &date;</version>
45 This manual describes the policy requirements for the Debian
46 GNU/Linux distribution. This includes the structure and
47 contents of the Debian archive and several design issues of the
48 operating system, as well as technical requirements that each
49 package must satisfy to be included in the distribution. The
50 policy package itself is maintained by a group of maintainers
51 that have no editorial powers. At the moment, the list of
55 <p>Julian Gilbey <email>jdg@debian.org</email></p>
58 <p>Manoj Srivastava <email>srivasta@debian.org</email></p>
66 Copyright ©1996,1997,1998 Ian Jackson
67 and Christian Schwarz.
70 This manual is free software; you may redistribute it and/or
71 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
72 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version
73 2, or (at your option) any later version.
77 This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
78 <em>without any warranty</em>; without even the implied
79 warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular
80 purpose. See the GNU General Public License for more
85 A copy of the GNU General Public License is available as
86 <tt>/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL</tt> in the Debian GNU/Linux
87 distribution or on the World Wide Web at
88 <url id="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html"
89 name="The GNU General Public Licence">. You can also
90 obtain it by writing to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
91 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
99 <heading>About this manual</heading>
101 <heading>Scope</heading>
103 This manual describes the policy requirements for the Debian
104 GNU/Linux distribution. This includes the structure and
105 contents of the Debian archive and several design issues of the
106 operating system, as well as technical requirements that
107 each package must satisfy to be included in the
113 This manual also describes Debian policy as it relates to
114 creating Debian packages. It is not a tutorial on how to build
115 packages, nor is it exhaustive where it comes to describing
116 the behavior of the packaging system. Instead, this manual
117 attempts to define the interface to the package management
118 system that the developers have to be conversant with.
121 Informally, the criteria used for inclusion is that the
122 material meet one of the following requirements:
123 <taglist compact="compact">
124 <tag>Standard interfaces</tag>
127 The material presented represents an interface to
128 the packaging system that is mandated for use, and
129 is used by, a significant number of packages, and
130 therefore should not be changed without peer
131 review. Package maintainers can then rely on this
132 interfaces not changing, and the package
133 management software authors need to ensure
134 compatibility with these interface
135 definitions. (Control file and changelog file
136 formats are examples.)
139 <tag>Chosen Convention</tag>
142 If there are a number of technically viable choices
143 that can be made, but one needs to select one of
144 these options for inter-operability. The version
145 number format is one example.
149 Please note that these are not mutually exclusive;
150 selected conventions often become parts of standard
157 The footnotes present in this manual are
158 merely informative, and are not part of Debian policy itself.
163 In this manual, the words <em>must</em>, <em>should</em> and
164 <em>may</em>, and the adjectives <em>required</em>,
165 <em>recommended</em> and <em>optional</em>, are used to
166 distinguish the significance of the various guidelines in
167 this policy document. Packages that do not conform to the
168 guidelines denoted by <em>must</em> (or <em>required</em>)
169 will generally not be considered acceptable for the Debian
170 distribution. Non-conformance with guidelines denoted by
171 <em>should</em> (or <em>recommended</em>) will generally be
172 considered a bug, but will not necessarily render a package
173 unsuitable for distribution. Guidelines denoted by
174 <em>may</em> (or <em>optional</em>) are truly optional and
175 adherence is left to the maintainer's discretion.
178 These classifications are roughly equivalent to the bug
179 severities <em>serious</em> (for <em>must</em> or
180 <em>required</em> directive violations), <em>minor</em>,
181 <em>normal</em> or <em>important</em>
182 (for <em>should</em> or <em>recommended</em> directive
183 violations) and <em>wishlist</em> (for <em>optional</em>
185 <p>Compare RFC 2119. Note, however, that these words are
186 used in a different way in this document.</p>
190 Much of the information presented in this manual will be
191 useful even when building a package which is to be
192 distributed in some other way or is intended for local use
197 <heading>New versions of this document</heading>
199 The current version of this document is always accessible
200 from the Debian FTP server <ftpsite>ftp.debian.org</ftpsite>
202 <ftppath>/debian/doc/package-developer/policy.txt.gz</ftppath>
203 (also available from the same directory are several other
204 formats: <tt>policy.html.tar.gz</tt>, <tt>policy.pdf.gz</tt>
205 and <tt>policy.ps.gz</tt>) or from the <url
206 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/" name="Debian
207 Policy Manual"> webpage.</p>
210 In addition, this manual is distributed via the Debian package
211 <tt>debian-policy</tt>.
215 The <tt>debian-policy</tt> package also includes the file
216 <tt>upgrading-checklist.txt</tt> which indicates policy
217 changes between versions of this document.
221 <heading>Feedback</heading>
224 As the Debian GNU/Linux system is continuously evolving this
228 While the authors of this document have tried hard to avoid
229 typos and other errors, these do still occur. If you discover
230 an error in this manual or if you want to give any
231 comments, suggestions, or criticisms please send an email to
232 the Debian Policy List,
233 <email>debian-policy@lists.debian.org</email>, or submit a
234 bug report against the <tt>debian-policy</tt> package.
240 <heading>The Debian Archive</heading>
242 The Debian GNU/Linux system is maintained and distributed as a
243 collection of <em>packages</em>. Since there are so many of
244 them (currently well over 6000), they are split into
245 <em>sections</em> and given <em>priorities</em> to simplify
246 the handling of them.
249 The effort of the Debian project is to build a free operating
250 system, but not every package we want to make accessible is
251 <em>free</em> in our sense (see the Debian Free Software
252 Guidelines, below), or may be imported/exported without
253 restrictions. Thus, the archive is split into the sections
254 <em>main</em>, <em>non-free</em>, <em>contrib</em>,
255 <em>non-US/main</em>, <em>non-US/non-free</em>, and
256 <em>non-US/contrib</em>. The sections are explained in detail
261 The <em>main</em> and the <em>non-US/main</em> sections
262 together form the <em>Debian GNU/Linux distribution</em>.
266 Packages in the other sections are not considered to be part
267 of the Debian distribution, although we support their use and
268 provide infrastructure for them (such as our bug-tracking
269 system and mailing lists). This Debian Policy Manual applies
270 to these packages as well.</p>
272 <sect id="pkgcopyright">
273 <heading>Package copyright and sections</heading>
275 The aims of this section are:
277 <list compact="compact">
279 <p>to allow us to make as much software available as we
283 <p>to allow us to encourage everyone to write free
287 <p>to allow us to make it easy for people to produce
288 CD-ROMs of our system without violating any licenses,
289 import/export restrictions, or any other laws.</p>
294 <heading>The Debian Free Software Guidelines</heading>
296 The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) form our
297 definition of `free software'. These are:
299 <tag>Free Redistribution
303 The license of a Debian component may not restrict any
304 party from selling or giving away the software as a
305 component of an aggregate software distribution
306 containing programs from several different
307 sources. The license may not require a royalty or
308 other fee for such sale.
315 The program must include source code, and must allow
316 distribution in source code as well as compiled form.
323 The license must allow modifications and derived
324 works, and must allow them to be distributed under the
325 same terms as the license of the original software.
328 <tag>Integrity of The Author's Source Code
332 The license may restrict source-code from being
333 distributed in modified form <em>only</em> if the
334 license allows the distribution of ``patch files''
335 with the source code for the purpose of modifying the
336 program at build time. The license must explicitly
337 permit distribution of software built from modified
338 source code. The license may require derived works to
339 carry a different name or version number from the
340 original software. (This is a compromise. The Debian
341 Project encourages all authors to not restrict any
342 files, source or binary, from being modified.)
345 <tag>No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
349 The license must not discriminate against any person
353 <tag>No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
357 The license must not restrict anyone from making use
358 of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For
359 example, it may not restrict the program from being
360 used in a business, or from being used for genetic
364 <tag>Distribution of License
368 The rights attached to the program must apply to all
369 to whom the program is redistributed without the need
370 for execution of an additional license by those
374 <tag>License Must Not Be Specific to Debian
378 The rights attached to the program must not depend on
379 the program's being part of a Debian system. If the
380 program is extracted from Debian and used or
381 distributed without Debian but otherwise within the
382 terms of the program's license, all parties to whom
383 the program is redistributed must have the same
384 rights as those that are granted in conjunction with
388 <tag>License Must Not Contaminate Other Software
392 The license must not place restrictions on other
393 software that is distributed along with the licensed
394 software. For example, the license must not insist
395 that all other programs distributed on the same medium
396 must be free software.
399 <tag>Example Licenses
403 The ``GPL,'' ``BSD,'' and ``Artistic'' licenses are
404 examples of licenses that we consider <em>free</em>.
411 <heading>The main section</heading>
413 Every package in <em>main</em> and <em>non-US/main</em>
414 must comply with the DFSG (Debian Free Software
418 In addition, the packages in <em>main</em>
419 <list compact="compact">
422 must not require a package outside of <em>main</em>
423 for compilation or execution (thus, the package must
424 not declare a "Depends", "Recommends", or
425 "Build-Depends" relationship on a non-<em>main</em>
431 must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them,
437 must meet all policy requirements presented in this
444 Similarly, the packages in <em>non-US/main</em>
445 <list compact="compact">
448 must not require a package outside of <em>main</em>
449 or <em>non-US/main</em> for compilation or
455 must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them,
460 must meet all policy requirements presented in this
468 <heading>The contrib section</heading>
470 Every package in <em>contrib</em> and
471 <em>non-US/contrib</em> must comply with the DFSG.
475 In addition, the packages in <em>contrib</em> and
476 <em>non-US/contrib</em>
477 <list compact="compact">
480 must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them,
486 must meet all policy requirements presented in this
494 Furthermore, packages in <em>contrib</em> must not require
495 a package in a <em>non-US</em> section for compilation or
500 Examples of packages which would be included in
501 <em>contrib</em> or <em>non-US/contrib</em> are:
502 <list compact="compact">
505 free packages which require <em>contrib</em>,
506 <em>non-free</em> packages or packages which are not
507 in our archive at all for compilation or execution,
513 wrapper packages or other sorts of free accessories for
521 <heading>The non-free section</heading>
523 Packages must be placed in <em>non-free</em> or
524 <em>non-US/non-free</em> if they are not compliant with
525 the DFSG or are encumbered by patents or other legal
526 issues that make their distribution problematic.
529 In addition, the packages in <em>non-free</em> and
530 <em>non-US/non-free</em>
531 <list compact="compact">
534 must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them,
540 must meet all policy requirements presented in this
541 manual that it is possible for them to meet.
544 It is possible that there are policy
545 requirements which the package is unable to
546 meet, for example, if the source is
547 unavailable. These situations will need to be
548 handled on a case-by-case basis.
558 <heading>The non-US sections</heading>
560 Some programs with cryptographic program code need to be
561 stored on the <em>non-US</em> server because of United
562 States export restrictions. Such programs must be
563 distributed in the appropriate <em>non-US</em> section,
564 either <em>non-US/main</em>, <em>non-US/contrib</em> or
565 <em>non-US/non-free</em>.
568 This applies only to packages which contain cryptographic
569 code. A package containing a program with an interface to
570 a cryptographic program or a program that's dynamically
571 linked against a cryptographic library should not be
572 distributed via the <em>non-US</em> server if it is
573 capable of running without the cryptographic library or
578 <heading>Further copyright considerations</heading>
580 Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
581 its copyright and distribution license in the file
582 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</tt>
583 (see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details).
586 We reserve the right to restrict files from being included
587 anywhere in our archives if
588 <list compact="compact">
591 their use or distribution would break a law,
596 there is an ethical conflict in their distribution or
602 we would have to sign a license for them, or
607 their distribution would conflict with other project
615 Programs whose authors encourage the user to make
616 donations are fine for the main distribution, provided
617 that the authors do not claim that not donating is
618 immoral, unethical, illegal or something similar; in such
619 a case they must go in <em>non-free</em>.</p>
622 Packages whose copyright permission notices (or patent
623 problems) do not even allow redistribution of binaries
624 only, and where no special permission has been obtained,
625 must not be placed on the Debian FTP site and its mirrors
629 Note that under international copyright law (this applies
630 in the United States, too), <em>no</em> distribution or
631 modification of a work is allowed without an explicit
632 notice saying so. Therefore a program without a copyright
633 notice <em>is</em> copyrighted and you may not do anything
634 to it without risking being sued! Likewise if a program
635 has a copyright notice but no statement saying what is
636 permitted then nothing is permitted.</p>
639 Many authors are unaware of the problems that restrictive
640 copyrights (or lack of copyright notices) can cause for
641 the users of their supposedly-free software. It is often
642 worthwhile contacting such authors diplomatically to ask
643 them to modify their license terms. However, this can be a
644 politically difficult thing to do and you should ask for
645 advice on the <tt>debian-legal</tt> mailing list first, as
650 When in doubt about a copyright, send mail to
651 <email>debian-legal@lists.debian.org</email>. Be prepared
652 to provide us with the copyright statement. Software
653 covered by the GPL, public domain software and BSD-like
654 copyrights are safe; be wary of the phrases `commercial
655 use prohibited' and `distribution restricted'.
659 <heading>Subsections</heading>
662 The packages in the sections <em>main</em>,
663 <em>contrib</em> and <em>non-free</em> are grouped further
664 into <em>subsections</em> to simplify handling.
668 The section and subsection for each package should be
669 specified in the package's <tt>Section</tt> control
670 record. However, the maintainer of the Debian archive
671 may override this selection to ensure the consistency of
672 the Debian distribution. The <tt>Section</tt> field
673 should be of the form:
674 <list compact="compact">
677 <em>subsection</em> if the package is in the
678 <em>main</em> section,
683 <em>section/subsection</em> if the package is in
684 the <em>contrib</em> or <em>non-free</em> section,
690 <tt>non-US</tt>, <tt>non-US/contrib</tt> or
691 <tt>non-US/non-free</tt> if the package is in
692 <em>non-US/main</em>, <em>non-US/contrib</em> or
693 <em>non-US/non-free</em> respectively.
700 The Debian archive maintainers provide the authoritative
701 list of subsections. At present, they are:
702 <em>admin</em>, <em>base</em>, <em>comm</em>,
703 <em>contrib</em>, <em>devel</em>, <em>doc</em>,
704 <em>editors</em>, <em>electronics</em>, <em>games</em>,
705 <em>graphics</em>, <em>hamradio</em>,
706 <em>interpreters</em>, <em>libs</em>, <em>mail</em>,
707 <em>math</em>, <em>misc</em>, <em>net</em>, <em>news</em>,
708 <em>non-US</em>, <em>non-free</em>, <em>oldlibs</em>,
709 <em>otherosfs</em>, <em>science</em>, <em>shells</em>,
710 <em>sound</em>, <em>tex</em>, <em>text</em>,
711 <em>utils</em>, <em>web</em>, <em>x11</em>.
715 <heading>Priorities</heading>
718 Each package should have a <em>priority</em> value, which is
719 included in the package's <em>control record</em>. This
720 information is used by the Debian package management tools
721 to separate high-priority packages from less-important
725 The following <em>priority levels</em> are recognised by the
726 Debian package management tools.
728 <tag><tt>required</tt></tag>
731 Packages which are necessary for the proper
732 functioning of the system. You must not remove these
733 packages or your system may become totally broken and
734 you may not even be able to use <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to
735 put things back. Systems with only the
736 <tt>required</tt> packages are probably unusable, but
737 they do have enough functionality to allow the
738 sysadmin to boot and install more software.</p>
740 <tag><tt>important</tt></tag>
743 Important programs, including those which one would
744 expect to find on any Unix-like system. If the
745 expectation is that an experienced Unix person who
746 found it missing would say `What on earth is going on,
747 where is <prgn>foo</prgn>?', it must be an
748 <tt>important</tt> package.
751 This is an important criterion because we are
752 trying to produce, amongst other things, a free
756 Other packages without which the system will not run
757 well or be usable must also have priority
758 <tt>important</tt>. This does
759 <em>not</em> include Emacs, the X Window System, TeX
760 or any other large applications. The
761 <tt>important</tt> packages are just a bare minimum of
762 commonly-expected and necessary tools.</p>
764 <tag><tt>standard</tt></tag>
767 These packages provide a reasonably small but not too
768 limited character-mode system. This is what will be
769 installed by default if the user doesn't select anything
770 else. It doesn't include many large applications, but
771 it does include Emacs (this is more of a piece of
772 infrastructure than an application) and a reasonable
773 subset of TeX and LaTeX.</p>
775 <tag><tt>optional</tt></tag>
778 (In a sense everything that isn't required is
779 optional, but that's not what is meant here.) This is
780 all the software that you might reasonably want to
781 install if you didn't know what it was and don't have
782 specialized requirements. This is a much larger system
783 and includes the X Window System, a full TeX
784 distribution, and many applications. Note that
785 optional packages should not conflict with each other.
788 <tag><tt>extra</tt></tag>
791 This contains all packages that conflict with others
792 with required, important, standard or optional
793 priorities, or are only likely to be useful if you
794 already know what they are or have specialised
801 Packages must not depend on packages with lower priority
802 values (excluding build-time dependencies). In order to
803 ensure this, the priorities of one or more packages may need
809 <heading>Binary packages</heading>
812 The Debian GNU/Linux distribution is based on the Debian
813 package management system, called <prgn>dpkg</prgn>. Thus,
814 all packages in the Debian distribution must be provided
815 in the <tt>.deb</tt> file format.</p>
819 <heading>The package name</heading>
822 Every package must have a name that's unique within the Debian
826 Package names must consist of lower case letters
827 (<tt>a-z</tt>), digits (<tt>0-9</tt>), plus (<tt>+</tt>)
828 and minus (<tt>-</tt>) signs, and periods (<tt>.</tt>).
829 They must be at least two characters long and must contain
834 The package name is part of the file name of the
835 <tt>.deb</tt> file and is included in the control field
841 <heading>The maintainer of a package</heading>
843 Every package must have a Debian maintainer (the
844 maintainer may be one person or a group of people
845 reachable from a common email address, such as a mailing
846 list). The maintainer is responsible for ensuring that
847 the package is placed in the appropriate distributions.
851 The maintainer must be specified in the
852 <tt>Maintainer</tt> control field with their correct name
853 and a working email address. If one person maintains
854 several packages, he/she should try to avoid having
855 different forms of their name and email address in
856 the <tt>Maintainer</tt> fields of those packages.
860 If the maintainer of a package quits from the Debian
861 project, "Debian QA Group"
862 <email>packages@qa.debian.org</email> takes over the
863 maintainership of the package until someone else
864 volunteers for that task. These packages are called
865 <em>orphaned packages</em>.
868 The detailed procedure for doing this gracefully can
869 be found in the Debian Developer's Reference, either
870 in the <tt>developers-reference</tt> package, or on
871 the Debian FTP server
872 <ftpsite>ftp.debian.org</ftpsite> as
873 <ftppath>/debian/doc/package-developer/developers-reference.txt.gz</ftppath>
875 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/developers-reference/"
876 name="Debian Developer's Reference"> webpage.
884 <heading>The description of a package</heading>
887 Every Debian package must have an extended description
888 stored in the appropriate field of the control record.</p>
891 The description should be written so that it gives the
892 system administrator enough information to decide whether
893 to install the package. This description should not just
894 be copied verbatim from the program's documentation.
895 Instructions for configuring or using the package should
896 not be included (that is what installation scripts,
897 manual pages, info files, etc., are for). Copyright
898 statements and other administrivia should not be included
899 either (that is what the copyright file is for).
905 <heading>Dependencies</heading>
908 Every package must specify the dependency information
909 about other packages that are required for the first to
913 For example, a dependency entry must be provided for any
914 shared libraries required by a dynamically-linked executable
915 binary in a package.</p>
918 Packages are not required to declare any dependencies they
919 have on other packages which are marked <tt>Essential</tt>
920 (see below), and should not do so unless they depend on a
921 particular version of that package.</p>
924 Sometimes, a package requires another package to be installed
925 <em>and</em> configured before it can be installed. In this
926 case, you must specify a <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> entry for
930 You should not specify a <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> entry for a
931 package before this has been discussed on the
932 <tt>debian-devel</tt> mailing list and a consensus about
933 doing that has been reached.</p></sect1>
937 <heading>Virtual packages</heading>
940 Sometimes, there are several packages which offer
941 more-or-less the same functionality. In this case, it's
942 useful to define a <em>virtual package</em> whose name
943 describes that common functionality. (The virtual
944 packages only exist logically, not physically; that's why
945 they are called <em>virtual</em>.) The packages with this
946 particular function will then <em>provide</em> the virtual
947 package. Thus, any other package requiring that function
948 can simply depend on the virtual package without having to
949 specify all possible packages individually.</p>
952 All packages should use virtual package names where
953 appropriate, and arrange to create new ones if necessary.
954 They should not use virtual package names (except privately,
955 amongst a cooperating group of packages) unless they have
956 been agreed upon and appear in the list of virtual package
960 The latest version of the authoritative list of virtual
961 package names can be found on
962 <ftpsite>ftp.debian.org</ftpsite> in
963 <ftppath>/debian/doc/package-developer/virtual-package-names-list.txt</ftppath>
964 or your local mirror. In addition, it is included in the
965 <tt>debian-policy</tt> package. The procedure for updating
966 the list is described at the top of the file.</p></sect1>
970 <heading>Base packages</heading>
973 The packages included in the <tt>base</tt> section have a
974 special function. They form a minimum subset of the Debian
975 GNU/Linux system that is installed before everything else
976 on a new system. Thus, only very few packages are allowed
977 to go into the <tt>base</tt> section to keep the required
978 disk usage very small.</p>
981 Most of these packages will have the priority value
982 <tt>required</tt> or at least <tt>important</tt>, and many
983 of them will be tagged <tt>essential</tt> (see below).</p>
986 You must not place any packages into the <tt>base</tt>
987 section before this has been discussed on the
988 <tt>debian-devel</tt> mailing list and a consensus about
989 doing that has been reached.</p></sect1>
993 <heading>Essential packages</heading>
996 Some packages are tagged <tt>essential</tt>. (They have
997 <tt>Essential: yes</tt> in their package control record.)
998 This flag is used for packages that are <em>essential</em>
1002 Since these packages cannot be easily removed (one has to
1003 specify an extra <em>force option</em> to
1004 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to do so), this flag must not be used
1005 unless absolutely necessary. A shared library package
1006 must not be tagged <tt>essential</tt>; dependencies will
1007 prevent its premature removal, and we need to be able to
1008 remove it when it has been superseded.
1012 Since dpkg will not prevent upgrading of other packages
1013 while an <tt>essential</tt> package is in an unconfigured
1014 state, all <tt>essential</tt> packages must supply all of
1015 their core functionality even when unconfigured. If the
1016 package cannot satisfy this requirement it must not be
1017 tagged as essential, and any packages depending on this
1018 package must instead have explicit dependency fields as
1023 You must not tag any packages <tt>essential</tt> before
1024 this has been discussed on the <tt>debian-devel</tt>
1025 mailing list and a consensus about doing that has been
1030 <sect1 id="maintscripts">
1031 <heading>Maintainer scripts</heading>
1034 The package installation scripts should avoid producing
1035 output which it is unnecessary for the user to see and
1036 should rely on <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to stave off boredom on
1037 the part of a user installing many packages. This means,
1038 amongst other things, using the <tt>--quiet</tt> option on
1039 <prgn>install-info</prgn>.</p>
1042 Errors which occur during the execution of an installation
1043 script must be checked and the installation must not
1044 continue after an error.
1048 Note that in general <ref id="scripts"> applies to package
1049 maintainer scripts, too.
1053 You should not use <tt>dpkg-divert</tt> on a file
1054 belonging to another package without consulting the
1055 maintainer of that package first.
1059 All packages which supply an instance of a common command
1060 name (or, in general, filename) should generally use
1061 <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn>, so that they may be
1062 installed together. If <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn>
1063 is not used, then each package must use
1064 <tt>Conflicts</tt> to ensure that other packages are
1065 de-installed. (In this case, it may be appropriate to
1066 specify a conflict against earlier versions of something
1067 that previously did not use
1068 <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn>; this is an exception to
1069 the usual rule that versioned conflicts should be
1075 <heading>Prompting in maintainer scripts</heading>
1077 Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if
1078 necessary. Prompting may be accomplished by hand, or by
1079 communicating with a program, such as
1080 <prgn>debconf</prgn>, which conforms to the Debian
1081 Configuration management specification, version 2 or
1082 higher. These are included in the
1083 <file>debconf_specification</file> files in the
1084 <package>debian-policy</package> package.
1085 You may also find this file on the FTP site
1086 <ftpsite>ftp.debian.org</ftpsite> in
1087 <ftppath>/debian/doc/package-developer/debconf_specification.txt.gz</ftppath>
1088 or on your local mirror.
1091 2.5% of Debian packages [see <url
1092 id="http://kitenet.net/programs/debconf/stats/"
1093 name="Debconf stats">] currently use
1094 <package>debconf</package> to prompt the user at
1095 install time, and this number is growing daily. The
1096 benefits of using debconf are briefly explained at
1098 id="http://kitenet.net/doc/debconf-doc/introduction.html"
1099 name="Debconf introduction">; they include
1100 preconfiguration, (mostly) noninteractive
1101 installation, elimination of redundant prompting,
1102 consistency of user interface, etc.
1105 With this increasing number of packages using
1106 <package>debconf</package>, plus the existance of a
1107 nascent second implementation of the Debian
1108 configuration management system
1109 (<package>cdebconf</package>), and the stabalization
1110 of the protocol these things use, the time has
1111 finally come to reflect the use of these things in
1118 Packages which use the Debian Configuration management
1119 specification may contain an additional
1120 <file>config</file> script and a <file>templates</file>
1121 file in their control archive. The <prgn>config</prgn>
1122 script might be run before the <prgn>preinst</prgn>
1123 script, and before the package is unpacked or any of its
1124 dependancies or pre-dependancies are satisfied.
1125 Therefore it must work using only the tools present in
1126 <em>essential</em> packages.
1129 <package>Debconf</package> or another tool that
1130 implements the Debian Configuration management
1131 specification will also be installed, and any
1132 versioned dependencies on it will be satisfied
1133 before preconfiguration begins.
1139 Packages should try to minimize the amount of prompting
1140 they need to do, and they should ensure that the user
1141 will only ever be asked each question once. This means
1142 that packages should try to use appropriate shared
1143 configuration files (such as <tt>/etc/papersize</tt> and
1144 <tt>/etc/news/server</tt>), and shared
1145 <package>debconf</package> variables rather than each
1146 prompting for their own list of required pieces of
1151 It also means that an upgrade should not ask the same
1152 questions again, unless the user has used <tt>dpkg
1153 --purge</tt> to remove the package's configuration. The
1154 answers to configuration questions should be stored in an
1155 appropriate place in <tt>/etc</tt> so that the user can
1156 modify them, and how this has been done should be
1160 If a package has a vitally important piece of
1161 information to pass to the user (such as "don't run me
1162 as I am, you must edit the following configuration files
1163 first or you risk your system emitting badly-formatted
1164 messages"), it should display this in the
1165 <prgn>config</prgn> or <prgn>postinst</prgn> script and
1166 prompt the user to hit return to acknowledge the
1167 message. Copyright messages do not count as vitally
1168 important (they belong in
1169 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</tt>);
1170 neither do instructions on how to use a program (these
1171 should be in on-line documentation, where all the users
1175 Any necessary prompting should almost always be confined
1176 to the <prgn>config</prgn> or <prgn>postinst</prgn>
1177 script. If it is done in the <prgn>postinst</prgn>, it
1178 should be protected with a conditional so that
1179 unnecessary prompting doesn't happen if a package's
1180 installation fails and the <prgn>postinst</prgn> is
1181 called with <tt>abort-upgrade</tt>,
1182 <tt>abort-remove</tt> or <tt>abort-deconfigure</tt>.</p>
1187 <heading>Source packages</heading>
1189 <sect1 id="standardsversion">
1190 <heading>Standards conformance</heading>
1193 In the source package's <tt>Standards-Version</tt> control
1194 field, you must specify the most recent version number of
1195 this policy document with which your package complies.
1196 The current version number is &version;.
1200 This information may be used to file bug reports
1201 automatically if your package becomes too much out of
1206 The version number has four components: major and minor
1207 version number and major and minor patch level. When the
1208 standards change in a way that requires every package to
1209 change the major number will be changed. Significant
1210 changes that will require work in many packages will be
1211 signaled by a change to the minor number. The major patch
1212 level will be changed for any change to the meaning of the
1213 standards, however small; the minor patch level will be
1214 changed when only cosmetic, typographical or other edits
1215 are made which neither change the meaning of the document
1216 nor affect the contents of packages.</p>
1219 Thus only the first three components of the policy version
1220 are significant in the <em>Standards-Version</em> control
1221 field, and so either these three components or the all
1222 four components may be specified.
1225 In the past, people specified the full version number
1226 in the Standards-Version field, for example `2.3.0.0'.
1227 Since minor patch-level changes don't introduce new
1228 policy, it was thought it would be better to relax
1229 policy and only require the first 3 components to be
1230 specified, in this example `2.3.0'. All four
1231 components may still be used if someone wishes to do
1238 You should regularly, and especially if your package has
1239 become out of date, check for the newest Policy Manual
1240 available and update your package, if necessary. When your
1241 package complies with the new standards you should update the
1242 <tt>Standards-Version</tt> source package field and
1246 See the file <tt>upgrading-checklist</tt> for
1247 information about policy which has changed between
1248 different versions of this document.
1256 <heading>Package relationships</heading>
1259 Source packages should specify which binary packages they
1260 require to be installed or not to be installed in order to
1261 build correctly. For example, if building a package
1262 requires a certain compiler, then the compiler should be
1263 specified as a build-time dependency.
1267 It is not necessary to explicitly specify build-time
1268 relationships on a minimal set of packages that are always
1269 needed to compile, link and put in a Debian package a
1270 standard "Hello World!" program written in C or C++. The
1271 required packages are called <em>build-essential</em>, and
1272 an informational list can be found in
1273 <tt>/usr/share/doc/build-essential/list</tt> (which is
1274 contained in the <tt>build-essential</tt>
1278 <list compact="compact">
1280 <p>This allows maintaining the list separately
1281 from the policy documents (the list does not
1282 need the kind of control that the policy
1288 Having a separate package allows one to install
1289 the build-essential packages on a machine, as
1290 well as allowing other packages such as task
1291 packages to require installation of the
1292 build-essential packages using the depends
1298 The separate package allows bug reports against
1299 the list to be categorized separately from
1300 the policy management process in the BTS.
1310 When specifying the set of build-time dependencies, one
1311 should list only those packages explicitly required by the
1312 build. It is not necessary to list packages which are
1313 required merely because some other package in the list of
1314 build-time dependencies depends on them.
1317 The reason for this is that dependencies change, and
1318 you should list all those packages, and <em>only</em>
1319 those packages that <em>you</em> need directly. What
1320 others need is their business. For example, if you
1321 only link against <tt>libimlib</tt>, you will need to
1322 build-depend on <package>libimlib2-dev</package> but
1323 not against any <tt>libjpeg*</tt> packages, even
1324 though <tt>libimlib2-dev</tt> currently depends on
1325 them: installation of <package>libimlib2-dev</package>
1326 will automatically ensure that all of its run-time
1327 dependencies are satisfied.
1333 If build-time dependencies are specified, it must be
1334 possible to build the package and produce working binaries
1335 on a system with only essential and build-essential
1336 packages installed and also those required to satisfy the
1337 build-time relationships (including any implied
1338 relationships). In particular, this means that version
1339 clauses should be used rigorously in build-time
1340 relationships so that one cannot produce bad or
1341 inconsistently configured packages when the relationships
1342 are properly satisfied.
1346 <heading>Changes to the upstream sources</heading>
1349 If changes to the source code are made that are not
1350 specific to the needs of the Debian system, they should be
1351 sent to the upstream authors in whatever form they prefer
1352 so as to be included in the upstream version of the
1356 If you need to configure the package differently for
1357 Debian or for Linux, and the upstream source doesn't
1358 provide a way to do so, you should add such configuration
1359 facilities (for example, a new <prgn>autoconf</prgn> test
1360 or <tt>#define</tt>) and send the patch to the upstream
1361 authors, with the default set to the way they originally
1362 had it. You can then easily override the default in your
1363 <tt>debian/rules</tt> or wherever is appropriate.</p>
1366 You should make sure that the <prgn>configure</prgn> utility
1367 detects the correct architecture specification string
1368 (refer to <ref id="arch-spec"> for details).</p>
1371 If you need to edit a <prgn>Makefile</prgn> where
1372 GNU-style <prgn>configure</prgn> scripts are used, you
1373 should edit the <tt>.in</tt> files rather than editing the
1374 <prgn>Makefile</prgn> directly. This allows the user to
1375 reconfigure the package if necessary. You should
1376 <em>not</em> configure the package and edit the generated
1377 <prgn>Makefile</prgn>! This makes it impossible for
1378 someone else to later reconfigure the package.</p></sect1>
1382 <heading>Documenting your changes</heading>
1385 You should document your changes and updates to the source
1386 package properly in the <tt>debian/changelog</tt> file. (Note
1387 that mistakes in changelogs are usually best rectified by
1388 making a new changelog entry rather than "rewriting history"
1389 by editing old changelog entries.)</p>
1392 In non-experimental packages you must use a format for
1393 <tt>debian/changelog</tt> which is supported by the most
1394 recent released version of <prgn>dpkg</prgn>.
1397 If you wish to use an alternative format, you may do
1398 so as long as you include a parser for it in your
1399 source package. The parser must have an API
1400 compatible with that expected by
1401 <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> and
1402 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn>. If there is general
1403 interest in the new format, you should contact the
1404 <package>dpkg</package> maintainer to have the parser
1405 script for it included in the <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
1406 package. (You will need to agree that the parser and
1407 its manpage may be distributed under the GNU GPL, just
1408 as the rest of `dpkg' is.)
1416 <heading>Error trapping in makefiles</heading>
1419 When <prgn>make</prgn> invokes a command in a makefile
1420 (including your package's upstream makefiles and
1421 <tt>debian/rules</tt>), it does so using <tt>sh</tt>. This
1422 means that <tt>sh</tt>'s usual bad error handling
1423 properties apply: if you include a miniature script as one
1424 of the commands in your makefile you'll find that if you
1425 don't do anything about it then errors are not detected
1426 and <prgn>make</prgn> will blithely continue after
1430 Every time you put more than one shell command (this
1431 includes using a loop) in a makefile command you
1432 must make sure that errors are trapped. For
1433 simple compound commands, such as changing directory and
1434 then running a program, using <tt>&&</tt> rather
1435 than semicolon as a command separator is sufficient. For
1436 more complex commands including most loops and
1437 conditionals you should include a separate <tt>set -e</tt>
1438 command at the start of every makefile command that's
1439 actually one of these miniature shell scripts.</p></sect1>
1443 <heading>Obsolete constructs and libraries</heading>
1446 The include file <tt><varargs.h></tt> is
1447 provided to support end-users compiling very old software;
1448 the library <tt>libtermcap</tt> is provided to support the
1449 execution of software which has been linked against it
1450 (either old programs or those such as Netscape which are
1451 only available in binary form).</p>
1454 Debian packages should be patched to use
1455 <tt><stdarg.h></tt> and <tt>ncurses</tt>
1462 <chapt id="controlfields"><heading>Control files and their fields</heading>
1465 Many of the tools in the package management suite manipulate
1466 data represented in a common format, known as <em>control
1467 data</em>. The data is often stored in <em>control
1468 files</em>. Binary and source packages have control files,
1469 and the <tt>.changes</tt> files which control the installation
1470 of uploaded files are also in control file format.
1471 <prgn>Dpkg</prgn>'s internal databases are in a similar
1475 <sect id="controlsyntax"><heading>Syntax of control files</heading>
1478 A control file consists of one or more paragraphs of fields.
1479 The paragraphs are separated by blank lines. Some control
1480 files allow only one paragraph; others allow several, in
1481 which case each paragraph usually refers to a different
1482 package. (For example, in source packages, the first
1483 paragraph refers to the source package, and later paragraphs
1484 refer to binary packages generated from the source.)
1488 Each paragraph consists of a series of data fields; each
1489 field consists of the field name, followed by a colon and
1490 then the data/value associated with that field. It ends at
1491 the end of the line. Horizontal whitespace (spaces and
1492 tabs) may occur immediately before or after the value and is
1493 ignored there; it is conventional to put a single space
1494 after the colon. For example, a field might be:
1495 <example compact="compact">
1498 the field name is <tt>Package</tt> and the field value
1503 Some fields' values may span several lines; in this case
1504 each continuation line <em>must</em> start with a space or
1505 tab. Any trailing spaces or tabs at the end of individual
1506 lines of a field value are ignored.
1510 Except where otherwise stated only a single line of data is
1511 allowed and whitespace is not significant in a field body.
1512 Whitespace must not appear inside names (of packages,
1513 architectures, files or anything else) or version numbers,
1514 or between the characters of multi-character version
1519 Field names are not case-sensitive, but it is usual to
1520 capitalize the field names using mixed case as shown below.
1524 Blank lines, or lines consisting only of spaces and tabs,
1525 are not allowed within field values or between fields - that
1526 would mean a new paragraph.
1531 <sect><heading>List of fields</heading>
1533 This list here is not supposed to be exhaustive. Most fields
1534 are dealt with elsewhere in this document.
1536 <sect1 id="f-Package"><heading><tt>Package</tt>
1540 The name of the binary package. Package names consist of
1541 the alphanumerics and <tt>+</tt> <tt>-</tt> <tt>.</tt>
1542 (plus, minus and full stop).
1546 They must be at least two characters long and must start
1547 with an alphanumeric character and not be all digits. The
1548 use of lowercase package names is strongly recommended
1549 unless the package you're building (or referring to, in
1550 other fields) is already using uppercase.</p>
1553 <sect1 id="f-Version"><heading><tt>Version</tt>
1557 This lists the source or binary package's version number -
1558 see <ref id="versions">.
1564 id="f-Standards-Version"><heading><tt>Standards-Version</tt>
1568 The most recent version of the standards (the policy
1569 manual and associated texts) with which the package
1570 complies. This is updated manually when editing the
1571 source package to conform to newer standards; it can
1572 sometimes be used to tell when a package needs attention.
1573 Its format is described above; see
1574 <ref id="standardsversion">.
1579 <sect1 id="f-Distribution"><heading><tt>Distribution</tt>
1583 In a <tt>.changes</tt> file or parsed changelog output
1584 this contains the (space-separated) name(s) of the
1585 distribution(s) where this version of the package should
1586 be installed. Valid distributions are determined by the
1587 archive maintainers.
1589 Current distribution names are:
1590 <taglist compact="compact">
1591 <tag><em>stable</em></tag>
1594 This is the current `released' version of Debian
1595 GNU/Linux. Once the distribution is
1596 <em>stable</em> only security fixes and other
1597 major bug fixes are allowed. When changes are
1598 made to this distribution, the release number is
1599 increased (for example: 2.2r1 becomes 2.2r2 then
1604 <tag><em>unstable</em></tag>
1607 This distribution value refers to the
1608 <em>developmental</em> part of the Debian
1609 distribution tree. New packages, new upstream
1610 versions of packages and bug fixes go into the
1611 <em>unstable</em> directory tree. Download from
1612 this distribution at your own risk.
1616 <tag><em>testing</em></tag>
1619 This distribution value refers to the
1620 <em>testing</em> part of the Debian distribution
1621 tree. It receives its packages from the
1622 unstable distribution after a short time lag to
1623 ensure that there are no major issues with the
1624 unstable packages. It is less prone to breakage
1625 than unstable, but still risky. It is not
1626 possible to upload packages directly to
1631 <tag><em>frozen</em></tag>
1634 From time to time, the <em>testing</em>
1635 distribution enters a state of `code-freeze' in
1636 anticipation of release as a <em>stable</em>
1637 version. During this period of testing only
1638 fixes for existing or newly-discovered bugs will
1639 be allowed. The exact details of this stage are
1640 determined by the Release Manager.
1644 <tag><em>experimental</em></tag>
1647 The packages with this distribution value are
1648 deemed by their maintainers to be high
1649 risk. Oftentimes they represent early beta or
1650 developmental packages from various sources that
1651 the maintainers want people to try, but are not
1652 ready to be a part of the other parts of the
1653 Debian distribution tree. Download at your own
1659 You should list <em>all</em> distributions that the
1660 package should be installed into.
1669 <chapt id="versions"><heading>Version numbering</heading>
1672 Every package has a version number recorded in its
1673 <tt>Version</tt> control file field.
1677 The package management system imposes an ordering on version
1678 numbers, so that it can tell whether packages are being up- or
1679 downgraded and so that package system front end applications
1680 can tell whether a package it finds available is newer than
1681 the one installed on the system. The version number format
1682 has the most significant parts (as far as comparison is
1683 concerned) at the beginning.
1687 The version number format is:
1688 [<var>epoch</var><tt>:</tt>]<var>upstream_version</var>[<tt>-</tt><var>debian_revision</var>]
1692 The three components here are:
1694 <tag><var>epoch</var></tag>
1698 This is a single (generally small) unsigned integer. It
1699 may be omitted, in which case zero is assumed. If it is
1700 omitted then the <var>upstream_version</var> may not
1705 It is provided to allow mistakes in the version numbers
1706 of older versions of a package, and also a package's
1707 previous version numbering schemes, to be left behind.
1712 <tag><var>upstream_version</var></tag>
1716 This is the main part of the version number. It is
1717 usually the version number of the original (`upstream')
1718 package from which the <tt>.deb</tt> file has been made,
1719 if this is applicable. Usually this will be in the same
1720 format as that specified by the upstream author(s);
1721 however, it may need to be reformatted to fit into the
1722 package management system's format and comparison
1727 The comparison behavior of the package management system
1728 with respect to the <var>upstream_version</var> is
1729 described below. The <var>upstream_version</var>
1730 portion of the version number is mandatory.
1734 The <var>upstream_version</var> may contain only
1737 <p>Alphanumerics are <tt>A-Za-z0-9</tt> only.</p>
1739 and the characters <tt>.</tt> <tt>+</tt> <tt>-</tt>
1740 <tt>:</tt> (full stop, plus, hyphen, colon) and should
1741 start with a digit. If there is no
1742 <var>debian_revision</var> then hyphens are not allowed;
1743 if there is no <var>epoch</var> then colons are not
1747 <tag><var>debian_revision</var></tag>
1751 This part of the version number specifies the version of
1752 the Debian package based on the upstream version. It
1753 may contain only alphanumerics and the characters
1754 <tt>+</tt> and <tt>.</tt> (plus and full stop) and is
1755 compared in the same way as the
1756 <var>upstream_version</var> is.
1760 It is optional; if it isn't present then the
1761 <var>upstream_version</var> may not contain a hyphen.
1762 This format represents the case where a piece of
1763 software was written specifically to be turned into a
1764 Debian package, and so there is only one `debianization'
1765 of it and therefore no revision indication is required.
1769 It is conventional to restart the
1770 <var>debian_revision</var> at <tt>1</tt> each time the
1771 <var>upstream_version</var> is increased.
1775 The package management system will break the version
1776 number apart at the last hyphen in the string (if there
1777 is one) to determine the <var>upstream_version</var> and
1778 <var>debian_revision</var>. The absence of a
1779 <var>debian_revision</var> compares earlier than the
1780 presence of one (but note that the
1781 <var>debian_revision</var> is the least significant part
1782 of the version number).
1789 The <var>upstream_version</var> and <var>debian_revision</var>
1790 parts are compared by the package management system using the
1795 The strings are compared from left to right.
1799 First the initial part of each string consisting entirely of
1800 non-digit characters is determined. These two parts (one of
1801 which may be empty) are compared lexically. If a difference
1802 is found it is returned. The lexical comparison is a
1803 comparison of ASCII values modified so that all the letters
1804 sort earlier than all the non-letters.
1808 Then the initial part of the remainder of each string which
1809 consists entirely of digit characters is determined. The
1810 numerical values of these two parts are compared, and any
1811 difference found is returned as the result of the comparison.
1812 For these purposes an empty string (which can only occur at
1813 the end of one or both version strings being compared) counts
1818 These two steps (comparing and removing initial non-digit
1819 strings and initial digit strings) are repeated until a
1820 difference is found or both strings are exhausted.
1824 Note that the purpose of epochs is to allow us to leave behind
1825 mistakes in version numbering, and to cope with situations
1826 where the version numbering scheme changes. It is
1827 <em>not</em> intended to cope with version numbers containing
1828 strings of letters which the package management system cannot
1829 interpret (such as <tt>ALPHA</tt> or <tt>pre-</tt>), or with
1830 silly orderings (the author of this manual has heard of a
1831 package whose versions went <tt>1.1</tt>, <tt>1.2</tt>,
1832 <tt>1.3</tt>, <tt>1</tt>, <tt>2.1</tt>, <tt>2.2</tt>,
1833 <tt>2</tt> and so forth).
1837 If an upstream package has problematic version numbers they
1838 should be converted to a sane form for use in the
1839 <tt>Version</tt> field.
1843 <heading>Version numbers based on dates</heading>
1845 In general, Debian packages should use the same version
1846 numbers as the upstream sources.</p>
1849 However, in some cases where the upstream version number is
1850 based on a date (e.g., a development `snapshot' release) the
1851 package management system cannot handle these version
1852 numbers without epochs. For example, dpkg will consider
1853 `96May01' to be greater than `96Dec24'.</p>
1856 To prevent having to use epochs for every new upstream
1857 version, the version number should be changed to the
1858 following format in such cases: `19960501', `19961224'. It
1859 is up to the maintainer whether he/she wants to bother the
1860 upstream maintainer to change the version numbers upstream,
1864 Note that other version formats based on dates which are
1865 parsed correctly by the package management system should
1866 <em>not</em> be changed.</p>
1869 Native Debian packages (i.e., packages which have been
1870 written especially for Debian) whose version numbers include
1871 dates should always use the `YYYYMMDD' format.</p>
1875 <chapt id="miscellaneous"><heading>Packaging Considerations</heading>
1877 <sect id="timestamps"><heading>Time Stamps</heading>
1879 Maintainers should preserve the modification times of the
1880 upstream source files in a package, as far as is reasonably
1884 The rationale is that there is some information conveyed
1885 by knowing the age of the file, for example, you could
1886 recognize that some documentation is very old by looking
1887 at the modification time, so it would be nice if the
1888 modification time of the upstream source would be
1895 <sect id="debianrules"><heading><tt>debian/rules</tt> - the
1896 main building script</heading>
1899 This file must be an executable makefile, and contains the
1900 package-specific recipes for compiling the package and
1901 building binary package(s) from the source.
1905 It must start with the line <tt>#!/usr/bin/make -f</tt>,
1906 so that it can be invoked by saying its name rather than
1907 invoking <prgn>make</prgn> explicitly.
1911 Since an interactive <tt>debian/rules</tt> script makes it
1912 impossible to auto-compile that package and also makes it
1913 hard for other people to reproduce the same binary
1914 package, all <em>required targets</em> MUST be
1915 non-interactive. At a minimum, required targets are the
1916 ones called by <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn>, namely,
1917 <em>clean</em>, <em>binary</em>, <em>binary-arch</em>,
1918 <em>binary-indep</em>, and <em>build</em>. It also follows
1919 that any target that these targets depend on must also be
1924 The required and optional targets are as follows:
1926 <tag><tt>build</tt></tag>
1929 This should perform all non-interactive configuration
1930 and compilation of the package. If a package has an
1931 interactive pre-build configuration routine, the
1932 Debianized source package must either be built after
1933 this has taken place (so that the binary package can
1934 be built without rerunning the configuration) or the
1935 configuration routine modified to become
1936 non-interactive. (The latter is preferable if there
1937 are architecture-specific features detected by the
1938 configuration routine.)
1942 For some packages, notably ones where the same
1943 source tree is compiled in different ways to produce
1944 two binary packages, the <prgn>build</prgn> target
1945 does not make much sense. For these packages it is
1946 good enough to provide two (or more) targets
1947 (<tt>build-a</tt> and <tt>build-b</tt> or whatever)
1948 for each of the ways of building the package, and a
1949 <prgn>build</prgn> target that does nothing. The
1950 <prgn>binary</prgn> target will have to build the
1951 package in each of the possible ways and make the
1952 binary package out of each.
1956 The <prgn>build</prgn> target must not do anything
1957 that might require root privilege.
1961 The <prgn>build</prgn> target may need to run the
1962 <prgn>clean</prgn> target first - see below.
1966 When a package has a configuration and build routine
1967 which takes a long time, or when the makefiles are
1968 poorly designed, or when <prgn>build</prgn> needs to
1969 run <prgn>clean</prgn> first, it is a good idea to
1970 <tt>touch build</tt> when the build process is
1971 complete. This will ensure that if <tt>debian/rules
1972 build</tt> is run again it will not rebuild the whole
1976 Another common way to do this is for <prgn>build</prgn>
1977 to depend on <prgn>build-stamp</prgn> and to do
1978 nothing else, and for the <prgn>build-stamp</prgn>
1979 target to do the building and to <tt>touch
1980 build-stamp</tt> on completion. This is
1981 especially useful if the build routine creates a
1982 file or directory called <tt>build</tt>; in such a
1983 case, <prgn>build</prgn> will need to be listed as
1984 a phony target (i.e., as a dependency of the
1985 <tt>.PHONY</tt> target). See the documentation of
1986 <prgn>make</prgn> for more information on phony
1993 <tag><tt>binary</tt>, <tt>binary-arch</tt>,
1994 <tt>binary-indep</tt>
1998 The <prgn>binary</prgn> target must be all that is
1999 necessary for the user to build the binary package(s)
2000 produced from this source package. All of these
2001 targets are required to be non-interactive. It is
2002 split into two parts: <prgn>binary-arch</prgn> builds
2003 the binary packages which are specific to a particular
2004 architecture, and <prgn>binary-indep</prgn> builds
2005 those which are not.
2009 <prgn>binary</prgn> may be (and commonly is) a target
2010 with no commands which simply depends on
2011 <prgn>binary-arch</prgn> and
2012 <prgn>binary-indep</prgn>.
2016 Each <prgn>binary-*</prgn> target should depend on
2017 the <prgn>build</prgn> target, above, so that the
2018 package is built if it has not been already. It
2019 should then create the relevant binary package(s),
2020 using <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> to make their
2021 control files and <prgn>dpkg-deb</prgn> to build
2022 them and place them in the parent of the top level
2027 Both the <prgn>binary-arch</prgn> and
2028 <prgn>binary-indep</prgn> targets <em>must</em> exist.
2029 If one of them has nothing to do (which will always be
2030 the case if the source generates only a single binary
2031 package, whether architecture-dependent or not), it
2032 must still exist and must always succeed.
2036 The <prgn>binary</prgn> targets must be invoked as
2040 The <prgn>fakeroot</prgn> package often allows one
2041 to build a package correctly even without being
2048 <tag><tt>clean</tt></tag>
2052 This must undo any effects that the <prgn>build</prgn>
2053 and <prgn>binary</prgn> targets may have had, except
2054 that it should leave alone any output files created in
2055 the parent directory by a run of a <prgn>binary</prgn>
2056 target. This target must be non-interactive.
2060 If a <prgn>build</prgn> file is touched at the end of
2061 the <prgn>build</prgn> target, as suggested above, it
2062 should be removed as the first action that
2063 <prgn>clean</prgn> performs, so that running
2064 <prgn>build</prgn> again after an interrupted
2065 <prgn>clean</prgn> doesn't think that everything is
2070 The <prgn>clean</prgn> target may need to be
2071 invoked as root if <prgn>binary</prgn> has been
2072 invoked since the last <prgn>clean</prgn>, or if
2073 <prgn>build</prgn> has been invoked as root (since
2074 <prgn>build</prgn> may create directories, for
2079 <tag><tt>get-orig-source</tt> (optional)</tag>
2083 This target fetches the most recent version of the
2084 original source package from a canonical archive site
2085 (via FTP or WWW, for example), does any necessary
2086 rearrangement to turn it into the original source
2087 tar file format described below, and leaves it in the
2092 This target may be invoked in any directory, and
2093 should take care to clean up any temporary files it
2098 This target is optional, but providing it if
2099 possible is a good idea.
2105 The <prgn>build</prgn>, <prgn>binary</prgn> and
2106 <prgn>clean</prgn> targets must be invoked with the current
2107 directory being the package's top-level directory.
2112 Additional targets may exist in <tt>debian/rules</tt>,
2113 either as published or undocumented interfaces or for the
2114 package's internal use.
2118 The architectures we build on and build for are determined
2119 by <prgn>make</prgn> variables using the utility
2120 <prgn>dpkg-architecture</prgn>. You can determine the
2121 Debian architecture and the GNU style architecture
2122 specification string for the build machine (the machine type
2123 we are building on) as well as for the host machine (the
2124 machine type we are building for). Here is a list of
2125 supported <prgn>make</prgn> variables:
2126 <list compact="compact">
2128 <p><tt>DEB_*_ARCH</tt> (the Debian architecture)</p>
2131 <p><tt>DEB_*_GNU_TYPE</tt> (the GNU style architecture
2132 specification string)</p>
2135 <p><tt>DEB_*_GNU_CPU</tt> (the CPU part of
2136 <tt>DEB_*_GNU_TYPE</tt>)</p>
2139 <p><tt>DEB_*_GNU_SYSTEM</tt> (the System part of
2140 <tt>DEB_*_GNU_TYPE</tt>)</p>
2142 where <tt>*</tt> is either <tt>BUILD</tt> for specification of
2143 the build machine or <tt>HOST</tt> for specification of the
2148 Backward compatibility can be provided in the rules file
2149 by setting the needed variables to suitable default
2150 values; please refer to the documentation of
2151 <prgn>dpkg-architecture</prgn> for details.
2155 It is important to understand that the <tt>DEB_*_ARCH</tt>
2156 string only determines which Debian architecture we are
2157 building on or for. It should not be used to get the CPU
2158 or system information; the GNU style variables should be
2163 <sect id="dpkgchangelog"><heading><tt>debian/changelog</tt>
2167 This file records the changes to the Debian-specific parts of the
2171 Though there is nothing stopping an author who is also
2172 the Debian maintainer from using it for all their
2173 changes, it will have to be renamed if the Debian and
2174 upstream maintainers become different people. In such a
2175 case, however, it might be better to maintain the
2176 package as a non-native package.
2182 It has a special format which allows the package building
2183 tools to discover which version of the package is being
2184 built and find out other release-specific information.
2188 That format is a series of entries like this:
2189 <example compact="compact">
2190 <var>package</var> (<var>version</var>) <var>distribution(s)</var>; urgency=<var>urgency</var>
2192 * <var>change details</var>
2193 <var>more change details</var>
2194 * <var>even more change details</var>
2196 -- <var>maintainer name</var> <<var>email address</var>> <var>date</var>
2201 <var>package</var> and <var>version</var> are the source
2202 package name and version number.
2206 <var>distribution(s)</var> lists the distributions where
2207 this version should be installed when it is uploaded - it
2208 is copied to the <tt>Distribution</tt> field in the
2209 <tt>.changes</tt> file. See <ref id="f-Distribution">.
2213 <var>urgency</var> is the value for the <tt>Urgency</tt>
2214 field in the <tt>.changes</tt> file for the upload. It is
2215 not possible to specify an urgency containing commas; commas
2216 are used to separate
2217 <tt><var>keyword</var>=<var>value</var></tt> settings in the
2218 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> changelog format (though there is
2219 currently only one useful <var>keyword</var>,
2223 Usual urgency values are <tt>low</tt>, <tt>medium</tt>,
2224 <tt>high</tt> and <tt>critical</tt>. They have an
2225 effect on how quickly a package will be considered for
2226 inclusion into the <tt>testing</tt> distribution, and
2227 give an indication of the importance of any fixes
2228 included in this upload.
2234 The change details may in fact be any series of lines
2235 starting with at least two spaces, but conventionally each
2236 change starts with an asterisk and a separating space and
2237 continuation lines are indented so as to bring them in
2238 line with the start of the text above. Blank lines may be
2239 used here to separate groups of changes, if desired.
2243 If this upload resolves bugs recorded in the Bug Tracking
2244 System (BTS), they may be automatically closed on the
2245 inclusion of this package into the Debian archive by
2246 including the string: <tt>closes: Bug#<var>nnnnn</var></tt>
2247 in the change details.
2250 To be precise, the string should match the following
2251 Perl regular expression:
2253 /closes:\s*(?:bug)?\#?\s?\d+(?:,\s*(?:bug)?\#?\s?\d+)*/i
2255 Then all of the bug numbers listed will be closed by the
2256 archive maintenance script (<prgn>katie</prgn>), or in
2257 the case of an NMU, marked as fixed.
2263 The maintainer name and email address used in the changelog
2264 should be the details of the person uploading <em>this</em>
2265 version. They are <em>not</em> necessarily those of the
2266 usual package maintainer. The information here will be
2267 copied to the <tt>Changed-By</tt> field in the
2268 <tt>.changes</tt> file, and then later used to send an
2269 acknowledgement when the upload has been installed.
2273 The <var>date</var> should be in RFC822 format
2276 This is generated by the <prgn>822-date</prgn>
2279 </footnote>; it should include the time zone specified
2280 numerically, with the time zone name or abbreviation
2281 optionally present as a comment in parentheses.
2285 The first `title' line with the package name should start
2286 at the left hand margin; the `trailer' line with the
2287 maintainer and date details should be preceded by exactly
2288 one space. The maintainer details and the date must be
2289 separated by exactly two spaces.
2292 <sect1><heading>Defining alternative changelog formats</heading>
2295 It is possible to use a different format to the standard
2296 one, by providing a parser for the format you wish to
2300 A changelog parser must not interact with the user at
2306 <sect id="srcsubstvars"><heading><tt>debian/substvars</tt>
2307 and variable substitutions </heading>
2310 When <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn>,
2311 <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> and <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn>
2312 generate control files they perform variable substitutions
2313 on their output just before writing it. Variable
2314 substitutions have the form <tt>${<var>variable</var>}</tt>.
2315 The optional file <tt>debian/substvars</tt> contains
2316 variable substitutions to be used; variables can also be set
2317 directly from <tt>debian/rules</tt> using the <tt>-V</tt>
2318 option to the source packaging commands, and certain
2319 predefined variables are also available.
2323 The <tt>debian/substvars</tt> file is usually generated and
2324 modified dynamically by <tt>debian/rules</tt> targets; in
2325 this case it must be removed by the <prgn>clean</prgn>
2330 See <manref name="dpkg-source" section="1"> for full
2331 details about source variable substitutions, including the
2332 format of <tt>debian/substvars</tt>.</p>
2335 <sect id="debianfiles"><heading><tt>debian/files</tt>
2339 This file is not a permanent part of the source tree; it
2340 is used while building packages to record which files are
2341 being generated. <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> uses it
2342 when it generates a <tt>.changes</tt> file.
2346 It should not exist in a shipped source package, and so it
2347 (and any backup files or temporary files such as
2351 <tt>files.new</tt> is used as a temporary file by
2352 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> and
2353 <prgn>dpkg-distaddfile</prgn> - they write a new
2354 version of <tt>files</tt> here before renaming it,
2355 to avoid leaving a corrupted copy if an error
2358 </footnote>) should be removed by the
2359 <prgn>clean</prgn> target. It may also be wise to
2360 ensure a fresh start by emptying or removing it at the
2361 start of the <prgn>binary</prgn> target.
2365 When <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> is run for a binary
2366 package, it adds an entry to <tt>debian/files</tt> for the
2367 <tt>.deb</tt> file that will be created when <tt>dpkg-deb
2368 --build</tt> is run for that binary package. So for most
2369 packages all that needs to be done with this file is to
2370 delete it in the <prgn>clean</prgn> target.
2374 If a package upload includes files besides the source
2375 package and any binary packages whose control files were
2376 made with <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> then they should be
2377 placed in the parent of the package's top-level directory
2378 and <prgn>dpkg-distaddfile</prgn> should be called to add
2379 the file to the list in <tt>debian/files</tt>.</p>
2382 <sect id="restrictions"><heading>Restrictions on objects in source packages
2386 The source package may not contain any hard links
2389 This is not currently detected when building source
2390 packages, but only when extracting
2394 Hard links may be permitted at some point in the
2395 future, but would require a fair amount of
2398 </footnote>, device special files, sockets or setuid or
2402 Setgid directories are allowed.
2407 <sect id="descriptions"><heading>Descriptions of packages - the
2408 <tt>Description</tt> field </heading>
2411 The description is intended to describe the program to a user
2412 who has never met it before so that they know whether they
2413 want to install it. It should also give information about the
2414 significant dependencies and conflicts between this package
2415 and others, so that the user knows why these dependencies and
2416 conflicts have been declared.
2419 <sect1><heading>Notes about writing descriptions
2423 The single line synopsis should be kept brief - certainly
2424 under 80 characters.
2428 Do not include the package name in the synopsis line. The
2429 display software knows how to display this already, and you
2430 do not need to state it. Remember that in many situations
2431 the user may only see the synopsis line - make it as
2432 informative as you can.
2436 Do not try to continue the single line synopsis into the
2437 extended description. This will not work correctly when
2438 the full description is displayed, and makes no sense
2439 where only the summary (the single line synopsis) is
2444 The extended description should describe what the package
2445 does and how it relates to the rest of the system (in terms
2446 of, for example, which subsystem it is which part of).
2450 The description field needs to make sense to anyone, even
2451 people who have no idea about any of the things the
2455 The blurb that comes with a program in its
2456 announcements and/or <prgn>README</prgn> files is
2457 rarely suitable for use in a description. It is
2458 usually aimed at people who are already in the
2459 community where the package is used.
2465 Put important information first, both in the synopsis and
2466 extended description. Sometimes only the first part of the
2467 synopsis or of the description will be displayed. You can
2468 assume that there will usually be a way to see the whole
2469 extended description.
2473 You may include information about dependencies and so forth
2474 in the extended description, if you wish.
2478 Do not use tab characters. Their effect is not predictable.
2486 <chapt id="maintainerscripts"><heading>Package maintainer scripts
2487 and installation procedure
2490 <sect><heading>Introduction to package maintainer scripts
2494 It is possible to supply scripts as part of a package which
2495 the package management system will run for you when your
2496 package is installed, upgraded or removed.
2500 These scripts are the files <prgn>preinst</prgn>,
2501 <prgn>postinst</prgn>, <prgn>prerm</prgn> and <prgn>postrm</prgn> in the
2502 control area of the package. They must be proper executable
2503 files; if they are scripts (which is recommended), they must
2504 start with the usual <tt>#!</tt> convention. They should be
2505 readable and executable by anyone, and not world-writable.
2509 The package management system looks at the exit status from
2510 these scripts. It is important that they exit with a
2511 non-zero status if there is an error, so that the package
2512 management system can stop its processing. For shell
2513 scripts this means that you <em>almost always</em> need to
2514 use <tt>set -e</tt> (this is usually true when writing shell
2515 scripts, in fact). It is also important, of course, that
2516 they don't exit with a non-zero status if everything went
2521 When a package is upgraded a combination of the scripts from
2522 the old and new packages is called during the upgrade
2523 procedure. If your scripts are going to be at all
2524 complicated you need to be aware of this, and may need to
2525 check the arguments to your scripts.
2529 Broadly speaking the <prgn>preinst</prgn> is called before
2530 (a particular version of) a package is installed, and the
2531 <prgn>postinst</prgn> afterwards; the <prgn>prerm</prgn>
2532 before (a version of) a package is removed and the
2533 <prgn>postrm</prgn> afterwards.
2537 Programs called from maintainer scripts should not normally
2538 have a path prepended to them. Before installation is
2539 started, the package management system checks to see if the
2540 programs <prgn>ldconfig</prgn>,
2541 <prgn>start-stop-daemon</prgn>, <prgn>install-info</prgn>,
2542 and <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> can be found via the
2543 <tt>PATH</tt> environment variable. Those programs, and any
2544 other program that one would expect to be on the
2545 <tt>PATH</tt>, should thus be invoked without an absolute
2546 pathname. Maintainer scripts should also not reset the
2547 <tt>PATH</tt>, though they might choose to modify it by
2548 prepending or appending package-specific directories. These
2549 considerations really apply to all shell scripts.</p>
2553 <heading>Maintainer scripts Idempotency</heading>
2556 It is necessary for the error recovery procedures that the
2557 scripts be idempotent. This means that if it is run
2558 successfully, and then it is called again, it doesn't bomb
2559 out or cause any harm, but just ensures that everything is
2560 the way it ought to be. If the first call failed, or
2561 aborted half way through for some reason, the second call
2562 should merely do the things that were left undone the first
2563 time, if any, and exit with a success status if everything
2567 This is so that if an error occurs, the user interrupts
2568 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> or some other unforeseen circumstance
2569 happens you don't leave the user with a badly-broken
2570 package when <prgn>dpkg</prgn> attempts to repeat the
2578 <heading>Controlling terminal for maintainer scripts</heading>
2581 The maintainer scripts are guaranteed to run with a
2582 controlling terminal and can interact with the user.
2583 If they need to prompt for passwords, do full-screen
2584 interaction or something similar you should do these
2585 things to and from <tt>/dev/tty</tt>, since
2586 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will at some point redirect scripts'
2587 standard input and output so that it can log the
2588 installation process. Likewise, because these scripts
2589 may be executed with standard output redirected into a
2590 pipe for logging purposes, Perl scripts should set
2591 unbuffered output by setting <tt>$|=1</tt> so that the
2592 output is printed immediately rather than being
2597 Each script should return a zero exit status for
2598 success, or a nonzero one for failure.
2602 <sect id="mscriptsinstact"><heading>Summary of ways maintainer
2607 <list compact="compact">
2609 <p><var>new-preinst</var> <tt>install</tt></p>
2612 <p><var>new-preinst</var> <tt>install</tt>
2613 <var>old-version</var></p>
2616 <p><var>new-preinst</var> <tt>upgrade</tt>
2617 <var>old-version</var></p>
2620 <p><var>old-preinst</var> <tt>abort-upgrade</tt>
2621 <var>new-version</var>
2627 <list compact="compact">
2629 <p><var>postinst</var> <tt>configure</tt>
2630 <var>most-recently-configured-version</var></p>
2633 <p><var>old-postinst</var> <tt>abort-upgrade</tt>
2634 <var>new-version</var></p>
2637 <p><var>conflictor's-postinst</var> <tt>abort-remove</tt>
2638 <tt>in-favour</tt> <var>package</var>
2639 <var>new-version</var></p>
2643 <var>deconfigured's-postinst</var>
2644 <tt>abort-deconfigure</tt> <tt>in-favour</tt>
2645 <var>failed-install-package</var> <var>version</var>
2646 <tt>removing</tt> <var>conflicting-package</var>
2653 <list compact="compact">
2655 <p><var>prerm</var> <tt>remove</tt></p>
2658 <p><var>old-prerm</var> <tt>upgrade</tt>
2659 <var>new-version</var></p>
2662 <p><var>new-prerm</var> <tt>failed-upgrade</tt>
2663 <var>old-version</var></p>
2666 <p><var>conflictor's-prerm</var> <tt>remove</tt>
2667 <tt>in-favour</tt> <var>package</var>
2668 <var>new-version</var></p>
2672 <var>deconfigured's-prerm</var> <tt>deconfigure</tt>
2673 <tt>in-favour</tt> <var>package-being-installed</var>
2674 <var>version</var> <tt>removing</tt>
2675 <var>conflicting-package</var>
2682 <list compact="compact">
2684 <p><var>postrm</var> <tt>remove</tt></p>
2687 <p><var>postrm</var> <tt>purge</tt></p>
2691 <var>old-postrm</var> <tt>upgrade</tt>
2692 <var>new-version</var></p>
2695 <p><var>new-postrm</var> <tt>failed-upgrade</tt>
2696 <var>old-version</var></p>
2699 <p><var>new-postrm</var> <tt>abort-install</tt></p>
2702 <p><var>new-postrm</var> <tt>abort-install</tt>
2703 <var>old-version</var></p>
2706 <p><var>new-postrm</var> <tt>abort-upgrade</tt>
2707 <var>old-version</var></p>
2711 <var>disappearer's-postrm</var> <tt>disappear</tt>
2712 <var>overwriter</var>
2713 <var>overwriter-version</var></p></item>
2718 <sect id="unpackphase"><heading>Details of unpack phase of
2719 installation or upgrade
2723 The procedure on installation/upgrade/overwrite/disappear
2724 (i.e., when running <tt>dpkg --unpack</tt>, or the unpack
2725 stage of <tt>dpkg --install</tt>) is as follows. In each
2726 case, if a major error occurs (unless listed below) the
2727 actions are, in general, run backwards - this means that the
2728 maintainer scripts are run with different arguments in
2729 reverse order. These are the `error unwind' calls listed
2737 <p>If a version of the package is already
2739 <example compact="compact">
2740 <var>old-prerm</var> upgrade <var>new-version</var>
2745 If the script runs but exits with a non-zero
2746 exit status, <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will attempt:
2747 <example compact="compact">
2748 <var>new-prerm</var> failed-upgrade <var>old-version</var>
2750 Error unwind, for both the above cases:
2751 <example compact="compact">
2752 <var>old-postinst</var> abort-upgrade <var>new-version</var>
2760 <p>If a `conflicting' package is being removed at the same time:
2764 If any packages depended on that conflicting
2765 package and <tt>--auto-deconfigure</tt> is
2766 specified, call, for each such package:
2767 <example compact="compact">
2768 <var>deconfigured's-prerm</var> deconfigure \
2769 in-favour <var>package-being-installed</var> <var>version</var> \
2770 removing <var>conflicting-package</var> <var>version</var>
2773 <example compact="compact">
2774 <var>deconfigured's-postinst</var> abort-deconfigure \
2775 in-favour <var>package-being-installed-but-failed</var> <var>version</var> \
2776 removing <var>conflicting-package</var> <var>version</var>
2778 The deconfigured packages are marked as
2779 requiring configuration, so that if
2780 <tt>--install</tt> is used they will be
2781 configured again if possible.</p>
2784 <p>To prepare for removal of the conflicting package, call:
2785 <example compact="compact">
2786 <var>conflictor's-prerm</var> remove \
2787 in-favour <var>package</var> <var>new-version</var>
2790 <example compact="compact">
2791 <var>conflictor's-postinst</var> abort-remove \
2792 in-favour <var>package</var> <var>new-version</var>
2803 <p>If the package is being upgraded, call:
2804 <example compact="compact">
2805 <var>new-preinst</var> upgrade <var>old-version</var>
2810 Otherwise, if the package had some configuration
2811 files from a previous version installed (i.e., it
2812 is in the `configuration files only' state):
2813 <example compact="compact">
2814 <var>new-preinst</var> install <var>old-version</var>
2818 <p>Otherwise (i.e., the package was completely purged):
2819 <example compact="compact">
2820 <var>new-preinst</var> install
2822 Error unwind actions, respectively:
2823 <example compact="compact">
2824 <var>new-postrm</var> abort-upgrade <var>old-version</var>
2825 <var>new-postrm</var> abort-install <var>old-version</var>
2826 <var>new-postrm</var> abort-install
2835 The new package's files are unpacked, overwriting any
2836 that may be on the system already, for example any
2837 from the old version of the same package or from
2838 another package. Backups of the old files are kept
2839 temporarily, and if anything goes wrong the package
2840 management system will attempt to put them back as
2841 part of the error unwind.
2845 It is an error for a package to contains files which
2846 are on the system in another package, unless
2847 <tt>Replaces</tt> is used (see <ref id="replaces">).
2849 The following paragraph is not currently the case:
2850 Currently the <tt>- - force-overwrite</tt> flag is
2851 enabled, downgrading it to a warning, but this may not
2857 It is a more serious error for a package to contain a
2858 plain file or other kind of non-directory where another
2859 package has a directory (again, unless
2860 <tt>Replaces</tt> is used). This error can be
2861 overridden if desired using
2862 <tt>--force-overwrite-dir</tt>, but this is not
2867 Packages which overwrite each other's files produce
2868 behavior which, though deterministic, is hard for the
2869 system administrator to understand. It can easily
2870 lead to `missing' programs if, for example, a package
2871 is installed which overwrites a file from another
2872 package, and is then removed again.
2875 Part of the problem is due to what is arguably a
2876 bug in <prgn>dpkg</prgn>.
2882 A directory will never be replaced by a symbolic link
2883 to a directory or vice versa; instead, the existing
2884 state (symlink or not) will be left alone and
2885 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will follow the symlink if there is
2893 <p>If the package is being upgraded, call
2894 <example compact="compact">
2895 <var>old-postrm</var> upgrade <var>new-version</var>
2900 <p>If this fails, <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will attempt:
2901 <example compact="compact">
2902 <var>new-postrm</var> failed-upgrade <var>old-version</var>
2904 Error unwind, for both cases:
2905 <example compact="compact">
2906 <var>old-preinst</var> abort-upgrade <var>new-version</var>
2913 This is the point of no return - if
2914 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> gets this far, it won't back off
2915 past this point if an error occurs. This will
2916 leave the package in a fairly bad state, which
2917 will require a successful re-installation to clear
2918 up, but it's when <prgn>dpkg</prgn> starts doing
2919 things that are irreversible.
2924 Any files which were in the old version of the package
2925 but not in the new are removed.</p>
2928 <p>The new file list replaces the old.</p>
2931 <p>The new maintainer scripts replace the old.</p>
2935 <p>Any packages all of whose files have been overwritten during the
2936 installation, and which aren't required for
2937 dependencies, are considered to have been removed.
2938 For each such package
2941 <p><prgn>dpkg</prgn> calls:
2942 <example compact="compact">
2943 <var>disappearer's-postrm</var> disappear \
2944 <var>overwriter</var> <var>overwriter-version</var>
2949 <p>The package's maintainer scripts are removed.
2954 It is noted in the status database as being in a
2955 sane state, namely not installed (any conffiles
2956 it may have are ignored, rather than being
2957 removed by <prgn>dpkg</prgn>). Note that
2958 disappearing packages do not have their prerm
2959 called, because <prgn>dpkg</prgn> doesn't know
2960 in advance that the package is going to
2969 Any files in the package we're unpacking that are also
2970 listed in the file lists of other packages are removed
2971 from those lists. (This will lobotomize the file list
2972 of the `conflicting' package if there is one.)
2977 The backup files made during installation, above, are
2984 The new package's status is now sane, and recorded as
2989 Here is another point of no return - if the
2990 conflicting package's removal fails we do not unwind
2991 the rest of the installation; the conflicting package
2992 is left in a half-removed limbo.
2998 If there was a conflicting package we go and do the
2999 removal actions (described below), starting with the
3000 removal of the conflicting package's files (any that
3001 are also in the package being installed have already
3002 been removed from the conflicting package's file list,
3003 and so do not get removed now).
3010 <sect id="configdetails"><heading>Details of configuration</heading>
3013 When we configure a package (this happens with <tt>dpkg
3014 --install</tt> and <tt>dpkg --configure</tt>), we first
3015 update any <tt>conffile</tt>s and then call:
3016 <example compact="compact">
3017 <var>postinst</var> configure <var>most-recently-configured-version</var>
3022 No attempt is made to unwind after errors during
3027 If there is no most recently configured version
3028 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will pass a null argument; older versions
3029 of dpkg may pass <tt><unknown></tt> (including the
3030 angle brackets) in this case. Even older ones do not pass a
3031 second argument at all, under any circumstances.
3035 <sect id="removedetails"><heading>Details of removal and/or
3036 configuration purging</heading>
3042 <example compact="compact">
3043 <var>prerm</var> remove
3049 The package's files are removed (except <tt>conffile</tt>s).
3054 <example compact="compact">
3055 <var>postrm</var> remove
3061 All the maintainer scripts except the <prgn>postrm</prgn>
3066 If we aren't purging the package we stop here. Note
3067 that packages which have no <prgn>postrm</prgn> and no
3068 <tt>conffile</tt>s are automatically purged when
3069 removed, as there is no difference except for the
3070 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> status.</p>
3074 The <tt>conffile</tt>s and any backup files
3075 (<tt>~</tt>-files, <tt>#*#</tt> files,
3076 <tt>%</tt>-files, <tt>.dpkg-{old,new,tmp}</tt>, etc.)
3081 <example compact="compact">
3082 <var>postrm</var> purge
3087 <p>The package's file list is removed.</p>
3090 No attempt is made to unwind after errors during
3097 <chapt id="relationships"><heading>Declaring relationships between
3101 Packages can declare in their control file that they have
3102 certain relationships to other packages - for example, that
3103 they may not be installed at the same time as certain other
3104 packages, and/or that they depend on the presence of others,
3105 or that they should overwrite files in certain other packages
3110 This is done using the <tt>Depends</tt>, <tt>Pre-Depends</tt>,
3111 <tt>Recommends</tt>, <tt>Suggests</tt>, <tt>Enhances</tt>,
3112 <tt>Conflicts</tt>, <tt>Provides</tt> and <tt>Replaces</tt>
3113 control file fields.
3117 Source packages may declare relationships to binary packages,
3118 saying that they require certain binary packages to be
3119 installed or absent at the time of building the package.
3123 This is done using the <tt>Build-Depends</tt>,
3124 <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt> and
3125 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> control file fields.
3128 <sect id="depsyntax"><heading>Syntax of relationship fields
3132 These fields all have a uniform syntax. They are a list of
3133 package names separated by commas.
3137 In the <tt>Depends</tt>, <tt>Recommends</tt>,
3138 <tt>Suggests</tt>, <tt>Pre-Depends</tt>,
3139 <tt>Build-Depends</tt> and <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>
3140 control file fields of the package, which declare
3141 dependencies on other packages, the package names listed may
3142 also include lists of alternative package names, separated
3143 by vertical bar (pipe) symbols <tt>|</tt>. In such a case,
3144 if any one of the alternative packages is installed, that
3145 part of the dependency is considered to be satisfied.
3149 All of the fields except for <tt>Provides</tt> may restrict
3150 their applicability to particular versions of each named
3151 package. This is done in parentheses after each individual
3152 package name; the parentheses should contain a relation from
3153 the list below followed by a version number, in the format
3154 described in <ref id="versions">.
3158 The relations allowed are <tt><<</tt>, <tt><=</tt>,
3159 <tt>=</tt>, <tt>>=</tt> and <tt>>></tt> for
3160 strictly earlier, earlier or equal, exactly equal, later or
3161 equal and strictly later, respectively. The deprecated
3162 forms <tt><</tt> and <tt>></tt> were used to mean
3163 earlier/later or equal, rather than strictly earlier/later,
3164 so they should not appear in new packages (though
3165 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> still supports them).
3169 Whitespace may appear at any point in the version
3170 specification subject to the rules in <ref
3171 id="controlsyntax">, and must appear where it's necessary to
3172 disambiguate; it is not otherwise significant. For
3173 consistency and in case of future changes to
3174 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> it is recommended that a single space be
3175 used after a version relationship and before a version
3176 number; it is also conventional to put a single space after
3177 each comma, on either side of each vertical bar, and before
3178 each open parenthesis.
3182 For example, a list of dependencies might appear as:
3183 <example compact="compact">
3186 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.1), exim | mail-transport-agent
3191 All fields that specify build-time relationships
3192 (<tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>,
3193 <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt> and <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt>)
3194 may be restricted to a certain set of architectures. This
3195 is indicated in brackets after each individual package name and
3196 the optional version specification. The brackets enclose a
3197 list of Debian architecture names separated by whitespace.
3198 Exclamation marks may be prepended to each of the names.
3199 (It is not permitted for some names to be prepended with
3200 exclamation marks and others not.) If the current Debian
3201 host architecture is not in this list and there are no
3202 exclamation marks in the list, or it is in the list with a
3203 prepended exclamation mark, the package name and the
3204 associated version specification are ignored completely for
3205 the purposes of defining the relationships.
3210 <example compact="compact">
3212 Build-Depends-Indep: texinfo
3213 Build-Depends: kernel-headers-2.2.10 [!hurd-i386],
3214 hurd-dev [hurd-i386], gnumach-dev [hurd-i386]
3219 Note that the binary package relationship fields such as
3220 <tt>Depends</tt> appear in one of the binary package
3221 sections of the control file, whereas the build-time
3222 relationships such as <tt>Build-Depends</tt> appear in the
3223 source package section of the control file (which is the
3229 <heading>Binary Dependencies - <tt>Depends</tt>,
3230 <tt>Recommends</tt>, <tt>Suggests</tt>, <tt>Enhances</tt>,
3231 <tt>Pre-Depends</tt>
3235 These five fields are used to declare a dependency
3236 relationship by one package on another. Except for
3237 <tt>Enhances</tt>, they appear in the depending (binary)
3238 package's control file. (<tt>Enhances</tt> appears in the
3239 recommending package's control file.)
3243 A <tt>Depends</tt> field takes effect <em>only</em> when a
3244 package is to be configured. It does not prevent a package
3245 being on the system in an unconfigured state while its
3246 dependencies are unsatisfied, and it is possible to replace
3247 a package whose dependencies are satisfied and which is
3248 properly installed with a different version whose
3249 dependencies are not and cannot be satisfied; when this is
3250 done the depending package will be left unconfigured (since
3251 attempts to configure it will give errors) and will not
3252 function properly. If it is necessary, a
3253 <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> field can be used, which has a partial
3254 effect even when a package is being unpacked, as explained
3255 in detail below. (The other three dependency fields,
3256 <tt>Recommends</tt>, <tt>Suggests</tt> and
3257 <tt>Enhances</tt>, are only used by the various front-ends
3258 to <prgn>dpkg</prgn> such as <prgn>dselect</prgn>.)
3262 For this reason packages in an installation run are usually
3263 all unpacked first and all configured later; this gives
3264 later versions of packages with dependencies on later
3265 versions of other packages the opportunity to have their
3266 dependencies satisfied.
3270 The <tt>Depends</tt> field thus allows package maintainers
3271 to impose an order in which packages should be configured.
3275 The meaning of the five dependency fields is as follows:
3277 <tag><tt>Depends</tt></tag>
3281 This declares an absolute dependency. A package will
3282 not be configured unless all of the packages listed in
3283 its <tt>Depends</tt> field have been correctly
3288 The <tt>Depends</tt> field should be used if the
3289 depended-on package is required for the depending
3290 package to provide a significant amount of
3294 The <tt>Depends</tt> field should also be used if the
3295 <prgn>postinst</prgn>, <prgn>prerm</prgn> or
3296 <prgn>postrm</prgn> scripts require the package to be
3297 present in order to run. Note, however, that the
3298 <prgn>postrm</prgn> cannot rely on any non-essential
3299 packages to be present during the <tt>purge</tt>
3303 <tag><tt>Recommends</tt></tag>
3305 <p>This declares a strong, but not absolute, dependency.
3309 The <tt>Recommends</tt> field should list packages
3310 that would be found together with this one in all but
3311 unusual installations.</p>
3314 <tag><tt>Suggests</tt></tag>
3318 This is used to declare that one package may be more
3319 useful with one or more others. Using this field
3320 tells the packaging system and the user that the
3321 listed packages are related to this one and can
3322 perhaps enhance its usefulness, but that installing
3323 this one without them is perfectly reasonable.
3327 <tag><tt>Enhances</tt></tag>
3330 This field is similar to Suggests but works in the
3331 opposite direction. It is used to declare that a
3332 package can enhance the functionality of another
3337 <tag><tt>Pre-Depends</tt></tag>
3341 This field is like <tt>Depends</tt>, except that it
3342 also forces <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to complete installation
3343 of the packages named before even starting the
3344 installation of the package which declares the
3345 pre-dependency, as follows:
3349 When a package declaring a pre-dependency is about to
3350 be <em>unpacked</em> the pre-dependency can be
3351 satisfied if the depended-on package is either fully
3352 configured, <em>or even if</em> the depended-on
3353 package(s) are only unpacked or half-configured,
3354 provided that they have been configured correctly at
3355 some point in the past (and not removed or partially
3356 removed since). In this case, both the
3357 previously-configured and currently unpacked or
3358 half-configured versions must satisfy any version
3359 clause in the <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> field.
3363 When the package declaring a pre-dependency is about
3364 to be <em>configured</em>, the pre-dependency will be
3365 treated as a normal <tt>Depends</tt>, that is, it will
3366 be considered satisfied only if the depended-on
3367 package has been correctly configured.
3371 <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> should be used sparingly,
3372 preferably only by packages whose premature upgrade or
3373 installation would hamper the ability of the system to
3374 continue with any upgrade that might be in progress.
3378 <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> are also required if the
3379 <prgn>preinst</prgn> script depends on the named
3380 package. It is best to avoid this situation if
3386 When selecting which level of dependency to use you should
3387 consider how important the depended-on package is to the
3388 functionality of the one declaring the dependency. Some
3389 packages are composed of components of varying degrees of
3390 importance. Such a package should list using
3391 <tt>Depends</tt> the package(s) which are required by the
3392 more important components. The other components'
3393 requirements may be mentioned as Suggestions or
3394 Recommendations, as appropriate to the components' relative
3399 <sect id="conflicts"><heading>Conflicting binary packages -
3400 <tt>Conflicts</tt></heading>
3403 When one binary package declares a conflict with another
3404 using a <tt>Conflicts</tt> field, <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will
3405 refuse to allow them to be installed on the system at the
3410 If one package is to be installed, the other must be removed
3411 first - if the package being installed is marked as
3412 replacing (see <ref id="replaces">) the one on the system,
3413 or the one on the system is marked as deselected, or both
3414 packages are marked <tt>Essential</tt>, then
3415 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will automatically remove the package
3416 which is causing the conflict, otherwise it will halt the
3417 installation of the new package with an error. This
3418 mechanism is specifically designed to produce an error when
3419 the installed package is <tt>Essential</tt>, but the new
3424 A package will not cause a conflict merely because its
3425 configuration files are still installed; it must be at least
3430 A special exception is made for packages which declare a
3431 conflict with their own package name, or with a virtual
3432 package which they provide (see below): this does not
3433 prevent their installation, and allows a package to conflict
3434 with others providing a replacement for it. You use this
3435 feature when you want the package in question to be the only
3436 package providing some feature.
3440 A <tt>Conflicts</tt> entry should almost never have an
3441 `earlier than' version clause. This would prevent
3442 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> from upgrading or installing the package
3443 which declared such a conflict until the upgrade or removal
3444 of the conflicted-with package had been completed.
3448 <sect id="virtual"><heading>Virtual packages - <tt>Provides</tt>
3452 As well as the names of actual (`concrete') packages, the
3453 package relationship fields <tt>Depends</tt>,
3454 <tt>Recommends</tt>, <tt>Suggests</tt>, <tt>Enhances</tt>,
3455 <tt>Pre-Depends</tt>, <tt>Conflicts</tt>,
3456 <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>,
3457 <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt> and <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt>
3458 may mention `virtual packages'.
3462 A <em>virtual package</em> is one which appears in the
3463 <tt>Provides</tt> control file field of another package.
3464 The effect is as if the package(s) which provide a
3465 particular virtual package name had been listed by name
3466 everywhere the virtual package name appears.
3470 If there are both a real and a virtual package of the same
3471 name then the dependency may be satisfied (or the conflict
3472 caused) by either the real package or any of the virtual
3473 packages which provide it. This is so that, for example,
3475 <example compact="compact">
3479 and someone else releases an enhanced version of the
3480 <tt>bar</tt> package (for example, a non-US variant), they
3482 <example compact="compact">
3486 and the <tt>bar-plus</tt> package will now also satisfy the
3487 dependency for the <tt>foo</tt> package.
3491 If a dependency or a conflict has a version number attached
3492 then only real packages will be considered to see whether
3493 the relationship is satisfied (or the prohibition violated,
3494 for a conflict) - it is assumed that a real package which
3495 provides the virtual package is not of the `right' version.
3496 So, a <tt>Provides</tt> field may not contain version
3497 numbers, and the version number of the concrete package
3498 which provides a particular virtual package will not be
3499 looked at when considering a dependency on or conflict with
3500 the virtual package name.
3504 It is likely that the ability will be added in a future
3505 release of <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to specify a version number for
3506 each virtual package it provides. This feature is not yet
3507 present, however, and is expected to be used only
3512 If you want to specify which of a set of real packages
3513 should be the default to satisfy a particular dependency on
3514 a virtual package, you should list the real package as an
3515 alternative before the virtual one.
3520 <sect id="replaces"><heading>Overwriting files and replacing
3521 packages - <tt>Replaces</tt></heading>
3524 The <tt>Replaces</tt> control file field has two distinct
3525 purposes, which come into play in different situations.
3528 <sect1><heading>Overwriting files in other packages</heading>
3531 Firstly, as mentioned before, it is usually an error for a
3532 package to contain files which are on the system in
3537 However, if the overwriting package declares that it
3538 <tt>Replaces</tt> the one containing the file being
3539 overwritten, then <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will replace the file
3540 from the old package with that from the new. The file
3541 will no longer be listed as `owned' by the old package.
3545 If a package is completely replaced in this way, so that
3546 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> does not know of any files it still
3547 contains, it is considered to have `disappeared'. It will
3548 be marked as not wanted on the system (selected for
3549 removal) and not installed. Any <tt>conffile</tt>s
3550 details noted for the package will be ignored, as they
3551 will have been taken over by the overwriting package. The
3552 package's <prgn>postrm</prgn> script will be run with a
3553 special argument to allow the package to do any final
3554 cleanup required. See <ref id="mscriptsinstact">.
3558 If an installed package, <tt>foo</tt> say, declares that
3559 it replaces another, <tt>bar</tt>, and an attempt is made
3560 to install <tt>bar</tt>, <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will discard
3561 files in the <tt>bar</tt> package which would overwrite
3562 those already present in <tt>foo</tt>. This is so that
3563 you can install an older version of a package without
3568 For this usage of <tt>Replaces</tt>, virtual packages (see
3569 <ref id="virtual">) are not considered when looking at a
3570 <tt>Replaces</tt> field - the packages declared as being
3571 replaced must be mentioned by their real names.
3575 Furthermore, this usage of <tt>Replaces</tt> only takes
3576 effect when both packages are at least partially on the
3577 system at once, so that it can only happen if they do not
3578 conflict or if the conflict has been overridden.
3583 <sect1><heading>Replacing whole packages, forcing their
3587 Secondly, <tt>Replaces</tt> allows the packaging system to
3588 resolve which package should be removed when there is a
3589 conflict - see <ref id="conflicts">. This usage only
3590 takes effect when the two packages <em>do</em> conflict,
3591 so that the two usages of this field do not interfere with
3596 In this situation, the package declared as being replaced
3597 can be a virtual package, so for example, all mail
3598 transport agents (MTAs) would have the following fields in
3599 their control files:
3600 <example compact="compact">
3601 Provides: mail-transport-agent
3602 Conflicts: mail-transport-agent
3603 Replaces: mail-transport-agent
3605 ensuring that only one MTA can be installed at any one
3610 <sect><heading>Relationships between source and binary packages -
3611 <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>,
3612 <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt>
3616 A source package may declare a dependency or a conflict on a
3617 binary package, indicating which packages are required to be
3618 present on the system in order to build the binary packages
3619 from the source package. This is done with the control file
3620 fields <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>,
3621 <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt> and <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt>.
3622 The dependencies and conflicts they define must be satisfied
3623 (as defined earlier for binary packages) in order to invoke
3624 the targets in <tt>debian/rules</tt>, as follows:
3627 <tag><tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt></tag>
3630 The <tt>Build-Depends</tt> and
3631 <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt> fields must be satisfied when
3632 any of the following targets is invoked:
3633 <tt>build</tt>, <tt>binary</tt>, <tt>binary-arch</tt>
3634 and <tt>binary-indep</tt>.
3637 <tag><tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt></tag>
3640 The <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt> and
3641 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> fields must be
3642 satisfied when any of the following targets is
3643 invoked: <tt>binary</tt> and <tt>binary-indep</tt>.
3654 <chapt id="conffiles"><heading>Configuration file handling
3658 This chapter has been superseded by <ref id="config files">.
3662 <chapt id="sharedlibs"><heading>Shared libraries</heading>
3665 Packages containing shared libraries must be constructed with
3666 a little care to make sure that the shared library is always
3667 available. This is especially important for packages whose
3668 shared libraries are vitally important, such as the C library
3669 (currently <tt>libc6</tt>).
3673 Firstly, the package should install the shared libraries under
3674 their normal names. For example, the <tt>libgdbmg1</tt>
3675 package should install <tt>libgdbm.so.1.7.3</tt> as
3676 <tt>/usr/lib/libgdbm.so.1.7.3</tt>. The files should not be
3677 renamed or re-linked by any <prgn>prerm</prgn> or
3678 <prgn>postrm</prgn> scripts; <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will take care
3679 of renaming things safely without affecting running programs,
3680 and attempts to interfere with this are likely to lead to
3685 Secondly, the package should include the symbolic link that
3686 <prgn>ldconfig</prgn> would create for the shared libraries.
3687 For example, the <prgn>libgdbmg1</prgn> package should include
3688 a symbolic link from <tt>/usr/lib/libgdbm.so.1</tt> to
3689 <tt>libgdbm.so.1.7.3</tt>. This is needed so that the dynamic
3690 linker (for example <prgn>ld.so</prgn> or
3691 <prgn>ld-linux.so.*</prgn>) can find the library between the
3692 time that <prgn>dpkg</prgn> installs it and the time that
3693 <prgn>ldconfig</prgn> is run in the <prgn>postinst</prgn>
3697 The package management system requires the library to be
3698 placed before the symbolic link pointing to it in the
3699 <tt>.deb</tt> file. This is so that when
3700 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> comes to install the symlink
3701 (overwriting the previous symlink pointing at an older
3702 version of the library), the new shared library is already
3703 in place. In the past, this was achieved by creating the
3704 library in the temporary packaging directory before
3705 creating the symlink. Unfortunately, this was not always
3706 effective, since the building of the tar file in the
3707 <tt>.deb</tt> depended on the behavior of the underlying
3708 file system. Some file systems (such as reiserfs) reorder
3709 the files so that the order of creation is forgotten.
3710 Starting with release <tt>1.7.0</tt>, <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
3711 will reorder the files itself as necessary when building a
3712 package. Thus it is no longer important to concern
3713 oneself with the order of file creation.
3719 Thirdly, the associated development package should contain a
3720 symlink for the shared library without a version number. For
3721 example, the <tt>libgdbmg1-dev</tt> package should include a
3722 symlink from <tt>/usr/lib/libgdbm.so</tt> to
3723 <tt>libgdbm.so.1.7.3</tt>. This symlink is needed by the
3724 linker (<prgn>ld</prgn>) when compiling packages, as it will
3725 only look for <tt>libgdbm.so</tt> when compiling dynamically.
3729 Any package installing shared libraries in one of the default
3730 library directories of the dynamic linker (which are currently
3731 <tt>/usr/lib</tt> and <tt>/lib</tt>) or a directory that is
3732 listed in <tt>/etc/ld.so.conf</tt>
3736 <list compact="compact">
3737 <item><p>/usr/X11R6/lib/Xaw3d</p></item>
3738 <item><p>/usr/local/lib</p></item>
3739 <item><p>/usr/lib/libc5-compat</p></item>
3740 <item><p>/lib/libc5-compat</p></item>
3741 <item><p>/usr/X11R6/lib</p></item>
3745 must call <prgn>ldconfig</prgn> in its <prgn>postinst</prgn>
3746 script if the first argument is <tt>configure</tt> and should
3747 call it in the <prgn>postrm</prgn> script if the first
3748 argument is <tt>remove</tt>.
3752 However, <prgn>postrm</prgn> and <prgn>preinst</prgn> scripts
3753 <em>must not</em> call <prgn>ldconfig</prgn> in the case where
3754 the package is being upgraded (see <ref id="unpackphase"> for
3755 details), as <prgn>ldconfig</prgn> will see the temporary
3756 names that <prgn>dpkg</prgn> uses for the files while it is
3757 installing them and will make the shared library links point
3758 to them, just before <prgn>dpkg</prgn> continues the
3759 installation and renames the temporary files!
3763 <heading>Handling shared library dependencies - the
3764 <tt>shlibs</tt> system</heading>
3767 If a package contains a binary or library which links to a
3768 shared library, we must ensure that when the package is
3769 installed on the system, all of the libraries needed are
3770 also installed. This requirement led to the creation of the
3771 <tt>shlibs</tt> system, which is very simple in its design:
3772 any package which <em>provides</em> a shared library also
3773 provides information on the package dependencies required to
3774 ensure the presence of this library, and any package which
3775 <em>uses</em> a shared library uses this information to
3776 determine the dependencies it requires. The files which
3777 contain the mapping from shared libraries to the necessary
3778 dependency information are called <tt>shlibs</tt> files.
3782 Thus, when a package is built which contains any shared
3783 libraries, it must provide a <tt>shlibs</tt> file for other
3784 packages to use, and when a package is built which contains
3785 any shared libraries or compiled binaries, it must run
3786 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> on these to determine the
3787 libraries used and hence the dependencies needed by this
3791 In the past, the shared libraries linked to were
3792 determined by calling <prgn>ldd</prgn>, but now
3793 <prgn>objdump</prgn> to do this. The only change this
3794 makes to package building is that
3795 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> must also be run on shared
3796 libraries, whereas in the past this was unnecessary.
3797 The rest of this footnote explains the advantage that
3802 We say that a binary <tt>foo</tt> <em>directly</em> uses
3803 a library <tt>libbar</tt> if it is explicitly linked
3804 with that library (that is, it uses the flag
3805 <tt>-lbar</tt> during the linking stage). Other
3806 libraries that are needed by <tt>libbar</tt> are linked
3807 <em>indirectly</em> to <tt>foo</tt>, and the dynamic
3808 linker will load them automatically when it loads
3809 <tt>libbar</tt>. A package should needs to depend on
3810 the libraries it directly uses, and the dependencies for
3811 those libraries should automatically pull in the other
3816 Unfortunately, the <prgn>ldd</prgn> program shows both
3817 the directly and indirectly used libraries, meaning that
3818 the dependencies determined included both direct and
3819 indirect dependencies. The use of <prgn>objdump</prgn>
3820 avoids this problem by determining only the directly
3825 A good example of where this helps is the following. We
3826 could update <tt>libimlib</tt> with a new version that
3827 supports a new graphics format called dgf (but retaining
3828 the same major version number). If we used the old
3829 <prgn>ldd</prgn> method, every package that uses
3830 <tt>libimlib</tt> would need to be recompiled so it
3831 would also depend on <tt>libdgf</tt> or it wouldn't run
3832 due to missing symbols. However with the new system,
3833 packages using <tt>libimlib</tt> can rely on
3834 <tt>libimlib</tt> itself having the dependency on
3835 <tt>libdgf</tt> and so they would not need rebuilding.
3841 In the following sections, we will first describe where the
3842 various <tt>shlibs</tt> files are to be found, then how to
3843 use <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn>, and finally the
3844 <tt>shlibs</tt> file format and how to create them if your
3845 package contains a shared library.
3849 <sect><heading>The <tt>shlibs</tt> files present on the system
3853 There are several places where <tt>shlibs</tt> files are
3854 found. The following list gives them in the order in which
3855 they are read by <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn>. (The first
3856 one which gives the required information is used.)
3862 <p><tt>debian/shlibs.local</tt></p>
3864 This lists overrides for this package. Its use is
3865 described below (see <ref id="shlibslocal">).
3870 <p><tt>/etc/dpkg/shlibs.override</tt></p>
3872 This lists global overrides. This list is normally
3873 empty. It is maintained by the local system
3879 <p><tt>DEBIAN/shlibs</tt> files in the `build directory'</p>
3881 When packages are being built, any
3882 <tt>debian/shlibs</tt> files are copied into the
3883 control file area of the temporary build directory and
3884 given the name <tt>shlibs</tt>. These files give
3885 details of any shared libraries included in the
3889 An example may help here. Let us say that the
3890 source package <tt>foo</tt> generates two binary
3891 packages, <tt>libfoo2</tt> and
3892 <tt>foo-runtime</tt>. When building the binary
3893 packages, the two packages are created in the
3894 directories <tt>debian/libfoo2</tt> and
3895 <tt>debian/foo-runtime</tt> respectively.
3896 (<tt>debian/tmp</tt> could be used instead of one
3897 of these.) Since <tt>libfoo2</tt> provides the
3898 <tt>libfoo</tt> shared library, it will require a
3899 <tt>shlibs</tt> file, which will be installed in
3900 <tt>debian/libfoo2/DEBIAN/shlibs</tt>, eventually
3902 <tt>/var/lib/dpkg/info/libfoo2.shlibs</tt>. Then
3903 when <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> is run on the
3905 <tt>debian/foo-runtime/usr/bin/foo-prog</tt>, it
3907 <tt>debian/libfoo2/DEBIAN/shlibs</tt> file to
3908 determine whether <tt>foo-prog</tt>'s library
3909 dependencies are satisfied by any of the libraries
3910 provided by <tt>libfoo2</tt>. For this reason,
3911 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> must only be run once
3912 all of the individual binary packages'
3913 <tt>shlibs</tt> files have been installed into the
3921 <p><tt>/var/lib/dpkg/info/*.shlibs</tt></p>
3923 These are the <tt>shlibs</tt> files corresponding to
3924 all of the packages installed on the system, and are
3925 maintained by the relevant package maintainers.
3930 <p><tt>/etc/dpkg/shlibs.default</tt></p>
3932 This file lists any shared libraries whose packages
3933 have failed to provide correct <tt>shlibs</tt> files.
3934 It was used when the <tt>shlibs</tt> setup was first
3935 introduced, but it is now normally empty. It is
3936 maintained by the <tt>dpkg</tt> maintainer.
3944 <heading>How to use <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> and the
3945 <tt>shlibs</tt> files</heading>
3948 Put a call to <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> into your
3949 <tt>debian/rules</tt> file. If your package contains only
3950 compiled binaries and libraries (but no scripts), you can
3951 use a command such as:
3952 <example compact="compact">
3953 dpkg-shlibdeps debian/tmp/usr/bin/* debian/tmp/usr/sbin/* \
3954 debian/tmp/usr/lib/*
3956 Otherwise, you will need to explicitly list the compiled
3957 binaries and libraries.
3960 If you are using <tt>debhelper</tt>, the
3961 <prgn>dh_shlibdeps</prgn> program will do this work for
3962 you. It will also correctly handle multi-binary
3969 This command puts the dependency information into the
3970 <tt>debian/substvars</tt> file, which is then used by
3971 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn>. You will need to place a
3972 <tt>${shlib:Depends}</tt> variable in the <tt>Depends</tt>
3973 field in the control file for this to work.
3977 If <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> doesn't complain, you're
3978 done. If it does complain you might need to create your own
3979 <tt>debian/shlibs.local</tt> file, as explained below (see
3980 <ref id="shlibslocal">).
3984 If you have multiple binary packages, you will need to call
3985 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> on each one which contains
3986 compiled libraries or binaries. In such a case, you will
3987 need to use the <tt>-T</tt> option to the <tt>dpkg</tt>
3988 utilities to specify a different <tt>substvars</tt> file.
3989 For more details on this and other options, see <manref
3990 name="dpkg-shlibdeps" section="1">.
3994 <sect id="shlibs"><heading>The <tt>shlibs</tt> File Format
3998 Each <tt>shlibs</tt> file has the same format. Lines
3999 beginning with <tt>#</tt> are considered to be commments and
4000 are ignored. Each line is of the form:
4001 <example compact="compact">
4002 <var>library-name</var> <var>soname-version-number</var> <var>dependencies ...</var>
4007 We will explain this by reference to the example of the
4008 <tt>zlib1g</tt> package, which (at the time of writing)
4009 installs the shared library <tt>/usr/lib/libz.so.1.1.3</tt>.
4013 <var>library-name</var> is the name of the shared library,
4014 in this case <tt>libz</tt>. (This must match the name part
4015 of the soname, see below.)
4019 <var>soname-version-number</var> is the version part of the
4020 soname of the library. The soname is the thing that must
4021 exactly match for the library to be recognized by the
4022 dynamic linker, and is usually of the form
4023 <tt><var>name</var>.so.<var>major-version</var></tt>, in our
4024 example, <tt>libz.so.1</tt>.
4027 This can be determined using the command
4028 <example compact="compact">
4029 objdump -p /usr/lib/libz.so.1.1.3 | grep SONAME
4033 The version part is the part which comes after
4034 <tt>.so.</tt>, so in our case, it is <tt>1</tt>.
4038 <var>dependencies</var> has the same syntax as a dependency
4039 field in a binary package control file. It should give
4040 details of which packages are required to satisfy a binary
4041 built against the version of the library contained in the
4042 package. See <ref id="depsyntax"> for details.
4046 In our example, if the first version of the <tt>zlib1g</tt>
4047 package which contained a minor number of at least
4048 <tt>1.3</tt> was <var>1:1.1.3-1</var>, then the
4049 <tt>shlibs</tt> entry for this library could say:
4050 <example compact="compact">
4051 libz 1 zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.3)
4053 The version-specific dependency is to avoid warnings from
4054 the dynamic linker about using older shared libraries with
4060 <heading>Providing a <tt>shlibs</tt> file</heading>
4063 If your package provides a shared library, you should create
4064 a <tt>shlibs</tt> file following the format described above.
4065 It is usual to call this file <tt>debian/shlibs</tt> (but if
4066 you have multiple binary packages, you might want to call it
4067 <tt>debian/shlibs.<var>package</var></tt> instead). Then
4068 let <tt>debian/rules</tt> install it in the control area:
4069 <example compact="compact">
4070 install -m644 debian/shlibs debian/tmp/DEBIAN
4072 or, in the case of a multi-binary package:
4073 <example compact="compact">
4074 install -m644 debian/shlibs.<var>package</var> debian/<var>package</var>/DEBIAN/shlibs
4076 An alternative way of doing this is to create the
4077 <tt>shlibs</tt> file in the control area directly from
4078 <tt>debian/rules</tt> without using a <tt>debian/shlibs</tt>
4082 This is what <prgn>dh_makeshlibs</prgn> in the
4083 <tt>debhelper</tt> suite does.
4086 since the <tt>debian/shlibs</tt> file itself is ignored by
4087 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn>.
4091 As <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> reads the
4092 <tt>DEBIAN/shlibs</tt> files in all of the binary packages
4093 being built from this source package, all of the
4094 <tt>DEBIAN/shlibs</tt> files should be installed before
4095 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> is called on any of the binary
4100 <sect id="shlibslocal">
4101 <heading>Writing the <tt>debian/shlibs.local</tt> file</heading>
4104 This file is intended only as a <em>temporary</em> fix if
4105 your binaries or libraries depend on a library whose package
4106 does not yet provide a correct <tt>shlibs</tt> file.
4110 We will assume that you are trying to package a binary
4111 <tt>foo</tt>. When you try running
4112 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> you get the following error
4113 message (<tt>-O</tt> displays the dependency information on
4114 <tt>stdout</tt> instead of writing it to
4115 <tt>debian/substvars</tt>, and the lines have been wrapped
4116 for ease of reading):
4117 <example compact="compact">
4118 $ dpkg-shlibdeps -O debian/tmp/usr/bin/foo
4119 dpkg-shlibdeps: warning: unable to find dependency
4120 information for shared library libbar (soname 1,
4121 path /usr/lib/libbar.so.1, dependency field Depends)
4122 shlibs:Depends=libc6 (>= 2.2.2-2)
4124 You can then run <prgn>ldd</prgn> on the binary to find the
4125 full location of the library concerned:
4126 <example compact="compact">
4128 libbar.so.1 => /usr/lib/libbar.so.1 (0x4001e000)
4129 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x40032000)
4130 /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)
4132 So the <prgn>foo</prgn> binary depends on the
4133 <prgn>libbar</prgn> shared library, but no package seems to
4134 provide a <tt>*.shlibs</tt> file handling
4135 <tt>libbar.so.1</tt> in <tt>/var/lib/dpkg/info/</tt>. Let's
4136 determine the package responsible:
4137 <example compact="compact">
4138 $ dpkg -S /usr/lib/libbar.so.1
4139 bar1: /usr/lib/libbar.so.1
4140 $ dpkg -s bar1 | grep Version
4143 This tells us that the <tt>bar1</tt> package, version 1.0-1,
4144 is the one we are using. Now we can file a bug against the
4145 <tt>bar1</tt> package and create our own
4146 <tt>debian/shlibs.local</tt> to locally fix the problem.
4147 Including the following line into your
4148 <tt>debian/shlibs.local</tt> file:
4149 <example compact="compact">
4150 libbar 1 bar1 (>= 1.0-1)
4152 should allow the package build to work.
4156 As soon as the maintainer of <tt>bar1</tt> provides a
4157 correct <tt>shlibs</tt> file, you should remove this line
4158 from your <tt>debian/shlibs.local</tt> file. (You should
4159 probably also then have a versioned <tt>Build-Depends</tt>
4160 on <tt>bar1</tt> to help ensure that others do not have the
4161 same problem building your package.)
4166 <chapt id="opersys"><heading>The Operating System</heading>
4169 <heading>Filesystem hierarchy</heading>
4173 <heading>Filesystem Structure</heading>
4176 The location of all installed files and directories must
4177 comply with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS),
4178 version 2.1. This can be found in the
4179 <tt>debian-policy</tt> package or on <url
4180 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/fhs"
4181 name="FHS (Debian copy)"> alongside this manual or on <url
4182 id="http://www.pathname.com/fhs/" name="FHS (upstream)">.
4183 Specific questions about following the standard may be
4184 asked on the <tt>debian-devel</tt> mailing list, or
4185 referred to Daniel Quinlan, the FHS coordinator, at
4186 <email>quinlan@pathname.com</email>.
4191 <heading>Site-specific programs</heading>
4194 As mandated by the FHS, packages must not place any
4195 files in <tt>/usr/local</tt>, either by putting them in
4196 the file system archive to be unpacked by <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
4197 or by manipulating them in their maintainer scripts.
4201 However, the package may create empty directories below
4202 <tt>/usr/local</tt> so that the system administrator knows
4203 where to place site-specific files. These directories
4204 should be removed on package removal if they are
4209 Note, that this applies only to directories <em>below</em>
4210 <tt>/usr/local</tt>, not <em>in</em> <tt>/usr/local</tt>.
4211 Packages must not create sub-directories in the directory
4212 <tt>/usr/local</tt> itself, except those listed in FHS,
4213 section 4.5. However, you may create directories below
4214 them as you wish. You must not remove any of the
4215 directories listed in 4.5, even if you created them.
4219 Since <tt>/usr/local</tt> can be mounted read-only from a
4220 remote server, these directories must be created and
4221 removed by the <prgn>postinst</prgn> and <prgn>prerm</prgn>
4222 maintainer scripts and not be included in the
4223 <tt>.deb</tt> archive. These scripts must not fail if
4224 either of these operations fail.
4227 In the future, it may be possible to tell
4228 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> not to unpack files matching certain
4229 patterns, so that the directories can be included in
4230 the <tt>.deb</tt> packages and system administrators
4231 who do not wish these directories in
4232 <tt>/usr/local</tt> do not need to have them.)
4238 For example, the <tt>emacsen-common</tt> package could
4239 contain something like
4240 <example compact="compact">
4241 if [ ! -e /usr/local/share/emacs ]
4243 if mkdir /usr/local/share/emacs 2>/dev/null
4245 chown root:staff /usr/local/share/emacs
4246 chmod 2775 /usr/local/share/emacs
4250 in its <prgn>postinst</prgn> script, and
4251 <example compact="compact">
4252 rmdir /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp 2>/dev/null || true
4253 rmdir /usr/local/share/emacs 2>/dev/null || true
4255 in the <prgn>prerm</prgn> script. (Note that this form is
4256 used to ensure that if the script is interrupted, the
4257 directory <tt>/usr/local/share/emacs</tt> will still be
4262 If you do create a directory in <tt>/usr/local</tt> for
4263 local additions to a package, you should ensure that
4264 settings in <tt>/usr/local</tt> take precedence over the
4265 equivalents in <tt>/usr</tt>.
4269 However, because <tt>/usr/local</tt> and its contents are
4270 for exclusive use of the local administrator, a package
4271 must not rely on the presence or absence of files or
4272 directories in <tt>/usr/local</tt> for normal operation.
4276 The <tt>/usr/local</tt> directory itself and all the
4277 subdirectories created by the package should (by default) have
4278 permissions 2775 (group-writable and set-group-id) and be
4279 owned by <tt>root.staff</tt>.
4284 <heading>The system-wide mail directory</heading>
4286 The system-wide mail directory is <tt>/var/mail</tt>. This
4287 directory is part of the base system and should not owned
4288 by any particular mail agents. The use of the old
4289 location <tt>/var/spool/mail</tt> is deprecated, even
4290 though the spool may still be physically located there.
4291 To maintain partial upgrade compatibility for systems
4292 which have <tt>/var/spool/mail</tt> as their physical mail
4293 spool, packages using <tt>/var/mail</tt> must depend on
4294 either <package>libc6</package> (>= 2.1.3-13), or on
4295 <package>base-files</package> (>= 2.2.0), or on later
4296 versions of either one of these packages.
4302 <heading>Users and groups</heading>
4305 <heading>Introduction</heading>
4307 The Debian system can be configured to use either plain or
4312 Some user ids (UIDs) and group ids (GIDs) are reserved
4313 globally for use by certain packages. Because some
4314 packages need to include files which are owned by these
4315 users or groups, or need the ids compiled into binaries,
4316 these ids must be used on any Debian system only for the
4317 purpose for which they are allocated. This is a serious
4318 restriction, and we should avoid getting in the way of
4319 local administration policies. In particular, many sites
4320 allocate users and/or local system groups starting at 100.
4324 Apart from this we should have dynamically allocated ids,
4325 which should by default be arranged in some sensible
4326 order, but the behavior should be configurable.
4330 Packages other than <tt>base-passwd</tt> must not modify
4331 <tt>/etc/passwd</tt>, <tt>/etc/shadow</tt>,
4332 <tt>/etc/group</tt> or <tt>/etc/gshadow</tt>.
4337 <heading>UID and GID classes</heading>
4339 The UID and GID numbers are divided into classes as
4345 Globally allocated by the Debian project, the same
4346 on every Debian system. These ids will appear in
4347 the <tt>passwd</tt> and <tt>group</tt> files of all
4348 Debian systems, new ids in this range being added
4349 automatically as the <tt>base-passwd</tt> package is
4354 Packages which need a single statically allocated
4355 uid or gid should use one of these; their
4356 maintainers should ask the <tt>base-passwd</tt>
4364 Dynamically allocated system users and groups.
4365 Packages which need a user or group, but can have
4366 this user or group allocated dynamically and
4367 differently on each system, should use <tt>adduser
4368 --system</tt> to create the group and/or user.
4369 <prgn>adduser</prgn> will check for the existence of
4370 the user or group, and if necessary choose an unused
4371 id based on the ranges specified in
4372 <tt>adduser.conf</tt>.
4376 <tag>1000-29999:</tag>
4379 Dynamically allocated user accounts. By default
4380 <prgn>adduser</prgn> will choose UIDs and GIDs for
4381 user accounts in this range, though
4382 <tt>adduser.conf</tt> may be used to modify this
4387 <tag>30000-59999:</tag>
4392 <tag>60000-64999:</tag>
4395 Globally allocated by the Debian project, but only
4396 created on demand. The ids are allocated centrally
4397 and statically, but the actual accounts are only
4398 created on users' systems on demand.
4402 These ids are for packages which are obscure or
4403 which require many statically-allocated ids. These
4404 packages should check for and create the accounts in
4405 <tt>/etc/passwd</tt> or <tt>/etc/group</tt> (using
4406 <prgn>adduser</prgn> if it has this facility) if
4407 necessary. Packages which are likely to require
4408 further allocations should have a `hole' left after
4409 them in the allocation, to give them room to
4414 <tag>65000-65533:</tag>
4422 User <tt>nobody</tt>. The corresponding gid refers
4423 to the group <tt>nogroup</tt>.
4430 <tt>(uid_t)(-1) == (gid_t)(-1)</tt> <em>must
4431 not</em> be used, because it is the error return
4440 <sect id="sysvinit">
4441 <heading>System run levels and <tt>init.d</tt> scripts</heading>
4443 <sect1 id="/etc/init.d">
4444 <heading>Introduction</heading>
4447 The <tt>/etc/init.d</tt> directory contains the scripts
4448 executed by <prgn>init</prgn> at boot time and when the
4449 init state (or `runlevel') is changed (see <manref
4450 name="init" section="8">).
4454 There are at least two different, yet functionally
4455 equivalent, ways of handling these scripts. For the sake
4456 of simplicity, this document describes only the symbolic
4457 link method. However, it must not be assumed by maintainer
4458 scripts that this method is being used, and any automated
4459 manipulation of the various runlevel behaviours by
4460 maintainer scripts must be performed using
4461 <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> as described below and not by
4462 manually installing or removing symlinks. For information
4463 on the implementation details of the other method,
4464 implemented in the <tt>file-rc</tt> package, please refer
4465 to the documentation of that package.
4469 These scripts are referenced by symbolic links in the
4470 <tt>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</tt> directories. When changing
4471 runlevels, <prgn>init</prgn> looks in the directory
4472 <tt>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</tt> for the scripts it should
4473 execute, where <tt><var>n</var></tt> is the runlevel that
4474 is being changed to, or <tt>S</tt> for the boot-up
4479 The names of the links all have the form
4480 <tt>S<var>mm</var><var>script</var></tt> or
4481 <tt>K<var>mm</var><var>script</var></tt> where
4482 <var>mm</var> is a two-digit number and <var>script</var>
4483 is the name of the script (this should be the same as the
4484 name of the actual script in <tt>/etc/init.d</tt>).
4488 When <prgn>init</prgn> changes runlevel first the targets
4489 of the links whose names start with a <tt>K</tt> are
4490 executed, each with the single argument <tt>stop</tt>,
4491 followed by the scripts prefixed with an <tt>S</tt>, each
4492 with the single argument <tt>start</tt>. (The links are
4493 those in the <tt>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</tt> directory
4494 corresponding to the new runlevel.) The <tt>K</tt> links
4495 are responsible for killing services and the <tt>S</tt>
4496 link for starting services upon entering the runlevel.
4500 For example, if we are changing from runlevel 2 to
4501 runlevel 3, init will first execute all of the <tt>K</tt>
4502 prefixed scripts it finds in <tt>/etc/rc3.d</tt>, and then
4503 all of the <tt>S</tt> prefixed scripts in that directory.
4504 The links starting with <tt>K</tt> will cause the
4505 referred-to file to be executed with an argument of
4506 <tt>stop</tt>, and the <tt>S</tt> links with an argument
4511 The two-digit number <var>mm</var> is used to determine
4512 the order in which to run the scripts: low-numbered links
4513 have their scripts run first. For example, the
4514 <tt>K20</tt> scripts will be executed before the
4515 <tt>K30</tt> scripts. This is used when a certain service
4516 must be started before another. For example, the name
4517 server <prgn>bind</prgn> might need to be started before
4518 the news server <prgn>inn</prgn> so that <prgn>inn</prgn>
4519 can set up its access lists. In this case, the script
4520 that starts <prgn>bind</prgn> would have a lower number
4521 than the script that starts <prgn>inn</prgn> so that it
4523 <example compact="compact">
4530 The two runlevels 0 (halt) and 6 (reboot) are slightly
4531 different. In these runlevels, the links with an
4532 <tt>S</tt> prefix are still called after those with a
4533 <tt>K</tt> prefix, but they too are called with the single
4534 argument <tt>stop</tt>.
4538 Also, if the script name ends <tt>.sh</tt>, the script
4539 will be sourced in runlevel <tt>S</tt> rather that being
4540 run in a forked subprocess, but will be explicitly run by
4541 <prgn>sh</prgn> in all other runlevels.
4546 <heading>Writing the scripts</heading>
4549 Packages that include daemons for system services should
4550 place scripts in <tt>/etc/init.d</tt> to start or stop
4551 services at boot time or during a change of runlevel.
4552 These scripts should be named
4553 <tt>/etc/init.d/<var>package</var></tt>, and they should
4554 accept one argument, saying what to do:
4557 <tag><tt>start</tt></tag>
4558 <item><p>start the service,</p></item>
4560 <tag><tt>stop</tt></tag>
4561 <item><p>stop the service,</p></item>
4563 <tag><tt>restart</tt></tag>
4564 <item><p>stop and restart the service,</p></item>
4566 <tag><tt>reload</tt></tag>
4567 <item><p>cause the configuration of the service to be
4568 reloaded without actually stopping and restarting
4569 the service,</p></item>
4571 <tag><tt>force-reload</tt></tag> <item><p>cause the
4572 configuration to be reloaded if the service supports
4573 this, otherwise restart the service.</p></item>
4576 The <tt>start</tt>, <tt>stop</tt>, <tt>restart</tt>, and
4577 <tt>force-reload</tt> options should be supported by all
4578 scripts in <tt>/etc/init.d</tt>, the <tt>reload</tt>
4579 option is optional.</p>
4582 The <tt>init.d</tt> scripts should ensure that they will
4583 behave sensibly if invoked with <tt>start</tt> when the
4584 service is already running, or with <tt>stop</tt> when it
4585 isn't, and that they don't kill unfortunately-named user
4586 processes. The best way to achieve this is usually to use
4587 <prgn>start-stop-daemon</prgn>.</p>
4590 If a service reloads its configuration automatically (as
4591 in the case of <prgn>cron</prgn>, for example), the
4592 <tt>reload</tt> option of the <tt>init.d</tt> script
4593 should behave as if the configuration has been reloaded
4597 The <tt>/etc/init.d</tt> scripts should be treated as
4598 configuration files, either by marking them as
4599 <tt>conffile</tt>s or managing them correctly in the
4600 maintainer scripts (see <ref id="config files">). This is
4601 important since we want to give the local system
4602 administrator the chance to adapt the scripts to the local
4603 system, e.g., to disable a service without de-installing
4604 the package, or to specify some special command line
4605 options when starting a service, while making sure her
4606 changes aren't lost during the next package upgrade.
4610 These scripts should not fail obscurely when the
4611 configuration files remain but the package has been
4612 removed, as configuration files remain on the system after
4613 the package has been removed. Only when <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
4614 is executed with the <tt>--purge</tt> option will
4615 configuration files be removed. In particular, as the
4616 <tt>/etc/init.d/<var>package</var></tt> script itself is
4617 usually a <tt>conffile</tt>, it will remain on the system
4618 if the package is removed but not purged. Therefore, you
4619 should include a <tt>test</tt> statement at the top of the
4621 <example compact="compact">
4622 test -f <var>program-executed-later-in-script</var> || exit 0
4627 Often there are some variables in the <tt>init.d</tt>
4628 scripts whose values control the bahaviour of the scripts,
4629 and which a system administrator is likely to want to
4630 change. As the scripts themselves are frequently
4631 <tt>conffile</tt>s, modifying them requires that the
4632 administrator merge in their changes each time the package
4633 is upgraded and the <tt>conffile changes</tt>. To ease
4634 the burden on the system administrator, such configurable
4635 values should not be placed directly in the script.
4636 Instead, they should be placed in a file in
4637 <tt>/etc/default</tt>, which typically will have thesame
4638 base name as the <tt>init.d</tt> script. This extra file
4639 should be sourced by the script when the script runs. It
4640 must contain only variable settings and comments in POSIX
4641 <prgn>sh</prgn> format. It should not be a
4642 <tt>conffile</tt>, but a configuration file maintained by
4643 the package maintainer scripts. See <ref id="config files">
4648 To ensure that vital configurable values are always
4649 available, the <tt>init.d</tt> script should set default
4650 values for each of the shell variables it uses, either
4651 before sourcing the <tt>/etc/default/</tt> file or
4652 afterwards using something like the <tt>:
4653 ${VAR:=default}</tt> syntax. Also, the <tt>init.d</tt>
4654 script must behave sensibly and not fail if the
4655 <tt>/etc/default</tt> file is deleted.
4660 <heading>Managing the links</heading>
4663 The program <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> is provided for
4664 package maintainers to arrange for the proper creation and
4665 removal of <tt>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</tt> symbolic links,
4666 or their functional equivalent if another method is being
4667 used. This may be used by maintainers in their packages'
4668 <prgn>postinst</prgn> and <prgn>postrm</prgn> scripts.</p>
4671 You must not include any <tt>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</tt>
4672 symbolic links in the actual archive or manually create or
4673 remove the symbolic links in maintainer scripts; you must
4674 use the <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> program instead. (The
4675 former will fail if an alternative method of maintaining
4676 runlevel information is being used.) You must not include
4677 the <tt>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</tt> directories themselves
4678 in the archive either. (Only the <tt>sysvinit</tt>
4683 By default <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> will start services in
4684 each of the multi-user state runlevels (2, 3, 4, and 5)
4685 and stop them in the halt runlevel (0), the single-user
4686 runlevel (1) and the reboot runlevel (6). The system
4687 administrator will have the opportunity to customize
4688 runlevels by simply adding, moving, or removing the
4689 symbolic links in <tt>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</tt> if
4690 symbolic links are being used, or by modifying
4691 <tt>/etc/runlevel.conf</tt> if the <tt>file-rc</tt> method
4696 To get the default behavior for your package, put in your
4697 <prgn>postinst</prgn> script
4698 <example compact="compact">
4699 update-rc.d <var>package</var> defaults >/dev/null
4701 and in your <prgn>postrm</prgn>
4702 <example compact="compact">
4703 if [ "$1" = purge ]; then
4704 update-rc.d <var>package</var> remove >/dev/null
4709 This will use a default sequence number of 20. If it does
4710 not matter when or in which order the <tt>init.d</tt>
4711 script is run, use this default. If it does, then you
4712 should talk to the maintainer of the <prgn>sysvinit</prgn>
4713 package or post to <tt>debian-devel</tt>, and they will
4714 help you choose a number.
4718 For more information about using <tt>update-rc.d</tt>,
4719 please consult its manpage <manref name="update-rc.d"
4726 <heading>Boot-time initialization</heading>
4729 There used to be another directory, <tt>/etc/rc.boot</tt>,
4730 which contained scripts which were run once per machine
4731 boot. This has been deprecated in favour of links from
4732 <tt>/etc/rcS.d</tt> to files in <tt>/etc/init.d</tt> as
4733 described in <ref id="/etc/init.d">. Packages must not
4734 place files in <tt>/etc/rc.boot</tt>.</p>
4737 <heading>Example</heading>
4740 The <prgn>bind</prgn> DNS (nameserver) package wants to
4741 make sure that the nameserver is running in multiuser
4742 runlevels, and is properly shut down with the system. It
4743 puts a script in <tt>/etc/init.d</tt>, naming the script
4744 appropriately <tt>bind</tt>. As you can see, the script
4745 interprets the argument <tt>reload</tt> to send the
4746 nameserver a <tt>HUP</tt> signal (causing it to reload its
4747 configuration); this way the system administrator can say
4748 <tt>/etc/init.d/bind reload</tt> to reload the name
4749 server. The script has one configurable value, which can
4750 be used to pass parameters to the named program at
4751 startup; this value is read from
4752 <tt>/etc/default/bind</tt> (see below).
4756 <example compact="compact">
4759 # Original version by Robert Leslie
4760 # <rob@mars.org>, edited by iwj and cs
4762 test -x /usr/sbin/named || exit 0
4764 # Source defaults file.
4766 if [ -f /etc/default/bind ]; then
4773 echo -n "Starting domain name service: named"
4774 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec /usr/sbin/named \
4779 echo -n "Stopping domain name service: named"
4780 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet \
4781 --pidfile /var/run/named.pid --exec /usr/sbin/named
4785 echo -n "Restarting domain name service: named"
4786 start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet \
4787 --pidfile /var/run/named.pid --exec /usr/sbin/named
4788 start-stop-daemon --start --verbose --exec /usr/sbin/named \
4792 force-reload|reload)
4793 echo -n "Reloading configuration of domain name service: named"
4794 start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet \
4795 --pidfile /var/run/named.pid --exec /usr/sbin/named
4799 echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/bind {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2
4809 Complementing the above init script is a configuration
4810 file <tt>/etc/default/bind</tt>, which contains
4811 configurable parameters used by the script. This would be
4812 created by the <prgn>postinst</prgn> script if it was not
4813 already present, and removed on purge by the
4814 <prgn>postrm</prgn> script.
4815 <example compact="compact">
4816 # Specified parameters to pass to named. See named(8).
4817 # You may uncomment the following line, and edit to taste.
4823 Another example on which you can base your
4824 <tt>/etc/init.d</tt> scripts is found in
4825 <tt>/etc/init.d/skeleton</tt>.
4829 If this package is happy with the default setup from
4830 <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn>, namely an ordering number of 20
4831 and having named running in all runlevels, it can say in
4832 its <prgn>postinst</prgn>:
4833 <example compact="compact">
4834 update-rc.d bind defaults >/dev/null
4836 And in its <prgn>postrm</prgn>, to remove the links when the
4838 <example compact="compact">
4839 if [ "$1" = purge ]; then
4840 update-rc.d bind remove >/dev/null
4848 <heading>Console messages from <tt>init.d</tt> scripts</heading>
4851 This section describes the formats to be used for messages
4852 written to standard output by the <tt>/etc/init.d</tt>
4853 scripts. The intent is to improve the consistency of
4854 Debian's startup and shutdown look and feel. For this
4855 reason, please look very carefully at the details. We want
4856 the messages to have the same format in terms of wording,
4857 spaces, punctuation and case of letters.
4861 Here is a list of overall rules that you should use when you
4862 create output messages. They can be useful if you have a
4863 non-standard message that is not covered specifically in the
4871 Every message should fit in one line (fewer than 80
4872 characters), start with a capital letter and end with
4873 a period (<tt>.</tt>) and line feed (<tt>"\n"</tt>).
4879 If you want to express that the computer is working on
4880 something (that is, performing a specific task, not
4881 starting or stopping a program), we use an "ellipsis"
4882 (three dots: <tt>...</tt>). Note that we don't insert
4883 spaces before or after the dots. If the task has been
4884 completed we write <tt>done.</tt> and a line feed.
4890 Design your messages as if the computer is telling you
4891 what he is doing (let him be polite :-), but don't
4892 mention "him" directly. For example, if you think of
4894 <example compact="compact">
4895 I'm starting network daemons: nfsd mountd.
4898 <example compact="compact">
4899 Starting network daemons: nfsd mountd.
4907 There are standard message formats for the following
4908 situations. They should be used by the <tt>init.d</tt>
4915 <p>When daemons are started</p>
4918 If your script starts one or more daemons, the output
4919 should look like this (a single line, no leading
4921 <example compact="compact">
4922 Starting <var>description</var>: <var>daemon-1</var> ... <var>daemon-n</var>.
4924 The <var>description</var> should describe the
4925 subsystem the daemon or set of daemons are part of,
4926 while <var>daemon-1</var> up to <var>daemon-n</var>
4927 denote each daemon's name (typically the file name of
4932 For example, the output of <tt>/etc/init.d/lpd</tt>
4934 <example compact="compact">
4935 Starting printer spooler: lpd.
4940 This can be achieved by saying
4941 <example compact="compact">
4942 echo -n "Starting printer spooler: lpd"
4943 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec /usr/sbin/lpd
4946 in the script. If you have more than one daemon to
4947 start, you should do the following:
4948 <example compact="compact">
4949 echo -n "Starting remote file system services:"
4950 echo -n " nfsd"; start-stop-daemon --start --quiet nfsd
4951 echo -n " mountd"; start-stop-daemon --start --quiet mountd
4952 echo -n " ugidd"; start-stop-daemon --start --quiet ugidd
4955 This makes it possible for the user to see what takes
4956 so long and when the final daemon has been started.
4957 You should be careful where to put spaces: in the
4958 example above the system administrator can easily
4959 comment out a line if he don't wants to start a
4960 specific daemon, while the displayed message still
4966 <p>When a system parameter is being set</p>
4969 If you have to set up different system parameters
4970 during the system boot, you should use this format:
4971 <example compact="compact">
4972 Setting <var>parameter</var> to `<var>value</var>'.
4977 You can use a statement such as the following to get
4979 <example compact="compact">
4980 echo "Setting DNS domainname to \`$domainname'."
4985 Note that the left quotation mark (<tt>`</tt>) is
4986 different from the right one (<tt>'</tt>).
4991 <p>When a daemon is stopped or restarted</p>
4994 When you stop or restart a daemon, you should issue a
4995 message identical to the startup message, except that
4996 <tt>Starting</tt> is replaced with <tt>Stopping</tt>
4997 or <tt>Restarting</tt> respectively.
5001 For example, stopping the printer daemon will like
5003 <example compact="compact">
5004 Stopping printer spooler: lpd.
5010 <p>When something is executed</p>
5013 There are several examples where you have to run a
5014 program at system startup or shutdown to perform a
5015 specific task, for example, setting the system's clock
5016 using <prgn>netdate</prgn> or killing all processes
5017 when the system shuts down. Your message should look
5019 <example compact="compact">
5020 Doing something very useful...done.
5022 You should print the <tt>done.</tt> immediately after
5023 the job has been completed, so that the user is
5024 informed why she has to wait. You can get this
5026 <example compact="compact">
5027 echo -n "Doing something very useful..."
5036 <p>When the configuration is reloaded</p>
5039 When a daemon is forced to reload its configuration
5040 files you should use the following format:
5041 <example compact="compact">
5042 Reloading <var>description</var> configuration...done.
5044 where <var>description</var> is the same as in the
5045 daemon starting message.
5053 <heading>Cron jobs</heading>
5056 Packages must not modify the configuration file
5057 <tt>/etc/crontab</tt>, and they must not modify the files in
5058 <tt>/var/spool/cron/crontabs</tt>.</p>
5061 If a package wants to install a job that has to be executed
5062 via cron, it should place a file with the name of the
5063 package in one or more of the following directories:
5064 <example compact="compact">
5069 As these directory names imply, the files within them are
5070 executed on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis,
5071 respectively. The exact times are listed in
5072 <tt>/etc/crontab</tt>.</p>
5075 All files installed in any of these directories must be
5076 scripts (e.g., shell scripts or Perl scripts) so that they
5077 can easily be modified by the local system administrator.
5078 In addition, they should be treated as configuration
5083 If a certain job has to be executed more frequently than
5084 daily, the package should install a file
5085 <tt>/etc/cron.d/<var>package</var></tt>. This file uses the
5086 same syntax as <tt>/etc/crontab</tt> and is processed by
5087 <prgn>cron</prgn> automatically. The file must also be
5088 treated as a configuration file. (Note that entries in the
5089 <tt>/etc/cron.d</tt> directory are not handled by
5090 <prgn>anacron</prgn>. Thus, you should only use this
5091 directory for jobs which may be skipped if the system is not
5095 The scripts or crontab entries in these directories should
5096 check if all necessary programs are installed before they
5097 try to execute them. Otherwise, problems will arise when a
5098 package was removed but not purged since configuration files
5099 are kept on the system in this situation.</p>
5103 <heading>Menus</heading>
5106 Menu entries should follow the current menu policy found in
5107 the <tt>menu-policy</tt> files in the <tt>debian-policy</tt>
5108 package. It may also be found on the Debian FTP site
5109 <ftpsite>ftp.debian.org</ftpsite> as the file
5110 <ftppath>/debian/doc/package-developer/menu-policy.txt.gz</ftppath>,
5111 or in the equivalent location on your local mirror.
5115 The Debian <tt>menu</tt> package provides a standard
5116 interface between packages providing applications and
5117 documents, and <em>menu programs</em> (either X window
5118 managers or text-based menu programs such as
5119 <prgn>pdmenu</prgn>).
5123 All packages that provide applications that need not be
5124 passed any special command line arguments for normal
5125 operation should register a menu entry for those
5126 applications, so that users of the <tt>menu</tt> package
5127 will automatically get menu entries in their window
5128 managers, as well in shells like <tt>pdmenu</tt>.</p>
5131 Please also refer to the <em>Debian Menu System</em>
5132 documentation that comes with the <tt>menu</tt> package for
5133 information about how to register your applications and web
5139 <heading>Multimedia handlers</heading>
5142 Packages which provide the ability to view/show/play,
5143 compose, edit or print MIME types should register themselves
5144 as such following the current MIME support policy found in
5145 the <tt>mime-policy</tt> files in the <tt>debian-policy</tt>
5146 package. It may also be found on the Debian FTP site
5147 <ftpsite>ftp.debian.org</ftpsite> as the file
5148 <ftppath>/debian/doc/package-developer/mime-policy.txt.gz</ftppath>,
5149 or in the equivalent location on your local mirror.
5153 MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, RFCs 2045-2049)
5154 is a mechanism for encoding files and data streams and
5155 providing meta-information about them, in particular their
5156 type (e.g. audio or video) and format (e.g. PNG, HTML,
5161 Registration of MIME type handlers allows programs like mail
5162 user agents and web browsers to to invoke these handlers to
5163 view, edit or display MIME types they don't support
5169 <heading>Keyboard configuration</heading>
5172 To achieve a consistent keyboard configuration so that all
5173 applications interpret a keyboard event the same way, all
5174 programs in the Debian distribution must be configured to
5175 comply with the following guidelines.
5179 The following keys must have the specified interpretations:
5182 <tag><tt><--</tt></tag>
5183 <item><p>delete the character to the left of the cursor</p></item>
5185 <tag><tt>Delete</tt></tag>
5186 <item><p>delete the character to the right of the cursor</p></item>
5188 <tag><tt>Control+H</tt></tag>
5189 <item><p>emacs: the help prefix</p></item>
5192 The interpretation of any keyboard events should be
5193 independent of the terminal that is used, be it a virtual
5194 console, an X terminal emulator, an rlogin/telnet session,
5199 The following list explains how the different programs
5200 should be set up to achieve this:
5205 <item><p><tt><--</tt> generates <tt>KB_Backspace</tt>
5208 <item><p><tt>Delete</tt> generates <tt>KB_Delete</tt> in
5213 X translations are set up to make
5214 <tt>KB_Backspace</tt> generate ASCII DEL, and to make
5215 <tt>KB_Delete</tt> generate <tt>ESC [ 3 ~</tt> (this
5216 is the vt220 escape code for the `delete character'
5217 key). This must be done by loading the X resources
5218 using <prgn>xrdb</prgn> on all local X displays, not
5219 using the application defaults, so that the
5220 translation resources used correspond to the
5221 <prgn>xmodmap</prgn> settings.</p></item>
5225 The Linux console is configured to make
5226 <tt><--</tt> generate DEL, and <tt>Delete</tt>
5227 generate <tt>ESC [ 3 ~</tt>.</p></item>
5231 X applications are configured so that <tt><</tt>
5232 deletes left, and <tt>Delete</tt> deletes right. Motif
5233 applications already work like this.</p></item>
5235 <item><p>Terminals should have <tt>stty erase ^?</tt> .</p></item>
5239 The <tt>xterm</tt> terminfo entry should have <tt>ESC
5240 [ 3 ~</tt> for <tt>kdch1</tt>, just as for
5241 <tt>TERM=linux</tt> and <tt>TERM=vt220</tt>.</p></item>
5245 Emacs is programmed to map <tt>KB_Backspace</tt> or
5246 the <tt>stty erase</tt> character to
5247 <tt>delete-backward-char</tt>, and <tt>KB_Delete</tt>
5248 or <tt>kdch1</tt> to <tt>delete-forward-char</tt>, and
5249 <tt>^H</tt> to <tt>help</tt> as always.</p></item>
5253 Other applications use the <tt>stty erase</tt>
5254 character and <tt>kdch1</tt> for the two delete keys,
5255 with ASCII DEL being `delete previous character' and
5256 <tt>kdch1</tt> being `delete character under
5263 This will solve the problem except for the following
5271 Some terminals have a <tt><--</tt> key that cannot
5272 be made to produce anything except <tt>^H</tt>. On
5273 these terminals Emacs help will be unavailable on
5274 <tt>^H</tt> (assuming that the <tt>stty erase</tt>
5275 character takes precedence in Emacs, and has been set
5276 correctly). <tt>M-x help</tt> or <tt>F1</tt> (if
5277 available) can be used instead.</p></item>
5281 Some operating systems use <tt>^H</tt> for <tt>stty
5282 erase</tt>. However, modern telnet versions and all
5283 rlogin versions propagate <tt>stty</tt> settings, and
5284 almost all UNIX versions honour <tt>stty erase</tt>.
5285 Where the <tt>stty</tt> settings are not propagated
5286 correctly, things can be made to work by using
5287 <tt>stty</tt> manually.</p></item>
5291 Some systems (including previous Debian versions) use
5292 <prgn>xmodmap</prgn> to arrange for both
5293 <tt><--</tt> and <tt>Delete</tt> to generate
5294 <tt>KB_Delete</tt>. We can change the behavior of
5295 their X clients using the same X resources that we use
5296 to do it for our own clients, or configure our clients
5297 using their resources when things are the other way
5298 around. On displays configured like this
5299 <tt>Delete</tt> will not work, but <tt><--</tt>
5304 Some operating systems have different <tt>kdch1</tt>
5305 settings in their <tt>terminfo</tt> database for
5306 <tt>xterm</tt> and others. On these systems the
5307 <tt>Delete</tt> key will not work correctly when you
5308 log in from a system conforming to our policy, but
5309 <tt><--</tt> will.</p></item>
5315 <heading>Environment variables</heading>
5318 A program must not depend on environment variables to get
5319 reasonable defaults. (That's because these environment
5320 variables would have to be set in a system-wide
5321 configuration file like <tt>/etc/profile</tt>, which is not
5322 supported by all shells.)</p>
5325 If a program usually depends on environment variables for its
5326 configuration, the program should be changed to fall back to
5327 a reasonable default configuration if these environment
5328 variables are not present. If this cannot be done easily
5329 (e.g., if the source code of a non-free program is not
5330 available), the program must be replaced by a small
5331 `wrapper' shell script which sets the environment variables
5332 if they are not already defined, and calls the original program.</p>
5335 Here is an example of a wrapper script for this purpose:
5337 <example compact="compact">
5339 BAR=${BAR:-/var/lib/fubar}
5341 exec /usr/lib/foo/foo "$@"
5346 Furthermore, as <tt>/etc/profile</tt> is a configuration
5347 file of the <prgn>base-files</prgn> package, other packages must not
5348 put any environment variables or other commands into that
5354 <heading>Files</heading>
5357 <heading>Binaries</heading>
5360 Two different packages must not install programs with
5361 different functionality but with the same filenames. (The
5362 case of two programs having the same functionality but
5363 different implementations is handled via `alternatives' or
5364 the `Conflicts' mechanism. See <ref id="maintscripts"> and
5365 <ref id="conflicts"> respectively.) If this case happens,
5366 one of the programs must be renamed. The maintainers should
5367 report this to the <tt>debian-devel</tt> mailing list and
5368 try to find a consensus about which program will have to be
5369 renamed. If a consensus cannot be reached, <em>both</em>
5370 programs must be renamed.
5374 Generally the following compilation parameters should be used:
5375 <example compact="compact">
5377 CFLAGS = -O2 -Wall # sane warning options vary between programs
5379 install -s # (or use strip on the files in debian/tmp)
5383 Note that by default all installed binaries should be stripped,
5384 either by using the <tt>-s</tt> flag to
5385 <prgn>install</prgn>, or by calling <prgn>strip</prgn> on
5386 the binaries after they have been copied into
5387 <tt>debian/tmp</tt> but before the tree is made into a
5391 The <tt>-N</tt> flag should not be used. On <tt>a.out</tt>
5392 systems it may have been useful for some very small
5393 binaries, but for ELF it has no good effect.</p>
5396 Debugging symbols are useful for error diagnosis,
5397 investigation of core dumps (which may be submitted by users
5398 in bug reports), or testing and developing the software.
5399 Therefore it is recommended to support building the package
5400 with debugging information through the following interface:
5401 If the environment variable <tt>DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS</tt>
5402 contains the string <tt>debug</tt>, compile the software
5403 with debugging information (usually this involves adding the
5404 <tt>-g</tt> flag to <tt>CFLAGS</tt>). This allows the
5405 generation of a build tree with debugging information. If
5406 the environment variable <tt>DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS</tt> contains
5407 the string <tt>nostrip</tt>, do not strip the files at
5408 installation time. This allows one to generate a package
5409 with debugging information included.
5412 Rationale: Using <tt>-g</tt> by default causes wasted
5413 CPU cycles since the information is stripped away
5414 anyway; this can have a significant impact on the
5415 efficiency of the autobuilders. Having a standard way
5416 to build a debugging variant also makes it easier to
5417 build debugging bins and libraries since it provides a
5418 documented way of getting this type of build; one does
5419 not have to manually edit <tt>debian/rules</tt> or
5423 The following makefile snippet is an example of how one may
5424 test for either condition; you will probably have to massage
5425 this example in order to make it work for your package.
5426 <example compact="compact">
5429 INSTALL_FILE = $(INSTALL) -p -o root -g root -m 644
5430 INSTALL_PROGRAM = $(INSTALL) -p -o root -g root -m 755
5431 INSTALL_SCRIPT = $(INSTALL) -p -o root -g root -m 755
5432 INSTALL_DIR = $(INSTALL) -p -d -o root -g root -m 755
5434 ifneq (,$(findstring debug,$(DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS)))
5437 ifeq (,$(findstring nostrip,$(DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS)))
5438 INSTALL_PROGRAM += -s
5444 It is up to the package maintainer to decide what
5445 compilation options are best for the package. Certain
5446 binaries (such as computationally-intensive programs) will
5447 function better with certain flags (<tt>-O3</tt>, for
5448 example); feel free to use them. Please use good judgment
5449 here. Don't use flags for the sake of it; only use them
5450 if there is good reason to do so. Feel free to override
5451 the upstream author's ideas about which compilation
5452 options are best: they are often inappropriate for our
5453 environment.</p></sect>
5457 <heading>Libraries</heading>
5460 All libraries must have a shared version in the
5461 <tt>lib*</tt> package and a static version in the
5462 <tt>lib*-dev</tt> package. The shared version must be
5463 compiled with <tt>-fPIC</tt>, and the static version must
5464 not be. In other words, each <tt>*.c</tt> file will need to
5465 be compiled twice.</p>
5468 You must specify the gcc option <tt>-D_REENTRANT</tt>
5469 when building a library (either static or shared) to make
5470 the library compatible with LinuxThreads.</p>
5473 Note that all installed shared libraries should be
5475 <example compact="compact">
5476 strip --strip-unneeded <var>your-lib</var>
5478 (The option <tt>--strip-unneeded</tt> makes
5479 <prgn>strip</prgn> remove only the symbols which aren't
5480 needed for relocation processing.) Shared libraries can
5481 function perfectly well when stripped, since the symbols for
5482 dynamic linking are in a separate part of the ELF object
5486 You might also want to use the options
5487 <tt>--remove-section=.comment</tt> and
5488 <tt>--remove-section=.note</tt> on both shared libraries
5489 and executables, and <tt>--strip-debug</tt> on static
5496 Note that under some circumstances it may be useful to
5497 install a shared library unstripped, for example when
5498 building a separate package to support debugging.
5502 An ever increasing number of packages are using
5503 <prgn>libtool</prgn> to do their linking. The latest GNU
5504 libtools (>= 1.3a) can take advantage of the metadata in the
5505 installed <prgn>libtool</prgn> archive files (<tt>*.la</tt>
5506 files). The main advantage of <prgn>libtool</prgn>'s
5507 <tt>.la</tt> files is that it allows <prgn>libtool</prgn> to
5508 store and subsequently access metadata with respect to the
5509 libraries it builds. <prgn>libtool</prgn> will search for
5510 those files, which contain a lot of useful information about
5511 a library (such as library dependency information for static
5512 linking). Also, they're <em>essential</em> for programs
5513 using <tt>libltdl</tt>.
5516 Although <prgn>libtool</prgn> is fully capable of
5517 linking against shared libraries which don't have
5518 <tt>.la</tt> files, as it is a mere shell script it can
5519 add considerably to the build time of a
5520 <prgn>libtool</prgn>-using package if that shell script
5521 has to derive all this information from first principles
5522 for each library every time it is linked. With the
5523 advent of <prgn>libtool</prgn> version 1.4 (and to a
5524 lesser extent <prgn>libtool</prgn> version 1.3), the
5525 <tt>.la</tt> files will also store information about
5526 inter-library dependencies which cannot necessarily be
5527 derived after the <tt>.la</tt> file is deleted.
5533 Packages that use <prgn>libtool</prgn> to create shared
5534 libraries should include the <tt>.la</tt> files in the
5535 <tt>-dev</tt> package, unless the package relies on
5536 <tt>libtool</tt>'s <tt>libltdl</tt> library, in which case
5537 the <tt>.la</tt> files must go in the run-time library
5542 You must make sure that you use only released versions of
5543 shared libraries to build your packages; otherwise other
5544 users will not be able to run your binaries
5545 properly. Producing source packages that depend on
5546 unreleased compilers is also usually a bad
5552 <heading>Shared libraries</heading>
5555 Packages involving shared libraries should be split up
5556 into several binary packages.</p>
5559 For a straightforward library which has a development
5560 environment and a runtime kit including just shared
5561 libraries you need to create two packages:
5562 <tt><var>libraryname</var><var>soversion</var></tt>, where
5563 <tt><var>soversion</var></tt> is the version number in the
5564 soname of the shared library
5567 The soname is the shared object name: it's the thing
5568 that has to match exactly between building an executable
5569 and running it for the dynamic linker to be able run the
5570 program. For example, if the soname of the library is
5571 <tt>libfoo.so.6</tt>, the library package would be
5572 called <tt>libfoo6</tt>.
5575 and <tt><var>libraryname</var><var>soversion</var>-dev</tt>.
5579 If you prefer only to support one development version at a
5580 time you may name the development package
5581 <tt><var>libraryname</var>-dev</tt>; otherwise you may need
5582 to use <prgn>dpkg</prgn>'s Conflicts mechanism (see <ref
5583 id="conflicts">) to ensure that the user only installs one
5584 development version at a time (as different development
5585 versions are likely to have the same header files in them,
5586 which would cause a filename clash if both were installed).
5587 Typically the development version should also have an exact
5588 version dependency on the runtime library, to make sure that
5589 compilation and linking happens correctly. The
5590 <tt>${Source-Version}</tt> substitution variable can be
5591 useful for this purpose.
5595 Packages which use the shared library should have a
5596 dependency on the name of the shared library package,
5597 <tt><var>libraryname</var><var>soversion</var></tt>. When
5598 the soname changes you can have both versions of the library
5599 installed while migrating from the old library to the new.
5603 If your package has some run-time support programs which use
5604 the shared library you must not put them in the shared
5605 library package. If you do that then you won't be able to
5606 install several versions of the shared library without
5607 getting filename clashes. Instead, either create a third
5608 package for the runtime binaries (this package might
5609 typically be named <tt><var>libraryname</var>-runtime</tt>;
5610 note the absence of the <var>soversion</var> in the package
5611 name), or if the development package is small you may
5612 include them in there.
5616 If you have several shared libraries built from the same
5617 source tree you may lump them all together into a single
5618 shared library package, provided that you change all of
5619 their sonames at once (so that you don't get filename
5620 clashes if you try to install different versions of the
5621 combined shared libraries package).
5625 Shared libraries should not be installed executable, since
5626 the dynamic linker does not require this and trying to
5627 execute a shared library usually results in a core dump.
5632 <heading>Scripts</heading>
5635 All command scripts, including the package maintainer
5636 scripts inside the package and used by <prgn>dpkg</prgn>,
5637 should have a <tt>#!</tt> line naming the shell to be used
5638 to interpret them.</p>
5641 In the case of Perl scripts this should be
5642 <tt>#!/usr/bin/perl</tt>.</p>
5645 Shell scripts (<prgn>sh</prgn> and <prgn>bash</prgn>)
5646 should almost certainly start with <tt>set -e</tt> so that
5647 errors are detected. Every script should use
5648 <tt>set -e</tt> or check the exit status of <em>every</em>
5652 The standard shell interpreter <tt>/bin/sh</tt> can be a
5653 symbolic link to any POSIX compatible shell, if <tt>echo
5654 -n</tt> does not generate a newline.
5657 Debian policy specifies POSIX behavior for
5658 <tt>/bin/sh</tt>, but <tt>echo -n</tt> has widespread
5659 use in the Linux community (in particular including this
5660 policy, the Linux kernel source, many Debian scripts,
5661 etc.). This <tt>echo -n</tt> mechanism is valid but not
5662 required under POSIX, hence this explicit addition.
5663 Also, rumour has it that this shall be mandated under
5667 Thus, shell scripts specifying <tt>/bin/sh</tt> as
5668 interpreter should only use POSIX features. If a script
5669 requires non-POSIX features from the shell interpreter, the
5670 appropriate shell must be specified in the first line of the
5671 script (e.g., <tt>#!/bin/bash</tt>) and the package must
5672 depend on the package providing the shell (unless the shell
5673 package is marked `Essential', as in the case of
5678 You may wish to restrict your script to POSIX features when
5679 possible so that it may use <tt>/bin/sh</tt> as its
5680 interpreter. If your script works with <prgn>ash</prgn>,
5681 it's probably POSIX compliant, but if you are in doubt, use
5686 Perl scripts should check for errors when making any
5687 system calls, including <tt>open</tt>, <tt>print</tt>,
5688 <tt>close</tt>, <tt>rename</tt> and <tt>system</tt>.
5692 <prgn>csh</prgn> and <prgn>tcsh</prgn> should be avoided as
5693 scripting languages. See <em>Csh Programming Considered
5694 Harmful</em>, one of the <tt>comp.unix.*</tt> FAQs, which
5695 can be found at <url
5696 id="http://language.perl.com/versus/csh.whynot">.
5699 It can also be found on
5700 <url id="http://www.cpan.org/doc/FMTEYEWTK/versus/csh.whynot">
5701 or on the ftp site <ftpsite>ftp.cpan.org</ftpsite> as
5702 <ftppath>/pub/perl/CPAN/doc/FMTEYEWTK/versus/csh.whynot</ftppath>.
5705 If an upstream package comes with <prgn>csh</prgn> scripts
5706 then you must make sure that they start with
5707 <tt>#!/bin/csh</tt> and make your package depend on the
5708 <prgn>c-shell</prgn> virtual package.
5712 Any scripts which create files in world-writeable
5713 directories (e.g., in <tt>/tmp</tt>) must use a
5714 mechanism which will fail if a file with the same name
5718 The Debian base distribution provides the
5719 <prgn>tempfile</prgn> and <prgn>mktemp</prgn> utilities
5720 for use by scripts for this purpose.</p></sect>
5724 <heading>Symbolic links</heading>
5727 In general, symbolic links within a top-level directory
5728 should be relative, and symbolic links pointing from one
5729 top-level directory into another should be absolute. (A
5730 top-level directory is a sub-directory of the root
5731 directory <tt>/</tt>.)</p>
5734 In addition, symbolic links should be specified as short as
5735 possible, i.e., link targets like <tt>foo/../bar</tt> are
5739 Note that when creating a relative link using
5740 <prgn>ln</prgn> it is not necessary for the target of the
5741 link to exist relative to the working directory you're
5742 running <prgn>ln</prgn> from, nor is it necessary to change
5743 directory to the directory where the link is to be made.
5744 Simply include the string that should appear as the target
5745 of the link (this will be a pathname relative to the
5746 directory in which the link resides) as the first argument
5747 to <prgn>ln</prgn>.</p>
5750 For example, in your <prgn>Makefile</prgn> or
5751 <tt>debian/rules</tt>, you can do things like:
5752 <example compact="compact">
5753 ln -fs gcc $(prefix)/bin/cc
5754 ln -fs gcc debian/tmp/usr/bin/cc
5755 ln -fs ../sbin/sendmail $(prefix)/bin/runq
5756 ln -fs ../sbin/sendmail debian/tmp/usr/bin/runq
5760 A symbolic link pointing to a compressed file should always
5761 have the same file extension as the referenced file. (For
5762 example, if a file <tt>foo.gz</tt> is referenced by a
5763 symbolic link, the filename of the link has to end with
5764 `<tt>.gz</tt>' too, as in <tt>bar.gz</tt>.)
5769 <heading>Device files</heading>
5772 Packages must not include device files in the package file
5776 If a package needs any special device files that are not
5777 included in the base system, it must call
5778 <prgn>MAKEDEV</prgn> in the <prgn>postinst</prgn> script,
5779 after asking the user for permission to do so.</p>
5782 Packages must not remove any device files in the
5783 <prgn>postrm</prgn> or any other script. This is left to the
5784 system administrator.</p>
5787 Debian uses the serial devices
5788 <tt>/dev/ttyS*</tt>. Programs using the old
5789 <tt>/dev/cu*</tt> devices should be changed to use
5790 <tt>/dev/ttyS*</tt>.</p>
5793 <sect id="config files">
5794 <heading>Configuration files</heading>
5796 <heading>Definitions</heading>
5799 <tag>configuration file</tag>
5802 A file that affects the operation of a program, or
5803 provides site- or host-specific information, or
5804 otherwise customizes the behavior of a program.
5805 Typically, configuration files are intended to be
5806 modified by the system administrator (if needed or
5807 desired) to conform to local policy or to provide
5808 more useful site-specific behavior.
5812 <tag><tt>conffile</tt></tag>
5815 A file listed in a package's <tt>conffiles</tt>
5816 file, and is treated specially by <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
5817 (see <ref id="configdetails">).
5824 The distinction between these two is important; they are
5825 not interchangeable concepts. Almost all
5826 <tt>conffile</tt>s are configuration files, but many
5827 configuration files are not <tt>conffiles</tt>.
5831 Note that a script that embeds configuration information
5832 (such as most of the files in <tt>/etc/default</tt> and
5833 <tt>/etc/cron.{daily,weekly,monthly}</tt>) is de-facto a
5834 configuration file and should be treated as such.
5839 <heading>Location</heading>
5841 Any configuration files created or used by your package
5842 must reside in <tt>/etc</tt>. If there are several you
5843 should consider creating a subdirectory of <tt>/etc</tt>
5844 named after your package.</p>
5847 If your package creates or uses configuration files
5848 outside of <tt>/etc</tt>, and it is not feasible to modify
5849 the package to use the <tt>/etc</tt>, you should still put
5850 the files in <tt>/etc</tt> and create symbolic links to
5851 those files from the location that the package
5856 <heading>Behavior</heading>
5858 Configuration file handling must conform to the following
5860 <list compact="compact">
5863 local changes must be preserved during a package
5869 configuration files must be preserved when the
5870 package is removed, and only deleted when the
5878 The easy way to achieve this behavior is to make the
5879 configuration file a <tt>conffile</tt>. This is
5880 appropriate only if it is possible to distribute a default
5881 version that will work for most installations, although
5882 some system administrators may choose to modify it. This
5883 implies that the default version will be part of the
5884 package distribution, and must not be modified by the
5885 maintainer scripts during installation (or at any other
5890 In order to ensure that local changes are preserved
5891 correctly, no package may contain or make hard links to
5895 Rationale: There are two problems with hard links.
5896 The first is that some editors break the link while
5897 editing one of the files, so that the two files may
5898 unwittingly become unlinked and different. The second
5899 is that <prgn>dpkg</prgn> might break the hard link
5900 while upgrading <tt>conffile</tt>s.
5906 The other way to do it is via the maintainer scripts. In
5907 this case, the configuration file must not be listed as a
5908 <tt>conffile</tt> and must not be part of the package
5909 distribution. If the existence of a file is required for
5910 the package to be sensibly configured it is the
5911 responsibility of the package maintainer to provide
5912 maintainer scripts which correctly create, update and
5913 maintain the file and remove it on purge. (See <ref
5914 id="maintainerscripts"> for more information.) These
5915 scripts must be idempotent (i.e., must work correctly if
5916 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> needs to re-run them due to errors
5917 during installation or removal), must cope with all the
5918 variety of ways <prgn>dpkg</prgn> can call maintainer
5919 scripts, must not overwrite or otherwise mangle the user's
5920 configuration without asking, must not ask unnecessary
5921 questions (particularly during upgrades), and otherwise be
5926 The scripts are not required to configure every possible
5927 option for the package, but only those necessary to get
5928 the package running on a given system. Ideally the
5929 sysadmin should not have to do any configuration other
5930 than that done (semi-)automatically by the
5931 <prgn>postinst</prgn> script.
5935 A common practice is to create a script called
5936 <tt><var>package</var>-configure</tt> and have the
5937 package's <prgn>postinst</prgn> call it if and only if the
5938 configuration file does not already exist. In certain
5939 cases it is useful for there to be an example or template
5940 file which the maintainer scripts use. Such files should
5941 be in <tt>/usr/share/<var>package</var></tt> or
5942 <tt>/usr/lib/<var>package</var></tt> (depending on whether
5943 they are architecture-independent or not). There should
5944 be symbolic links to them from
5945 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/examples</tt> if
5946 they are examples, and should be perfectly ordinary
5947 <prgn>dpkg</prgn>-handled files (<em>not</em>
5948 <tt>conffiles</tt>).
5952 These two styles of configuration file handling must
5953 not be mixed, for that way lies madness:
5954 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will ask about overwriting the file
5955 every time the package is upgraded.
5960 <heading>Sharing configuration files</heading>
5962 Packages which specify the same file as a
5963 <tt>conffile</tt> must be tagged as <em>conflicting</em>
5964 with each other. (This is an instance of the general rule
5965 about not sharing files. Note that neither alternatives
5966 nor diversions are likely to be appropriate in this case.)
5970 The maintainer scripts must not alter a <tt>conffile</tt>
5971 of <em>any</em> package, including the one the scripts
5976 If two or more packages use the same configuration file
5977 and it is reasonable for both to be installed at the same
5978 time, one of these packages must be defined as
5979 <em>owner</em> of the configuration file, i.e., it will be
5980 the package which handles that file as a configuration
5981 file. Other packages that use the configuration file must
5982 depend on the owning package if they require the
5983 configuration file to operate. If the other package will
5984 use the configuration file if present, but is capable of
5985 operating without it, no dependency need be declared.</p>
5988 If it is desirable for two or more related packages to
5989 share a configuration file <em>and</em> for all of the
5990 related packages to be able to modify that configuration
5991 file, then the following should be done:
5992 <enumlist compact="compact">
5995 One of the related packages (the "owning" package)
5996 will manage the configuration file with maintainer
5997 scripts as described in the previous section.
6002 The owning package should also provide a program
6003 that the other packages may use to modify the
6009 The related packages must use the provided program
6010 to make any desired modifications to the
6011 configuration file. They should either depend on
6012 the core package to guarantee that the configuration
6013 modifier program is available or accept gracefully
6014 that they cannot modify the configuration file if it
6015 is not. (This is in addition to the fact that the
6016 configuration file may not even be present in the
6024 Sometimes it's appropriate to create a new package which
6025 provides the basic infrastructure for the other packages
6026 and which manages the shared configuration files. (The
6027 <tt>sgml-base</tt> package is a good example.)
6032 <heading>User configuration files ("dotfiles")</heading>
6035 The files in <tt>/etc/skel</tt> will automatically be
6036 copied into new user accounts by <prgn>adduser</prgn>.
6037 No other program should reference the files in
6042 Therefore, if a program needs a dotfile to exist in
6043 advance in <tt>$HOME</tt> to work sensibly, that dotfile
6044 should be installed in <tt>/etc/skel</tt> and treated as a
6049 However, programs that require dotfiles in order to
6050 operate sensibly (dotfiles that they do not create
6051 themselves automatically, that is) are a bad thing.
6052 Furthermore, programs should be configured by the Debian
6053 default installation as behave as closely to the upstream
6054 default behaviour as possible.
6058 Therefore, if a program in a Debian package needs to be
6059 configured in some way in order to operate sensibly, that
6060 should be done using a site-wide configuration file placed
6061 in <tt>/etc</tt>. Only if the program doesn't support a
6062 site-wide default configuration and the package maintainer
6063 doesn't have time to add it may a default per-user file be
6064 placed in <tt>/etc/skel</tt>.
6068 <tt>/etc/skel</tt> should be as empty as we can make it.
6069 This is particularly true because there is no easy (or
6070 necessarily desirable) mechanism for ensuring that the
6071 appropriate dotfiles are copied into the accounts of
6072 existing users when a package is installed.
6078 <heading>Log files</heading>
6080 Log files should usually be named
6081 <tt>/var/log/<var>package</var>.log</tt>. If you have many
6082 log files, or need a separate directory for permission
6083 reasons (<tt>/var/log</tt> is writable only by
6084 <tt>root</tt>), you should usually create a directory named
6085 <tt>/var/log/<var>package</var></tt> and place your log
6090 Log files must be rotated occasionally so that they don't
6091 grow indefinitely; the best way to do this is to drop a log
6092 rotation configuration file into the directory
6093 <tt>/etc/logrotate.d</tt> and use the facilities provided by
6097 The traditional approach to log files has been to set up
6098 <em>ad hoc</em> log rotation schemes using simple shell
6099 scripts and cron. While this approach is highly
6100 customizable, it requires quite a lot of sysadmin work.
6101 Even though the original Debian system helped a little
6102 by automatically installing a system which can be used
6103 as a template, this was deemed not enough.
6107 The use of <prgn>logrotate</prgn>, a program developed
6108 by Red Hat, is better, as it centralizes log management.
6109 It has both a configuration file
6110 (<tt>/etc/logrotate.conf</tt>) and a directory where
6111 packages can drop their individual log rotation
6112 configurations (<tt>/etc/logrotate.d</tt>).
6115 Here is a good example for a logrotate config
6116 file (for more information see <manref name="logrotate"
6118 <example compact="compact">
6124 /etc/init.d/foo force-reload
6128 This rotates all files under <tt>/var/log/foo</tt>, saves 12
6129 compressed generations, and forces the daemon to reload its
6130 configuration information after the log rotation.
6134 Log files should be removed when the package is
6135 purged (but not when it is only removed). This should be
6136 done by the <prgn>postrm</prgn> script when it is called
6137 with the argument <tt>purge</tt> (see <ref
6138 id="removedetails">).
6143 <heading>Permissions and owners</heading>
6146 The rules in this section are guidelines for general use.
6147 If necessary you may deviate from the details below.
6148 However, if you do so you must make sure that what is done
6149 is secure and you should try to be as consistent as possible
6150 with the rest of the system. You should probably also
6151 discuss it on <prgn>debian-devel</prgn> first.
6155 Files should be owned by <tt>root.root</tt>, and made
6156 writable only by the owner and universally readable (and
6157 executable, if appropriate), that is mode 644 or 755.
6161 Directories should be mode 755 or (for group-writability)
6162 mode 2775. The ownership of the directory should be
6163 consistent with its mode: if a directory is mode 2775, it
6164 should be owned by the group that needs write access to
6169 Setuid and setgid executables should be mode 4755 or 2755
6170 respectively, and owned by the appropriate user or group.
6171 They should not be made unreadable (modes like 4711 or
6172 2711 or even 4111); doing so achieves no extra security,
6173 because anyone can find the binary in the freely available
6174 Debian package; it is merely inconvenient. For the same
6175 reason you should not restrict read or execute permissions
6176 on non-set-id executables.
6180 Some setuid programs need to be restricted to particular
6181 sets of users, using file permissions. In this case they
6182 should be owned by the uid to which they are set-id, and by
6183 the group which should be allowed to execute them. They
6184 should have mode 4754; again there is no point in making
6185 them unreadable to those users who must not be allowed to
6190 It is possible to arrange that the system administrator can
6191 reconfigure the package to correspond to their local
6192 security policy by changing the permissions on a binary:
6193 they can do this by using <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn>, as
6197 Ordinary files installed by <prgn>dpkg</prgn> (as
6198 opposed to <tt>conffile</tt>s and other similar objects)
6199 normally have their permissions reset to the distributed
6200 permissions when the package is reinstalled. However,
6201 the use of <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn> overrides this
6202 default behaviour. If you use this method, you should
6203 remember to describe <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn> in
6204 the package documentation; being a relatively new
6205 addition to Debian, it is probably not yet well-known.
6208 Another method you should consider is to create a group for
6209 people allowed to use the program(s) and make any setuid
6210 executables executable only by that group.
6214 If you need to create a new user or group for your package
6215 there are two possibilities. Firstly, you may need to
6216 make some files in the binary package be owned by this
6217 user or group, or you may need to compile the user or
6218 group id (rather than just the name) into the binary
6219 (though this latter should be avoided if possible, as in
6220 this case you need a statically allocated id).</p>
6223 If you need a statically allocated id, you must ask for a
6224 user or group id from the <tt>base-passwd</tt> maintainer,
6225 and must not release the package until you have been
6226 allocated one. Once you have been allocated one you must
6227 either make the package depend on a version of the
6228 <tt>base-passwd</tt> package with the id present in
6229 <tt>/etc/passwd</tt> or <tt>/etc/group</tt>, or arrange for
6230 your package to create the user or group itself with the
6231 correct id (using <tt>adduser</tt>) in its
6232 <prgn>preinst</prgn> or <prgn>postinst</prgn>. (Doing it in
6233 the <prgn>postinst</prgn> is to be preferred if it is
6234 possible, otherwise a pre-dependency will be needed on the
6235 <tt>adduser</tt> package.)
6239 On the other hand, the program might be able to determine
6240 the uid or gid from the user or group name at runtime, so
6241 that a dynamically allocated id can be used. In this case
6242 you should choose an appropriate user or group name,
6243 discussing this on <prgn>debian-devel</prgn> and checking
6244 with the base system maintainer that it is unique and that
6245 they do not wish you to use a statically allocated id
6246 instead. When this has been checked you must arrange for
6247 your package to create the user or group if necessary using
6248 <prgn>adduser</prgn> in the <prgn>preinst</prgn> or
6249 <prgn>postinst</prgn> script (again, the latter is to be
6250 preferred if it is possible).
6254 Note that changing the numeric value of an id associated
6255 with a name is very difficult, and involves searching the
6256 file system for all appropriate files. You need to think
6257 carefully whether a static or dynamic id is required, since
6258 changing your mind later will cause problems.
6261 <sect1><heading>The use of <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn></heading>
6263 This section is not intended as policy, but as a
6264 description of the use of <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn>.
6268 <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn> is a replacement for the
6269 deprecated <tt>suidmanager</tt> package. Packages which
6270 previously used <tt>suidmanager</tt> should have a
6271 <tt>Conflicts: suidmanager (<< 0.50)</tt> entry (or even
6272 <tt>(<< 0.52)</tt>), and calls to <tt>suidregister</tt>
6273 and <tt>suidunregister</tt> should now be simply removed
6274 from the maintainer scripts.
6278 If a system administrator wishes to have a file (or
6279 directory or other such thing) installed with owner and
6280 permissions different from those in the distributed Debian
6281 package, he can use the <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn>
6282 program to instruct <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to use the different
6283 settings every time the file is installed. Thus the
6284 package maintainer should distribute the files with their
6285 normal permissions, and leave it for the system
6286 administrator to make any desired changes. For example, a
6287 daemon which is normally required to be setuid root, but
6288 in certain situations could be used without being setuid,
6289 should be installed setuid in the <tt>.deb</tt>. Then the
6290 local system administrator can change this if they wish.
6291 If there are two standard ways of doing it, the package
6292 maintainer can use <tt>debconf</tt> to find out the
6293 preference, and call <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn> in the
6294 maintainer script if necessary to accommodate the system
6295 administrator's choice.
6299 Given the above, <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn> is
6300 essentially a tool for system administrators and would not
6301 normally be needed in the maintainer scripts. There is
6302 one type of situation, though, where calls to
6303 <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn> would be needed in the
6304 maintainer scripts, and that involves packages which use
6305 dynamically allocated user or group ids. In such a
6306 situation, something like the following idiom can be very
6307 helpful in the package's <prgn>postinst</prgn>, where
6308 <tt>sysuser</tt> is a dynamically allocated id:
6310 for i in /usr/bin/foo /usr/sbin/bar
6312 if ! dpkg-statoverride --list $i >/dev/null
6314 dpkg-statoverride --update --add sysuser root 4755 $i
6318 The corresponding <tt>dpkg-statoverride --remove</tt>
6319 calls can then be made unconditionally when the package is
6326 <chapt id="customized-programs">
6327 <heading>Customized programs</heading>
6329 <sect id="arch-spec">
6330 <heading>Architecture specification strings</heading>
6333 If a program needs to specify an <em>architecture specification
6334 string</em> in some place, the following format should be used:
6335 <example compact="compact">
6336 <var>arch</var>-<var>os</var>
6338 where <tt><var>arch</var></tt> is one of the following:
6339 <tt>i386</tt>, <tt>alpha</tt>, <tt>arm</tt>, <tt>m68k</tt>,
6340 <tt>powerpc</tt>, <tt>sparc</tt> and <tt><var>os</var></tt>
6341 is one of: <tt>linux</tt>, <tt>gnu</tt>. Use of
6342 <tt>gnu</tt> in this string is reserved for the GNU/Hurd
6347 Note, that we don't want to use
6348 <tt><var>arch</var>-debian-linux</tt> to apply to the rule
6349 `architecture-vendor-os' since this would make our programs
6350 incompatible with other Linux distributions. Also note that
6351 we don't use <tt><var>arch</var>-unknown-linux</tt>, since
6352 the <tt>unknown</tt> does not look very good.
6357 <heading>Daemons</heading>
6360 The configuration files <tt>/etc/services</tt>,
6361 <tt>/etc/protocols</tt>, and <tt>/etc/rpc</tt> are managed
6362 by the <prgn>netbase</prgn> package and may not be modified
6363 by other packages.</p>
6366 If a package requires a new entry in one of these files, the
6367 maintainer should get in contact with the
6368 <prgn>netbase</prgn> maintainer, who will add the entries
6369 and release a new version of the <prgn>netbase</prgn>
6373 The configuration file <tt>/etc/inetd.conf</tt> must not be
6374 modified by the package's scripts except via the
6375 <prgn>update-inetd</prgn> script or the
6376 <prgn>DebianNet.pm</prgn> Perl module.</p>
6379 If a package wants to install an example entry into
6380 <tt>/etc/inetd.conf</tt>, the entry must be preceded with
6381 exactly one hash character (<tt>#</tt>). Such lines are
6382 treated as `commented out by user' by the
6383 <prgn>update-inetd</prgn> script and are not changed or
6384 activated during a package updates.</p></sect>
6388 <heading>Using pseudo-ttys and modifying wtmp, utmp and lastlog</heading>
6391 Some programs need to create pseudo-ttys. This should be done
6392 using Unix98 ptys if the C library supports it. The resulting
6393 program must not be installed setuid root, unless that
6394 is required for other functionality.
6398 The files <tt>/var/run/utmp</tt>, <tt>/var/log/wtmp</tt> and
6399 <tt>/var/log/lastlog</tt> must be installed writeable by
6400 group utmp. Programs who need to modify those files must
6401 be installed setgid utmp.
6406 <heading>Editors and pagers</heading>
6409 Some programs have the ability to launch an editor or pager
6410 program to edit or display a text document. Since there are
6411 lots of different editors and pagers available in the Debian
6412 distribution, the system administrator and each user should
6413 have the possibility to choose his/her preferred editor and
6417 In addition, every program should choose a good default
6418 editor/pager if none is selected by the user or system
6422 Thus, every program that launches an editor or pager must
6423 use the EDITOR or PAGER environment variables to determine
6424 the editor/pager the user wants to get started. If these
6425 variables are not set, the programs <tt>/usr/bin/editor</tt>
6426 and <tt>/usr/bin/pager</tt> should be used, respectively.</p>
6429 These two files are managed through `alternatives.' That is,
6430 every package providing an editor or pager must call the
6431 <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn> script to register these
6435 If it is very hard to adapt a program to make us of the
6436 EDITOR and PAGER variables, that program may be configured
6437 to use <tt>/usr/bin/sensible-editor</tt> and
6438 <tt>/usr/bin/sensible-pager</tt> as editor or pager program,
6439 respectively. These are two scripts provided in the Debian
6440 base system that check the EDITOR and PAGER variables and
6441 launch the appropriate program or fall back to
6442 <tt>/usr/bin/editor</tt> and <tt>/usr/bin/pager</tt>,
6446 A program may also use the VISUAL environment variable to
6447 determine the user's choice of editor. If it exists, it
6448 should take precedence over EDITOR. This is in fact what
6449 <tt>/usr/bin/sensible-editor</tt> does.</p>
6452 It is not required for a package to depend on
6453 `editor' and `pager', nor is it required for a package to
6454 provide such virtual packages.
6457 The Debian base system already provides an editor and
6466 <sect id="web-appl">
6467 <heading>Web servers and applications</heading>
6470 This section describes the locations and URLs that should
6471 be used by all web servers and web application in the Debian
6477 <p>Cgi-bin executable files are installed in the
6479 <example compact="compact">
6480 /usr/lib/cgi-bin/<var>cgi-bin-name</var>
6482 and should be referred to as
6483 <example compact="compact">
6484 http://localhost/cgi-bin/<var>cgi-bin-name</var>
6489 <item><p>Access to html documents</p>
6492 Html documents for a package are stored in
6493 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></tt> but should
6494 be accessed via symlinks as
6495 <tt>/usr/doc/<var>package</var></tt><footnote> for
6496 backward compatibility, see <ref id="usrdoc"></footnote>
6497 and can be referred to as
6498 <example compact="compact">
6499 http://localhost/doc/<var>package</var>/<var>filename</var>
6504 <item><p>Web Document Root</p>
6507 Web Applications should try to avoid storing files in
6508 the Web Document Root. Instead they should use the
6509 /usr/share/doc/<var>package</var> directory for
6510 documents and register the Web Application via the
6511 menu package. If access to the web-root is unavoidable
6513 <example compact="compact">
6516 as the Document Root. This might be just a
6517 symbolic link to the location where the sysadmin has
6518 put the real document root.</p>
6521 </enumlist></p></sect>
6524 <sect id="mail-transport-agents">
6525 <heading>Mail transport, delivery and user agents</heading>
6528 Debian packages which process electronic mail, whether
6529 mail-user-agents (MUAs) or mail-transport-agents (MTAs),
6530 must make sure that they are compatible with the
6531 configuration decisions below. Failure to do this may
6532 result in lost mail, broken <tt>From:</tt> lines, and other
6533 serious brain damage!</p>
6536 The mail spool is <tt>/var/mail</tt> and the interface
6537 to send a mail message is <tt>/usr/sbin/sendmail</tt> (as
6538 per the FHS). On older systems, the mail spool may be
6539 physically located in /var/spool/mail, but all access to the
6540 mail spool should be via the /var/mail symlink. The mail
6541 spool is part of the base system and not part of the MTA
6546 All Debian MUAs, MTAs, MDAs and other mailbox accessing
6547 programs (like IMAP daemons) must lock the mailbox in an
6548 NFS-safe way. This means that <tt>fcntl()</tt> locking must
6549 be combined with dot locking. To avoid deadlocks, a
6550 program should use <tt>fcntl()</tt> first and dot locking
6551 after this or alternatively implement the two locking
6552 methods in a non blocking way<footnote>
6554 If it is not possible to establish both locks, the
6555 system shouldn't wait for the second lock to be
6556 established, but remove the first lock, wait a (random)
6557 time, and start over locking again.</p>
6558 </footnote>. Using the functions <tt>maillock</tt> and
6559 <tt>mailunlock</tt> provided by the
6560 <tt>liblockfile*</tt><footnote>
6562 <tt>liblockfile</tt> version >>1.01</p>
6563 </footnote> packages is the recommended way to realize this.
6567 Mailboxes are generally 660 <tt><var>user</var>.mail</tt>
6568 unless the user has chosen otherwise. A MUA may remove a
6569 mailbox (unless it has nonstandard permissions) in which
6570 case the MTA or another MUA must recreate it if needed.
6571 Mailboxes must be writable by group mail.</p>
6574 The mail spool is 2775 <tt>root.mail</tt>, and MUAs should
6575 be setgid mail to do the locking mentioned above (and
6576 must obviously avoid accessing other users' mailboxes
6577 using this privilege).</p>
6580 <tt>/etc/aliases</tt> is the source file for the system mail
6581 aliases (e.g., postmaster, usenet, etc.), it is the one
6582 which the sysadmin and <prgn>postinst</prgn> scripts may edit.
6583 After <tt>/etc/aliases</tt> is edited the program or human
6584 editing it must call <prgn>newaliases</prgn>. All MTA
6585 packages must come with a <prgn>newaliases</prgn> program,
6586 even if it does nothing, but older MTA packages do not do
6587 this so programs should not fail if <prgn>newaliases</prgn>
6588 cannot be found.</p>
6591 The convention of writing <tt>forward to
6592 <var>address</var></tt> in the mailbox itself is not
6593 supported. Use a <tt>.forward</tt> file instead.</p>
6596 The <prgn>rmail</prgn> program used by UUCP
6597 for incoming mail should be <tt>/usr/sbin/rmail</tt>.
6598 Likewise, <prgn>rsmtp</prgn>, for receiving
6599 batch-SMTP-over-UUCP, should be <tt>/usr/sbin/rsmtp</tt> if it
6603 If you need to know what name to use (for example) on
6604 outgoing news and mail messages which are generated locally,
6605 you should use the file <tt>/etc/mailname</tt>. It will
6606 contain the portion after the username and <tt>@</tt> (at)
6607 sign for email addresses of users on the machine (followed
6611 A package should check for the existence of this file. If
6612 it exists it should use it without comment. (An MTA's
6613 prompting configuration script may wish to prompt the user
6614 even if it finds this file exists.) If it does not exist it
6615 should prompt the user for the value and store it in
6616 <tt>/etc/mailname</tt> as well as using it in the package's
6617 configuration. The prompt should make it clear that the
6618 name will not just be used by that package. For example, in
6619 this situation the INN package says:
6620 <example compact="compact">
6621 Please enter the `mail name' of your system. This is the
6622 hostname portion of the address to be shown on outgoing
6623 news and mail messages. The default is
6624 <var>syshostname</var>, your system's host name. Mail
6625 name [`<var>syshostname</var>']:
6627 where <var>syshostname</var> is the output of <tt>hostname
6633 <heading>News system configuration</heading>
6636 All the configuration files related to the NNTP (news)
6637 servers and clients should be located under
6638 <tt>/etc/news</tt>.</p>
6641 There are some configuration issues that apply to a number
6642 of news clients and server packages on the machine. These
6646 <tag>/etc/news/organization</tag>
6647 <item><p>A string which should appear as the
6648 organization header for all messages posted
6649 by NNTP clients on the machine</p></item>
6651 <tag>/etc/news/server</tag>
6652 <item><p>Contains the FQDN of the upstream NNTP
6653 server, or localhost if the local machine is
6654 an NNTP server.</p></item>
6657 Other global files may be added as required for cross-package news
6658 configuration.</p></sect>
6662 <heading>Programs for the X Window System</heading>
6665 <em>Programs that may be configured with support for the X Window
6666 System</em> must be configured to do so and must declare any
6667 package dependencies necessary to satisfy their runtime
6668 requirements when using the X Window System, unless the package
6669 in question is of standard or higher priority, in which case
6670 X-specific binaries may be split into a separate package, or
6671 alternative versions of the package with X support may be
6677 <em>Packages which provide an X server</em> that, directly or
6678 indirectly, communicates with real input and display hardware
6679 should declare in their control data that they provide the
6680 virtual package <tt>xserver</tt>.
6683 This implements current practice, and provides an actual
6684 policy for usage of the "xserver" virtual package which
6685 appears in the virtual packages list. In a nutshell, X
6686 servers that interface directly with the display and input
6687 hardware or via another subsystem (e.g., GGI) should provide
6688 xserver. Things like Xvfb, Xnest, and Xprt should not.
6694 <em>Packages that provide a terminal emulator</em> for the X
6695 Window System which support a terminal type with a terminfo
6696 description provided in the <tt>ncurses-base</tt> package
6697 should declare in their control data that they provide the
6698 virtual package <tt>x-terminal-emulator</tt>. They should
6699 also register themselves as an alternative for
6700 <tt>/usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator</tt>, with a priority of
6705 <em>Packages that provide window managers</em> should declare in
6706 their control data that they provide the virtual package
6707 <tt>x-window-manager</tt>. They should also register themselves as an
6708 alternative for <tt>/usr/bin/x-window-manager</tt>, with a priority
6709 calculated as follows:
6710 <list compact="compact">
6711 <item>Start with a priority of 20.</item>
6712 <item>If the window manager supports the Debian menu system,
6713 add 20 points if this support is available in the
6714 package's default configuration (i.e., no
6715 configuration files belonging to the system or user
6716 have to be edited to activate the feature); if
6717 configuration files must be modified, add only 10
6719 <item>If the window manager permits the X session to be
6720 restarted using a <em>different</em> window manager
6721 (without killing the X server) in its default
6722 configuration, add 10 points; otherwise add
6728 <em>Packages that provide fonts for the X Window System</em>
6729 must do a number of things to ensure that they are both
6730 available without modification of the X or font server
6731 configuration, and that they do not corrupt files used by
6732 other font packages to register information about themselves.
6735 Fonts of any type supported by the X Window System
6736 should be be in a separate binary package from any
6737 executables, libraries, or documentation (except that
6738 specific to the fonts shipped); if a program or
6739 library is <em>unusable</em> without one or more
6740 specific fonts, the package containing the program or
6741 library should declare a dependency on the package(s)
6742 containing the font(s) it requires.
6745 BDF fonts should be converted to PCF fonts with the
6746 <tt>bdftopcf</tt> utility (available in the
6747 <tt>xutils</tt> package), <tt>gzip</tt>ped, and
6748 placed in a directory that corresponds to their
6750 <list compact="compact">
6752 100 dpi fonts should be placed in
6753 <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/</tt>.
6756 75 dpi fonts should be placed in
6757 <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/</tt>.
6760 Character-cell fonts, cursor fonts, and other
6761 low-resolution fonts should be placed in
6762 <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/</tt>.
6767 Speedo fonts should be placed in
6768 <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/</tt>.
6771 Type 1 fonts should be placed in
6772 <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/</tt>. If font
6773 metric files are available, they may be placed here as
6777 Subdirectories of <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/</tt>
6778 other than those listed above should be neither created nor
6779 used. (The <tt>PEX</tt> and <tt>cyrillic</tt> directories are
6780 excepted for historical reasons, but installation of files into
6781 these directories remains discouraged.)
6784 Font packages may, instead of placing files directly in
6785 the X font directories listed above, provide symbolic links in
6786 the font directory which point to the files' actual location
6787 in the filesystem. Such a location should comply with the
6791 Font packages should not contain both 75dpi and 100dpi
6792 versions of a font. If both are available, they should be
6793 provided in separate binary packages with "-75dpi" or "-100dpi"
6794 appended to the names of the packages containing the
6795 corresponding fonts.
6798 Fonts destined for the <tt>misc</tt> subdirectory should
6799 not be included in the same package as 75dpi or 100dpi fonts;
6800 instead, they should be provided in a separate package with
6801 "-misc" appended to its name.
6804 Font packages <em>must not</em> provide the files
6805 <tt>fonts.dir</tt>, <tt>fonts.alias</tt>, or
6806 <tt>fonts.scale</tt> in a font directory.
6807 <list compact="compact">
6809 <tt>fonts.dir</tt> files must not be provided at
6813 <tt>fonts.alias</tt> and <tt>fonts.scale</tt>
6814 files, if needed, should be provided in the
6816 <tt>/etc/X11/fonts/<em>fontdir</em>/<em>package</em>.<em>extension</em></tt>,
6817 where <em>fontdir</em> is the name of the
6819 <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/</tt> where the
6820 package's corresponding fonts are stored (e.g.,
6821 <tt>75dpi</tt> or <tt>misc</tt>),
6822 <em>package</em> is the name of the package that
6823 provides these fonts, and <em>extension</em> is
6824 either <tt>scale</tt> or <tt>alias</tt>,
6825 whichever corresponds to the file
6831 Font packages must declare a dependency on
6832 <tt>xutils</tt> and, in the package
6833 post-installation and post-removal scripts, invoke the
6834 <tt>mkfontdir</tt> command on each directory into
6835 which they installed fonts.
6838 Font packages that provide one or more
6839 <tt>fonts.scale</tt> files as described above must declare a
6840 versioned dependency on <tt>xutils (>=
6841 4.0.2)</tt> and invoke <tt>update-fonts-scale</tt> on each
6842 directory into which they installed fonts
6843 <em>before</em> invoking <tt>mkfontdir</tt> on that
6844 directory. This invocation must occur in both the
6845 post-installation and post-removal scripts.
6848 Font packages that provide one or more
6849 <tt>fonts.alias</tt> files as described above must
6850 declare a versioned dependency on <tt>xutils
6851 (>= 4.0.2)</tt> and, in the package
6852 post-installation and post-removal scripts, invoke
6853 <tt>update-fonts-alias</tt> on each directory into
6854 which they installed fonts.
6857 Font packages must not provide alias names for the
6858 fonts they include which collide with alias names already in
6859 use by fonts already packaged.
6862 Font packages must not provide fonts with the same XLFD
6863 registry name as another font already packaged.
6869 <em>Application defaults</em> files must be installed in the
6870 directory <tt>/etc/X11/app-defaults/</tt> (use of a
6871 localized subdirectory of <tt>/etc/X11/</tt> as described in
6872 the <em>X Toolkit Intrinsics - C Language Interface</em>
6873 manual is also permitted). They must be registered as
6874 <em>conffile</em>s or handled as configuration files. For
6875 programs that are not linked against the X Toolkit (Xt)
6876 library, customization of programs' X resources may also be
6877 supported with the provision of a file with the same name as
6878 that of the package placed in the
6879 <tt>/etc/X11/Xresources/</tt> directory, which must
6880 registered as a <em>conffile</em> or handled as a
6881 configuration file. <em>Important:</em> packages that
6882 install files into the <tt>/etc/X11/Xresources/</tt>
6883 directory <em>must</em> declare a conflict with <tt>xbase
6884 (<< 3.3.2.3a-2)</tt>; if this is not done it is
6885 possible for the installing package to destroy a
6886 previously-existing <tt>/etc/X11/Xresources</tt> file which
6887 had been customized by the system administrator.
6891 <em>Packages using the X Window System should abide by the
6892 FHS standard whenever possible</em>; they should install
6893 binaries, libraries, manual pages, and other files in
6894 FHS-mandated locations wherever possible. This means that
6895 files must not be installed into <tt>/usr/X11R6/bin/</tt>,
6896 <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/</tt>, or <tt>/usr/X11R6/man/</tt>
6897 unless this is necessary for the package to operate
6898 properly. Configuration files for window managers and
6899 display managers should be placed in a subdirectory of
6900 <tt>/etc/X11/</tt> corresponding to the package name due
6901 to these programs' tight integration with the mechanisms
6902 of the X Window System. Application-level programs should
6903 use the <tt>/etc/</tt> directory unless otherwise mandated
6904 by policy. The installation of files into subdirectories
6905 of <tt>/usr/X11R6/include/X11/</tt> and
6906 <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/</tt> is permitted but discouraged;
6907 package maintainers should determine if subdirectories of
6908 <tt>/usr/lib/</tt> and <tt>/usr/share/</tt> can be used
6909 instead (symlinks from the X11R6 directories to
6910 FHS-compliant locations is encouraged if the program is
6911 not easily configured to look elsewhere for its files).
6912 Packages must not provide or install files into the
6913 directories <tt>/usr/bin/X11/</tt>,
6914 <tt>/usr/include/X11/</tt>, or <tt>/usr/lib/X11/</tt>.
6915 Files within a package should, however, make reference to
6916 these directories, rather than their X11R6-named
6917 counterparts <tt>/usr/X11R6/bin/</tt>,
6918 <tt>/usr/X11R6/include/X11/</tt>, and
6919 <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/</tt>, if the resources being
6920 referred to have not been moved to FHS-compliant
6925 <em>Programs that require the non-DFSG-compliant OSF/Motif
6926 library</em> should be compiled against and tested with
6927 LessTif (a free re-implementation of Motif) instead. If the
6928 maintainer judges that the program or programs do not work
6929 sufficiently well with LessTif to be distributed and
6930 supported, but do so when compiled against Motif, then two
6931 versions of the package should be created; one linked
6932 statically against Motif and with <tt>-smotif</tt> appended
6933 to the package name, and one linked dynamically against
6934 Motif and with <tt>-dmotif</tt> appended to the package
6935 name. Both Motif-linked versions are dependent upon
6936 non-DFSG-compliant software and thus cannot be uploaded to
6937 the main distribution; if the software is itself
6938 DFSG-compliant it may be uploaded to the contrib
6939 distribution. While known existing versions of OSF/Motif
6940 permit unlimited redistribution of binaries linked against
6941 the library (whether statically or dynamically), it is the
6942 package maintainer's responsibility to determine whether
6943 this is permitted by the license of the copy of OSF/Motif in
6944 his or her possession.
6949 <heading>Perl programs and modules</heading>
6951 Perl programs and modules should follow the current Perl
6952 policy as defined in the file found on
6953 <ftpsite>ftp.debian.org</ftpsite> in
6954 <ftppath>/debian/doc/package-developer/perl-policy.txt.gz</ftppath>
6955 or your local mirror. In addition, it is included in the
6956 <tt>debian-policy</tt> package.
6961 <heading>Emacs lisp programs</heading>
6964 Please refer to the `Debian Emacs Policy' (documented in
6965 <tt>debian-emacs-policy.gz</tt> of the
6966 <prgn>emacsen-common</prgn> package) for details of how to
6967 package emacs lisp programs.</p></sect>
6971 <heading>Games</heading>
6974 The permissions on /var/games are 755
6975 <tt>root.root</tt>.</p>
6978 Each game decides on its own security policy.</p>
6981 Games which require protected, privileged access to
6982 high-score files, savegames, etc., may be made
6983 set-<em>group</em>-id (mode 2755) and owned by
6984 <tt>root.games</tt>, and use files and directories with
6985 appropriate permissions (770 <tt>root.games</tt>, for
6986 example). They must not be made
6987 set-<em>user</em>-id, as this causes security problems. (If
6988 an attacker can subvert any set-user-id game they can
6989 overwrite the executable of any other, causing other players
6990 of these games to run a Trojan horse program. With a
6991 set-group-id game the attacker only gets access to less
6992 important game data, and if they can get at the other
6993 players' accounts at all it will take considerably more
6997 Some packages, for example some fortune cookie programs, are
6998 configured by the upstream authors to install with their
6999 data files or other static information made unreadable so
7000 that they can only be accessed through set-id programs
7001 provided. You should not do this in a Debian package: anyone can
7002 download the <tt>.deb</tt> file and read the data from it,
7003 so there is no point making the files unreadable. Not
7004 making the files unreadable also means that you don't have
7005 to make so many programs set-id, which reduces the risk of a
7009 As described in the FHS, binaries of games should be
7010 installed in the directory <tt>/usr/games</tt>. This also
7011 applies to games that use the X Window System. Manual pages
7012 for games (X and non-X games) should be installed in
7013 <tt>/usr/share/man/man6</tt>.</p>
7017 <chapt id="docs"><heading>Documentation</heading>
7021 <heading>Manual pages</heading>
7024 You should install manual pages in <prgn>nroff</prgn> source
7025 form, in appropriate places under <tt>/usr/share/man</tt>. You
7026 should only use sections 1 to 9 (see the FHS for more
7027 details). You must not install a preformatted `cat
7031 Each program, utility, and function should have an
7032 associated manpage included in the same package. It is
7033 suggested that all configuration files also have a manual
7034 page included as well.
7038 If no manual page is available for a particular program,
7039 utility, function or configuration file and this is reported as a bug on
7040 debian-bugs, a symbolic link from the requested manual page
7041 to the <manref name="undocumented" section="7"> manual page
7042 may be provided. This symbolic link can be created from
7043 <tt>debian/rules</tt> like this:
7044 <example compact="compact">
7045 ln -s ../man7/undocumented.7.gz \
7046 debian/tmp/usr/share/man/man[1-9]/the_requested_manpage.[1-9].gz
7048 This manpage claims that the lack of a manpage has been
7049 reported as a bug, so you may only do this if it really has
7050 (you can report it yourself, if you like). Do not close the
7051 bug report until a proper manpage is available.</p>
7054 You may forward a complaint about a missing manpage to the
7055 upstream authors, and mark the bug as forwarded in the
7056 Debian bug tracking system. Even though the GNU Project do
7057 not in general consider the lack of a manpage to be a bug,
7058 we do; if they tell you that they don't consider it a bug
7059 you should leave the bug in our bug tracking system open
7063 Manual pages should be installed compressed using <tt>gzip
7067 If one manpage needs to be accessible via several names it
7068 is better to use a symbolic link than the <tt>.so</tt>
7069 feature, but there is no need to fiddle with the relevant
7070 parts of the upstream source to change from <tt>.so</tt> to
7071 symlinks: don't do it unless it's easy. You should not create hard
7072 links in the manual page directories, nor put
7073 absolute filenames in <tt>.so</tt> directives. The filename
7074 in a <tt>.so</tt> in a manpage should be relative to the
7075 base of the manpage tree (usually
7076 <tt>/usr/share/man</tt>).</p></sect>
7080 <heading>Info documents</heading>
7083 Info documents should be installed in <tt>/usr/share/info</tt>.
7084 They should be compressed with <tt>gzip -9</tt>.</p>
7087 Your package should call <prgn>install-info</prgn> to update the Info
7089 file, in its post-installation script:
7090 <example compact="compact">
7091 install-info --quiet --section Development Development \
7092 /usr/share/info/foobar.info
7096 It is a good idea to specify a section for the location of
7097 your program; this is done with the <tt>--section</tt>
7098 switch. To determine which section to use, you should look
7099 at <tt>/usr/share/info/dir</tt> on your system and choose the most
7100 relevant (or create a new section if none of the current
7101 sections are relevant). Note that the <tt>--section</tt>
7102 flag takes two arguments; the first is a regular expression
7103 to match (case-insensitively) against an existing section,
7104 the second is used when creating a new one.</p>
7107 You should remove the entries in the pre-removal script:
7108 <example compact="compact">
7109 install-info --quiet --remove /usr/share/info/foobar.info
7113 If <prgn>install-info</prgn> cannot find a description entry
7114 in the Info file you must supply one. See <manref
7115 name="install-info" section="8"> for details.</p>
7119 <heading>Additional documentation</heading>
7122 Any additional documentation that comes with the package may
7123 be installed at the discretion of the package maintainer.
7124 Text documentation should be installed in a directory
7125 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></tt>, where
7126 <var>package</var> is the name of the package, and
7127 compressed with <tt>gzip -9</tt> unless it is small.</p>
7130 If a package comes with large amounts of documentation which
7131 many users of the package will not require you should create
7132 a separate binary package to contain it, so that it does not
7133 take up disk space on the machines of users who do not need
7134 or want it installed.</p>
7137 It is often a good idea to put text information files
7138 (<tt>README</tt>s, changelogs, and so forth) that come with
7139 the source package in <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></tt>
7140 in the binary package. However, you don't need to install
7141 the instructions for building and installing the package, of
7145 Files in <tt>/usr/share/doc</tt> should not be referenced by
7146 any program, and the system administrator should be able to
7147 delete them without causing any programs to break. Any files
7148 that are referenced by programs but are also useful as
7149 standalone documentation should be installed under
7150 <tt>/usr/share/<var>package</var>/</tt> and symlinked in
7151 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/</tt>.
7157 <heading>Accessing the documentation</heading>
7160 Former Debian releases placed all additional documentation
7161 in <tt>/usr/doc/<var>package</var></tt>. To realize a
7163 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></tt>, each package
7164 must maintain a symlink <tt>/usr/doc/<var>package</var></tt>
7165 that points to the new location of its documentation in
7166 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></tt><footnote>These
7167 symlinks will be removed in the future, but they have to be
7168 there for compatibility reasons until all packages have
7169 moved and the policy is changed accordingly.</footnote>.
7170 The symlink must be created when the package is installed;
7171 it cannot be contained in the package itself due to problems
7172 with <prgn>dpkg</prgn>. One reasonable way to accomplish
7173 this is to put the following in the package's
7174 <prgn>postinst</prgn>:
7175 <example compact="compact">
7176 if [ "$1" = "configure" ]; then
7177 if [ -d /usr/doc -a ! -e /usr/doc/#PACKAGE# \
7178 -a -d /usr/share/doc/#PACKAGE# ]; then
7179 ln -sf ../share/doc/#PACKAGE# /usr/doc/#PACKAGE#
7183 And the following in the package's <prgn>prerm</prgn>:
7184 <example compact="compact">
7185 if [ \( "$1" = "upgrade" -o "$1" = "remove" \) \
7186 -a -L /usr/doc/#PACKAGE# ]; then
7187 rm -f /usr/doc/#PACKAGE#
7194 <heading>Preferred documentation formats</heading>
7197 The unification of Debian documentation is being carried out
7201 If your package comes with extensive documentation in a
7202 mark up format that can be converted to various other formats
7203 you should if possible ship HTML versions in a binary
7204 package, in the directory
7205 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>appropriate package</var></tt> or its
7208 <p>The rationale: The important thing here is that HTML
7209 docs should be available in <em>some</em> package, not
7210 necessarily in the main binary package, though. </p>
7215 Other formats such as PostScript may be provided at your
7219 <sect id="copyrightfile">
7220 <heading>Copyright information</heading>
7223 Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its
7224 copyright and distribution license in the file
7225 /usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright. This file must
7226 neither be compressed nor be a symbolic link.</p>
7229 In addition, the copyright file must say where the upstream
7230 sources (if any) were obtained, and should explain briefly what
7231 modifications were made in the Debian version of the package
7232 compared to the upstream one. It should name the original
7233 authors of the package and the Debian maintainer(s) who were
7234 involved with its creation.</p>
7237 A copy of the file which will be installed in
7238 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</tt> should be
7239 in <tt>debian/copyright</tt>.</p>
7243 /usr/share/doc/<var>package</var> may be a symbolic link to a
7244 directory in /usr/share/doc only if two packages both come from
7245 the same source and the first package has a "Depends"
7246 relationship on the second. These rules are important
7247 because copyrights must be extractable by mechanical
7251 Packages distributed under the UCB BSD license, the Artistic
7252 license, the GNU GPL, and the GNU LGPL should refer to the
7253 files /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD,
7254 /usr/share/common-licenses/Artistic,
7255 /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL, and
7256 /usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL.
7259 Why "licenses" and not "copyright"? Because
7260 <tt>/usr/doc/copyright</tt> used to contain all the
7261 copyright files, plus the four common licenses GPL,
7262 LGPL, Artistic and BSD. Now individual copyright files
7263 for packages are no longer in a common directory. Once
7264 <tt>/usr/doc/copyright</tt> is almost empty it makes
7265 sense to rename "copyright" to "licenses"
7268 Why "common-licenses" and not "licenses"? Because if I
7269 put just "licenses" I'm sure I will receive a bug report
7270 saying "license foo is not included in the licenses
7271 directory. They are not all the licenses, just a few
7272 common ones. I could use /usr/share/doc/common-licenses
7273 but I think this is too long, and, after all, the GPL
7274 does not "document" anything, it is merely a license.
7280 You should not use the copyright file as a general <tt>README</tt>
7281 file. If your package has such a file it should be
7282 installed in <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/README</tt> or
7283 <tt>README.Debian</tt> or some other appropriate place.</p>
7287 <heading>Examples</heading>
7290 Any examples (configurations, source files, whatever),
7291 should be installed in a directory
7292 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/examples</tt>. These
7293 files should not be referenced by any program: they're there
7294 for the benefit of the system administrator and users, as
7295 documentation only. Architecture-specific example files
7296 should be installed in a directory
7297 <tt>/usr/lib/<var>package</var>/examples</tt>, and files in
7298 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/examples</tt> symlink
7299 to files in it. Or the latter directory may be a symlink to
7303 <sect id="instchangelog">
7304 <heading>Changelog files</heading>
7307 Packages that are not Debian-native must contain a copy of
7308 <tt>debian/changelog</tt> file from the Debian source tree
7309 in <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></tt> as
7310 <tt>changelog.Debian.gz</tt>. If an upstream changelog is
7311 available, it should be accessible as
7312 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/changelog.gz</tt> in
7313 plain text. If the upstream changelog is distributed in
7314 HTML, it should be made available in that form as
7315 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/changelog.html.gz</tt>
7316 and the <tt>changelog.gz</tt> should be generated using, eg,
7317 <tt>lynx -dump -nolist</tt>. If the upstream changelog files
7318 do not already conform to this naming convention, then this
7319 may be achieved either by renaming the files, or adding a
7320 symbolic link, at the maintainer's discretion.
7323 Rationale: People should not have to look into two
7324 places for upstream changelogs merely because they are
7332 All these files should be installed compressed using <tt>gzip -9</tt>,
7333 as they will become large with time even if they start out
7338 If the package has only one changelog which is used both as
7339 the Debian changelog and the upstream one because there is
7340 no separate upstream maintainer then that changelog should
7341 usually be installed as
7342 <tt>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/changelog.gz</tt>; if
7343 there is a separate upstream maintainer, but no upstream
7344 changelog, then the Debian changelog should still be called
7345 <tt>changelog.Debian.gz</tt>.</p>