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10 <title>Debian Policy Manual</title>
11 <author><qref id="authors">The Debian Policy Mailing List</qref></author>
12 <version>version &version;, &date;</version>
15 This manual describes the policy requirements for the Debian
16 GNU/Linux distribution. This includes the structure and
17 contents of the Debian archive and several design issues of
18 the operating system, as well as technical requirements that
19 each package must satisfy to be included in the distribution.
24 Copyright © 1996,1997,1998 Ian Jackson
25 and Christian Schwarz.
28 This manual is free software; you may redistribute it and/or
29 modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
30 as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version
31 2, or (at your option) any later version.
35 This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
36 <em>without any warranty</em>; without even the implied
37 warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular
38 purpose. See the GNU General Public License for more
43 A copy of the GNU General Public License is available as
44 <file>/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL</file> in the Debian GNU/Linux
45 distribution or on the World Wide Web at
46 <url id="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html"
47 name="the GNU General Public Licence">. You can also
48 obtain it by writing to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
49 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
57 <heading>About this manual</heading>
59 <heading>Scope</heading>
61 This manual describes the policy requirements for the Debian
62 GNU/Linux distribution. This includes the structure and
63 contents of the Debian archive and several design issues of the
64 operating system, as well as technical requirements that
65 each package must satisfy to be included in the
70 This manual also describes Debian policy as it relates to
71 creating Debian packages. It is not a tutorial on how to build
72 packages, nor is it exhaustive where it comes to describing
73 the behavior of the packaging system. Instead, this manual
74 attempts to define the interface to the package management
75 system that the developers have to be conversant with.<footnote>
76 Informally, the criteria used for inclusion is that the
77 material meet one of the following requirements:
78 <taglist compact="compact">
79 <tag>Standard interfaces</tag>
81 The material presented represents an interface to
82 the packaging system that is mandated for use, and
83 is used by, a significant number of packages, and
84 therefore should not be changed without peer
85 review. Package maintainers can then rely on this
86 interfaces not changing, and the package
87 management software authors need to ensure
88 compatibility with these interface
89 definitions. (Control file and changelog file
90 formats are examples.)
92 <tag>Chosen Convention</tag>
94 If there are a number of technically viable choices
95 that can be made, but one needs to select one of
96 these options for inter-operability. The version
97 number format is one example.
100 Please note that these are not mutually exclusive;
101 selected conventions often become parts of standard
107 The footnotes present in this manual are
108 merely informative, and are not part of Debian policy itself.
112 The appendices to this manual are not necessarily normative,
113 either. Please see <ref id="pkg-scope"> for more information.
117 In the normative part of this manual,
118 the words <em>must</em>, <em>should</em> and
119 <em>may</em>, and the adjectives <em>required</em>,
120 <em>recommended</em> and <em>optional</em>, are used to
121 distinguish the significance of the various guidelines in
122 this policy document. Packages that do not conform to the
123 guidelines denoted by <em>must</em> (or <em>required</em>)
124 will generally not be considered acceptable for the Debian
125 distribution. Non-conformance with guidelines denoted by
126 <em>should</em> (or <em>recommended</em>) will generally be
127 considered a bug, but will not necessarily render a package
128 unsuitable for distribution. Guidelines denoted by
129 <em>may</em> (or <em>optional</em>) are truly optional and
130 adherence is left to the maintainer's discretion.
134 These classifications are roughly equivalent to the bug
135 severities <em>serious</em> (for <em>must</em> or
136 <em>required</em> directive violations), <em>minor</em>,
137 <em>normal</em> or <em>important</em>
138 (for <em>should</em> or <em>recommended</em> directive
139 violations) and <em>wishlist</em> (for <em>optional</em>
142 Compare RFC 2119. Note, however, that these words are
143 used in a different way in this document.
148 Much of the information presented in this manual will be
149 useful even when building a package which is to be
150 distributed in some other way or is intended for local use
156 <heading>New versions of this document</heading>
159 This manual is distributed via the Debian package
160 <package><url name="debian-policy"
161 id="http://packages.debian.org/debian-policy"></package>
162 (<httpsite>packages.debian.org</httpsite>
163 <httppath>/debian-policy</httppath>).
167 The current version of this document is also available from
168 the Debian web mirrors at
169 <tt><url name="/doc/debian-policy/"
170 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/"></tt>.
172 <httpsite>www.debian.org</httpsite>
173 <httppath>/doc/debian-policy/</httppath>)
174 Also available from the same directory are several other
175 formats: <file>policy.html.tar.gz</file>
176 (<httppath>/doc/debian-policy/policy.html.tar.gz</httppath>),
177 <file>policy.pdf.gz</file>
178 (<httppath>/doc/debian-policy/policy.pdf.gz</httppath>)
179 and <file>policy.ps.gz</file>
180 (<httppath>/doc/debian-policy/policy.ps.gz</httppath>).
184 The <package>debian-policy</package> package also includes the file
185 <file>upgrading-checklist.txt.gz</file> which indicates policy
186 changes between versions of this document.
191 <heading>Authors and Maintainers</heading>
194 Originally called "Debian GNU/Linux Policy Manual", this
195 manual was initially written in 1996 by Ian Jackson.
196 It was revised on November 27th, 1996 by David A. Morris.
197 Christian Schwarz added new sections on March 15th, 1997,
198 and reworked/restructured it in April-July 1997.
199 Christoph Lameter contributed the "Web Standard".
200 Julian Gilbey largely restructured it in 2001.
204 Since September 1998, the responsibility for the contents of
205 this document lies on the <url name="debian-policy mailing list"
206 id="mailto:debian-policy@lists.debian.org">. Proposals
207 are discussed there and inserted into policy after a certain
208 consensus is established.
209 <!-- insert shameless policy-process plug here eventually -->
210 The actual editing is done by a group of maintainers that have
211 no editorial powers. These are the current maintainers:
214 <item>Julian Gilbey</item>
215 <item>Branden Robinson</item>
216 <item>Josip Rodin</item>
217 <item>Manoj Srivastava</item>
222 While the authors of this document have tried hard to avoid
223 typos and other errors, these do still occur. If you discover
224 an error in this manual or if you want to give any
225 comments, suggestions, or criticisms please send an email to
226 the Debian Policy List,
227 <email>debian-policy@lists.debian.org</email>, or submit a
228 bug report against the <tt>debian-policy</tt> package.
232 Please do not try to reach the individual authors or maintainers
233 of the Policy Manual regarding changes to the Policy.
238 <heading>Related documents</heading>
241 There are several other documents other than this Policy Manual
242 that are necessary to fully understand some Debian policies and
247 The external "sub-policy" documents are referred to in:
248 <list compact="compact">
249 <item><ref id="fhs"></item>
250 <item><ref id="virtual_pkg"></item>
251 <item><ref id="menus"></item>
252 <item><ref id="mime"></item>
253 <item><ref id="perl"></item>
254 <item><ref id="maintscriptprompt"></item>
255 <item><ref id="emacs"></item>
260 In addition to those, which carry the weight of policy, there
261 is the Debian Developer's Reference. This document describes
262 procedures and resources for Debian developers, but it is
263 <em>not</em> normative; rather, it includes things that don't
264 belong in the Policy, such as best practices for developers.
268 The Developer's Reference is available in the
269 <package>developers-reference</package> package.
270 It's also available from the Debian web mirrors at
271 <tt><url name="/doc/developers-reference/"
272 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/"></tt>.
276 <sect id="definitions">
277 <heading>Definitions</heading>
280 The following terms are used in this Policy Manual:
284 The character encoding specified by ANSI X3.4-1986 and its
285 predecessor standards, referred to in MIME as US-ASCII, and
286 corresponding to an encoding in eight bits per character of
287 the first 128 <url id="http://www.unicode.org/"
288 name="Unicode"> characters, with the eighth bit always zero.
292 The transformation format (sometimes called encoding) of
293 <url id="http://www.unicode.org/" name="Unicode"> defined by
294 <url id="http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3629.txt"
295 name="RFC 3629">. UTF-8 has the useful property of having
296 ASCII as a subset, so any text encoded in ASCII is trivially
306 <heading>The Debian Archive</heading>
309 The Debian GNU/Linux system is maintained and distributed as a
310 collection of <em>packages</em>. Since there are so many of
311 them (currently well over 15000), they are split into
312 <em>sections</em> and given <em>priorities</em> to simplify
313 the handling of them.
317 The effort of the Debian project is to build a free operating
318 system, but not every package we want to make accessible is
319 <em>free</em> in our sense (see the Debian Free Software
320 Guidelines, below), or may be imported/exported without
321 restrictions. Thus, the archive is split into areas<footnote>
322 The Debian archive software uses the term "component" internally
323 and in the Release file format to refer to the division of an
324 archive. The Debian Social Contract simply refers to "areas."
325 This document uses terminology similar to the Social Contract.
326 </footnote> based on their licenses and other restrictions.
330 The aims of this are:
332 <list compact="compact">
333 <item>to allow us to make as much software available as we can</item>
334 <item>to allow us to encourage everyone to write free software,
336 <item>to allow us to make it easy for people to produce
337 CD-ROMs of our system without violating any licenses,
338 import/export restrictions, or any other laws.</item>
343 The <em>main</em> archive area forms the <em>Debian GNU/Linux
348 Packages in the other archive areas (<tt>contrib</tt>,
349 <tt>non-free</tt>) are not considered to be part of the Debian
350 distribution, although we support their use and provide
351 infrastructure for them (such as our bug-tracking system and
352 mailing lists). This Debian Policy Manual applies to these
357 <heading>The Debian Free Software Guidelines</heading>
359 The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) form our
360 definition of "free software". These are:
362 <tag>Free Redistribution
365 The license of a Debian component may not restrict any
366 party from selling or giving away the software as a
367 component of an aggregate software distribution
368 containing programs from several different
369 sources. The license may not require a royalty or
370 other fee for such sale.
375 The program must include source code, and must allow
376 distribution in source code as well as compiled form.
381 The license must allow modifications and derived
382 works, and must allow them to be distributed under the
383 same terms as the license of the original software.
385 <tag>Integrity of The Author's Source Code
388 The license may restrict source-code from being
389 distributed in modified form <em>only</em> if the
390 license allows the distribution of "patch files"
391 with the source code for the purpose of modifying the
392 program at build time. The license must explicitly
393 permit distribution of software built from modified
394 source code. The license may require derived works to
395 carry a different name or version number from the
396 original software. (This is a compromise. The Debian
397 Project encourages all authors to not restrict any
398 files, source or binary, from being modified.)
400 <tag>No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
403 The license must not discriminate against any person
406 <tag>No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
409 The license must not restrict anyone from making use
410 of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For
411 example, it may not restrict the program from being
412 used in a business, or from being used for genetic
415 <tag>Distribution of License
418 The rights attached to the program must apply to all
419 to whom the program is redistributed without the need
420 for execution of an additional license by those
423 <tag>License Must Not Be Specific to Debian
426 The rights attached to the program must not depend on
427 the program's being part of a Debian system. If the
428 program is extracted from Debian and used or
429 distributed without Debian but otherwise within the
430 terms of the program's license, all parties to whom
431 the program is redistributed must have the same
432 rights as those that are granted in conjunction with
435 <tag>License Must Not Contaminate Other Software
438 The license must not place restrictions on other
439 software that is distributed along with the licensed
440 software. For example, the license must not insist
441 that all other programs distributed on the same medium
442 must be free software.
444 <tag>Example Licenses
447 The "GPL," "BSD," and "Artistic" licenses are examples of
448 licenses that we consider <em>free</em>.
455 <heading>Archive areas</heading>
458 <heading>The main archive area</heading>
461 Every package in <em>main</em> must comply with the DFSG
462 (Debian Free Software Guidelines).
466 In addition, the packages in <em>main</em>
467 <list compact="compact">
469 must not require a package outside of <em>main</em>
470 for compilation or execution (thus, the package must
471 not declare a "Depends", "Recommends", or
472 "Build-Depends" relationship on a non-<em>main</em>
476 must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them,
480 must meet all policy requirements presented in this
489 <heading>The contrib archive area</heading>
492 Every package in <em>contrib</em> must comply with the DFSG.
496 In addition, the packages in <em>contrib</em>
497 <list compact="compact">
499 must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them,
503 must meet all policy requirements presented in this
511 Examples of packages which would be included in
512 <em>contrib</em> are:
513 <list compact="compact">
515 free packages which require <em>contrib</em>,
516 <em>non-free</em> packages or packages which are not
517 in our archive at all for compilation or execution,
521 wrapper packages or other sorts of free accessories for
528 <sect1 id="non-free">
529 <heading>The non-free archive area</heading>
532 Packages must be placed in <em>non-free</em> if they are
533 not compliant with the DFSG or are encumbered by patents
534 or other legal issues that make their distribution
539 In addition, the packages in <em>non-free</em>
540 <list compact="compact">
542 must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them,
546 must meet all policy requirements presented in this
547 manual that it is possible for them to meet.
549 It is possible that there are policy
550 requirements which the package is unable to
551 meet, for example, if the source is
552 unavailable. These situations will need to be
553 handled on a case-by-case basis.
562 <sect id="pkgcopyright">
563 <heading>Copyright considerations</heading>
566 Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
567 its copyright and distribution license in the file
568 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
569 (see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details).
573 We reserve the right to restrict files from being included
574 anywhere in our archives if
575 <list compact="compact">
577 their use or distribution would break a law,
580 there is an ethical conflict in their distribution or
584 we would have to sign a license for them, or
587 their distribution would conflict with other project
594 Programs whose authors encourage the user to make
595 donations are fine for the main distribution, provided
596 that the authors do not claim that not donating is
597 immoral, unethical, illegal or something similar; in such
598 a case they must go in <em>non-free</em>.
602 Packages whose copyright permission notices (or patent
603 problems) do not even allow redistribution of binaries
604 only, and where no special permission has been obtained,
605 must not be placed on the Debian FTP site and its mirrors
610 Note that under international copyright law (this applies
611 in the United States, too), <em>no</em> distribution or
612 modification of a work is allowed without an explicit
613 notice saying so. Therefore a program without a copyright
614 notice <em>is</em> copyrighted and you may not do anything
615 to it without risking being sued! Likewise if a program
616 has a copyright notice but no statement saying what is
617 permitted then nothing is permitted.
621 Many authors are unaware of the problems that restrictive
622 copyrights (or lack of copyright notices) can cause for
623 the users of their supposedly-free software. It is often
624 worthwhile contacting such authors diplomatically to ask
625 them to modify their license terms. However, this can be a
626 politically difficult thing to do and you should ask for
627 advice on the <tt>debian-legal</tt> mailing list first, as
632 When in doubt about a copyright, send mail to
633 <email>debian-legal@lists.debian.org</email>. Be prepared
634 to provide us with the copyright statement. Software
635 covered by the GPL, public domain software and BSD-like
636 copyrights are safe; be wary of the phrases "commercial
637 use prohibited" and "distribution restricted".
641 <sect id="subsections">
642 <heading>Sections</heading>
645 The packages in the archive areas <em>main</em>,
646 <em>contrib</em> and <em>non-free</em> are grouped further into
647 <em>sections</em> to simplify handling.
651 The archive area and section for each package should be
652 specified in the package's <tt>Section</tt> control record (see
653 <ref id="f-Section">). However, the maintainer of the Debian
654 archive may override this selection to ensure the consistency of
655 the Debian distribution. The <tt>Section</tt> field should be
657 <list compact="compact">
659 <em>section</em> if the package is in the
660 <em>main</em> archive area,
663 <em>area/section</em> if the package is in
664 the <em>contrib</em> or <em>non-free</em>
671 The Debian archive maintainers provide the authoritative
672 list of sections. At present, they are:
673 <em>admin</em>, <em>cli-mono</em>, <em>comm</em>, <em>database</em>,
674 <em>devel</em>, <em>debug</em>, <em>doc</em>, <em>editors</em>,
675 <em>electronics</em>, <em>embedded</em>, <em>fonts</em>,
676 <em>games</em>, <em>gnome</em>, <em>graphics</em>, <em>gnu-r</em>,
677 <em>gnustep</em>, <em>hamradio</em>, <em>haskell</em>,
678 <em>httpd</em>, <em>interpreters</em>, <em>java</em>, <em>kde</em>,
679 <em>kernel</em>, <em>libs</em>, <em>libdevel</em>, <em>lisp</em>,
680 <em>localization</em>, <em>mail</em>, <em>math</em>, <em>misc</em>,
681 <em>net</em>, <em>news</em>, <em>ocaml</em>, <em>oldlibs</em>,
682 <em>otherosfs</em>, <em>perl</em>, <em>php</em>, <em>python</em>,
683 <em>ruby</em>, <em>science</em>, <em>shells</em>, <em>sound</em>,
684 <em>tex</em>, <em>text</em>, <em>utils</em>, <em>vcs</em>,
685 <em>video</em>, <em>web</em>, <em>x11</em>, <em>xfce</em>,
690 <sect id="priorities">
691 <heading>Priorities</heading>
694 Each package should have a <em>priority</em> value, which is
695 included in the package's <em>control record</em>
696 (see <ref id="f-Priority">).
697 This information is used by the Debian package management tools to
698 separate high-priority packages from less-important packages.
702 The following <em>priority levels</em> are recognized by the
703 Debian package management tools.
705 <tag><tt>required</tt></tag>
707 Packages which are necessary for the proper
708 functioning of the system (usually, this means that
709 dpkg functionality depends on these packages).
710 Removing a <tt>required</tt> package may cause your
711 system to become totally broken and you may not even
712 be able to use <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to put things back,
713 so only do so if you know what you are doing. Systems
714 with only the <tt>required</tt> packages are probably
715 unusable, but they do have enough functionality to
716 allow the sysadmin to boot and install more software.
718 <tag><tt>important</tt></tag>
720 Important programs, including those which one would
721 expect to find on any Unix-like system. If the
722 expectation is that an experienced Unix person who
723 found it missing would say "What on earth is going on,
724 where is <prgn>foo</prgn>?", it must be an
725 <tt>important</tt> package.<footnote>
726 This is an important criterion because we are
727 trying to produce, amongst other things, a free
730 Other packages without which the system will not run
731 well or be usable must also have priority
732 <tt>important</tt>. This does
733 <em>not</em> include Emacs, the X Window System, TeX
734 or any other large applications. The
735 <tt>important</tt> packages are just a bare minimum of
736 commonly-expected and necessary tools.
738 <tag><tt>standard</tt></tag>
740 These packages provide a reasonably small but not too
741 limited character-mode system. This is what will be
742 installed by default if the user doesn't select anything
743 else. It doesn't include many large applications.
745 <tag><tt>optional</tt></tag>
747 (In a sense everything that isn't required is
748 optional, but that's not what is meant here.) This is
749 all the software that you might reasonably want to
750 install if you didn't know what it was and don't have
751 specialized requirements. This is a much larger system
752 and includes the X Window System, a full TeX
753 distribution, and many applications. Note that
754 optional packages should not conflict with each other.
756 <tag><tt>extra</tt></tag>
758 This contains all packages that conflict with others
759 with required, important, standard or optional
760 priorities, or are only likely to be useful if you
761 already know what they are or have specialized
762 requirements (such as packages containing only detached
769 Packages must not depend on packages with lower priority
770 values (excluding build-time dependencies). In order to
771 ensure this, the priorities of one or more packages may need
780 <heading>Binary packages</heading>
783 The Debian GNU/Linux distribution is based on the Debian
784 package management system, called <prgn>dpkg</prgn>. Thus,
785 all packages in the Debian distribution must be provided
786 in the <tt>.deb</tt> file format.
790 <heading>The package name</heading>
793 Every package must have a name that's unique within the Debian
798 The package name is included in the control field
799 <tt>Package</tt>, the format of which is described
800 in <ref id="f-Package">.
801 The package name is also included as a part of the file name
802 of the <tt>.deb</tt> file.
807 <heading>The version of a package</heading>
810 Every package has a version number recorded in its
811 <tt>Version</tt> control file field, described in
812 <ref id="f-Version">.
816 The package management system imposes an ordering on version
817 numbers, so that it can tell whether packages are being up- or
818 downgraded and so that package system front end applications
819 can tell whether a package it finds available is newer than
820 the one installed on the system. The version number format
821 has the most significant parts (as far as comparison is
822 concerned) at the beginning.
826 If an upstream package has problematic version numbers they
827 should be converted to a sane form for use in the
828 <tt>Version</tt> field.
832 <heading>Version numbers based on dates</heading>
835 In general, Debian packages should use the same version
836 numbers as the upstream sources.
840 However, in some cases where the upstream version number is
841 based on a date (e.g., a development "snapshot" release) the
842 package management system cannot handle these version
843 numbers without epochs. For example, dpkg will consider
844 "96May01" to be greater than "96Dec24".
848 To prevent having to use epochs for every new upstream
849 version, the date based portion of the version number
850 should be changed to the following format in such cases:
851 "19960501", "19961224". It is up to the maintainer whether
852 they want to bother the upstream maintainer to change
853 the version numbers upstream, too.
857 Note that other version formats based on dates which are
858 parsed correctly by the package management system should
859 <em>not</em> be changed.
863 Native Debian packages (i.e., packages which have been
864 written especially for Debian) whose version numbers include
865 dates should always use the "YYYYMMDD" format.
872 <heading>The maintainer of a package</heading>
875 Every package must have a Debian maintainer (the
876 maintainer may be one person or a group of people
877 reachable from a common email address, such as a mailing
878 list). The maintainer is responsible for ensuring that
879 the package is placed in the appropriate distributions.
883 The maintainer must be specified in the
884 <tt>Maintainer</tt> control field with their correct name
885 and a working email address. If one person maintains
886 several packages, they should try to avoid having
887 different forms of their name and email address in
888 the <tt>Maintainer</tt> fields of those packages.
892 The format of the <tt>Maintainer</tt> control field is
893 described in <ref id="f-Maintainer">.
897 If the maintainer of a package quits from the Debian
898 project, "Debian QA Group"
899 <email>packages@qa.debian.org</email> takes over the
900 maintainer-ship of the package until someone else
901 volunteers for that task. These packages are called
902 <em>orphaned packages</em>.<footnote>
903 The detailed procedure for doing this gracefully can
904 be found in the Debian Developer's Reference,
905 see <ref id="related">.
910 <sect id="descriptions">
911 <heading>The description of a package</heading>
914 Every Debian package must have an extended description
915 stored in the appropriate field of the control record.
916 The technical information about the format of the
917 <tt>Description</tt> field is in <ref id="f-Description">.
921 The description should describe the package (the program) to a
922 user (system administrator) who has never met it before so that
923 they have enough information to decide whether they want to
924 install it. This description should not just be copied verbatim
925 from the program's documentation.
929 Put important information first, both in the synopsis and
930 extended description. Sometimes only the first part of the
931 synopsis or of the description will be displayed. You can
932 assume that there will usually be a way to see the whole
933 extended description.
937 The description should also give information about the
938 significant dependencies and conflicts between this package
939 and others, so that the user knows why these dependencies and
940 conflicts have been declared.
944 Instructions for configuring or using the package should
945 not be included (that is what installation scripts,
946 manual pages, info files, etc., are for). Copyright
947 statements and other administrivia should not be included
948 either (that is what the copyright file is for).
951 <sect1 id="synopsis"><heading>The single line synopsis</heading>
954 The single line synopsis should be kept brief - certainly
959 Do not include the package name in the synopsis line. The
960 display software knows how to display this already, and you
961 do not need to state it. Remember that in many situations
962 the user may only see the synopsis line - make it as
963 informative as you can.
968 <sect1 id="extendeddesc"><heading>The extended description</heading>
971 Do not try to continue the single line synopsis into the
972 extended description. This will not work correctly when
973 the full description is displayed, and makes no sense
974 where only the summary (the single line synopsis) is
979 The extended description should describe what the package
980 does and how it relates to the rest of the system (in terms
981 of, for example, which subsystem it is which part of).
985 The description field needs to make sense to anyone, even
986 people who have no idea about any of the things the
987 package deals with.<footnote>
988 The blurb that comes with a program in its
989 announcements and/or <prgn>README</prgn> files is
990 rarely suitable for use in a description. It is
991 usually aimed at people who are already in the
992 community where the package is used.
1001 <heading>Dependencies</heading>
1004 Every package must specify the dependency information
1005 about other packages that are required for the first to
1010 For example, a dependency entry must be provided for any
1011 shared libraries required by a dynamically-linked executable
1012 binary in a package.
1016 Packages are not required to declare any dependencies they
1017 have on other packages which are marked <tt>Essential</tt>
1018 (see below), and should not do so unless they depend on a
1019 particular version of that package.<footnote>
1021 Essential is needed in part to avoid unresolvable dependency
1022 loops on upgrade. If packages add unnecessary dependencies
1023 on packages in this set, the chances that there
1024 <strong>will</strong> be an unresolvable dependency loop
1025 caused by forcing these Essential packages to be configured
1026 first before they need to be is greatly increased. It also
1027 increases the chances that frontends will be unable to
1028 <strong>calculate</strong> an upgrade path, even if one
1032 Also, functionality is rarely ever removed from the
1033 Essential set, but <em>packages</em> have been removed from
1034 the Essential set when the functionality moved to a
1035 different package. So depending on these packages <em>just
1036 in case</em> they stop being essential does way more harm
1043 Sometimes, a package requires another package to be installed
1044 <em>and</em> configured before it can be installed. In this
1045 case, you must specify a <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> entry for
1050 You should not specify a <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> entry for a
1051 package before this has been discussed on the
1052 <tt>debian-devel</tt> mailing list and a consensus about
1053 doing that has been reached.
1057 The format of the package interrelationship control fields is
1058 described in <ref id="relationships">.
1062 <sect id="virtual_pkg">
1063 <heading>Virtual packages</heading>
1066 Sometimes, there are several packages which offer
1067 more-or-less the same functionality. In this case, it's
1068 useful to define a <em>virtual package</em> whose name
1069 describes that common functionality. (The virtual
1070 packages only exist logically, not physically; that's why
1071 they are called <em>virtual</em>.) The packages with this
1072 particular function will then <em>provide</em> the virtual
1073 package. Thus, any other package requiring that function
1074 can simply depend on the virtual package without having to
1075 specify all possible packages individually.
1079 All packages should use virtual package names where
1080 appropriate, and arrange to create new ones if necessary.
1081 They should not use virtual package names (except privately,
1082 amongst a cooperating group of packages) unless they have
1083 been agreed upon and appear in the list of virtual package
1084 names. (See also <ref id="virtual">)
1088 The latest version of the authoritative list of virtual
1089 package names can be found in the <tt>debian-policy</tt> package.
1090 It is also available from the Debian web mirrors at
1091 <tt><url name="/doc/packaging-manuals/virtual-package-names-list.txt"
1092 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/virtual-package-names-list.txt"></tt>.
1096 The procedure for updating the list is described in the preface
1103 <heading>Base system</heading>
1106 The <tt>base system</tt> is a minimum subset of the Debian
1107 GNU/Linux system that is installed before everything else
1108 on a new system. Only very few packages are allowed to form
1109 part of the base system, in order to keep the required disk
1114 The base system consists of all those packages with priority
1115 <tt>required</tt> or <tt>important</tt>. Many of them will
1116 be tagged <tt>essential</tt> (see below).
1121 <heading>Essential packages</heading>
1124 Essential is defined as the minimal set of functionality that
1125 must be available and usable on the system at all times, even
1126 when packages are in an unconfigured (but unpacked) state.
1127 Packages are tagged <tt>essential</tt> for a system using the
1128 <tt>Essential</tt> control file field. The format of the
1129 <tt>Essential</tt> control field is described in <ref
1134 Since these packages cannot be easily removed (one has to
1135 specify an extra <em>force option</em> to
1136 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to do so), this flag must not be used
1137 unless absolutely necessary. A shared library package
1138 must not be tagged <tt>essential</tt>; dependencies will
1139 prevent its premature removal, and we need to be able to
1140 remove it when it has been superseded.
1144 Since dpkg will not prevent upgrading of other packages
1145 while an <tt>essential</tt> package is in an unconfigured
1146 state, all <tt>essential</tt> packages must supply all of
1147 their core functionality even when unconfigured. If the
1148 package cannot satisfy this requirement it must not be
1149 tagged as essential, and any packages depending on this
1150 package must instead have explicit dependency fields as
1155 Maintainers should take great care in adding any programs,
1156 interfaces, or functionality to <tt>essential</tt> packages.
1157 Packages may assume that functionality provided by
1158 <tt>essential</tt> packages is always available without
1159 declaring explicit dependencies, which means that removing
1160 functionality from the Essential set is very difficult and is
1161 almost never done. Any capability added to an
1162 <tt>essential</tt> package therefore creates an obligation to
1163 support that capability as part of the Essential set in
1168 You must not tag any packages <tt>essential</tt> before
1169 this has been discussed on the <tt>debian-devel</tt>
1170 mailing list and a consensus about doing that has been
1175 <sect id="maintscripts">
1176 <heading>Maintainer Scripts</heading>
1179 The package installation scripts should avoid producing
1180 output which is unnecessary for the user to see and
1181 should rely on <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to stave off boredom on
1182 the part of a user installing many packages. This means,
1183 amongst other things, using the <tt>--quiet</tt> option on
1184 <prgn>install-info</prgn>.
1188 Errors which occur during the execution of an installation
1189 script must be checked and the installation must not
1190 continue after an error.
1194 Note that in general <ref id="scripts"> applies to package
1195 maintainer scripts, too.
1199 You should not use <prgn>dpkg-divert</prgn> on a file
1200 belonging to another package without consulting the
1201 maintainer of that package first.
1205 All packages which supply an instance of a common command
1206 name (or, in general, filename) should generally use
1207 <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn>, so that they may be
1208 installed together. If <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn>
1209 is not used, then each package must use
1210 <tt>Conflicts</tt> to ensure that other packages are
1211 de-installed. (In this case, it may be appropriate to
1212 specify a conflict against earlier versions of something
1213 that previously did not use
1214 <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn>; this is an exception to
1215 the usual rule that versioned conflicts should be
1219 <sect1 id="maintscriptprompt">
1220 <heading>Prompting in maintainer scripts</heading>
1222 Package maintainer scripts may prompt the user if
1223 necessary. Prompting must be done by communicating
1224 through a program, such as <prgn>debconf</prgn>, which
1225 conforms to the Debian Configuration Management
1226 Specification, version 2 or higher.
1230 Packages which are essential, or which are dependencies of
1231 essential packages, may fall back on another prompting method
1232 if no such interface is available when they are executed.
1236 The Debian Configuration Management Specification is included
1237 in the <file>debconf_specification</file> files in the
1238 <package>debian-policy</package> package.
1239 It is also available from the Debian web mirrors at
1240 <tt><url name="/doc/packaging-manuals/debconf_specification.html"
1241 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/debconf_specification.html"></tt>.
1245 Packages which use the Debian Configuration Management
1246 Specification may contain an additional
1247 <prgn>config</prgn> script and a <tt>templates</tt>
1248 file in their control archive<footnote>
1249 The control.tar.gz inside the .deb.
1250 See <manref name="deb" section="5">.
1252 The <prgn>config</prgn> script might be run before the
1253 <prgn>preinst</prgn> script, and before the package is unpacked
1254 or any of its dependencies or pre-dependencies are satisfied.
1255 Therefore it must work using only the tools present in
1256 <em>essential</em> packages.<footnote>
1257 <package>Debconf</package> or another tool that
1258 implements the Debian Configuration Management
1259 Specification will also be installed, and any
1260 versioned dependencies on it will be satisfied
1261 before preconfiguration begins.
1266 Packages which use the Debian Configuration Management
1267 Specification must allow for translation of their user-visible
1268 messages by using a gettext-based system such as the one
1269 provided by the <package>po-debconf</package> package.
1273 Packages should try to minimize the amount of prompting
1274 they need to do, and they should ensure that the user
1275 will only ever be asked each question once. This means
1276 that packages should try to use appropriate shared
1277 configuration files (such as <file>/etc/papersize</file> and
1278 <file>/etc/news/server</file>), and shared
1279 <package>debconf</package> variables rather than each
1280 prompting for their own list of required pieces of
1285 It also means that an upgrade should not ask the same
1286 questions again, unless the user has used
1287 <tt>dpkg --purge</tt> to remove the package's configuration.
1288 The answers to configuration questions should be stored in an
1289 appropriate place in <file>/etc</file> so that the user can
1290 modify them, and how this has been done should be
1295 If a package has a vitally important piece of
1296 information to pass to the user (such as "don't run me
1297 as I am, you must edit the following configuration files
1298 first or you risk your system emitting badly-formatted
1299 messages"), it should display this in the
1300 <prgn>config</prgn> or <prgn>postinst</prgn> script and
1301 prompt the user to hit return to acknowledge the
1302 message. Copyright messages do not count as vitally
1303 important (they belong in
1304 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>);
1305 neither do instructions on how to use a program (these
1306 should be in on-line documentation, where all the users
1311 Any necessary prompting should almost always be confined
1312 to the <prgn>config</prgn> or <prgn>postinst</prgn>
1313 script. If it is done in the <prgn>postinst</prgn>, it
1314 should be protected with a conditional so that
1315 unnecessary prompting doesn't happen if a package's
1316 installation fails and the <prgn>postinst</prgn> is
1317 called with <tt>abort-upgrade</tt>,
1318 <tt>abort-remove</tt> or <tt>abort-deconfigure</tt>.
1328 <heading>Source packages</heading>
1330 <sect id="standardsversion">
1331 <heading>Standards conformance</heading>
1334 Source packages should specify the most recent version number
1335 of this policy document with which your package complied
1336 when it was last updated.
1340 This information may be used to file bug reports
1341 automatically if your package becomes too much out of date.
1345 The version is specified in the <tt>Standards-Version</tt>
1347 The format of the <tt>Standards-Version</tt> field is
1348 described in <ref id="f-Standards-Version">.
1352 You should regularly, and especially if your package has
1353 become out of date, check for the newest Policy Manual
1354 available and update your package, if necessary. When your
1355 package complies with the new standards you should update the
1356 <tt>Standards-Version</tt> source package field and
1357 release it.<footnote>
1358 See the file <file>upgrading-checklist</file> for
1359 information about policy which has changed between
1360 different versions of this document.
1366 <sect id="pkg-relations">
1367 <heading>Package relationships</heading>
1370 Source packages should specify which binary packages they
1371 require to be installed or not to be installed in order to
1372 build correctly. For example, if building a package
1373 requires a certain compiler, then the compiler should be
1374 specified as a build-time dependency.
1378 It is not necessary to explicitly specify build-time
1379 relationships on a minimal set of packages that are always
1380 needed to compile, link and put in a Debian package a
1381 standard "Hello World!" program written in C or C++. The
1382 required packages are called <em>build-essential</em>, and
1383 an informational list can be found in
1384 <file>/usr/share/doc/build-essential/list</file> (which is
1385 contained in the <tt>build-essential</tt>
1388 <list compact="compact">
1390 This allows maintaining the list separately
1391 from the policy documents (the list does not
1392 need the kind of control that the policy
1396 Having a separate package allows one to install
1397 the build-essential packages on a machine, as
1398 well as allowing other packages such as tasks to
1399 require installation of the build-essential
1400 packages using the depends relation.
1403 The separate package allows bug reports against
1404 the list to be categorized separately from
1405 the policy management process in the BTS.
1412 When specifying the set of build-time dependencies, one
1413 should list only those packages explicitly required by the
1414 build. It is not necessary to list packages which are
1415 required merely because some other package in the list of
1416 build-time dependencies depends on them.<footnote>
1417 The reason for this is that dependencies change, and
1418 you should list all those packages, and <em>only</em>
1419 those packages that <em>you</em> need directly. What
1420 others need is their business. For example, if you
1421 only link against <file>libimlib</file>, you will need to
1422 build-depend on <package>libimlib2-dev</package> but
1423 not against any <tt>libjpeg*</tt> packages, even
1424 though <tt>libimlib2-dev</tt> currently depends on
1425 them: installation of <package>libimlib2-dev</package>
1426 will automatically ensure that all of its run-time
1427 dependencies are satisfied.
1432 If build-time dependencies are specified, it must be
1433 possible to build the package and produce working binaries
1434 on a system with only essential and build-essential
1435 packages installed and also those required to satisfy the
1436 build-time relationships (including any implied
1437 relationships). In particular, this means that version
1438 clauses should be used rigorously in build-time
1439 relationships so that one cannot produce bad or
1440 inconsistently configured packages when the relationships
1441 are properly satisfied.
1445 <ref id="relationships"> explains the technical details.
1450 <heading>Changes to the upstream sources</heading>
1453 If changes to the source code are made that are not
1454 specific to the needs of the Debian system, they should be
1455 sent to the upstream authors in whatever form they prefer
1456 so as to be included in the upstream version of the
1461 If you need to configure the package differently for
1462 Debian or for Linux, and the upstream source doesn't
1463 provide a way to do so, you should add such configuration
1464 facilities (for example, a new <prgn>autoconf</prgn> test
1465 or <tt>#define</tt>) and send the patch to the upstream
1466 authors, with the default set to the way they originally
1467 had it. You can then easily override the default in your
1468 <file>debian/rules</file> or wherever is appropriate.
1472 You should make sure that the <prgn>configure</prgn> utility
1473 detects the correct architecture specification string
1474 (refer to <ref id="arch-spec"> for details).
1478 If you need to edit a <prgn>Makefile</prgn> where GNU-style
1479 <prgn>configure</prgn> scripts are used, you should edit the
1480 <file>.in</file> files rather than editing the
1481 <prgn>Makefile</prgn> directly. This allows the user to
1482 reconfigure the package if necessary. You should
1483 <em>not</em> configure the package and edit the generated
1484 <prgn>Makefile</prgn>! This makes it impossible for someone
1485 else to later reconfigure the package without losing the
1491 <sect id="dpkgchangelog">
1492 <heading>Debian changelog: <file>debian/changelog</file></heading>
1495 Changes in the Debian version of the package should be
1496 briefly explained in the Debian changelog file
1497 <file>debian/changelog</file>.<footnote>
1499 Mistakes in changelogs are usually best rectified by
1500 making a new changelog entry rather than "rewriting
1501 history" by editing old changelog entries.
1504 This includes modifications
1505 made in the Debian package compared to the upstream one
1506 as well as other changes and updates to the package.
1508 Although there is nothing stopping an author who is also
1509 the Debian maintainer from using this changelog for all
1510 their changes, it will have to be renamed if the Debian
1511 and upstream maintainers become different people. In such
1512 a case, however, it might be better to maintain the package
1513 as a non-native package.
1518 The format of the <file>debian/changelog</file> allows the
1519 package building tools to discover which version of the package
1520 is being built and find out other release-specific information.
1524 That format is a series of entries like this:
1526 <example compact="compact">
1527 <var>package</var> (<var>version</var>) <var>distribution(s)</var>; urgency=<var>urgency</var>
1529 [optional blank line(s), stripped]
1531 * <var>change details</var>
1532 <var>more change details</var>
1534 [blank line(s), included in output of dpkg-parsechangelog]
1536 * <var>even more change details</var>
1538 [optional blank line(s), stripped]
1540 -- <var>maintainer name</var> <<var>email address</var>><var>[two spaces]</var> <var>date</var>
1545 <var>package</var> and <var>version</var> are the source
1546 package name and version number.
1550 <var>distribution(s)</var> lists the distributions where
1551 this version should be installed when it is uploaded - it
1552 is copied to the <tt>Distribution</tt> field in the
1553 <file>.changes</file> file. See <ref id="f-Distribution">.
1557 <var>urgency</var> is the value for the <tt>Urgency</tt>
1558 field in the <file>.changes</file> file for the upload
1559 (see <ref id="f-Urgency">). It is not possible to specify
1560 an urgency containing commas; commas are used to separate
1561 <tt><var>keyword</var>=<var>value</var></tt> settings in the
1562 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> changelog format (though there is
1563 currently only one useful <var>keyword</var>,
1568 The change details may in fact be any series of lines
1569 starting with at least two spaces, but conventionally each
1570 change starts with an asterisk and a separating space and
1571 continuation lines are indented so as to bring them in
1572 line with the start of the text above. Blank lines may be
1573 used here to separate groups of changes, if desired.
1577 If this upload resolves bugs recorded in the Bug Tracking
1578 System (BTS), they may be automatically closed on the
1579 inclusion of this package into the Debian archive by
1580 including the string: <tt>closes: Bug#<var>nnnnn</var></tt>
1581 in the change details.<footnote>
1582 To be precise, the string should match the following
1583 Perl regular expression:
1585 /closes:\s*(?:bug)?\#?\s?\d+(?:,\s*(?:bug)?\#?\s?\d+)*/i
1587 Then all of the bug numbers listed will be closed by the
1588 archive maintenance script (<prgn>katie</prgn>) using the
1589 <var>version</var> of the changelog entry.
1591 This information is conveyed via the <tt>Closes</tt> field
1592 in the <tt>.changes</tt> file (see <ref id="f-Closes">).
1596 The maintainer name and email address used in the changelog
1597 should be the details of the person uploading <em>this</em>
1598 version. They are <em>not</em> necessarily those of the
1599 usual package maintainer. The information here will be
1600 copied to the <tt>Changed-By</tt> field in the
1601 <tt>.changes</tt> file (see <ref id="f-Changed-By">),
1602 and then later used to send an acknowledgement when the
1603 upload has been installed.
1607 The <var>date</var> must be in RFC822 format<footnote>
1608 This is generated by <tt>date -R</tt>.
1609 </footnote>; it must include the time zone specified
1610 numerically, with the time zone name or abbreviation
1611 optionally present as a comment in parentheses.
1615 The first "title" line with the package name must start
1616 at the left hand margin. The "trailer" line with the
1617 maintainer and date details must be preceded by exactly
1618 one space. The maintainer details and the date must be
1619 separated by exactly two spaces.
1623 The entire changelog must be encoded in UTF-8.
1627 For more information on placement of the changelog files
1628 within binary packages, please see <ref id="changelogs">.
1632 <sect id="dpkgcopyright">
1633 <heading>Copyright: <file>debian/copyright</file></heading>
1635 Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of
1636 its copyright and distribution license in the file
1637 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>
1638 (see <ref id="copyrightfile"> for further details). Also see
1639 <ref id="pkgcopyright"> for further considerations relayed
1640 to copyrights for packages.
1644 <heading>Error trapping in makefiles</heading>
1647 When <prgn>make</prgn> invokes a command in a makefile
1648 (including your package's upstream makefiles and
1649 <file>debian/rules</file>), it does so using <prgn>sh</prgn>. This
1650 means that <prgn>sh</prgn>'s usual bad error handling
1651 properties apply: if you include a miniature script as one
1652 of the commands in your makefile you'll find that if you
1653 don't do anything about it then errors are not detected
1654 and <prgn>make</prgn> will blithely continue after
1659 Every time you put more than one shell command (this
1660 includes using a loop) in a makefile command you
1661 must make sure that errors are trapped. For
1662 simple compound commands, such as changing directory and
1663 then running a program, using <tt>&&</tt> rather
1664 than semicolon as a command separator is sufficient. For
1665 more complex commands including most loops and
1666 conditionals you should include a separate <tt>set -e</tt>
1667 command at the start of every makefile command that's
1668 actually one of these miniature shell scripts.
1672 <sect id="timestamps">
1673 <heading>Time Stamps</heading>
1675 Maintainers should preserve the modification times of the
1676 upstream source files in a package, as far as is reasonably
1678 The rationale is that there is some information conveyed
1679 by knowing the age of the file, for example, you could
1680 recognize that some documentation is very old by looking
1681 at the modification time, so it would be nice if the
1682 modification time of the upstream source would be
1688 <sect id="restrictions">
1689 <heading>Restrictions on objects in source packages</heading>
1692 The source package may not contain any hard links<footnote>
1694 This is not currently detected when building source
1695 packages, but only when extracting
1699 Hard links may be permitted at some point in the
1700 future, but would require a fair amount of
1703 </footnote>, device special files, sockets or setuid or
1704 setgid files.<footnote>
1705 Setgid directories are allowed.
1710 <sect id="debianrules">
1711 <heading>Main building script: <file>debian/rules</file></heading>
1714 This file must be an executable makefile, and contains the
1715 package-specific recipes for compiling the package and
1716 building binary package(s) from the source.
1720 It must start with the line <tt>#!/usr/bin/make -f</tt>,
1721 so that it can be invoked by saying its name rather than
1722 invoking <prgn>make</prgn> explicitly.
1726 Since an interactive <file>debian/rules</file> script makes it
1727 impossible to auto-compile that package and also makes it
1728 hard for other people to reproduce the same binary
1729 package, all <em>required targets</em> MUST be
1730 non-interactive. At a minimum, required targets are the
1731 ones called by <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn>, namely,
1732 <em>clean</em>, <em>binary</em>, <em>binary-arch</em>,
1733 <em>binary-indep</em>, and <em>build</em>. It also follows
1734 that any target that these targets depend on must also be
1739 The targets are as follows (required unless stated otherwise):
1741 <tag><tt>build</tt></tag>
1744 The <tt>build</tt> target should perform all the
1745 configuration and compilation of the package.
1746 If a package has an interactive pre-build
1747 configuration routine, the Debianized source package
1748 must either be built after this has taken place (so
1749 that the binary package can be built without rerunning
1750 the configuration) or the configuration routine
1751 modified to become non-interactive. (The latter is
1752 preferable if there are architecture-specific features
1753 detected by the configuration routine.)
1757 For some packages, notably ones where the same
1758 source tree is compiled in different ways to produce
1759 two binary packages, the <tt>build</tt> target
1760 does not make much sense. For these packages it is
1761 good enough to provide two (or more) targets
1762 (<tt>build-a</tt> and <tt>build-b</tt> or whatever)
1763 for each of the ways of building the package, and a
1764 <tt>build</tt> target that does nothing. The
1765 <tt>binary</tt> target will have to build the
1766 package in each of the possible ways and make the
1767 binary package out of each.
1771 The <tt>build</tt> target must not do anything
1772 that might require root privilege.
1776 The <tt>build</tt> target may need to run the
1777 <tt>clean</tt> target first - see below.
1781 When a package has a configuration and build routine
1782 which takes a long time, or when the makefiles are
1783 poorly designed, or when <tt>build</tt> needs to
1784 run <tt>clean</tt> first, it is a good idea to
1785 <tt>touch build</tt> when the build process is
1786 complete. This will ensure that if <tt>debian/rules
1787 build</tt> is run again it will not rebuild the whole
1789 Another common way to do this is for <tt>build</tt>
1790 to depend on <prgn>build-stamp</prgn> and to do
1791 nothing else, and for the <prgn>build-stamp</prgn>
1792 target to do the building and to <tt>touch
1793 build-stamp</tt> on completion. This is
1794 especially useful if the build routine creates a
1795 file or directory called <tt>build</tt>; in such a
1796 case, <tt>build</tt> will need to be listed as
1797 a phony target (i.e., as a dependency of the
1798 <tt>.PHONY</tt> target). See the documentation of
1799 <prgn>make</prgn> for more information on phony
1805 <tag><tt>build-arch</tt> (optional),
1806 <tt>build-indep</tt> (optional)
1810 A package may also provide both of the targets
1811 <tt>build-arch</tt> and <tt>build-indep</tt>.
1812 The <tt>build-arch</tt> target, if provided, should
1813 perform all the configuration and compilation required
1814 for producing all architecture-dependant binary packages
1815 (those packages for which the body of the
1816 <tt>Architecture</tt> field in <tt>debian/control</tt>
1817 is not <tt>all</tt>).
1818 Similarly, the <tt>build-indep</tt> target, if
1819 provided, should perform all the configuration and
1820 compilation required for producing all
1821 architecture-independent binary packages
1822 (those packages for which the body of the
1823 <tt>Architecture</tt> field in <tt>debian/control</tt>
1825 The <tt>build</tt> target should depend on those of the
1826 targets <tt>build-arch</tt> and <tt>build-indep</tt> that
1827 are provided in the rules file.
1831 If one or both of the targets <tt>build-arch</tt> and
1832 <tt>build-indep</tt> are not provided, then invoking
1833 <file>debian/rules</file> with one of the not-provided
1834 targets as arguments should produce a exit status code
1835 of 2. Usually this is provided automatically by make
1836 if the target is missing.
1840 The <tt>build-arch</tt> and <tt>build-indep</tt> targets
1841 must not do anything that might require root privilege.
1845 <tag><tt>binary</tt>, <tt>binary-arch</tt>,
1846 <tt>binary-indep</tt>
1850 The <tt>binary</tt> target must be all that is
1851 necessary for the user to build the binary package(s)
1852 produced from this source package. It is
1853 split into two parts: <prgn>binary-arch</prgn> builds
1854 the binary packages which are specific to a particular
1855 architecture, and <tt>binary-indep</tt> builds
1856 those which are not.
1859 <tt>binary</tt> may be (and commonly is) a target with
1860 no commands which simply depends on
1861 <tt>binary-arch</tt> and <tt>binary-indep</tt>.
1864 Both <tt>binary-*</tt> targets should depend on the
1865 <tt>build</tt> target, or on the appropriate
1866 <tt>build-arch</tt> or <tt>build-indep</tt> target, if
1867 provided, so that the package is built if it has not
1868 been already. It should then create the relevant
1869 binary package(s), using <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> to
1870 make their control files and <prgn>dpkg-deb</prgn> to
1871 build them and place them in the parent of the top
1876 Both the <tt>binary-arch</tt> and
1877 <tt>binary-indep</tt> targets <em>must</em> exist.
1878 If one of them has nothing to do (which will always be
1879 the case if the source generates only a single binary
1880 package, whether architecture-dependent or not), it
1881 must still exist and must always succeed.
1885 The <tt>binary</tt> targets must be invoked as
1887 The <prgn>fakeroot</prgn> package often allows one
1888 to build a package correctly even without being
1894 <tag><tt>clean</tt></tag>
1897 This must undo any effects that the <tt>build</tt>
1898 and <tt>binary</tt> targets may have had, except
1899 that it should leave alone any output files created in
1900 the parent directory by a run of a <tt>binary</tt>
1905 If a <tt>build</tt> file is touched at the end of
1906 the <tt>build</tt> target, as suggested above, it
1907 should be removed as the first action that
1908 <tt>clean</tt> performs, so that running
1909 <tt>build</tt> again after an interrupted
1910 <tt>clean</tt> doesn't think that everything is
1915 The <tt>clean</tt> target may need to be
1916 invoked as root if <tt>binary</tt> has been
1917 invoked since the last <tt>clean</tt>, or if
1918 <tt>build</tt> has been invoked as root (since
1919 <tt>build</tt> may create directories, for
1924 <tag><tt>get-orig-source</tt> (optional)</tag>
1927 This target fetches the most recent version of the
1928 original source package from a canonical archive site
1929 (via FTP or WWW, for example), does any necessary
1930 rearrangement to turn it into the original source
1931 tar file format described below, and leaves it in the
1936 This target may be invoked in any directory, and
1937 should take care to clean up any temporary files it
1942 This target is optional, but providing it if
1943 possible is a good idea.
1947 <tag><tt>patch</tt> (optional)</tag>
1950 This target performs whatever additional actions are
1951 required to make the source ready for editing (unpacking
1952 additional upstream archives, applying patches, etc.).
1953 It is recommended to be implemented for any package where
1954 <tt>dpkg-source -x</tt> does not result in source ready
1955 for additional modification. See
1956 <ref id="readmesource">.
1962 The <tt>build</tt>, <tt>binary</tt> and
1963 <tt>clean</tt> targets must be invoked with the current
1964 directory being the package's top-level directory.
1969 Additional targets may exist in <file>debian/rules</file>,
1970 either as published or undocumented interfaces or for the
1971 package's internal use.
1975 The architectures we build on and build for are determined
1976 by <prgn>make</prgn> variables using the utility
1977 <qref id="pkg-dpkg-architecture"><prgn>dpkg-architecture</prgn></qref>.
1978 You can determine the
1979 Debian architecture and the GNU style architecture
1980 specification string for the build machine (the machine type
1981 we are building on) as well as for the host machine (the
1982 machine type we are building for). Here is a list of
1983 supported <prgn>make</prgn> variables:
1984 <list compact="compact">
1986 <tt>DEB_*_ARCH</tt> (the Debian architecture)
1989 <tt>DEB_*_ARCH_CPU</tt> (the Debian CPU name)
1992 <tt>DEB_*_ARCH_OS</tt> (the Debian System name)
1995 <tt>DEB_*_GNU_TYPE</tt> (the GNU style architecture
1996 specification string)
1999 <tt>DEB_*_GNU_CPU</tt> (the CPU part of
2000 <tt>DEB_*_GNU_TYPE</tt>)
2003 <tt>DEB_*_GNU_SYSTEM</tt> (the System part of
2004 <tt>DEB_*_GNU_TYPE</tt>)
2006 where <tt>*</tt> is either <tt>BUILD</tt> for specification of
2007 the build machine or <tt>HOST</tt> for specification of the
2012 Backward compatibility can be provided in the rules file
2013 by setting the needed variables to suitable default
2014 values; please refer to the documentation of
2015 <prgn>dpkg-architecture</prgn> for details.
2019 It is important to understand that the <tt>DEB_*_ARCH</tt>
2020 string only determines which Debian architecture we are
2021 building on or for. It should not be used to get the CPU
2022 or system information; the <tt>DEB_*_ARCH_CPU</tt> and
2023 <tt>DEB_*_ARCH_OS</tt> variables should be used for that.
2024 GNU style variables should generally only be used with upstream
2028 <sect1 id="debianrules-options">
2029 <heading><file>debian/rules</file> and
2030 <tt>DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS</tt></heading>
2033 Supporting the standardized environment variable
2034 <tt>DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS</tt> is recommended. This variable can
2035 contain several flags to change how a package is compiled and
2036 built. Each flag must be in the form <var>flag</var> or
2037 <var>flag</var>=<var>options</var>. If multiple flags are
2038 given, they must be separated by whitespace.<footnote>
2039 Some packages support any delimiter, but whitespace is the
2040 easiest to parse inside a makefile and avoids ambiguity with
2041 flag values that contain commas.
2043 <var>flag</var> must start with a lowercase letter
2044 (<tt>a-z</tt>) and consist only of lowercase letters,
2045 numbers (<tt>0-9</tt>), and the characters
2046 <tt>-</tt> and <tt>_</tt> (hyphen and underscore).
2047 <var>options</var> must not contain whitespace. The same
2048 tag should not be given multiple times with conflicting
2049 values. Package maintainers may assume that
2050 <tt>DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS</tt> will not contain conflicting tags.
2054 The meaning of the following tags has been standardized:
2058 This tag says to not run any build-time test suite
2059 provided by the package.
2063 The presence of this tag means that the package should
2064 be compiled with a minimum of optimization. For C
2065 programs, it is best to add <tt>-O0</tt> to
2066 <tt>CFLAGS</tt> (although this is usually the default).
2067 Some programs might fail to build or run at this level
2068 of optimization; it may be necessary to use
2069 <tt>-O1</tt>, for example.
2073 This tag means that the debugging symbols should not be
2074 stripped from the binary during installation, so that
2075 debugging information may be included in the package.
2077 <tag>parallel=n</tag>
2079 This tag means that the package should be built using up
2080 to <tt>n</tt> parallel processes if the package build
2081 system supports this.<footnote>
2082 Packages built with <tt>make</tt> can often implement
2083 this by passing the <tt>-j</tt><var>n</var> option to
2086 If the package build system does not support parallel
2087 builds, this string must be ignored. If the package
2088 build system only supports a lower level of concurrency
2089 than <var>n</var>, the package should be built using as
2090 many parallel processes as the package build system
2091 supports. It is up to the package maintainer to decide
2092 whether the package build times are long enough and the
2093 package build system is robust enough to make supporting
2094 parallel builds worthwhile.
2100 Unknown flags must be ignored by <file>debian/rules</file>.
2104 The following makefile snippet is an example of how one may
2105 implement the build options; you will probably have to
2106 massage this example in order to make it work for your
2108 <example compact="compact">
2111 INSTALL_FILE = $(INSTALL) -p -o root -g root -m 644
2112 INSTALL_PROGRAM = $(INSTALL) -p -o root -g root -m 755
2113 INSTALL_SCRIPT = $(INSTALL) -p -o root -g root -m 755
2114 INSTALL_DIR = $(INSTALL) -p -d -o root -g root -m 755
2116 ifneq (,$(filter noopt,$(DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS)))
2121 ifeq (,$(filter nostrip,$(DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS)))
2122 INSTALL_PROGRAM += -s
2124 ifneq (,$(filter parallel=%,$(DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS)))
2125 NUMJOBS = $(patsubst parallel=%,%,$(filter parallel=%,$(DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS)))
2126 MAKEFLAGS += -j$(NUMJOBS)
2131 ifeq (,$(filter nocheck,$(DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS)))
2132 # Code to run the package test suite.
2139 <!-- FIXME: section pkg-srcsubstvars is the same as substvars -->
2140 <sect id="substvars">
2141 <heading>Variable substitutions: <file>debian/substvars</file></heading>
2144 When <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn>,
2145 <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> and <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn>
2146 generate control files they perform variable substitutions
2147 on their output just before writing it. Variable
2148 substitutions have the form <tt>${<var>variable</var>}</tt>.
2149 The optional file <file>debian/substvars</file> contains
2150 variable substitutions to be used; variables can also be set
2151 directly from <file>debian/rules</file> using the <tt>-V</tt>
2152 option to the source packaging commands, and certain
2153 predefined variables are also available.
2157 The <file>debian/substvars</file> file is usually generated and
2158 modified dynamically by <file>debian/rules</file> targets, in
2159 which case it must be removed by the <tt>clean</tt> target.
2163 See <manref name="deb-substvars" section="5"> for full
2164 details about source variable substitutions, including the
2165 format of <file>debian/substvars</file>.</p>
2168 <sect id="debianwatch">
2169 <heading>Optional upstream source location: <file>debian/watch</file></heading>
2172 This is an optional, recommended control file for the
2173 <tt>uscan</tt> utility which defines how to automatically
2174 scan ftp or http sites for newly available updates of the
2175 package. This is used by <url id="
2176 http://dehs.alioth.debian.org/"> and other Debian QA tools
2177 to help with quality control and maintenance of the
2178 distribution as a whole.
2183 <sect id="debianfiles">
2184 <heading>Generated files list: <file>debian/files</file></heading>
2187 This file is not a permanent part of the source tree; it
2188 is used while building packages to record which files are
2189 being generated. <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> uses it
2190 when it generates a <file>.changes</file> file.
2194 It should not exist in a shipped source package, and so it
2195 (and any backup files or temporary files such as
2196 <file>files.new</file><footnote>
2197 <file>files.new</file> is used as a temporary file by
2198 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> and
2199 <prgn>dpkg-distaddfile</prgn> - they write a new
2200 version of <tt>files</tt> here before renaming it,
2201 to avoid leaving a corrupted copy if an error
2203 </footnote>) should be removed by the
2204 <tt>clean</tt> target. It may also be wise to
2205 ensure a fresh start by emptying or removing it at the
2206 start of the <tt>binary</tt> target.
2210 When <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> is run for a binary
2211 package, it adds an entry to <file>debian/files</file> for the
2212 <file>.deb</file> file that will be created when <tt>dpkg-deb
2213 --build</tt> is run for that binary package. So for most
2214 packages all that needs to be done with this file is to
2215 delete it in the <tt>clean</tt> target.
2219 If a package upload includes files besides the source
2220 package and any binary packages whose control files were
2221 made with <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> then they should be
2222 placed in the parent of the package's top-level directory
2223 and <prgn>dpkg-distaddfile</prgn> should be called to add
2224 the file to the list in <file>debian/files</file>.</p>
2227 <sect id="embeddedfiles">
2228 <heading>Convenience copies of code</heading>
2231 Some software packages include in their distribution convenience
2232 copies of code from other software packages, generally so that
2233 users compiling from source don't have to download multiple
2234 packages. Debian packages should not make use of these
2235 convenience copies unless the included package is explicitly
2236 intended to be used in this way.<footnote>
2237 For example, parts of the GNU build system work like this.
2239 If the included code is already in the Debian archive in the
2240 form of a library, the Debian packaging should ensure that
2241 binary packages reference the libraries already in Debian and
2242 the convenience copy is not used. If the included code is not
2243 already in Debian, it should be packaged separately as a
2244 prerequisite if possible.
2246 Having multiple copies of the same code in Debian is
2247 inefficient, often creates either static linking or shared
2248 library conflicts, and, most importantly, increases the
2249 difficulty of handling security vulnerabilities in the
2255 <sect id="readmesource">
2256 <heading>Source package handling:
2257 <file>debian/README.source</file></heading>
2260 If running <prgn>dpkg-source -x</prgn> on a source package
2261 doesn't produce the source of the package, ready for editing,
2262 and allow one to make changes and run
2263 <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn> to produce a modified package
2264 without taking any additional steps, creating a
2265 <file>debian/README.source</file> documentation file is
2266 recommended. This file should explain how to do all of the
2269 <item>Generate the fully patched source, in a form ready for
2270 editing, that would be built to create Debian
2271 packages. Doing this with a <tt>patch</tt> target in
2272 <file>debian/rules</file> is recommended; see
2273 <ref id="debianrules">.</item>
2274 <item>Modify the source and save those modifications so that
2275 they will be applied when building the package.</item>
2276 <item>Remove source modifications that are currently being
2277 applied when building the package.</item>
2278 <item>Optionally, document what steps are necessary to
2279 upgrade the Debian source package to a new upstream version,
2280 if applicable.</item>
2282 This explanation should include specific commands and mention
2283 any additional required Debian packages. It should not assume
2284 familiarity with any specific Debian packaging system or patch
2289 This explanation may refer to a documentation file installed by
2290 one of the package's build dependencies provided that the
2291 referenced documentation clearly explains these tasks and is not
2292 a general reference manual.
2296 <file>debian/README.source</file> may also include any other
2297 information that would be helpful to someone modifying the
2298 source package. Even if the package doesn't fit the above
2299 description, maintainers are encouraged to document in a
2300 <file>debian/README.source</file> file any source package with a
2301 particularly complex or unintuitive source layout or build
2302 system (for example, a package that builds the same source
2303 multiple times to generate different binary packages).
2309 <chapt id="controlfields">
2310 <heading>Control files and their fields</heading>
2313 The package management system manipulates data represented in
2314 a common format, known as <em>control data</em>, stored in
2315 <em>control files</em>.
2316 Control files are used for source packages, binary packages and
2317 the <file>.changes</file> files which control the installation
2318 of uploaded files<footnote>
2319 <prgn>dpkg</prgn>'s internal databases are in a similar
2324 <sect id="controlsyntax">
2325 <heading>Syntax of control files</heading>
2328 A control file consists of one or more paragraphs of
2330 The paragraphs are also sometimes referred to as stanzas.
2332 The paragraphs are separated by blank lines. Some control
2333 files allow only one paragraph; others allow several, in
2334 which case each paragraph usually refers to a different
2335 package. (For example, in source packages, the first
2336 paragraph refers to the source package, and later paragraphs
2337 refer to binary packages generated from the source.)
2341 Each paragraph consists of a series of data fields; each
2342 field consists of the field name, followed by a colon and
2343 then the data/value associated with that field. It ends at
2344 the end of the (logical) line. Horizontal whitespace
2345 (spaces and tabs) may occur immediately before or after the
2346 value and is ignored there; it is conventional to put a
2347 single space after the colon. For example, a field might
2349 <example compact="compact">
2352 the field name is <tt>Package</tt> and the field value
2357 Many fields' values may span several lines; in this case
2358 each continuation line must start with a space or a tab.
2359 Any trailing spaces or tabs at the end of individual
2360 lines of a field value are ignored.
2364 In fields where it is specified that lines may not wrap,
2365 only a single line of data is allowed and whitespace is not
2366 significant in a field body. Whitespace must not appear
2367 inside names (of packages, architectures, files or anything
2368 else) or version numbers, or between the characters of
2369 multi-character version relationships.
2373 Field names are not case-sensitive, but it is usual to
2374 capitalize the field names using mixed case as shown below.
2378 Blank lines, or lines consisting only of spaces and tabs,
2379 are not allowed within field values or between fields - that
2380 would mean a new paragraph.
2384 All control files must be encoded in UTF-8.
2388 <sect id="sourcecontrolfiles">
2389 <heading>Source package control files -- <file>debian/control</file></heading>
2392 The <file>debian/control</file> file contains the most vital
2393 (and version-independent) information about the source package
2394 and about the binary packages it creates.
2398 The first paragraph of the control file contains information about
2399 the source package in general. The subsequent sets each describe a
2400 binary package that the source tree builds.
2404 The fields in the general paragraph (the first one, for the source
2407 <list compact="compact">
2408 <item><qref id="f-Source"><tt>Source</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2409 <item><qref id="f-Maintainer"><tt>Maintainer</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2410 <item><qref id="f-Uploaders"><tt>Uploaders</tt></qref></item>
2411 <item><qref id="f-Section"><tt>Section</tt></qref> (recommended)</item>
2412 <item><qref id="f-Priority"><tt>Priority</tt></qref> (recommended)</item>
2413 <item><qref id="sourcebinarydeps"><tt>Build-Depends</tt> et al</qref></item>
2414 <item><qref id="f-Standards-Version"><tt>Standards-Version</tt></qref> (recommended)</item>
2415 <item><qref id="f-Homepage"><tt>Homepage</tt></qref></item>
2420 The fields in the binary package paragraphs are:
2422 <list compact="compact">
2423 <item><qref id="f-Package"><tt>Package</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2424 <item><qref id="f-Architecture"><tt>Architecture</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2425 <item><qref id="f-Section"><tt>Section</tt></qref> (recommended)</item>
2426 <item><qref id="f-Priority"><tt>Priority</tt></qref> (recommended)</item>
2427 <item><qref id="f-Essential"><tt>Essential</tt></qref></item>
2428 <item><qref id="binarydeps"><tt>Depends</tt> et al</qref></item>
2429 <item><qref id="f-Description"><tt>Description</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2430 <item><qref id="f-Homepage"><tt>Homepage</tt></qref></item>
2435 The syntax and semantics of the fields are described below.
2441 These fields are used by <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> to
2442 generate control files for binary packages (see below), by
2443 <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> to generate the
2444 <tt>.changes</tt> file to accompany the upload, and by
2445 <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn> when it creates the
2446 <file>.dsc</file> source control file as part of a source
2447 archive. Many fields are permitted to span multiple lines in
2448 <file>debian/control</file> but not in any other control
2449 file. These tools are responsible for removing the line
2450 breaks from such fields when using fields from
2451 <file>debian/control</file> to generate other control files.
2455 The fields here may contain variable references - their
2456 values will be substituted by <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn>,
2457 <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> or <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn>
2458 when they generate output control files.
2459 See <ref id="substvars"> for details.
2463 In addition to the control file syntax described <qref
2464 id="controlsyntax">above</qref>, this file may also contain
2465 comment lines starting with <tt>#</tt> without any preceding
2466 whitespace. All such lines are ignored, even in the middle of
2467 continuation lines for a multiline field, and do not end a
2473 <sect id="binarycontrolfiles">
2474 <heading>Binary package control files -- <file>DEBIAN/control</file></heading>
2477 The <file>DEBIAN/control</file> file contains the most vital
2478 (and version-dependent) information about a binary package.
2482 The fields in this file are:
2484 <list compact="compact">
2485 <item><qref id="f-Package"><tt>Package</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2486 <item><qref id="f-Source"><tt>Source</tt></qref></item>
2487 <item><qref id="f-Version"><tt>Version</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2488 <item><qref id="f-Section"><tt>Section</tt></qref> (recommended)</item>
2489 <item><qref id="f-Priority"><tt>Priority</tt></qref> (recommended)</item>
2490 <item><qref id="f-Architecture"><tt>Architecture</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2491 <item><qref id="f-Essential"><tt>Essential</tt></qref></item>
2492 <item><qref id="binarydeps"><tt>Depends</tt> et al</qref></item>
2493 <item><qref id="f-Installed-Size"><tt>Installed-Size</tt></qref></item>
2494 <item><qref id="f-Maintainer"><tt>Maintainer</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2495 <item><qref id="f-Description"><tt>Description</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2496 <item><qref id="f-Homepage"><tt>Homepage</tt></qref></item>
2501 <sect id="debiansourcecontrolfiles">
2502 <heading>Debian source control files -- <tt>.dsc</tt></heading>
2505 This file contains a series of fields, identified and
2506 separated just like the fields in the control file of
2507 a binary package. The fields are listed below; their
2508 syntax is described above, in <ref id="pkg-controlfields">.
2510 <list compact="compact">
2511 <item><qref id="f-Format"><tt>Format</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2512 <item><qref id="f-Source"><tt>Source</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2513 <item><qref id="f-Version"><tt>Version</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2514 <item><qref id="f-Maintainer"><tt>Maintainer</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2515 <item><qref id="f-Uploaders"><tt>Uploaders</tt></qref></item>
2516 <item><qref id="f-Binary"><tt>Binary</tt></qref></item>
2517 <item><qref id="f-Architecture"><tt>Architecture</tt></qref></item>
2518 <item><qref id="sourcebinarydeps"><tt>Build-Depends</tt> et al</qref></item>
2519 <item><qref id="f-Standards-Version"><tt>Standards-Version</tt></qref> (recommended)</item>
2520 <item><qref id="f-Files"><tt>Files</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2521 <item><qref id="f-Homepage"><tt>Homepage</tt></qref></item>
2526 The source package control file is generated by
2527 <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn> when it builds the source
2528 archive, from other files in the source package,
2529 described above. When unpacking, it is checked against
2530 the files and directories in the other parts of the
2536 <sect id="debianchangesfiles">
2537 <heading>Debian changes files -- <file>.changes</file></heading>
2540 The .changes files are used by the Debian archive maintenance
2541 software to process updates to packages. They contain one
2542 paragraph which contains information from the
2543 <tt>debian/control</tt> file and other data about the
2544 source package gathered via <tt>debian/changelog</tt>
2545 and <tt>debian/rules</tt>.
2549 The fields in this file are:
2551 <list compact="compact">
2552 <item><qref id="f-Format"><tt>Format</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2553 <item><qref id="f-Date"><tt>Date</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2554 <item><qref id="f-Source"><tt>Source</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2555 <item><qref id="f-Binary"><tt>Binary</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2556 <item><qref id="f-Architecture"><tt>Architecture</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2557 <item><qref id="f-Version"><tt>Version</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2558 <item><qref id="f-Distribution"><tt>Distribution</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2559 <item><qref id="f-Urgency"><tt>Urgency</tt></qref> (recommended)</item>
2560 <item><qref id="f-Maintainer"><tt>Maintainer</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2561 <item><qref id="f-Changed-By"><tt>Changed-By</tt></qref></item>
2562 <item><qref id="f-Description"><tt>Description</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2563 <item><qref id="f-Closes"><tt>Closes</tt></qref></item>
2564 <item><qref id="f-Changes"><tt>Changes</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2565 <item><qref id="f-Files"><tt>Files</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
2570 <sect id="controlfieldslist">
2571 <heading>List of fields</heading>
2573 <sect1 id="f-Source">
2574 <heading><tt>Source</tt></heading>
2577 This field identifies the source package name.
2581 In <file>debian/control</file> or a <file>.dsc</file> file,
2582 this field must contain only the name of the source package.
2586 In a binary package control file or a <file>.changes</file>
2587 file, the source package name may be followed by a version
2588 number in parentheses<footnote>
2589 It is customary to leave a space after the package name
2590 if a version number is specified.
2592 This version number may be omitted (and is, by
2593 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn>) if it has the same value as
2594 the <tt>Version</tt> field of the binary package in
2595 question. The field itself may be omitted from a binary
2596 package control file when the source package has the same
2597 name and version as the binary package.
2601 Package names must consist only of lower case letters
2602 (<tt>a-z</tt>), digits (<tt>0-9</tt>), plus (<tt>+</tt>)
2603 and minus (<tt>-</tt>) signs, and periods (<tt>.</tt>).
2604 They must be at least two characters long and must start
2605 with an alphanumeric character.
2609 <sect1 id="f-Maintainer">
2610 <heading><tt>Maintainer</tt></heading>
2613 The package maintainer's name and email address. The name
2614 should come first, then the email address inside angle
2615 brackets <tt><></tt> (in RFC822 format).
2619 If the maintainer's name contains a full stop then the
2620 whole field will not work directly as an email address due
2621 to a misfeature in the syntax specified in RFC822; a
2622 program using this field as an address must check for this
2623 and correct the problem if necessary (for example by
2624 putting the name in round brackets and moving it to the
2625 end, and bringing the email address forward).
2629 <sect1 id="f-Uploaders">
2630 <heading><tt>Uploaders</tt></heading>
2633 List of the names and email addresses of co-maintainers of
2634 the package, if any. If the package has other maintainers
2635 beside the one named in the
2636 <qref id="f-Maintainer">Maintainer field</qref>, their
2637 names and email addresses should be listed here. The
2638 format is the same as that of the Maintainer tag, and
2639 multiple entries should be comma separated. Currently,
2640 this field is restricted to a single line of data. This
2641 is an optional field.
2644 Any parser that interprets the Uploaders field in
2645 <file>debian/control</file> must permit it to span multiple
2646 lines. Line breaks in an Uploaders field that spans multiple
2647 lines are not significant and the semantics of the field are
2648 the same as if the line breaks had not been present.
2652 <sect1 id="f-Changed-By">
2653 <heading><tt>Changed-By</tt></heading>
2656 The name and email address of the person who changed the
2657 said package. Usually the name of the maintainer.
2658 All the rules for the Maintainer field apply here, too.
2662 <sect1 id="f-Section">
2663 <heading><tt>Section</tt></heading>
2666 This field specifies an application area into which the package
2667 has been classified. See <ref id="subsections">.
2671 When it appears in the <file>debian/control</file> file,
2672 it gives the value for the subfield of the same name in
2673 the <tt>Files</tt> field of the <file>.changes</file> file.
2674 It also gives the default for the same field in the binary
2679 <sect1 id="f-Priority">
2680 <heading><tt>Priority</tt></heading>
2683 This field represents how important that it is that the user
2684 have the package installed. See <ref id="priorities">.
2688 When it appears in the <file>debian/control</file> file,
2689 it gives the value for the subfield of the same name in
2690 the <tt>Files</tt> field of the <file>.changes</file> file.
2691 It also gives the default for the same field in the binary
2696 <sect1 id="f-Package">
2697 <heading><tt>Package</tt></heading>
2700 The name of the binary package.
2704 Package names must consist only of lower case letters
2705 (<tt>a-z</tt>), digits (<tt>0-9</tt>), plus (<tt>+</tt>)
2706 and minus (<tt>-</tt>) signs, and periods (<tt>.</tt>).
2707 They must be at least two characters long and must start
2708 with an alphanumeric character.
2712 <sect1 id="f-Architecture">
2713 <heading><tt>Architecture</tt></heading>
2716 Depending on context and the control file used, the
2717 <tt>Architecture</tt> field can include the following sets of
2720 <item>A unique single word identifying a Debian machine
2721 architecture as described in <ref id="arch-spec">.
2722 <item><tt>all</tt>, which indicates an
2723 architecture-independent package.
2724 <item><tt>any</tt>, which indicates a package available
2725 for building on any architecture.
2726 <item><tt>source</tt>, which indicates a source package.
2731 In the main <file>debian/control</file> file in the source
2732 package, this field may contain the special value
2733 <tt>any</tt>, the special value <tt>all</tt>, or a list of
2734 architectures separated by spaces. If <tt>any</tt> or
2735 <tt>all</tt> appear, they must be the entire contents of the
2736 field. Most packages will use either <tt>any</tt> or
2737 <tt>all</tt>. Specifying a specific list of architectures is
2738 for the minority of cases where a program is not portable or
2739 is not useful on some architectures, and where possible the
2740 program should be made portable instead.
2744 In the source package control file <file>.dsc</file>, this
2745 field may contain either the special value <tt>any</tt> or a
2746 list of architectures separated by spaces. If a list is given,
2747 it may include (or consist solely of) the special value
2748 <tt>all</tt>. In other words, in <file>.dsc</file> files
2749 unlike the <file>debian/control</file>, <tt>all</tt> may occur
2750 in combination with specific architectures. The
2751 <tt>Architecture</tt> field in the source package control file
2752 <file>.dsc</file> is generally constructed from the
2753 <tt>Architecture</tt> fields in the
2754 <file>debian/control</file> in the source package.
2758 Specifying <tt>any</tt> indicates that the source package
2759 isn't dependent on any particular architecture and should
2760 compile fine on any one. The produced binary package(s)
2761 will either be specific to whatever the current build
2762 architecture is or will be architecture-independent.
2766 Specifying only <tt>all</tt> indicates that the source package
2767 will only build architecture-independent packages. If this is
2768 the case, <tt>all</tt> must be used rather than <tt>any</tt>;
2769 <tt>any</tt> implies that the source package will build at
2770 least one architecture-dependent package.
2774 Specifying a list of architectures indicates that the source
2775 will build an architecture-dependent package, and will only
2776 work correctly on the listed architectures. If the source
2777 package also builds at least one architecture-independent
2778 package, <tt>all</tt> will also be included in the list.
2782 In a <file>.changes</file> file, the <tt>Architecture</tt>
2783 field lists the architecture(s) of the package(s)
2784 currently being uploaded. This will be a list; if the
2785 source for the package is also being uploaded, the special
2786 entry <tt>source</tt> is also present. <tt>all</tt> will be
2787 present if any architecture-independent packages are being
2788 uploaded. <tt>any</tt> may never occur in the
2789 <tt>Architecture</tt> field in the <file>.changes</file>
2794 See <ref id="debianrules"> for information how to get the
2795 architecture for the build process.
2799 <sect1 id="f-Essential">
2800 <heading><tt>Essential</tt></heading>
2803 This is a boolean field which may occur only in the
2804 control file of a binary package or in a per-package fields
2805 paragraph of a main source control data file.
2809 If set to <tt>yes</tt> then the package management system
2810 will refuse to remove the package (upgrading and replacing
2811 it is still possible). The other possible value is <tt>no</tt>,
2812 which is the same as not having the field at all.
2817 <heading>Package interrelationship fields:
2818 <tt>Depends</tt>, <tt>Pre-Depends</tt>,
2819 <tt>Recommends</tt>, <tt>Suggests</tt>,
2820 <tt>Breaks</tt>, <tt>Conflicts</tt>,
2821 <tt>Provides</tt>, <tt>Replaces</tt>, <tt>Enhances</tt>
2825 These fields describe the package's relationships with
2826 other packages. Their syntax and semantics are described
2827 in <ref id="relationships">.</p>
2830 <sect1 id="f-Standards-Version">
2831 <heading><tt>Standards-Version</tt></heading>
2834 The most recent version of the standards (the policy
2835 manual and associated texts) with which the package
2840 The version number has four components: major and minor
2841 version number and major and minor patch level. When the
2842 standards change in a way that requires every package to
2843 change the major number will be changed. Significant
2844 changes that will require work in many packages will be
2845 signaled by a change to the minor number. The major patch
2846 level will be changed for any change to the meaning of the
2847 standards, however small; the minor patch level will be
2848 changed when only cosmetic, typographical or other edits
2849 are made which neither change the meaning of the document
2850 nor affect the contents of packages.
2854 Thus only the first three components of the policy version
2855 are significant in the <em>Standards-Version</em> control
2856 field, and so either these three components or the all
2857 four components may be specified.<footnote>
2858 In the past, people specified the full version number
2859 in the Standards-Version field, for example "2.3.0.0".
2860 Since minor patch-level changes don't introduce new
2861 policy, it was thought it would be better to relax
2862 policy and only require the first 3 components to be
2863 specified, in this example "2.3.0". All four
2864 components may still be used if someone wishes to do so.
2870 <sect1 id="f-Version">
2871 <heading><tt>Version</tt></heading>
2874 The version number of a package. The format is:
2875 [<var>epoch</var><tt>:</tt>]<var>upstream_version</var>[<tt>-</tt><var>debian_revision</var>]
2879 The three components here are:
2881 <tag><var>epoch</var></tag>
2884 This is a single (generally small) unsigned integer. It
2885 may be omitted, in which case zero is assumed. If it is
2886 omitted then the <var>upstream_version</var> may not
2891 It is provided to allow mistakes in the version numbers
2892 of older versions of a package, and also a package's
2893 previous version numbering schemes, to be left behind.
2897 <tag><var>upstream_version</var></tag>
2900 This is the main part of the version number. It is
2901 usually the version number of the original ("upstream")
2902 package from which the <file>.deb</file> file has been made,
2903 if this is applicable. Usually this will be in the same
2904 format as that specified by the upstream author(s);
2905 however, it may need to be reformatted to fit into the
2906 package management system's format and comparison
2911 The comparison behavior of the package management system
2912 with respect to the <var>upstream_version</var> is
2913 described below. The <var>upstream_version</var>
2914 portion of the version number is mandatory.
2918 The <var>upstream_version</var> may contain only
2919 alphanumerics<footnote>
2920 Alphanumerics are <tt>A-Za-z0-9</tt> only.
2922 and the characters <tt>.</tt> <tt>+</tt> <tt>-</tt>
2923 <tt>:</tt> <tt>~</tt> (full stop, plus, hyphen, colon,
2924 tilde) and should start with a digit. If there is no
2925 <var>debian_revision</var> then hyphens are not allowed;
2926 if there is no <var>epoch</var> then colons are not
2931 <tag><var>debian_revision</var></tag>
2934 This part of the version number specifies the version of
2935 the Debian package based on the upstream version. It
2936 may contain only alphanumerics and the characters
2937 <tt>+</tt> <tt>.</tt> <tt>~</tt> (plus, full stop,
2938 tilde) and is compared in the same way as the
2939 <var>upstream_version</var> is.
2943 It is optional; if it isn't present then the
2944 <var>upstream_version</var> may not contain a hyphen.
2945 This format represents the case where a piece of
2946 software was written specifically to be turned into a
2947 Debian package, and so there is only one "debianisation"
2948 of it and therefore no revision indication is required.
2952 It is conventional to restart the
2953 <var>debian_revision</var> at <tt>1</tt> each time the
2954 <var>upstream_version</var> is increased.
2958 The package management system will break the version
2959 number apart at the last hyphen in the string (if there
2960 is one) to determine the <var>upstream_version</var> and
2961 <var>debian_revision</var>. The absence of a
2962 <var>debian_revision</var> is equivalent to a
2963 <var>debian_revision</var> of <tt>0</tt>.
2970 When comparing two version numbers, first the <var>epoch</var>
2971 of each are compared, then the <var>upstream_version</var> if
2972 <var>epoch</var> is equal, and then <var>debian_revision</var>
2973 if <var>upstream_version</var> is also equal.
2974 <var>epoch</var> is compared numerically. The
2975 <var>upstream_version</var> and <var>debian_revision</var>
2976 parts are compared by the package management system using the
2977 following algorithm:
2981 The strings are compared from left to right.
2985 First the initial part of each string consisting entirely of
2986 non-digit characters is determined. These two parts (one of
2987 which may be empty) are compared lexically. If a difference
2988 is found it is returned. The lexical comparison is a
2989 comparison of ASCII values modified so that all the letters
2990 sort earlier than all the non-letters and so that a tilde
2991 sorts before anything, even the end of a part. For example,
2992 the following parts are in sorted order from earliest to
2993 latest: <tt>~~</tt>, <tt>~~a</tt>, <tt>~</tt>, the empty part,
2994 <tt>a</tt>.<footnote>
2995 One common use of <tt>~</tt> is for upstream pre-releases.
2996 For example, <tt>1.0~beta1~svn1245</tt> sorts earlier than
2997 <tt>1.0~beta1</tt>, which sorts earlier than <tt>1.0</tt>.
3002 Then the initial part of the remainder of each string which
3003 consists entirely of digit characters is determined. The
3004 numerical values of these two parts are compared, and any
3005 difference found is returned as the result of the comparison.
3006 For these purposes an empty string (which can only occur at
3007 the end of one or both version strings being compared) counts
3012 These two steps (comparing and removing initial non-digit
3013 strings and initial digit strings) are repeated until a
3014 difference is found or both strings are exhausted.
3018 Note that the purpose of epochs is to allow us to leave behind
3019 mistakes in version numbering, and to cope with situations
3020 where the version numbering scheme changes. It is
3021 <em>not</em> intended to cope with version numbers containing
3022 strings of letters which the package management system cannot
3023 interpret (such as <tt>ALPHA</tt> or <tt>pre-</tt>), or with
3024 silly orderings (the author of this manual has heard of a
3025 package whose versions went <tt>1.1</tt>, <tt>1.2</tt>,
3026 <tt>1.3</tt>, <tt>1</tt>, <tt>2.1</tt>, <tt>2.2</tt>,
3027 <tt>2</tt> and so forth).
3031 <sect1 id="f-Description">
3032 <heading><tt>Description</tt></heading>
3035 In a source or binary control file, the <tt>Description</tt>
3036 field contains a description of the binary package, consisting
3037 of two parts, the synopsis or the short description, and the
3038 long description. The field's format is as follows:
3043 Description: <single line synopsis>
3044 <extended description over several lines>
3049 The lines in the extended description can have these formats:
3055 Those starting with a single space are part of a paragraph.
3056 Successive lines of this form will be word-wrapped when
3057 displayed. The leading space will usually be stripped off.
3061 Those starting with two or more spaces. These will be
3062 displayed verbatim. If the display cannot be panned
3063 horizontally, the displaying program will line wrap them "hard"
3064 (i.e., without taking account of word breaks). If it can they
3065 will be allowed to trail off to the right. None, one or two
3066 initial spaces may be deleted, but the number of spaces
3067 deleted from each line will be the same (so that you can have
3068 indenting work correctly, for example).
3072 Those containing a single space followed by a single full stop
3073 character. These are rendered as blank lines. This is the
3074 <em>only</em> way to get a blank line<footnote>
3075 Completely empty lines will not be rendered as blank lines.
3076 Instead, they will cause the parser to think you're starting
3077 a whole new record in the control file, and will therefore
3078 likely abort with an error.
3083 Those containing a space, a full stop and some more characters.
3084 These are for future expansion. Do not use them.
3090 Do not use tab characters. Their effect is not predictable.
3094 See <ref id="descriptions"> for further information on this.
3098 In a <file>.changes</file> file, the <tt>Description</tt> field
3099 contains a summary of the descriptions for the packages being
3104 The part of the field before the first newline is empty;
3105 thereafter each line has the name of a binary package and
3106 the summary description line from that binary package.
3107 Each line is indented by one space.
3112 <sect1 id="f-Distribution">
3113 <heading><tt>Distribution</tt></heading>
3116 In a <file>.changes</file> file or parsed changelog output
3117 this contains the (space-separated) name(s) of the
3118 distribution(s) where this version of the package should
3119 be installed. Valid distributions are determined by the
3120 archive maintainers.<footnote>
3121 Current distribution names in the Debian archive used in
3122 <file>.changes</file> files are:
3123 <taglist compact="compact">
3124 <tag><em>unstable</em></tag>
3126 This distribution value refers to the
3127 <em>developmental</em> part of the Debian distribution
3128 tree. Most new packages, new upstream versions of
3129 packages and bug fixes go into the <em>unstable</em>
3133 <tag><em>experimental</em></tag>
3135 The packages with this distribution value are deemed
3136 by their maintainers to be high risk. Oftentimes they
3137 represent early beta or developmental packages from
3138 various sources that the maintainers want people to
3139 try, but are not ready to be a part of the other parts
3140 of the Debian distribution tree.
3143 <tag><em>stable-proposed-updates</em></tag>
3145 Once a distribution of Debian GNU/Linux is released,
3146 it is declared <em>stable</em> and only security fixes
3147 and other major bug fixes are allowed. Proposed
3148 non-security updates for <em>stable</em> are uploaded
3149 using this distribution value after getting approval
3150 from the stable release managers.
3153 <tag><em>testing-proposed-updates</em></tag>
3155 The <em>testing</em> distribution normally receives
3156 its packages via the <em>unstable</em> distribution
3157 after a short time lag. However sometimes, such as
3158 during release freezes before a new stable release or
3159 when a problem in the <em>testing</em> distribution
3160 requires fixing before the <em>unstable</em> version
3161 can migrate, direct updates to a package in
3162 <em>testing</em> are useful. This distribution value
3163 is used for those exceptions, after approval from the
3169 Security fixes for the <em>stable</em> or
3170 <em>testing</em> distributions are handled via a
3171 separate upload queue and special
3172 <em>stable-security</em> and <em>testing-security<em>
3173 distribution values.
3177 More information is available in the Debian Developer's
3178 Reference, section "The Debian archive".
3181 The Debian archive software only supports listing a single
3182 distribution. Migration of packages to other distributions is
3183 handled outside of the upload process.
3188 <heading><tt>Date</tt></heading>
3191 This field includes the date the package was built or last edited.
3195 The value of this field is usually extracted from the
3196 <file>debian/changelog</file> file - see
3197 <ref id="dpkgchangelog">).
3201 <sect1 id="f-Format">
3202 <heading><tt>Format</tt></heading>
3205 This field specifies a format revision for the file.
3206 The most current format described in the Policy Manual
3207 is version <strong>1.5</strong>. The syntax of the
3208 format value is the same as that of a package version
3209 number except that no epoch or Debian revision is allowed
3210 - see <ref id="f-Version">.
3214 <sect1 id="f-Urgency">
3215 <heading><tt>Urgency</tt></heading>
3218 This is a description of how important it is to upgrade to
3219 this version from previous ones. It consists of a single
3220 keyword taking one of the values <tt>low</tt>,
3221 <tt>medium</tt>, <tt>high</tt>, <tt>emergency</tt>, or
3222 <tt>critical</tt><footnote>
3223 Other urgency values are supported with configuration
3224 changes in the archive software but are not used in Debian.
3225 The urgency affects how quickly a package will be considered
3226 for inclusion into the <tt>testing</tt> distribution and
3227 gives an indication of the importance of any fixes included
3228 in the upload. <tt>Emergency</tt> and <tt>critical</tt> are
3229 treated as synonymous.
3230 </footnote> (not case-sensitive) followed by an optional
3231 commentary (separated by a space) which is usually in
3232 parentheses. For example:
3235 Urgency: low (HIGH for users of diversions)
3241 The value of this field is usually extracted from the
3242 <file>debian/changelog</file> file - see
3243 <ref id="dpkgchangelog">.
3247 <sect1 id="f-Changes">
3248 <heading><tt>Changes</tt></heading>
3251 This field contains the human-readable changes data, describing
3252 the differences between the last version and the current one.
3256 There should be nothing in this field before the first
3257 newline; all the subsequent lines must be indented by at
3258 least one space; blank lines must be represented by a line
3259 consisting only of a space and a full stop.
3263 The value of this field is usually extracted from the
3264 <file>debian/changelog</file> file - see
3265 <ref id="dpkgchangelog">).
3269 Each version's change information should be preceded by a
3270 "title" line giving at least the version, distribution(s)
3271 and urgency, in a human-readable way.
3275 If data from several versions is being returned the entry
3276 for the most recent version should be returned first, and
3277 entries should be separated by the representation of a
3278 blank line (the "title" line may also be followed by the
3279 representation of blank line).
3283 <sect1 id="f-Binary">
3284 <heading><tt>Binary</tt></heading>
3287 This field is a list of binary packages.
3291 When it appears in the <file>.dsc</file> file it is the list
3292 of binary packages which a source package can produce. It
3293 does not necessarily produce all of these binary packages
3294 for every architecture. The source control file doesn't
3295 contain details of which architectures are appropriate for
3296 which of the binary packages.
3300 When it appears in a <file>.changes</file> file it lists the
3301 names of the binary packages actually being uploaded.
3305 The syntax is a list of binary packages separated by
3307 A space after each comma is conventional.
3308 </footnote>. Currently the packages must be separated using
3309 only spaces in the <file>.changes</file> file.
3313 <sect1 id="f-Installed-Size">
3314 <heading><tt>Installed-Size</tt></heading>
3317 This field appears in the control files of binary
3318 packages, and in the <file>Packages</file> files. It gives
3319 the total amount of disk space required to install the
3324 The disk space is represented in kilobytes as a simple
3329 <sect1 id="f-Files">
3330 <heading><tt>Files</tt></heading>
3333 This field contains a list of files with information about
3334 each one. The exact information and syntax varies with
3335 the context. In all cases the part of the field
3336 contents on the same line as the field name is empty. The
3337 remainder of the field is one line per file, each line
3338 being indented by one space and containing a number of
3339 sub-fields separated by spaces.
3343 In the <file>.dsc</file> file, each line contains the MD5
3344 checksum, size and filename of the tar file and (if applicable)
3345 diff file which make up the remainder of the source
3347 That is, the parts which are not the <tt>.dsc</tt>.
3349 The exact forms of the filenames are described
3350 in <ref id="pkg-sourcearchives">.
3354 In the <file>.changes</file> file this contains one line per
3355 file being uploaded. Each line contains the MD5 checksum,
3356 size, section and priority and the filename.
3357 The <qref id="f-Section">section</qref>
3358 and <qref id="f-Priority">priority</qref>
3359 are the values of the corresponding fields in
3360 the main source control file. If no section or priority is
3361 specified then <tt>-</tt> should be used, though section
3362 and priority values must be specified for new packages to
3363 be installed properly.
3367 The special value <tt>byhand</tt> for the section in a
3368 <tt>.changes</tt> file indicates that the file in question
3369 is not an ordinary package file and must by installed by
3370 hand by the distribution maintainers. If the section is
3371 <tt>byhand</tt> the priority should be <tt>-</tt>.
3375 If a new Debian revision of a package is being shipped and
3376 no new original source archive is being distributed the
3377 <tt>.dsc</tt> must still contain the <tt>Files</tt> field
3378 entry for the original source archive
3379 <file><var>package</var>-<var>upstream-version</var>.orig.tar.gz</file>,
3380 but the <file>.changes</file> file should leave it out. In
3381 this case the original source archive on the distribution
3382 site must match exactly, byte-for-byte, the original
3383 source archive which was used to generate the
3384 <file>.dsc</file> file and diff which are being uploaded.</p>
3387 <sect1 id="f-Closes">
3388 <heading><tt>Closes</tt></heading>
3391 A space-separated list of bug report numbers that the upload
3392 governed by the .changes file closes.
3396 <sect1 id="f-Homepage">
3397 <heading><tt>Homepage</tt></heading>
3400 The URL of the web site for this package, preferably (when
3401 applicable) the site from which the original source can be
3402 obtained and any additional upstream documentation or
3403 information may be found. The content of this field is a
3404 simple URL without any surrounding characters such as
3412 <heading>User-defined fields</heading>
3415 Additional user-defined fields may be added to the
3416 source package control file. Such fields will be
3417 ignored, and not copied to (for example) binary or
3418 source package control files or upload control files.
3422 If you wish to add additional unsupported fields to
3423 these output files you should use the mechanism
3428 Fields in the main source control information file with
3429 names starting <tt>X</tt>, followed by one or more of
3430 the letters <tt>BCS</tt> and a hyphen <tt>-</tt>, will
3431 be copied to the output files. Only the part of the
3432 field name after the hyphen will be used in the output
3433 file. Where the letter <tt>B</tt> is used the field
3434 will appear in binary package control files, where the
3435 letter <tt>S</tt> is used in source package control
3436 files and where <tt>C</tt> is used in upload control
3437 (<tt>.changes</tt>) files.
3441 For example, if the main source information control file
3444 XBS-Comment: I stand between the candle and the star.
3446 then the binary and source package control files will contain the
3449 Comment: I stand between the candle and the star.
3458 <chapt id="maintainerscripts">
3459 <heading>Package maintainer scripts and installation procedure</heading>
3462 <heading>Introduction to package maintainer scripts</heading>
3465 It is possible to supply scripts as part of a package which
3466 the package management system will run for you when your
3467 package is installed, upgraded or removed.
3471 These scripts are the files <prgn>preinst</prgn>,
3472 <prgn>postinst</prgn>, <prgn>prerm</prgn> and
3473 <prgn>postrm</prgn> in the control area of the package.
3474 They must be proper executable files; if they are scripts
3475 (which is recommended), they must start with the usual
3476 <tt>#!</tt> convention. They should be readable and
3477 executable by anyone, and must not be world-writable.
3481 The package management system looks at the exit status from
3482 these scripts. It is important that they exit with a
3483 non-zero status if there is an error, so that the package
3484 management system can stop its processing. For shell
3485 scripts this means that you <em>almost always</em> need to
3486 use <tt>set -e</tt> (this is usually true when writing shell
3487 scripts, in fact). It is also important, of course, that
3488 they exit with a zero status if everything went well.
3492 Additionally, packages interacting with users using
3493 <tt>debconf</tt> in the <prgn>postinst</prgn> script should
3494 install a <prgn>config</prgn> script in the control area,
3495 see <ref id="maintscriptprompt"> for details.
3499 When a package is upgraded a combination of the scripts from
3500 the old and new packages is called during the upgrade
3501 procedure. If your scripts are going to be at all
3502 complicated you need to be aware of this, and may need to
3503 check the arguments to your scripts.
3507 Broadly speaking the <prgn>preinst</prgn> is called before
3508 (a particular version of) a package is installed, and the
3509 <prgn>postinst</prgn> afterwards; the <prgn>prerm</prgn>
3510 before (a version of) a package is removed and the
3511 <prgn>postrm</prgn> afterwards.
3515 Programs called from maintainer scripts should not normally
3516 have a path prepended to them. Before installation is
3517 started, the package management system checks to see if the
3518 programs <prgn>ldconfig</prgn>,
3519 <prgn>start-stop-daemon</prgn>, <prgn>install-info</prgn>,
3520 and <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> can be found via the
3521 <tt>PATH</tt> environment variable. Those programs, and any
3522 other program that one would expect to be in the
3523 <tt>PATH</tt>, should thus be invoked without an absolute
3524 pathname. Maintainer scripts should also not reset the
3525 <tt>PATH</tt>, though they might choose to modify it by
3526 prepending or appending package-specific directories. These
3527 considerations really apply to all shell scripts.</p>
3530 <sect id="idempotency">
3531 <heading>Maintainer scripts idempotency</heading>
3534 It is necessary for the error recovery procedures that the
3535 scripts be idempotent. This means that if it is run
3536 successfully, and then it is called again, it doesn't bomb
3537 out or cause any harm, but just ensures that everything is
3538 the way it ought to be. If the first call failed, or
3539 aborted half way through for some reason, the second call
3540 should merely do the things that were left undone the first
3541 time, if any, and exit with a success status if everything
3543 This is so that if an error occurs, the user interrupts
3544 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> or some other unforeseen circumstance
3545 happens you don't leave the user with a badly-broken
3546 package when <prgn>dpkg</prgn> attempts to repeat the
3552 <sect id="controllingterminal">
3553 <heading>Controlling terminal for maintainer scripts</heading>
3556 The maintainer scripts are guaranteed to run with a
3557 controlling terminal and can interact with the user.
3558 Because these scripts may be executed with standard output
3559 redirected into a pipe for logging purposes, Perl scripts
3560 should set unbuffered output by setting <tt>$|=1</tt> so
3561 that the output is printed immediately rather than being
3565 <sect id="exitstatus">
3566 <heading>Exit status</heading>
3569 Each script must return a zero exit status for
3570 success, or a nonzero one for failure, since the package
3571 management system looks for the exit status of these scripts
3572 and determines what action to take next based on that datum.
3576 <sect id="mscriptsinstact"><heading>Summary of ways maintainer
3581 <list compact="compact">
3583 <var>new-preinst</var> <tt>install</tt>
3586 <var>new-preinst</var> <tt>install</tt> <var>old-version</var>
3589 <var>new-preinst</var> <tt>upgrade</tt> <var>old-version</var>
3592 <var>old-preinst</var> <tt>abort-upgrade</tt>
3593 <var>new-version</var>
3598 <list compact="compact">
3600 <var>postinst</var> <tt>configure</tt>
3601 <var>most-recently-configured-version</var>
3604 <var>old-postinst</var> <tt>abort-upgrade</tt>
3605 <var>new-version</var>
3608 <var>conflictor's-postinst</var> <tt>abort-remove</tt>
3609 <tt>in-favour</tt> <var>package</var>
3610 <var>new-version</var>
3613 <var>postinst</var> <tt>abort-remove</tt>
3616 <var>deconfigured's-postinst</var>
3617 <tt>abort-deconfigure</tt> <tt>in-favour</tt>
3618 <var>failed-install-package</var> <var>version</var>
3619 [<tt>removing</tt> <var>conflicting-package</var>
3625 <list compact="compact">
3627 <var>prerm</var> <tt>remove</tt>
3630 <var>old-prerm</var> <tt>upgrade</tt>
3631 <var>new-version</var>
3634 <var>new-prerm</var> <tt>failed-upgrade</tt>
3635 <var>old-version</var>
3638 <var>conflictor's-prerm</var> <tt>remove</tt>
3639 <tt>in-favour</tt> <var>package</var>
3640 <var>new-version</var>
3643 <var>deconfigured's-prerm</var> <tt>deconfigure</tt>
3644 <tt>in-favour</tt> <var>package-being-installed</var>
3645 <var>version</var> [<tt>removing</tt>
3646 <var>conflicting-package</var>
3652 <list compact="compact">
3654 <var>postrm</var> <tt>remove</tt>
3657 <var>postrm</var> <tt>purge</tt>
3660 <var>old-postrm</var> <tt>upgrade</tt>
3661 <var>new-version</var>
3664 <var>new-postrm</var> <tt>failed-upgrade</tt>
3665 <var>old-version</var>
3668 <var>new-postrm</var> <tt>abort-install</tt>
3671 <var>new-postrm</var> <tt>abort-install</tt>
3672 <var>old-version</var>
3675 <var>new-postrm</var> <tt>abort-upgrade</tt>
3676 <var>old-version</var>
3679 <var>disappearer's-postrm</var> <tt>disappear</tt>
3680 <var>overwriter</var>
3681 <var>overwriter-version</var>
3687 <sect id="unpackphase">
3688 <heading>Details of unpack phase of installation or upgrade</heading>
3691 The procedure on installation/upgrade/overwrite/disappear
3692 (i.e., when running <tt>dpkg --unpack</tt>, or the unpack
3693 stage of <tt>dpkg --install</tt>) is as follows. In each
3694 case, if a major error occurs (unless listed below) the
3695 actions are, in general, run backwards - this means that the
3696 maintainer scripts are run with different arguments in
3697 reverse order. These are the "error unwind" calls listed
3704 If a version of the package is already installed, call
3705 <example compact="compact">
3706 <var>old-prerm</var> upgrade <var>new-version</var>
3710 If the script runs but exits with a non-zero
3711 exit status, <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will attempt:
3712 <example compact="compact">
3713 <var>new-prerm</var> failed-upgrade <var>old-version</var>
3715 If this works, the upgrade continues. If this
3716 does not work, the error unwind:
3717 <example compact="compact">
3718 <var>old-postinst</var> abort-upgrade <var>new-version</var>
3720 If this works, then the old-version is
3721 "Installed", if not, the old version is in a
3722 "Failed-Config" state.
3728 If a "conflicting" package is being removed at the same time,
3729 or if any package will be broken (due to <tt>Breaks</tt>):
3732 If <tt>--auto-deconfigure</tt> is
3733 specified, call, for each package to be deconfigured
3734 due to <tt>Breaks</tt>:
3735 <example compact="compact">
3736 <var>deconfigured's-prerm</var> deconfigure \
3737 in-favour <var>package-being-installed</var> <var>version</var>
3740 <example compact="compact">
3741 <var>deconfigured's-postinst</var> abort-deconfigure \
3742 in-favour <var>package-being-installed-but-failed</var> <var>version</var>
3744 The deconfigured packages are marked as
3745 requiring configuration, so that if
3746 <tt>--install</tt> is used they will be
3747 configured again if possible.
3750 If any packages depended on a conflicting
3751 package being removed and <tt>--auto-deconfigure</tt> is
3752 specified, call, for each such package:
3753 <example compact="compact">
3754 <var>deconfigured's-prerm</var> deconfigure \
3755 in-favour <var>package-being-installed</var> <var>version</var> \
3756 removing <var>conflicting-package</var> <var>version</var>
3759 <example compact="compact">
3760 <var>deconfigured's-postinst</var> abort-deconfigure \
3761 in-favour <var>package-being-installed-but-failed</var> <var>version</var> \
3762 removing <var>conflicting-package</var> <var>version</var>
3764 The deconfigured packages are marked as
3765 requiring configuration, so that if
3766 <tt>--install</tt> is used they will be
3767 configured again if possible.
3770 To prepare for removal of each conflicting package, call:
3771 <example compact="compact">
3772 <var>conflictor's-prerm</var> remove \
3773 in-favour <var>package</var> <var>new-version</var>
3776 <example compact="compact">
3777 <var>conflictor's-postinst</var> abort-remove \
3778 in-favour <var>package</var> <var>new-version</var>
3787 If the package is being upgraded, call:
3788 <example compact="compact">
3789 <var>new-preinst</var> upgrade <var>old-version</var>
3791 If this fails, we call:
3793 <var>new-postrm</var> abort-upgrade <var>old-version</var>
3800 <var>old-postinst</var> abort-upgrade <var>new-version</var>
3802 is called. If this works, then the old version
3803 is in an "Installed" state, or else it is left
3804 in an "Unpacked" state.
3809 If it fails, then the old version is left
3810 in an "Half-Installed" state.
3817 Otherwise, if the package had some configuration
3818 files from a previous version installed (i.e., it
3819 is in the "configuration files only" state):
3820 <example compact="compact">
3821 <var>new-preinst</var> install <var>old-version</var>
3825 <var>new-postrm</var> abort-install <var>old-version</var>
3827 If this fails, the package is left in a
3828 "Half-Installed" state, which requires a
3829 reinstall. If it works, the packages is left in
3830 a "Config Files" state.
3833 Otherwise (i.e., the package was completely purged):
3834 <example compact="compact">
3835 <var>new-preinst</var> install
3838 <example compact="compact">
3839 <var>new-postrm</var> abort-install
3841 If the error-unwind fails, the package is in a
3842 "Half Installed" phase, and requires a
3843 reinstall. If the error unwind works, the
3844 package is in a not installed state.
3851 The new package's files are unpacked, overwriting any
3852 that may be on the system already, for example any
3853 from the old version of the same package or from
3854 another package. Backups of the old files are kept
3855 temporarily, and if anything goes wrong the package
3856 management system will attempt to put them back as
3857 part of the error unwind.
3861 It is an error for a package to contain files which
3862 are on the system in another package, unless
3863 <tt>Replaces</tt> is used (see <ref id="replaces">).
3865 The following paragraph is not currently the case:
3866 Currently the <tt>- - force-overwrite</tt> flag is
3867 enabled, downgrading it to a warning, but this may not
3873 It is a more serious error for a package to contain a
3874 plain file or other kind of non-directory where another
3875 package has a directory (again, unless
3876 <tt>Replaces</tt> is used). This error can be
3877 overridden if desired using
3878 <tt>--force-overwrite-dir</tt>, but this is not
3883 Packages which overwrite each other's files produce
3884 behavior which, though deterministic, is hard for the
3885 system administrator to understand. It can easily
3886 lead to "missing" programs if, for example, a package
3887 is installed which overwrites a file from another
3888 package, and is then removed again.<footnote>
3889 Part of the problem is due to what is arguably a
3890 bug in <prgn>dpkg</prgn>.
3895 A directory will never be replaced by a symbolic link
3896 to a directory or vice versa; instead, the existing
3897 state (symlink or not) will be left alone and
3898 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will follow the symlink if there is
3907 If the package is being upgraded, call
3908 <example compact="compact">
3909 <var>old-postrm</var> upgrade <var>new-version</var>
3913 If this fails, <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will attempt:
3914 <example compact="compact">
3915 <var>new-postrm</var> failed-upgrade <var>old-version</var>
3917 If this works, installation continues. If not,
3919 <example compact="compact">
3920 <var>old-preinst</var> abort-upgrade <var>new-version</var>
3922 If this fails, the old version is left in an
3923 "Half Installed" state. If it works, dpkg now
3925 <example compact="compact">
3926 <var>new-postrm</var> abort-upgrade <var>old-version</var>
3928 If this fails, the old version is left in an
3929 "Half Installed" state. If it works, dpkg now
3931 <example compact="compact">
3932 <var>old-postinst</var> abort-upgrade <var>new-version</var>
3934 If this fails, the old version is in an
3941 This is the point of no return - if
3942 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> gets this far, it won't back off
3943 past this point if an error occurs. This will
3944 leave the package in a fairly bad state, which
3945 will require a successful re-installation to clear
3946 up, but it's when <prgn>dpkg</prgn> starts doing
3947 things that are irreversible.
3952 Any files which were in the old version of the package
3953 but not in the new are removed.
3957 The new file list replaces the old.
3961 The new maintainer scripts replace the old.
3965 Any packages all of whose files have been overwritten
3966 during the installation, and which aren't required for
3967 dependencies, are considered to have been removed.
3968 For each such package
3971 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> calls:
3972 <example compact="compact">
3973 <var>disappearer's-postrm</var> disappear \
3974 <var>overwriter</var> <var>overwriter-version</var>
3978 The package's maintainer scripts are removed.
3981 It is noted in the status database as being in a
3982 sane state, namely not installed (any conffiles
3983 it may have are ignored, rather than being
3984 removed by <prgn>dpkg</prgn>). Note that
3985 disappearing packages do not have their prerm
3986 called, because <prgn>dpkg</prgn> doesn't know
3987 in advance that the package is going to
3994 Any files in the package we're unpacking that are also
3995 listed in the file lists of other packages are removed
3996 from those lists. (This will lobotomize the file list
3997 of the "conflicting" package if there is one.)
4001 The backup files made during installation, above, are
4007 The new package's status is now sane, and recorded as
4012 Here is another point of no return - if the
4013 conflicting package's removal fails we do not unwind
4014 the rest of the installation; the conflicting package
4015 is left in a half-removed limbo.
4020 If there was a conflicting package we go and do the
4021 removal actions (described below), starting with the
4022 removal of the conflicting package's files (any that
4023 are also in the package being installed have already
4024 been removed from the conflicting package's file list,
4025 and so do not get removed now).
4031 <sect id="configdetails"><heading>Details of configuration</heading>
4034 When we configure a package (this happens with <tt>dpkg
4035 --install</tt> and <tt>dpkg --configure</tt>), we first
4036 update any <tt>conffile</tt>s and then call:
4037 <example compact="compact">
4038 <var>postinst</var> configure <var>most-recently-configured-version</var>
4043 No attempt is made to unwind after errors during
4044 configuration. If the configuration fails, the package is in
4045 a "Failed Config" state, and an error message is generated.
4049 If there is no most recently configured version
4050 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will pass a null argument.
4053 Historical note: Truly ancient (pre-1997) versions of
4054 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> passed <tt><unknown></tt>
4055 (including the angle brackets) in this case. Even older
4056 ones did not pass a second argument at all, under any
4057 circumstance. Note that upgrades using such an old dpkg
4058 version are unlikely to work for other reasons, even if
4059 this old argument behavior is handled by your postinst script.
4065 <sect id="removedetails"><heading>Details of removal and/or
4066 configuration purging</heading>
4072 <example compact="compact">
4073 <var>prerm</var> remove
4077 If prerm fails during replacement due to conflict
4079 <var>conflictor's-postinst</var> abort-remove \
4080 in-favour <var>package</var> <var>new-version</var>
4084 <var>postinst</var> abort-remove
4088 If this fails, the package is in a "Failed-Config"
4089 state, or else it remains "Installed".
4093 The package's files are removed (except <tt>conffile</tt>s).
4096 <example compact="compact">
4097 <var>postrm</var> remove
4101 If it fails, there's no error unwind, and the package is in
4102 an "Half-Installed" state.
4107 All the maintainer scripts except the <prgn>postrm</prgn>
4112 If we aren't purging the package we stop here. Note
4113 that packages which have no <prgn>postrm</prgn> and no
4114 <tt>conffile</tt>s are automatically purged when
4115 removed, as there is no difference except for the
4116 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> status.
4120 The <tt>conffile</tt>s and any backup files
4121 (<tt>~</tt>-files, <tt>#*#</tt> files,
4122 <tt>%</tt>-files, <tt>.dpkg-{old,new,tmp}</tt>, etc.)
4127 <example compact="compact">
4128 <var>postrm</var> purge
4132 If this fails, the package remains in a "Config-Files"
4137 The package's file list is removed.
4146 <chapt id="relationships">
4147 <heading>Declaring relationships between packages</heading>
4149 <sect id="depsyntax">
4150 <heading>Syntax of relationship fields</heading>
4153 These fields all have a uniform syntax. They are a list of
4154 package names separated by commas.
4158 In the <tt>Depends</tt>, <tt>Recommends</tt>,
4159 <tt>Suggests</tt>, <tt>Pre-Depends</tt>,
4160 <tt>Build-Depends</tt> and <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>
4161 control file fields of the package, which declare
4162 dependencies on other packages, the package names listed may
4163 also include lists of alternative package names, separated
4164 by vertical bar (pipe) symbols <tt>|</tt>. In such a case,
4165 if any one of the alternative packages is installed, that
4166 part of the dependency is considered to be satisfied.
4170 All of the fields except for <tt>Provides</tt> may restrict
4171 their applicability to particular versions of each named
4172 package. This is done in parentheses after each individual
4173 package name; the parentheses should contain a relation from
4174 the list below followed by a version number, in the format
4175 described in <ref id="f-Version">.
4179 The relations allowed are <tt><<</tt>, <tt><=</tt>,
4180 <tt>=</tt>, <tt>>=</tt> and <tt>>></tt> for
4181 strictly earlier, earlier or equal, exactly equal, later or
4182 equal and strictly later, respectively. The deprecated
4183 forms <tt><</tt> and <tt>></tt> were used to mean
4184 earlier/later or equal, rather than strictly earlier/later,
4185 so they should not appear in new packages (though
4186 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> still supports them).
4190 Whitespace may appear at any point in the version
4191 specification subject to the rules in <ref
4192 id="controlsyntax">, and must appear where it's necessary to
4193 disambiguate; it is not otherwise significant. All of the
4194 relationship fields may span multiple lines. For
4195 consistency and in case of future changes to
4196 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> it is recommended that a single space be
4197 used after a version relationship and before a version
4198 number; it is also conventional to put a single space after
4199 each comma, on either side of each vertical bar, and before
4200 each open parenthesis. When wrapping a relationship field, it
4201 is conventional to do so after a comma and before the space
4202 following that comma.
4206 For example, a list of dependencies might appear as:
4207 <example compact="compact">
4210 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.1), exim | mail-transport-agent
4215 All fields that specify build-time relationships
4216 (<tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>,
4217 <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt> and <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt>)
4218 may be restricted to a certain set of architectures. This
4219 is indicated in brackets after each individual package name and
4220 the optional version specification. The brackets enclose a
4221 list of Debian architecture names separated by whitespace.
4222 Exclamation marks may be prepended to each of the names.
4223 (It is not permitted for some names to be prepended with
4224 exclamation marks while others aren't.) If the current Debian
4225 host architecture is not in this list and there are no
4226 exclamation marks in the list, or it is in the list with a
4227 prepended exclamation mark, the package name and the
4228 associated version specification are ignored completely for
4229 the purposes of defining the relationships.
4234 <example compact="compact">
4236 Build-Depends-Indep: texinfo
4237 Build-Depends: kernel-headers-2.2.10 [!hurd-i386],
4238 hurd-dev [hurd-i386], gnumach-dev [hurd-i386]
4240 requires <tt>kernel-headers-2.2.10</tt> on all architectures
4241 other than hurd-i386 and requires <tt>hurd-dev</tt> and
4242 <tt>gnumach-dev</tt> only on hurd-i386.
4246 If the architecture-restricted dependency is part of a set of
4247 alternatives using <tt>|</tt>, that alternative is ignored
4248 completely on architectures that do not match the restriction.
4250 <example compact="compact">
4251 Build-Depends: foo [!i386] | bar [!amd64]
4253 is equivalent to <tt>bar</tt> on the i386 architecture, to
4254 <tt>foo</tt> on the amd64 architecture, and to <tt>foo |
4255 bar</tt> on all other architectures.
4259 Note that the binary package relationship fields such as
4260 <tt>Depends</tt> appear in one of the binary package
4261 sections of the control file, whereas the build-time
4262 relationships such as <tt>Build-Depends</tt> appear in the
4263 source package section of the control file (which is the
4268 <sect id="binarydeps">
4269 <heading>Binary Dependencies - <tt>Depends</tt>,
4270 <tt>Recommends</tt>, <tt>Suggests</tt>, <tt>Enhances</tt>,
4271 <tt>Pre-Depends</tt>
4275 Packages can declare in their control file that they have
4276 certain relationships to other packages - for example, that
4277 they may not be installed at the same time as certain other
4278 packages, and/or that they depend on the presence of others.
4282 This is done using the <tt>Depends</tt>, <tt>Pre-Depends</tt>,
4283 <tt>Recommends</tt>, <tt>Suggests</tt>, <tt>Enhances</tt>,
4284 <tt>Breaks</tt> and <tt>Conflicts</tt> control file fields.
4285 <tt>Breaks</tt> is described in <ref id="breaks">, and
4286 <tt>Conflicts</tt> is described in <ref id="conflicts">. The
4287 rest are described below.
4291 These seven fields are used to declare a dependency
4292 relationship by one package on another. Except for
4293 <tt>Enhances</tt> and <tt>Breaks</tt>, they appear in the
4294 depending (binary) package's control file.
4295 (<tt>Enhances</tt> appears in the recommending package's
4296 control file, and <tt>Breaks</tt> appears in the version of
4297 depended-on package which causes the named package to
4302 A <tt>Depends</tt> field takes effect <em>only</em> when a
4303 package is to be configured. It does not prevent a package
4304 being on the system in an unconfigured state while its
4305 dependencies are unsatisfied, and it is possible to replace
4306 a package whose dependencies are satisfied and which is
4307 properly installed with a different version whose
4308 dependencies are not and cannot be satisfied; when this is
4309 done the depending package will be left unconfigured (since
4310 attempts to configure it will give errors) and will not
4311 function properly. If it is necessary, a
4312 <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> field can be used, which has a partial
4313 effect even when a package is being unpacked, as explained
4314 in detail below. (The other three dependency fields,
4315 <tt>Recommends</tt>, <tt>Suggests</tt> and
4316 <tt>Enhances</tt>, are only used by the various front-ends
4317 to <prgn>dpkg</prgn> such as <prgn>apt-get</prgn>,
4318 <prgn>aptitude</prgn>, and <prgn>dselect</prgn>.)
4322 For this reason packages in an installation run are usually
4323 all unpacked first and all configured later; this gives
4324 later versions of packages with dependencies on later
4325 versions of other packages the opportunity to have their
4326 dependencies satisfied.
4330 In case of circular dependencies, since installation or
4331 removal order honoring the dependency order can't be
4332 established, dependency loops are broken at some point
4333 (based on rules below), and some packages may not be able to
4334 rely on their dependencies being present when being
4335 installed or removed, depending on which side of the break
4336 of the circular dependency loop they happen to be on. If one
4337 of the packages in the loop has no postinst script, then the
4338 cycle will be broken at that package, so as to ensure that
4339 all postinst scripts run with the dependencies properly
4340 configured if this is possible. Otherwise the breaking point
4345 The <tt>Depends</tt> field thus allows package maintainers
4346 to impose an order in which packages should be configured.
4350 The meaning of the five dependency fields is as follows:
4352 <tag><tt>Depends</tt></tag>
4355 This declares an absolute dependency. A package will
4356 not be configured unless all of the packages listed in
4357 its <tt>Depends</tt> field have been correctly
4362 The <tt>Depends</tt> field should be used if the
4363 depended-on package is required for the depending
4364 package to provide a significant amount of
4369 The <tt>Depends</tt> field should also be used if the
4370 <prgn>postinst</prgn>, <prgn>prerm</prgn> or
4371 <prgn>postrm</prgn> scripts require the package to be
4372 present in order to run. Note, however, that the
4373 <prgn>postrm</prgn> cannot rely on any non-essential
4374 packages to be present during the <tt>purge</tt>
4378 <tag><tt>Recommends</tt></tag>
4381 This declares a strong, but not absolute, dependency.
4385 The <tt>Recommends</tt> field should list packages
4386 that would be found together with this one in all but
4387 unusual installations.
4391 <tag><tt>Suggests</tt></tag>
4393 This is used to declare that one package may be more
4394 useful with one or more others. Using this field
4395 tells the packaging system and the user that the
4396 listed packages are related to this one and can
4397 perhaps enhance its usefulness, but that installing
4398 this one without them is perfectly reasonable.
4401 <tag><tt>Enhances</tt></tag>
4403 This field is similar to Suggests but works in the
4404 opposite direction. It is used to declare that a
4405 package can enhance the functionality of another
4409 <tag><tt>Pre-Depends</tt></tag>
4412 This field is like <tt>Depends</tt>, except that it
4413 also forces <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to complete installation
4414 of the packages named before even starting the
4415 installation of the package which declares the
4416 pre-dependency, as follows:
4420 When a package declaring a pre-dependency is about to
4421 be <em>unpacked</em> the pre-dependency can be
4422 satisfied if the depended-on package is either fully
4423 configured, <em>or even if</em> the depended-on
4424 package(s) are only unpacked or half-configured,
4425 provided that they have been configured correctly at
4426 some point in the past (and not removed or partially
4427 removed since). In this case, both the
4428 previously-configured and currently unpacked or
4429 half-configured versions must satisfy any version
4430 clause in the <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> field.
4434 When the package declaring a pre-dependency is about
4435 to be <em>configured</em>, the pre-dependency will be
4436 treated as a normal <tt>Depends</tt>, that is, it will
4437 be considered satisfied only if the depended-on
4438 package has been correctly configured.
4442 <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> should be used sparingly,
4443 preferably only by packages whose premature upgrade or
4444 installation would hamper the ability of the system to
4445 continue with any upgrade that might be in progress.
4449 <tt>Pre-Depends</tt> are also required if the
4450 <prgn>preinst</prgn> script depends on the named
4451 package. It is best to avoid this situation if
4459 When selecting which level of dependency to use you should
4460 consider how important the depended-on package is to the
4461 functionality of the one declaring the dependency. Some
4462 packages are composed of components of varying degrees of
4463 importance. Such a package should list using
4464 <tt>Depends</tt> the package(s) which are required by the
4465 more important components. The other components'
4466 requirements may be mentioned as Suggestions or
4467 Recommendations, as appropriate to the components' relative
4473 <heading>Packages which break other packages - <tt>Breaks</tt></heading>
4476 When one binary package declares that it breaks another,
4477 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will refuse to allow the package which
4478 declares <tt>Breaks</tt> be installed unless the broken
4479 package is deconfigured first, and it will refuse to
4480 allow the broken package to be reconfigured.
4484 A package will not be regarded as causing breakage merely
4485 because its configuration files are still installed; it must
4486 be at least half-installed.
4490 A special exception is made for packages which declare that
4491 they break their own package name or a virtual package which
4492 they provide (see below): this does not count as a real
4497 Normally a <tt>Breaks</tt> entry will have an "earlier than"
4498 version clause; such a <tt>Breaks</tt> is introduced in the
4499 version of an (implicit or explicit) dependency which
4500 violates an assumption or reveals a bug in earlier versions
4501 of the broken package. This use of <tt>Breaks</tt> will
4502 inform higher-level package management tools that broken
4503 package must be upgraded before the new one.
4507 If the breaking package also overwrites some files from the
4508 older package, it should use <tt>Replaces</tt> (not
4509 <tt>Conflicts</tt>) to ensure this goes smoothly.
4513 <sect id="conflicts">
4514 <heading>Conflicting binary packages - <tt>Conflicts</tt></heading>
4517 When one binary package declares a conflict with another
4518 using a <tt>Conflicts</tt> field, <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will
4519 refuse to allow them to be installed on the system at the
4524 If one package is to be installed, the other must be removed
4525 first - if the package being installed is marked as
4526 replacing (see <ref id="replaces">) the one on the system,
4527 or the one on the system is marked as deselected, or both
4528 packages are marked <tt>Essential</tt>, then
4529 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will automatically remove the package
4530 which is causing the conflict, otherwise it will halt the
4531 installation of the new package with an error. This
4532 mechanism is specifically designed to produce an error when
4533 the installed package is <tt>Essential</tt>, but the new
4538 A package will not cause a conflict merely because its
4539 configuration files are still installed; it must be at least
4544 A special exception is made for packages which declare a
4545 conflict with their own package name, or with a virtual
4546 package which they provide (see below): this does not
4547 prevent their installation, and allows a package to conflict
4548 with others providing a replacement for it. You use this
4549 feature when you want the package in question to be the only
4550 package providing some feature.
4554 A <tt>Conflicts</tt> entry should almost never have an
4555 "earlier than" version clause. This would prevent
4556 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> from upgrading or installing the package
4557 which declared such a conflict until the upgrade or removal
4558 of the conflicted-with package had been completed. Instead,
4559 <tt>Breaks</tt> may be used.
4563 <sect id="virtual"><heading>Virtual packages - <tt>Provides</tt>
4567 As well as the names of actual ("concrete") packages, the
4568 package relationship fields <tt>Depends</tt>,
4569 <tt>Recommends</tt>, <tt>Suggests</tt>, <tt>Enhances</tt>,
4570 <tt>Pre-Depends</tt>, <tt>Breaks</tt>, <tt>Conflicts</tt>,
4571 <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>,
4572 <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt> and <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt>
4573 may mention "virtual packages".
4577 A <em>virtual package</em> is one which appears in the
4578 <tt>Provides</tt> control file field of another package.
4579 The effect is as if the package(s) which provide a
4580 particular virtual package name had been listed by name
4581 everywhere the virtual package name appears. (See also <ref
4586 If there are both concrete and virtual packages of the same
4587 name, then the dependency may be satisfied (or the conflict
4588 caused) by either the concrete package with the name in
4589 question or any other concrete package which provides the
4590 virtual package with the name in question. This is so that,
4591 for example, supposing we have
4592 <example compact="compact">
4595 </example> and someone else releases an enhanced version of
4596 the <tt>bar</tt> package they can say:
4597 <example compact="compact">
4601 and the <tt>bar-plus</tt> package will now also satisfy the
4602 dependency for the <tt>foo</tt> package.
4606 If a relationship field has a version number attached
4607 then only real packages will be considered to see whether
4608 the relationship is satisfied (or the prohibition violated,
4609 for a conflict or breakage) - it is assumed that a real
4610 package which provides the virtual package is not of the
4611 "right" version. So, a <tt>Provides</tt> field may not
4612 contain version numbers, and the version number of the
4613 concrete package which provides a particular virtual package
4614 will not be looked at when considering a dependency on or
4615 conflict with the virtual package name.
4619 It is likely that the ability will be added in a future
4620 release of <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to specify a version number for
4621 each virtual package it provides. This feature is not yet
4622 present, however, and is expected to be used only
4627 If you want to specify which of a set of real packages
4628 should be the default to satisfy a particular dependency on
4629 a virtual package, you should list the real package as an
4630 alternative before the virtual one.
4635 <sect id="replaces"><heading>Overwriting files and replacing
4636 packages - <tt>Replaces</tt></heading>
4639 Packages can declare in their control file that they should
4640 overwrite files in certain other packages, or completely
4641 replace other packages. The <tt>Replaces</tt> control file
4642 field has these two distinct purposes.
4645 <sect1><heading>Overwriting files in other packages</heading>
4648 Firstly, as mentioned before, it is usually an error for a
4649 package to contain files which are on the system in
4654 However, if the overwriting package declares that it
4655 <tt>Replaces</tt> the one containing the file being
4656 overwritten, then <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will replace the file
4657 from the old package with that from the new. The file
4658 will no longer be listed as "owned" by the old package.
4662 If a package is completely replaced in this way, so that
4663 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> does not know of any files it still
4664 contains, it is considered to have "disappeared". It will
4665 be marked as not wanted on the system (selected for
4666 removal) and not installed. Any <tt>conffile</tt>s
4667 details noted for the package will be ignored, as they
4668 will have been taken over by the overwriting package. The
4669 package's <prgn>postrm</prgn> script will be run with a
4670 special argument to allow the package to do any final
4671 cleanup required. See <ref id="mscriptsinstact">.
4674 Replaces is a one way relationship -- you have to
4675 install the replacing package after the replaced
4682 For this usage of <tt>Replaces</tt>, virtual packages (see
4683 <ref id="virtual">) are not considered when looking at a
4684 <tt>Replaces</tt> field - the packages declared as being
4685 replaced must be mentioned by their real names.
4689 Furthermore, this usage of <tt>Replaces</tt> only takes
4690 effect when both packages are at least partially on the
4691 system at once, so that it can only happen if they do not
4692 conflict or if the conflict has been overridden.
4697 <sect1><heading>Replacing whole packages, forcing their
4701 Secondly, <tt>Replaces</tt> allows the packaging system to
4702 resolve which package should be removed when there is a
4703 conflict - see <ref id="conflicts">. This usage only
4704 takes effect when the two packages <em>do</em> conflict,
4705 so that the two usages of this field do not interfere with
4710 In this situation, the package declared as being replaced
4711 can be a virtual package, so for example, all mail
4712 transport agents (MTAs) would have the following fields in
4713 their control files:
4714 <example compact="compact">
4715 Provides: mail-transport-agent
4716 Conflicts: mail-transport-agent
4717 Replaces: mail-transport-agent
4719 ensuring that only one MTA can be installed at any one
4724 <sect id="sourcebinarydeps">
4725 <heading>Relationships between source and binary packages -
4726 <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>,
4727 <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt>
4731 Source packages that require certain binary packages to be
4732 installed or absent at the time of building the package
4733 can declare relationships to those binary packages.
4737 This is done using the <tt>Build-Depends</tt>,
4738 <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt> and
4739 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> control file fields.
4743 Build-dependencies on "build-essential" binary packages can be
4744 omitted. Please see <ref id="pkg-relations"> for more information.
4748 The dependencies and conflicts they define must be satisfied
4749 (as defined earlier for binary packages) in order to invoke
4750 the targets in <tt>debian/rules</tt>, as follows:<footnote>
4752 If you make "build-arch" or "binary-arch", you need
4753 Build-Depends. If you make "build-indep" or
4754 "binary-indep", you need Build-Depends and
4755 Build-Depends-Indep. If you make "build" or "binary",
4759 There is no Build-Depends-Arch; this role is essentially
4760 met with Build-Depends. Anyone building the
4761 <tt>build-indep</tt> and binary-indep<tt></tt> targets
4762 is basically assumed to be building the whole package
4763 anyway and so installs all build dependencies. The
4764 autobuilders use <tt>dpkg-buildpackage -B</tt>, which
4765 calls <tt>build</tt> (not <tt>build-arch</tt>, since it
4766 does not yet know how to check for its existence) and
4767 <tt>binary-arch</tt>.
4770 The purpose of the original split, I recall, was so that
4771 the autobuilders wouldn't need to install extra packages
4772 needed only for the binary-indep targets. But without a
4773 build-arch/build-indep split, this didn't work, since
4774 most of the work is done in the build target, not in the
4780 <tag><tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt></tag>
4782 The <tt>Build-Depends</tt> and
4783 <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt> fields must be satisfied when
4784 any of the following targets is invoked:
4785 <tt>build</tt>, <tt>clean</tt>, <tt>binary</tt>,
4786 <tt>binary-arch</tt>, <tt>build-arch</tt>,
4787 <tt>build-indep</tt> and <tt>binary-indep</tt>.
4789 <tag><tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>,
4790 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt></tag>
4792 The <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt> and
4793 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> fields must be
4794 satisfied when any of the following targets is
4795 invoked: <tt>build</tt>, <tt>build-indep</tt>,
4796 <tt>binary</tt> and <tt>binary-indep</tt>.
4806 <chapt id="sharedlibs"><heading>Shared libraries</heading>
4809 Packages containing shared libraries must be constructed with
4810 a little care to make sure that the shared library is always
4811 available. This is especially important for packages whose
4812 shared libraries are vitally important, such as the C library
4813 (currently <tt>libc6</tt>).
4817 Packages involving shared libraries should be split up into
4818 several binary packages. This section mostly deals with how
4819 this separation is to be accomplished; rules for files within
4820 the shared library packages are in <ref id="libraries"> instead.
4823 <sect id="sharedlibs-runtime">
4824 <heading>Run-time shared libraries</heading>
4827 The run-time shared library needs to be placed in a package
4828 whose name changes whenever the shared object version
4831 Since it is common place to install several versions of a
4832 package that just provides shared libraries, it is a
4833 good idea that the library package should not
4834 contain any extraneous non-versioned files, unless they
4835 happen to be in versioned directories.</p>
4837 The most common mechanism is to place it in a package
4839 <package><var>libraryname</var><var>soversion</var></package>,
4840 where <file><var>soversion</var></file> is the version number
4841 in the soname of the shared library<footnote>
4842 The soname is the shared object name: it's the thing
4843 that has to match exactly between building an executable
4844 and running it for the dynamic linker to be able run the
4845 program. For example, if the soname of the library is
4846 <file>libfoo.so.6</file>, the library package would be
4847 called <file>libfoo6</file>.
4849 Alternatively, if it would be confusing to directly append
4850 <var>soversion</var> to <var>libraryname</var> (e.g. because
4851 <var>libraryname</var> itself ends in a number), you may use
4852 <package><var>libraryname</var>-<var>soversion</var></package> and
4853 <package><var>libraryname</var>-<var>soversion</var>-dev</package>
4858 If you have several shared libraries built from the same
4859 source tree you may lump them all together into a single
4860 shared library package, provided that you change all of
4861 their sonames at once (so that you don't get filename
4862 clashes if you try to install different versions of the
4863 combined shared libraries package).
4867 The package should install the shared libraries under
4868 their normal names. For example, the <package>libgdbm3</package>
4869 package should install <file>libgdbm.so.3.0.0</file> as
4870 <file>/usr/lib/libgdbm.so.3.0.0</file>. The files should not be
4871 renamed or re-linked by any <prgn>prerm</prgn> or
4872 <prgn>postrm</prgn> scripts; <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will take care
4873 of renaming things safely without affecting running programs,
4874 and attempts to interfere with this are likely to lead to
4879 Shared libraries should not be installed executable, since
4880 the dynamic linker does not require this and trying to
4881 execute a shared library usually results in a core dump.
4885 The run-time library package should include the symbolic link that
4886 <prgn>ldconfig</prgn> would create for the shared libraries.
4887 For example, the <package>libgdbm3</package> package should include
4888 a symbolic link from <file>/usr/lib/libgdbm.so.3</file> to
4889 <file>libgdbm.so.3.0.0</file>. This is needed so that the dynamic
4890 linker (for example <prgn>ld.so</prgn> or
4891 <prgn>ld-linux.so.*</prgn>) can find the library between the
4892 time that <prgn>dpkg</prgn> installs it and the time that
4893 <prgn>ldconfig</prgn> is run in the <prgn>postinst</prgn>
4895 The package management system requires the library to be
4896 placed before the symbolic link pointing to it in the
4897 <file>.deb</file> file. This is so that when
4898 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> comes to install the symlink
4899 (overwriting the previous symlink pointing at an older
4900 version of the library), the new shared library is already
4901 in place. In the past, this was achieved by creating the
4902 library in the temporary packaging directory before
4903 creating the symlink. Unfortunately, this was not always
4904 effective, since the building of the tar file in the
4905 <file>.deb</file> depended on the behavior of the underlying
4906 file system. Some file systems (such as reiserfs) reorder
4907 the files so that the order of creation is forgotten.
4908 Since version 1.7.0, <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
4909 reorders the files itself as necessary when building a
4910 package. Thus it is no longer important to concern
4911 oneself with the order of file creation.
4915 <sect1 id="ldconfig">
4916 <heading><tt>ldconfig</tt></heading>
4919 Any package installing shared libraries in one of the default
4920 library directories of the dynamic linker (which are currently
4921 <file>/usr/lib</file> and <file>/lib</file>) or a directory that is
4922 listed in <file>/etc/ld.so.conf</file><footnote>
4924 <list compact="compact">
4925 <item>/usr/local/lib</item>
4926 <item>/usr/lib/libc5-compat</item>
4927 <item>/lib/libc5-compat</item>
4930 must use <prgn>ldconfig</prgn> to update the shared library
4935 The package maintainer scripts must only call
4936 <prgn>ldconfig</prgn> under these circumstances:
4937 <list compact="compact">
4938 <item>When the <prgn>postinst</prgn> script is run with a
4939 first argument of <tt>configure</tt>, the script must call
4940 <prgn>ldconfig</prgn>, and may optionally invoke
4941 <prgn>ldconfig</prgn> at other times.
4943 <item>When the <prgn>postrm</prgn> script is run with a
4944 first argument of <tt>remove</tt>, the script should call
4945 <prgn>ldconfig</prgn>.
4950 During install or upgrade, the preinst is called before
4951 the new files are installed, so calling "ldconfig" is
4952 pointless. The preinst of an existing package can also be
4953 called if an upgrade fails. However, this happens during
4954 the critical time when a shared libs may exist on-disk
4955 under a temporary name. Thus, it is dangerous and
4956 forbidden by current policy to call "ldconfig" at this
4961 When a package is installed or upgraded, "postinst
4962 configure" runs after the new files are safely on-disk.
4963 Since it is perfectly safe to invoke ldconfig
4964 unconditionally in a postinst, it is OK for a package to
4965 simply put ldconfig in its postinst without checking the
4966 argument. The postinst can also be called to recover from
4967 a failed upgrade. This happens before any new files are
4968 unpacked, so there is no reason to call "ldconfig" at this
4973 For a package that is being removed, prerm is
4974 called with all the files intact, so calling ldconfig is
4975 useless. The other calls to "prerm" happen in the case of
4976 upgrade at a time when all the files of the old package
4977 are on-disk, so again calling "ldconfig" is pointless.
4981 postrm, on the other hand, is called with the "remove"
4982 argument just after the files are removed, so this is
4983 the proper time to call "ldconfig" to notify the system
4984 of the fact that the shared libraries from the package
4985 are removed. The postrm can be called at several other
4986 times. At the time of "postrm purge", "postrm
4987 abort-install", or "postrm abort-upgrade", calling
4988 "ldconfig" is useless because the shared lib files are
4989 not on-disk. However, when "postrm" is invoked with
4990 arguments "upgrade", "failed-upgrade", or "disappear", a
4991 shared lib may exist on-disk under a temporary filename.
4999 <sect id="sharedlibs-support-files">
5000 <heading>Shared library support files</heading>
5003 If your package contains files whose names do not change with
5004 each change in the library shared object version, you must not
5005 put them in the shared library package. Otherwise, several
5006 versions of the shared library cannot be installed at the same
5007 time without filename clashes, making upgrades and transitions
5008 unnecessarily difficult.
5012 It is recommended that supporting files and run-time support
5013 programs that do not need to be invoked manually by users, but
5014 are nevertheless required for the package to function, be placed
5015 (if they are binary) in a subdirectory of <file>/usr/lib</file>,
5016 preferably under <file>/usr/lib/</file><var>package-name</var>.
5017 If the program or file is architecture independent, the
5018 recommendation is for it to be placed in a subdirectory of
5019 <file>/usr/share</file> instead, preferably under
5020 <file>/usr/share/</file><var>package-name</var>. Following the
5021 <var>package-name</var> naming convention ensures that the file
5022 names change when the shared object version changes.
5026 Run-time support programs that use the shared library but are
5027 not required for the library to function or files used by the
5028 shared library that can be used by any version of the shared
5029 library package should instead be put in a separate package.
5030 This package might typically be named
5031 <package><var>libraryname</var>-tools</package>; note the
5032 absence of the <var>soversion</var> in the package name.
5036 Files and support programs only useful when compiling software
5037 against the library should be included in the development
5038 package for the library.<footnote>
5039 For example, a <file><var>package-name</var>-config</file>
5040 script or <package>pkg-config</package> configuration files.
5045 <sect id="sharedlibs-static">
5046 <heading>Static libraries</heading>
5049 The static library (<file><var>libraryname.a</var></file>)
5050 is usually provided in addition to the shared version.
5051 It is placed into the development package (see below).
5055 In some cases, it is acceptable for a library to be
5056 available in static form only; these cases include:
5058 <item>libraries for languages whose shared library support
5059 is immature or unstable</item>
5060 <item>libraries whose interfaces are in flux or under
5061 development (commonly the case when the library's
5062 major version number is zero, or where the ABI breaks
5063 across patchlevels)</item>
5064 <item>libraries which are explicitly intended to be
5065 available only in static form by their upstream
5070 <sect id="sharedlibs-dev">
5071 <heading>Development files</heading>
5074 The development files associated to a shared library need to be
5075 placed in a package called
5076 <package><var>libraryname</var><var>soversion</var>-dev</package>,
5077 or if you prefer only to support one development version at a
5078 time, <package><var>libraryname</var>-dev</package>.
5082 In case several development versions of a library exist, you may
5083 need to use <prgn>dpkg</prgn>'s Conflicts mechanism (see
5084 <ref id="conflicts">) to ensure that the user only installs one
5085 development version at a time (as different development versions are
5086 likely to have the same header files in them, which would cause a
5087 filename clash if both were installed).
5091 The development package should contain a symlink for the associated
5092 shared library without a version number. For example, the
5093 <package>libgdbm-dev</package> package should include a symlink
5094 from <file>/usr/lib/libgdbm.so</file> to
5095 <file>libgdbm.so.3.0.0</file>. This symlink is needed by the linker
5096 (<prgn>ld</prgn>) when compiling packages, as it will only look for
5097 <file>libgdbm.so</file> when compiling dynamically.
5101 <sect id="sharedlibs-intradeps">
5102 <heading>Dependencies between the packages of the same library</heading>
5105 Typically the development version should have an exact
5106 version dependency on the runtime library, to make sure that
5107 compilation and linking happens correctly. The
5108 <tt>${binary:Version}</tt> substitution variable can be
5109 useful for this purpose.
5111 Previously, <tt>${Source-Version}</tt> was used, but its name
5112 was confusing and it has been deprecated since dpkg 1.13.19.
5117 <sect id="sharedlibs-shlibdeps">
5118 <heading>Dependencies between the library and other packages -
5119 the <tt>shlibs</tt> system</heading>
5122 If a package contains a binary or library which links to a
5123 shared library, we must ensure that when the package is
5124 installed on the system, all of the libraries needed are
5125 also installed. This requirement led to the creation of the
5126 <tt>shlibs</tt> system, which is very simple in its design:
5127 any package which <em>provides</em> a shared library also
5128 provides information on the package dependencies required to
5129 ensure the presence of this library, and any package which
5130 <em>uses</em> a shared library uses this information to
5131 determine the dependencies it requires. The files which
5132 contain the mapping from shared libraries to the necessary
5133 dependency information are called <file>shlibs</file> files.
5137 Thus, when a package is built which contains any shared
5138 libraries, it must provide a <file>shlibs</file> file for other
5139 packages to use, and when a package is built which contains
5140 any shared libraries or compiled binaries, it must run
5141 <qref id="pkg-dpkg-shlibdeps"><prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn></qref>
5142 on these to determine the libraries used and hence the
5143 dependencies needed by this package.<footnote>
5145 In the past, the shared libraries linked to were
5146 determined by calling <prgn>ldd</prgn>, but now
5147 <prgn>objdump</prgn> is used to do this. The only
5148 change this makes to package building is that
5149 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> must also be run on shared
5150 libraries, whereas in the past this was unnecessary.
5151 The rest of this footnote explains the advantage that
5156 We say that a binary <tt>foo</tt> <em>directly</em> uses
5157 a library <tt>libbar</tt> if it is explicitly linked
5158 with that library (that is, it uses the flag
5159 <tt>-lbar</tt> during the linking stage). Other
5160 libraries that are needed by <tt>libbar</tt> are linked
5161 <em>indirectly</em> to <tt>foo</tt>, and the dynamic
5162 linker will load them automatically when it loads
5163 <tt>libbar</tt>. A package should depend on
5164 the libraries it directly uses, and the dependencies for
5165 those libraries should automatically pull in the other
5170 Unfortunately, the <prgn>ldd</prgn> program shows both
5171 the directly and indirectly used libraries, meaning that
5172 the dependencies determined included both direct and
5173 indirect dependencies. The use of <prgn>objdump</prgn>
5174 avoids this problem by determining only the directly
5179 A good example of where this helps is the following. We
5180 could update <tt>libimlib</tt> with a new version that
5181 supports a new graphics format called dgf (but retaining
5182 the same major version number). If we used the old
5183 <prgn>ldd</prgn> method, every package that uses
5184 <tt>libimlib</tt> would need to be recompiled so it
5185 would also depend on <tt>libdgf</tt> or it wouldn't run
5186 due to missing symbols. However with the new system,
5187 packages using <tt>libimlib</tt> can rely on
5188 <tt>libimlib</tt> itself having the dependency on
5189 <tt>libdgf</tt> and so they would not need rebuilding.
5195 In the following sections, we will first describe where the
5196 various <tt>shlibs</tt> files are to be found, then how to
5197 use <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn>, and finally the <tt>shlibs</tt>
5198 file format and how to create them if your package contains a
5203 <heading>The <tt>shlibs</tt> files present on the system</heading>
5206 There are several places where <tt>shlibs</tt> files are
5207 found. The following list gives them in the order in which
5209 <qref id="pkg-dpkg-shlibdeps"><prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn></qref>.
5210 (The first one which gives the required information is used.)
5216 <p><file>debian/shlibs.local</file></p>
5219 This lists overrides for this package. Its use is
5220 described below (see <ref id="shlibslocal">).
5225 <p><file>/etc/dpkg/shlibs.override</file></p>
5228 This lists global overrides. This list is normally
5229 empty. It is maintained by the local system
5235 <p><file>DEBIAN/shlibs</file> files in the "build directory"</p>
5238 When packages are being built, any
5239 <file>debian/shlibs</file> files are copied into the
5240 control file area of the temporary build directory and
5241 given the name <file>shlibs</file>. These files give
5242 details of any shared libraries included in the
5244 An example may help here. Let us say that the
5245 source package <tt>foo</tt> generates two binary
5246 packages, <tt>libfoo2</tt> and
5247 <tt>foo-runtime</tt>. When building the binary
5248 packages, the two packages are created in the
5249 directories <file>debian/libfoo2</file> and
5250 <file>debian/foo-runtime</file> respectively.
5251 (<file>debian/tmp</file> could be used instead of one
5252 of these.) Since <tt>libfoo2</tt> provides the
5253 <tt>libfoo</tt> shared library, it will require a
5254 <tt>shlibs</tt> file, which will be installed in
5255 <file>debian/libfoo2/DEBIAN/shlibs</file>, eventually
5257 <file>/var/lib/dpkg/info/libfoo2.shlibs</file>. Then
5258 when <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> is run on the
5260 <file>debian/foo-runtime/usr/bin/foo-prog</file>, it
5262 <file>debian/libfoo2/DEBIAN/shlibs</file> file to
5263 determine whether <tt>foo-prog</tt>'s library
5264 dependencies are satisfied by any of the libraries
5265 provided by <tt>libfoo2</tt>. For this reason,
5266 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> must only be run once
5267 all of the individual binary packages'
5268 <tt>shlibs</tt> files have been installed into the
5275 <p><file>/var/lib/dpkg/info/*.shlibs</file></p>
5278 These are the <file>shlibs</file> files corresponding to
5279 all of the packages installed on the system, and are
5280 maintained by the relevant package maintainers.
5285 <p><file>/etc/dpkg/shlibs.default</file></p>
5288 This file lists any shared libraries whose packages
5289 have failed to provide correct <file>shlibs</file> files.
5290 It was used when the <file>shlibs</file> setup was first
5291 introduced, but it is now normally empty. It is
5292 maintained by the <tt>dpkg</tt> maintainer.
5300 <heading>How to use <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> and the
5301 <file>shlibs</file> files</heading>
5305 <qref id="pkg-dpkg-shlibdeps"><prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn></qref>
5306 into your <file>debian/rules</file> file. If your package
5307 contains only compiled binaries and libraries (but no scripts),
5308 you can use a command such as:
5309 <example compact="compact">
5310 dpkg-shlibdeps debian/tmp/usr/bin/* debian/tmp/usr/sbin/* \
5311 debian/tmp/usr/lib/*
5313 Otherwise, you will need to explicitly list the compiled
5314 binaries and libraries.<footnote>
5315 If you are using <tt>debhelper</tt>, the
5316 <prgn>dh_shlibdeps</prgn> program will do this work for
5317 you. It will also correctly handle multi-binary
5323 This command puts the dependency information into the
5324 <file>debian/substvars</file> file, which is then used by
5325 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn>. You will need to place a
5326 <tt>${shlibs:Depends}</tt> variable in the <tt>Depends</tt>
5327 field in the control file for this to work.
5331 If <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> doesn't complain, you're
5332 done. If it does complain you might need to create your own
5333 <file>debian/shlibs.local</file> file, as explained below (see
5334 <ref id="shlibslocal">).
5338 If you have multiple binary packages, you will need to call
5339 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> on each one which contains
5340 compiled libraries or binaries. In such a case, you will
5341 need to use the <tt>-T</tt> option to the <tt>dpkg</tt>
5342 utilities to specify a different <file>substvars</file> file.
5346 If you are creating a udeb for use in the Debian Installer, you
5347 will need to specify that <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> should use
5348 the dependency line of type <tt>udeb</tt> by adding
5349 <tt>-tudeb</tt> as option<footnote>
5350 <prgn>dh_shlibdeps</prgn> from the <tt>debhelper</tt> suite
5351 will automatically add this option if it knows it is
5353 </footnote>. If there is no dependency line of type <tt>udeb</tt>
5354 in the <file>shlibs</file> file, <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> will
5355 fall back to the regular dependency line.
5359 For more details on dpkg-shlibdeps, please see
5360 <ref id="pkg-dpkg-shlibdeps"> and
5361 <manref name="dpkg-shlibdeps" section="1">.
5366 <heading>The <file>shlibs</file> File Format</heading>
5369 Each <file>shlibs</file> file has the same format. Lines
5370 beginning with <tt>#</tt> are considered to be comments and
5371 are ignored. Each line is of the form:
5372 <example compact="compact">
5373 [<var>type</var>: ]<var>library-name</var> <var>soname-version</var> <var>dependencies ...</var>
5378 We will explain this by reference to the example of the
5379 <tt>zlib1g</tt> package, which (at the time of writing)
5380 installs the shared library <file>/usr/lib/libz.so.1.1.3</file>.
5384 <var>type</var> is an optional element that indicates the type
5385 of package for which the line is valid. The only type currently
5386 in use is <tt>udeb</tt>. The colon and space after the type are
5391 <var>library-name</var> is the name of the shared library,
5392 in this case <tt>libz</tt>. (This must match the name part
5393 of the soname, see below.)
5397 <var>soname-version</var> is the version part of the soname of
5398 the library. The soname is the thing that must exactly match
5399 for the library to be recognized by the dynamic linker, and is
5401 <tt><var>name</var>.so.<var>major-version</var></tt>, in our
5402 example, <tt>libz.so.1</tt>.<footnote>
5403 This can be determined using the command
5404 <example compact="compact">
5405 objdump -p /usr/lib/libz.so.1.1.3 | grep SONAME
5408 The version part is the part which comes after
5409 <tt>.so.</tt>, so in our case, it is <tt>1</tt>.
5413 <var>dependencies</var> has the same syntax as a dependency
5414 field in a binary package control file. It should give
5415 details of which packages are required to satisfy a binary
5416 built against the version of the library contained in the
5417 package. See <ref id="depsyntax"> for details.
5421 In our example, if the first version of the <tt>zlib1g</tt>
5422 package which contained a minor number of at least
5423 <tt>1.3</tt> was <var>1:1.1.3-1</var>, then the
5424 <tt>shlibs</tt> entry for this library could say:
5425 <example compact="compact">
5426 libz 1 zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.3)
5428 The version-specific dependency is to avoid warnings from
5429 the dynamic linker about using older shared libraries with
5434 As zlib1g also provides a udeb containing the shared library,
5435 there would also be a second line:
5436 <example compact="compact">
5437 udeb: libz 1 zlib1g-udeb (>= 1:1.1.3)
5443 <heading>Providing a <file>shlibs</file> file</heading>
5446 If your package provides a shared library, you need to create
5447 a <file>shlibs</file> file following the format described above.
5448 It is usual to call this file <file>debian/shlibs</file> (but if
5449 you have multiple binary packages, you might want to call it
5450 <file>debian/shlibs.<var>package</var></file> instead). Then
5451 let <file>debian/rules</file> install it in the control area:
5452 <example compact="compact">
5453 install -m644 debian/shlibs debian/tmp/DEBIAN
5455 or, in the case of a multi-binary package:
5456 <example compact="compact">
5457 install -m644 debian/shlibs.<var>package</var> debian/<var>package</var>/DEBIAN/shlibs
5459 An alternative way of doing this is to create the
5460 <file>shlibs</file> file in the control area directly from
5461 <file>debian/rules</file> without using a <file>debian/shlibs</file>
5462 file at all,<footnote>
5463 This is what <prgn>dh_makeshlibs</prgn> in the
5464 <tt>debhelper</tt> suite does. If your package also has a udeb
5465 that provides a shared library, <prgn>dh_makeshlibs</prgn> can
5466 automatically generate the <tt>udeb:</tt> lines if you specify
5467 the name of the udeb with the <tt>--add-udeb</tt> option.
5469 since the <file>debian/shlibs</file> file itself is ignored by
5470 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn>.
5474 As <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> reads the
5475 <file>DEBIAN/shlibs</file> files in all of the binary packages
5476 being built from this source package, all of the
5477 <file>DEBIAN/shlibs</file> files should be installed before
5478 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> is called on any of the binary
5483 <sect1 id="shlibslocal">
5484 <heading>Writing the <file>debian/shlibs.local</file> file</heading>
5487 This file is intended only as a <em>temporary</em> fix if
5488 your binaries or libraries depend on a library whose package
5489 does not yet provide a correct <file>shlibs</file> file.
5493 We will assume that you are trying to package a binary
5494 <tt>foo</tt>. When you try running
5495 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> you get the following error
5496 message (<tt>-O</tt> displays the dependency information on
5497 <tt>stdout</tt> instead of writing it to
5498 <tt>debian/substvars</tt>, and the lines have been wrapped
5499 for ease of reading):
5500 <example compact="compact">
5501 $ dpkg-shlibdeps -O debian/tmp/usr/bin/foo
5502 dpkg-shlibdeps: warning: unable to find dependency
5503 information for shared library libbar (soname 1,
5504 path /usr/lib/libbar.so.1, dependency field Depends)
5505 shlibs:Depends=libc6 (>= 2.2.2-2)
5507 You can then run <prgn>ldd</prgn> on the binary to find the
5508 full location of the library concerned:
5509 <example compact="compact">
5511 libbar.so.1 => /usr/lib/libbar.so.1 (0x4001e000)
5512 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x40032000)
5513 /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)
5515 So the <prgn>foo</prgn> binary depends on the
5516 <prgn>libbar</prgn> shared library, but no package seems to
5517 provide a <file>*.shlibs</file> file handling
5518 <file>libbar.so.1</file> in <file>/var/lib/dpkg/info/</file>. Let's
5519 determine the package responsible:
5520 <example compact="compact">
5521 $ dpkg -S /usr/lib/libbar.so.1
5522 bar1: /usr/lib/libbar.so.1
5523 $ dpkg -s bar1 | grep Version
5526 This tells us that the <tt>bar1</tt> package, version 1.0-1,
5527 is the one we are using. Now we can file a bug against the
5528 <tt>bar1</tt> package and create our own
5529 <file>debian/shlibs.local</file> to locally fix the problem.
5530 Including the following line into your
5531 <file>debian/shlibs.local</file> file:
5532 <example compact="compact">
5533 libbar 1 bar1 (>= 1.0-1)
5535 should allow the package build to work.
5539 As soon as the maintainer of <tt>bar1</tt> provides a
5540 correct <file>shlibs</file> file, you should remove this line
5541 from your <file>debian/shlibs.local</file> file. (You should
5542 probably also then have a versioned <tt>Build-Depends</tt>
5543 on <tt>bar1</tt> to help ensure that others do not have the
5544 same problem building your package.)
5553 <chapt id="opersys"><heading>The Operating System</heading>
5556 <heading>File system hierarchy</heading>
5560 <heading>File System Structure</heading>
5563 The location of all installed files and directories must
5564 comply with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS),
5565 version 2.3, with the exceptions noted below, and except
5566 where doing so would violate other terms of Debian
5567 Policy. The following exceptions to the FHS apply:
5572 The optional rules related to user specific
5573 configuration files for applications are stored in
5574 the user's home directory are relaxed. It is
5575 recommended that such files start with the
5576 '<tt>.</tt>' character (a "dot file"), and if an
5577 application needs to create more than one dot file
5578 then the preferred placement is in a subdirectory
5579 with a name starting with a '.' character, (a "dot
5580 directory"). In this case it is recommended the
5581 configuration files not start with the '.'
5587 The requirement for amd64 to use <file>/lib64</file>
5588 for 64 bit binaries is removed.
5593 The requirement that
5594 <file>/usr/local/share/man</file> be "synonymous"
5595 with <file>/usr/local/man</file> is relaxed to a
5600 The requirement that windowmanagers with a single
5601 configuration file call it <file>system.*wmrc</file>
5602 is removed, as is the restriction that the window
5603 manager subdirectory be named identically to the
5604 window manager name itself.
5609 The requirement that boot manager configuration
5610 files live in <file>/etc</file>, or at least are
5611 symlinked there, is relaxed to a recommendation.
5618 The version of this document referred here can be
5619 found in the <tt>debian-policy</tt> package or on <url
5620 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/fhs/"
5621 name="FHS (Debian copy)"> alongside this manual (or, if
5622 you have the <package>debian-policy</package> installed,
5624 id="file:///usr/share/doc/debian-policy/fhs/" name="FHS
5625 (local copy)">). The
5626 latest version, which may be a more recent version, may
5628 <url id="http://www.pathname.com/fhs/" name="FHS (upstream)">.
5629 Specific questions about following the standard may be
5630 asked on the <tt>debian-devel</tt> mailing list, or
5631 referred to the FHS mailing list (see the
5632 <url id="http://www.pathname.com/fhs/" name="FHS web site"> for
5638 <heading>Site-specific programs</heading>
5641 As mandated by the FHS, packages must not place any
5642 files in <file>/usr/local</file>, either by putting them in
5643 the file system archive to be unpacked by <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
5644 or by manipulating them in their maintainer scripts.
5648 However, the package may create empty directories below
5649 <file>/usr/local</file> so that the system administrator knows
5650 where to place site-specific files. These are not
5651 directories <em>in</em> <file>/usr/local</file>, but are
5652 children of directories in <file>/usr/local</file>. These
5653 directories (<file>/usr/local/*/dir/</file>)
5654 should be removed on package removal if they are
5659 Note, that this applies only to directories <em>below</em>
5660 <file>/usr/local</file>, not <em>in</em> <file>/usr/local</file>.
5661 Packages must not create sub-directories in the directory
5662 <file>/usr/local</file> itself, except those listed in FHS,
5663 section 4.5. However, you may create directories below
5664 them as you wish. You must not remove any of the
5665 directories listed in 4.5, even if you created them.
5669 Since <file>/usr/local</file> can be mounted read-only from a
5670 remote server, these directories must be created and
5671 removed by the <prgn>postinst</prgn> and <prgn>prerm</prgn>
5672 maintainer scripts and not be included in the
5673 <file>.deb</file> archive. These scripts must not fail if
5674 either of these operations fail.
5678 For example, the <tt>emacsen-common</tt> package could
5679 contain something like
5680 <example compact="compact">
5681 if [ ! -e /usr/local/share/emacs ]
5683 if mkdir /usr/local/share/emacs 2>/dev/null
5685 chown root:staff /usr/local/share/emacs
5686 chmod 2775 /usr/local/share/emacs
5690 in its <prgn>postinst</prgn> script, and
5691 <example compact="compact">
5692 rmdir /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp 2>/dev/null || true
5693 rmdir /usr/local/share/emacs 2>/dev/null || true
5695 in the <prgn>prerm</prgn> script. (Note that this form is
5696 used to ensure that if the script is interrupted, the
5697 directory <file>/usr/local/share/emacs</file> will still be
5702 If you do create a directory in <file>/usr/local</file> for
5703 local additions to a package, you should ensure that
5704 settings in <file>/usr/local</file> take precedence over the
5705 equivalents in <file>/usr</file>.
5709 However, because <file>/usr/local</file> and its contents are
5710 for exclusive use of the local administrator, a package
5711 must not rely on the presence or absence of files or
5712 directories in <file>/usr/local</file> for normal operation.
5716 The <file>/usr/local</file> directory itself and all the
5717 subdirectories created by the package should (by default) have
5718 permissions 2775 (group-writable and set-group-id) and be
5719 owned by <tt>root:staff</tt>.
5724 <heading>The system-wide mail directory</heading>
5726 The system-wide mail directory is <file>/var/mail</file>. This
5727 directory is part of the base system and should not owned
5728 by any particular mail agents. The use of the old
5729 location <file>/var/spool/mail</file> is deprecated, even
5730 though the spool may still be physically located there.
5736 <heading>Users and groups</heading>
5739 <heading>Introduction</heading>
5741 The Debian system can be configured to use either plain or
5746 Some user ids (UIDs) and group ids (GIDs) are reserved
5747 globally for use by certain packages. Because some
5748 packages need to include files which are owned by these
5749 users or groups, or need the ids compiled into binaries,
5750 these ids must be used on any Debian system only for the
5751 purpose for which they are allocated. This is a serious
5752 restriction, and we should avoid getting in the way of
5753 local administration policies. In particular, many sites
5754 allocate users and/or local system groups starting at 100.
5758 Apart from this we should have dynamically allocated ids,
5759 which should by default be arranged in some sensible
5760 order, but the behavior should be configurable.
5764 Packages other than <tt>base-passwd</tt> must not modify
5765 <file>/etc/passwd</file>, <file>/etc/shadow</file>,
5766 <file>/etc/group</file> or <file>/etc/gshadow</file>.
5771 <heading>UID and GID classes</heading>
5773 The UID and GID numbers are divided into classes as
5779 Globally allocated by the Debian project, the same
5780 on every Debian system. These ids will appear in
5781 the <file>passwd</file> and <file>group</file> files of all
5782 Debian systems, new ids in this range being added
5783 automatically as the <tt>base-passwd</tt> package is
5788 Packages which need a single statically allocated
5789 uid or gid should use one of these; their
5790 maintainers should ask the <tt>base-passwd</tt>
5798 Dynamically allocated system users and groups.
5799 Packages which need a user or group, but can have
5800 this user or group allocated dynamically and
5801 differently on each system, should use <tt>adduser
5802 --system</tt> to create the group and/or user.
5803 <prgn>adduser</prgn> will check for the existence of
5804 the user or group, and if necessary choose an unused
5805 id based on the ranges specified in
5806 <file>adduser.conf</file>.
5810 <tag>1000-29999:</tag>
5813 Dynamically allocated user accounts. By default
5814 <prgn>adduser</prgn> will choose UIDs and GIDs for
5815 user accounts in this range, though
5816 <file>adduser.conf</file> may be used to modify this
5821 <tag>30000-59999:</tag>
5826 <tag>60000-64999:</tag>
5829 Globally allocated by the Debian project, but only
5830 created on demand. The ids are allocated centrally
5831 and statically, but the actual accounts are only
5832 created on users' systems on demand.
5836 These ids are for packages which are obscure or
5837 which require many statically-allocated ids. These
5838 packages should check for and create the accounts in
5839 <file>/etc/passwd</file> or <file>/etc/group</file> (using
5840 <prgn>adduser</prgn> if it has this facility) if
5841 necessary. Packages which are likely to require
5842 further allocations should have a "hole" left after
5843 them in the allocation, to give them room to
5848 <tag>65000-65533:</tag>
5856 User <tt>nobody</tt>. The corresponding gid refers
5857 to the group <tt>nogroup</tt>.
5864 <tt>(uid_t)(-1) == (gid_t)(-1)</tt> <em>must
5865 not</em> be used, because it is the error return
5874 <sect id="sysvinit">
5875 <heading>System run levels and <file>init.d</file> scripts</heading>
5877 <sect1 id="/etc/init.d">
5878 <heading>Introduction</heading>
5881 The <file>/etc/init.d</file> directory contains the scripts
5882 executed by <prgn>init</prgn> at boot time and when the
5883 init state (or "runlevel") is changed (see <manref
5884 name="init" section="8">).
5888 There are at least two different, yet functionally
5889 equivalent, ways of handling these scripts. For the sake
5890 of simplicity, this document describes only the symbolic
5891 link method. However, it must not be assumed by maintainer
5892 scripts that this method is being used, and any automated
5893 manipulation of the various runlevel behaviors by
5894 maintainer scripts must be performed using
5895 <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> as described below and not by
5896 manually installing or removing symlinks. For information
5897 on the implementation details of the other method,
5898 implemented in the <tt>file-rc</tt> package, please refer
5899 to the documentation of that package.
5903 These scripts are referenced by symbolic links in the
5904 <file>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</file> directories. When changing
5905 runlevels, <prgn>init</prgn> looks in the directory
5906 <file>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</file> for the scripts it should
5907 execute, where <tt><var>n</var></tt> is the runlevel that
5908 is being changed to, or <tt>S</tt> for the boot-up
5913 The names of the links all have the form
5914 <file>S<var>mm</var><var>script</var></file> or
5915 <file>K<var>mm</var><var>script</var></file> where
5916 <var>mm</var> is a two-digit number and <var>script</var>
5917 is the name of the script (this should be the same as the
5918 name of the actual script in <file>/etc/init.d</file>).
5922 When <prgn>init</prgn> changes runlevel first the targets
5923 of the links whose names start with a <tt>K</tt> are
5924 executed, each with the single argument <tt>stop</tt>,
5925 followed by the scripts prefixed with an <tt>S</tt>, each
5926 with the single argument <tt>start</tt>. (The links are
5927 those in the <file>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</file> directory
5928 corresponding to the new runlevel.) The <tt>K</tt> links
5929 are responsible for killing services and the <tt>S</tt>
5930 link for starting services upon entering the runlevel.
5934 For example, if we are changing from runlevel 2 to
5935 runlevel 3, init will first execute all of the <tt>K</tt>
5936 prefixed scripts it finds in <file>/etc/rc3.d</file>, and then
5937 all of the <tt>S</tt> prefixed scripts in that directory.
5938 The links starting with <tt>K</tt> will cause the
5939 referred-to file to be executed with an argument of
5940 <tt>stop</tt>, and the <tt>S</tt> links with an argument
5945 The two-digit number <var>mm</var> is used to determine
5946 the order in which to run the scripts: low-numbered links
5947 have their scripts run first. For example, the
5948 <tt>K20</tt> scripts will be executed before the
5949 <tt>K30</tt> scripts. This is used when a certain service
5950 must be started before another. For example, the name
5951 server <prgn>bind</prgn> might need to be started before
5952 the news server <prgn>inn</prgn> so that <prgn>inn</prgn>
5953 can set up its access lists. In this case, the script
5954 that starts <prgn>bind</prgn> would have a lower number
5955 than the script that starts <prgn>inn</prgn> so that it
5957 <example compact="compact">
5964 The two runlevels 0 (halt) and 6 (reboot) are slightly
5965 different. In these runlevels, the links with an
5966 <tt>S</tt> prefix are still called after those with a
5967 <tt>K</tt> prefix, but they too are called with the single
5968 argument <tt>stop</tt>.
5973 <heading>Writing the scripts</heading>
5976 Packages that include daemons for system services should
5977 place scripts in <file>/etc/init.d</file> to start or stop
5978 services at boot time or during a change of runlevel.
5979 These scripts should be named
5980 <file>/etc/init.d/<var>package</var></file>, and they should
5981 accept one argument, saying what to do:
5984 <tag><tt>start</tt></tag>
5985 <item>start the service,</item>
5987 <tag><tt>stop</tt></tag>
5988 <item>stop the service,</item>
5990 <tag><tt>restart</tt></tag>
5991 <item>stop and restart the service if it's already running,
5992 otherwise start the service</item>
5994 <tag><tt>reload</tt></tag>
5995 <item><p>cause the configuration of the service to be
5996 reloaded without actually stopping and restarting
5999 <tag><tt>force-reload</tt></tag>
6000 <item>cause the configuration to be reloaded if the
6001 service supports this, otherwise restart the
6005 The <tt>start</tt>, <tt>stop</tt>, <tt>restart</tt>, and
6006 <tt>force-reload</tt> options should be supported by all
6007 scripts in <file>/etc/init.d</file>, the <tt>reload</tt>
6012 The <file>init.d</file> scripts must ensure that they will
6013 behave sensibly (i.e., returning success and not starting
6014 multiple copies of a service) if invoked with <tt>start</tt>
6015 when the service is already running, or with <tt>stop</tt>
6016 when it isn't, and that they don't kill unfortunately-named
6017 user processes. The best way to achieve this is usually to
6018 use <prgn>start-stop-daemon</prgn> with the <tt>--oknodo</tt>
6023 If a service reloads its configuration automatically (as
6024 in the case of <prgn>cron</prgn>, for example), the
6025 <tt>reload</tt> option of the <file>init.d</file> script
6026 should behave as if the configuration has been reloaded
6031 The <file>/etc/init.d</file> scripts must be treated as
6032 configuration files, either (if they are present in the
6033 package, that is, in the .deb file) by marking them as
6034 <tt>conffile</tt>s, or, (if they do not exist in the .deb)
6035 by managing them correctly in the maintainer scripts (see
6036 <ref id="config-files">). This is important since we want
6037 to give the local system administrator the chance to adapt
6038 the scripts to the local system, e.g., to disable a
6039 service without de-installing the package, or to specify
6040 some special command line options when starting a service,
6041 while making sure their changes aren't lost during the next
6046 These scripts should not fail obscurely when the
6047 configuration files remain but the package has been
6048 removed, as configuration files remain on the system after
6049 the package has been removed. Only when <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
6050 is executed with the <tt>--purge</tt> option will
6051 configuration files be removed. In particular, as the
6052 <file>/etc/init.d/<var>package</var></file> script itself is
6053 usually a <tt>conffile</tt>, it will remain on the system
6054 if the package is removed but not purged. Therefore, you
6055 should include a <tt>test</tt> statement at the top of the
6057 <example compact="compact">
6058 test -f <var>program-executed-later-in-script</var> || exit 0
6063 Often there are some variables in the <file>init.d</file>
6064 scripts whose values control the behavior of the scripts,
6065 and which a system administrator is likely to want to
6066 change. As the scripts themselves are frequently
6067 <tt>conffile</tt>s, modifying them requires that the
6068 administrator merge in their changes each time the package
6069 is upgraded and the <tt>conffile</tt> changes. To ease
6070 the burden on the system administrator, such configurable
6071 values should not be placed directly in the script.
6072 Instead, they should be placed in a file in
6073 <file>/etc/default</file>, which typically will have the same
6074 base name as the <file>init.d</file> script. This extra file
6075 should be sourced by the script when the script runs. It
6076 must contain only variable settings and comments in SUSv3
6077 <prgn>sh</prgn> format. It may either be a
6078 <tt>conffile</tt> or a configuration file maintained by
6079 the package maintainer scripts. See <ref id="config-files">
6084 To ensure that vital configurable values are always
6085 available, the <file>init.d</file> script should set default
6086 values for each of the shell variables it uses, either
6087 before sourcing the <file>/etc/default/</file> file or
6088 afterwards using something like the <tt>:
6089 ${VAR:=default}</tt> syntax. Also, the <file>init.d</file>
6090 script must behave sensibly and not fail if the
6091 <file>/etc/default</file> file is deleted.
6095 <file>/var/run</file> and <file>/var/lock</file> may be mounted
6096 as temporary filesystems<footnote>
6097 For example, using the <tt>RAMRUN</tt> and <tt>RAMLOCK</tt>
6098 options in <file>/etc/default/rcS</file>.
6099 </footnote>, so the <file>init.d</file> scripts must handle this
6100 correctly. This will typically amount to creating any required
6101 subdirectories dynamically when the <file>init.d</file> script
6102 is run, rather than including them in the package and relying on
6103 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to create them.
6108 <heading>Interfacing with the initscript system</heading>
6111 Maintainers should use the abstraction layer provided by
6112 the <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> and <prgn>invoke-rc.d</prgn>
6113 programs to deal with initscripts in their packages'
6114 scripts such as <prgn>postinst</prgn>, <prgn>prerm</prgn>
6115 and <prgn>postrm</prgn>.
6119 Directly managing the /etc/rc?.d links and directly
6120 invoking the <file>/etc/init.d/</file> initscripts should
6121 be done only by packages providing the initscript
6122 subsystem (such as <prgn>sysv-rc</prgn> and
6123 <prgn>file-rc</prgn>).
6127 <heading>Managing the links</heading>
6130 The program <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> is provided for
6131 package maintainers to arrange for the proper creation and
6132 removal of <file>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</file> symbolic links,
6133 or their functional equivalent if another method is being
6134 used. This may be used by maintainers in their packages'
6135 <prgn>postinst</prgn> and <prgn>postrm</prgn> scripts.
6139 You must not include any <file>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</file>
6140 symbolic links in the actual archive or manually create or
6141 remove the symbolic links in maintainer scripts; you must
6142 use the <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> program instead. (The
6143 former will fail if an alternative method of maintaining
6144 runlevel information is being used.) You must not include
6145 the <file>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</file> directories themselves
6146 in the archive either. (Only the <tt>sysvinit</tt>
6151 By default <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> will start services in
6152 each of the multi-user state runlevels (2, 3, 4, and 5)
6153 and stop them in the halt runlevel (0), the single-user
6154 runlevel (1) and the reboot runlevel (6). The system
6155 administrator will have the opportunity to customize
6156 runlevels by simply adding, moving, or removing the
6157 symbolic links in <file>/etc/rc<var>n</var>.d</file> if
6158 symbolic links are being used, or by modifying
6159 <file>/etc/runlevel.conf</file> if the <tt>file-rc</tt> method
6164 To get the default behavior for your package, put in your
6165 <prgn>postinst</prgn> script
6166 <example compact="compact">
6167 update-rc.d <var>package</var> defaults
6169 and in your <prgn>postrm</prgn>
6170 <example compact="compact">
6171 if [ "$1" = purge ]; then
6172 update-rc.d <var>package</var> remove
6174 </example>. Note that if your package changes runlevels
6175 or priority, you may have to remove and recreate the links,
6176 since otherwise the old links may persist. Refer to the
6177 documentation of <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn>.
6181 This will use a default sequence number of 20. If it does
6182 not matter when or in which order the <file>init.d</file>
6183 script is run, use this default. If it does, then you
6184 should talk to the maintainer of the <prgn>sysvinit</prgn>
6185 package or post to <tt>debian-devel</tt>, and they will
6186 help you choose a number.
6190 For more information about using <tt>update-rc.d</tt>,
6191 please consult its man page <manref name="update-rc.d"
6197 <heading>Running initscripts</heading>
6199 The program <prgn>invoke-rc.d</prgn> is provided to make
6200 it easier for package maintainers to properly invoke an
6201 initscript, obeying runlevel and other locally-defined
6202 constraints that might limit a package's right to start,
6203 stop and otherwise manage services. This program may be
6204 used by maintainers in their packages' scripts.
6208 The package maintainer scripts must use
6209 <prgn>invoke-rc.d</prgn> to invoke the
6210 <file>/etc/init.d/*</file> initscripts, instead of
6211 calling them directly.
6215 By default, <prgn>invoke-rc.d</prgn> will pass any
6216 action requests (start, stop, reload, restart...) to the
6217 <file>/etc/init.d</file> script, filtering out requests
6218 to start or restart a service out of its intended
6223 Most packages will simply need to change:
6224 <example compact="compact">/etc/init.d/<package>
6225 <action></example> in their <prgn>postinst</prgn>
6226 and <prgn>prerm</prgn> scripts to:
6227 <example compact="compact">
6228 if which invoke-rc.d >/dev/null 2>&1; then
6229 invoke-rc.d <var>package</var> <action>
6231 /etc/init.d/<var>package</var> <action>
6237 A package should register its initscript services using
6238 <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> before it tries to invoke them
6239 using <prgn>invoke-rc.d</prgn>. Invocation of
6240 unregistered services may fail.
6244 For more information about using
6245 <prgn>invoke-rc.d</prgn>, please consult its man page
6246 <manref name="invoke-rc.d" section="8">.
6252 <heading>Boot-time initialization</heading>
6255 There used to be another directory, <file>/etc/rc.boot</file>,
6256 which contained scripts which were run once per machine
6257 boot. This has been deprecated in favour of links from
6258 <file>/etc/rcS.d</file> to files in <file>/etc/init.d</file> as
6259 described in <ref id="/etc/init.d">. Packages must not
6260 place files in <file>/etc/rc.boot</file>.
6265 <heading>Example</heading>
6268 An example on which you can base your
6269 <file>/etc/init.d</file> scripts is found in
6270 <file>/etc/init.d/skeleton</file>.
6277 <heading>Console messages from <file>init.d</file> scripts</heading>
6280 This section describes the formats to be used for messages
6281 written to standard output by the <file>/etc/init.d</file>
6282 scripts. The intent is to improve the consistency of
6283 Debian's startup and shutdown look and feel. For this
6284 reason, please look very carefully at the details. We want
6285 the messages to have the same format in terms of wording,
6286 spaces, punctuation and case of letters.
6290 Here is a list of overall rules that should be used for
6291 messages generated by <file>/etc/init.d</file> scripts.
6297 The message should fit in one line (fewer than 80
6298 characters), start with a capital letter and end with
6299 a period (<tt>.</tt>) and line feed (<tt>"\n"</tt>).
6303 If the script is performing some time consuming task in
6304 the background (not merely starting or stopping a
6305 program, for instance), an ellipsis (three dots:
6306 <tt>...</tt>) should be output to the screen, with no
6307 leading or tailing whitespace or line feeds.
6311 The messages should appear as if the computer is telling
6312 the user what it is doing (politely :-), but should not
6313 mention "it" directly. For example, instead of:
6314 <example compact="compact">
6315 I'm starting network daemons: nfsd mountd.
6317 the message should say
6318 <example compact="compact">
6319 Starting network daemons: nfsd mountd.
6326 <tt>init.d</tt> script should use the following standard
6327 message formats for the situations enumerated below.
6333 <p>When daemons are started</p>
6336 If the script starts one or more daemons, the output
6337 should look like this (a single line, no leading
6339 <example compact="compact">
6340 Starting <var>description</var>: <var>daemon-1</var> ... <var>daemon-n</var>.
6342 The <var>description</var> should describe the
6343 subsystem the daemon or set of daemons are part of,
6344 while <var>daemon-1</var> up to <var>daemon-n</var>
6345 denote each daemon's name (typically the file name of
6350 For example, the output of <file>/etc/init.d/lpd</file>
6352 <example compact="compact">
6353 Starting printer spooler: lpd.
6358 This can be achieved by saying
6359 <example compact="compact">
6360 echo -n "Starting printer spooler: lpd"
6361 start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --exec /usr/sbin/lpd
6364 in the script. If there are more than one daemon to
6365 start, the output should look like this:
6366 <example compact="compact">
6367 echo -n "Starting remote file system services:"
6368 echo -n " nfsd"; start-stop-daemon --start --quiet nfsd
6369 echo -n " mountd"; start-stop-daemon --start --quiet mountd
6370 echo -n " ugidd"; start-stop-daemon --start --quiet ugidd
6373 This makes it possible for the user to see what is
6374 happening and when the final daemon has been started.
6375 Care should be taken in the placement of white spaces:
6376 in the example above the system administrators can
6377 easily comment out a line if they don't want to start
6378 a specific daemon, while the displayed message still
6384 <p>When a system parameter is being set</p>
6387 If you have to set up different system parameters
6388 during the system boot, you should use this format:
6389 <example compact="compact">
6390 Setting <var>parameter</var> to "<var>value</var>".
6395 You can use a statement such as the following to get
6397 <example compact="compact">
6398 echo "Setting DNS domainname to \"$domainname\"."
6403 Note that the same symbol (<tt>"</tt>) is used for the left
6404 and right quotation marks. A grave accent (<tt>`</tt>) is
6405 not a quote character; neither is an apostrophe
6411 <p>When a daemon is stopped or restarted</p>
6414 When you stop or restart a daemon, you should issue a
6415 message identical to the startup message, except that
6416 <tt>Starting</tt> is replaced with <tt>Stopping</tt>
6417 or <tt>Restarting</tt> respectively.
6421 For example, stopping the printer daemon will look like
6423 <example compact="compact">
6424 Stopping printer spooler: lpd.
6430 <p>When something is executed</p>
6433 There are several examples where you have to run a
6434 program at system startup or shutdown to perform a
6435 specific task, for example, setting the system's clock
6436 using <prgn>netdate</prgn> or killing all processes
6437 when the system shuts down. Your message should look
6439 <example compact="compact">
6440 Doing something very useful...done.
6442 You should print the <tt>done.</tt> immediately after
6443 the job has been completed, so that the user is
6444 informed why they have to wait. You can get this
6446 <example compact="compact">
6447 echo -n "Doing something very useful..."
6456 <p>When the configuration is reloaded</p>
6459 When a daemon is forced to reload its configuration
6460 files you should use the following format:
6461 <example compact="compact">
6462 Reloading <var>description</var> configuration...done.
6464 where <var>description</var> is the same as in the
6465 daemon starting message.
6473 <heading>Cron jobs</heading>
6476 Packages must not modify the configuration file
6477 <file>/etc/crontab</file>, and they must not modify the files in
6478 <file>/var/spool/cron/crontabs</file>.</p>
6481 If a package wants to install a job that has to be executed
6482 via cron, it should place a file with the name of the
6483 package in one or more of the following directories:
6484 <example compact="compact">
6490 As these directory names imply, the files within them are
6491 executed on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis,
6492 respectively. The exact times are listed in
6493 <file>/etc/crontab</file>.</p>
6496 All files installed in any of these directories must be
6497 scripts (e.g., shell scripts or Perl scripts) so that they
6498 can easily be modified by the local system administrator.
6499 In addition, they must be treated as configuration files.
6503 If a certain job has to be executed at some other frequency or
6504 at a specific time, the package should install a file
6505 <file>/etc/cron.d/<var>package</var></file>. This file uses the
6506 same syntax as <file>/etc/crontab</file> and is processed by
6507 <prgn>cron</prgn> automatically. The file must also be
6508 treated as a configuration file. (Note that entries in the
6509 <file>/etc/cron.d</file> directory are not handled by
6510 <prgn>anacron</prgn>. Thus, you should only use this
6511 directory for jobs which may be skipped if the system is not
6515 The scripts or crontab entries in these directories should
6516 check if all necessary programs are installed before they
6517 try to execute them. Otherwise, problems will arise when a
6518 package was removed but not purged since configuration files
6519 are kept on the system in this situation.</p>
6523 <heading>Menus</heading>
6526 The Debian <tt>menu</tt> package provides a standard
6527 interface between packages providing applications and
6528 <em>menu programs</em> (either X window managers or
6529 text-based menu programs such as <prgn>pdmenu</prgn>).
6533 All packages that provide applications that need not be
6534 passed any special command line arguments for normal
6535 operation should register a menu entry for those
6536 applications, so that users of the <tt>menu</tt> package
6537 will automatically get menu entries in their window
6538 managers, as well in shells like <tt>pdmenu</tt>.
6542 Menu entries should follow the current menu policy.
6546 The menu policy can be found in the <tt>menu-policy</tt>
6547 files in the <tt>debian-policy</tt> package.
6548 It is also available from the Debian web mirrors at
6549 <tt><url name="/doc/packaging-manuals/menu-policy/"
6550 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/menu-policy/"></tt>.
6554 Please also refer to the <em>Debian Menu System</em>
6555 documentation that comes with the <package>menu</package>
6556 package for information about how to register your
6562 <heading>Multimedia handlers</heading>
6565 MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, RFCs 2045-2049)
6566 is a mechanism for encoding files and data streams and
6567 providing meta-information about them, in particular their
6568 type (e.g. audio or video) and format (e.g. PNG, HTML,
6573 Registration of MIME type handlers allows programs like mail
6574 user agents and web browsers to invoke these handlers to
6575 view, edit or display MIME types they don't support directly.
6579 Packages which provide the ability to view/show/play,
6580 compose, edit or print MIME types should register themselves
6581 as such following the current MIME support policy.
6585 The MIME support policy can be found in the <tt>mime-policy</tt>
6586 files in the <tt>debian-policy</tt> package.
6587 It is also available from the Debian web mirrors at
6588 <tt><url name="/doc/packaging-manuals/mime-policy/"
6589 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/mime-policy/"></tt>.
6595 <heading>Keyboard configuration</heading>
6598 To achieve a consistent keyboard configuration so that all
6599 applications interpret a keyboard event the same way, all
6600 programs in the Debian distribution must be configured to
6601 comply with the following guidelines.
6605 The following keys must have the specified interpretations:
6608 <tag><tt><--</tt></tag>
6609 <item>delete the character to the left of the cursor</item>
6611 <tag><tt>Delete</tt></tag>
6612 <item>delete the character to the right of the cursor</item>
6614 <tag><tt>Control+H</tt></tag>
6615 <item>emacs: the help prefix</item>
6618 The interpretation of any keyboard events should be
6619 independent of the terminal that is used, be it a virtual
6620 console, an X terminal emulator, an rlogin/telnet session,
6625 The following list explains how the different programs
6626 should be set up to achieve this:
6632 <tt><--</tt> generates <tt>KB_BackSpace</tt> in X.
6636 <tt>Delete</tt> generates <tt>KB_Delete</tt> in X.
6640 X translations are set up to make
6641 <tt>KB_Backspace</tt> generate ASCII DEL, and to make
6642 <tt>KB_Delete</tt> generate <tt>ESC [ 3 ~</tt> (this
6643 is the vt220 escape code for the "delete character"
6644 key). This must be done by loading the X resources
6645 using <prgn>xrdb</prgn> on all local X displays, not
6646 using the application defaults, so that the
6647 translation resources used correspond to the
6648 <prgn>xmodmap</prgn> settings.
6652 The Linux console is configured to make
6653 <tt><--</tt> generate DEL, and <tt>Delete</tt>
6654 generate <tt>ESC [ 3 ~</tt>.
6658 X applications are configured so that <tt><</tt>
6659 deletes left, and <tt>Delete</tt> deletes right. Motif
6660 applications already work like this.
6664 Terminals should have <tt>stty erase ^?</tt> .
6668 The <tt>xterm</tt> terminfo entry should have <tt>ESC
6669 [ 3 ~</tt> for <tt>kdch1</tt>, just as for
6670 <tt>TERM=linux</tt> and <tt>TERM=vt220</tt>.
6674 Emacs is programmed to map <tt>KB_Backspace</tt> or
6675 the <tt>stty erase</tt> character to
6676 <tt>delete-backward-char</tt>, and <tt>KB_Delete</tt>
6677 or <tt>kdch1</tt> to <tt>delete-forward-char</tt>, and
6678 <tt>^H</tt> to <tt>help</tt> as always.
6682 Other applications use the <tt>stty erase</tt>
6683 character and <tt>kdch1</tt> for the two delete keys,
6684 with ASCII DEL being "delete previous character" and
6685 <tt>kdch1</tt> being "delete character under
6693 This will solve the problem except for the following
6700 Some terminals have a <tt><--</tt> key that cannot
6701 be made to produce anything except <tt>^H</tt>. On
6702 these terminals Emacs help will be unavailable on
6703 <tt>^H</tt> (assuming that the <tt>stty erase</tt>
6704 character takes precedence in Emacs, and has been set
6705 correctly). <tt>M-x help</tt> or <tt>F1</tt> (if
6706 available) can be used instead.
6710 Some operating systems use <tt>^H</tt> for <tt>stty
6711 erase</tt>. However, modern telnet versions and all
6712 rlogin versions propagate <tt>stty</tt> settings, and
6713 almost all UNIX versions honour <tt>stty erase</tt>.
6714 Where the <tt>stty</tt> settings are not propagated
6715 correctly, things can be made to work by using
6716 <tt>stty</tt> manually.
6720 Some systems (including previous Debian versions) use
6721 <prgn>xmodmap</prgn> to arrange for both
6722 <tt><--</tt> and <tt>Delete</tt> to generate
6723 <tt>KB_Delete</tt>. We can change the behavior of
6724 their X clients using the same X resources that we use
6725 to do it for our own clients, or configure our clients
6726 using their resources when things are the other way
6727 around. On displays configured like this
6728 <tt>Delete</tt> will not work, but <tt><--</tt>
6733 Some operating systems have different <tt>kdch1</tt>
6734 settings in their <tt>terminfo</tt> database for
6735 <tt>xterm</tt> and others. On these systems the
6736 <tt>Delete</tt> key will not work correctly when you
6737 log in from a system conforming to our policy, but
6738 <tt><--</tt> will.
6745 <heading>Environment variables</heading>
6748 A program must not depend on environment variables to get
6749 reasonable defaults. (That's because these environment
6750 variables would have to be set in a system-wide
6751 configuration file like <file>/etc/profile</file>, which is not
6752 supported by all shells.)
6756 If a program usually depends on environment variables for its
6757 configuration, the program should be changed to fall back to
6758 a reasonable default configuration if these environment
6759 variables are not present. If this cannot be done easily
6760 (e.g., if the source code of a non-free program is not
6761 available), the program must be replaced by a small
6762 "wrapper" shell script which sets the environment variables
6763 if they are not already defined, and calls the original program.
6767 Here is an example of a wrapper script for this purpose:
6769 <example compact="compact">
6771 BAR=${BAR:-/var/lib/fubar}
6773 exec /usr/lib/foo/foo "$@"
6778 Furthermore, as <file>/etc/profile</file> is a configuration
6779 file of the <prgn>base-files</prgn> package, other packages must
6780 not put any environment variables or other commands into that
6785 <sect id="doc-base">
6786 <heading>Registering Documents using doc-base</heading>
6789 The <package>doc-base</package> package implements a
6790 flexible mechanism for handling and presenting
6791 documentation. The recommended practice is for every Debian
6792 package that provides online documentation (other than just
6793 manual pages) to register these documents with
6794 <package>doc-base</package> by installing a
6795 <package>doc-base</package> control file via the
6796 <prgn/install-docs/ script at installation time and
6797 de-register the manuals again when the package is removed.
6800 Please refer to the documentation that comes with the
6801 <package>doc-base</package> package for information and
6810 <heading>Files</heading>
6813 <heading>Binaries</heading>
6816 Two different packages must not install programs with
6817 different functionality but with the same filenames. (The
6818 case of two programs having the same functionality but
6819 different implementations is handled via "alternatives" or
6820 the "Conflicts" mechanism. See <ref id="maintscripts"> and
6821 <ref id="conflicts"> respectively.) If this case happens,
6822 one of the programs must be renamed. The maintainers should
6823 report this to the <tt>debian-devel</tt> mailing list and
6824 try to find a consensus about which program will have to be
6825 renamed. If a consensus cannot be reached, <em>both</em>
6826 programs must be renamed.
6830 By default, when a package is being built, any binaries
6831 created should include debugging information, as well as
6832 being compiled with optimization. You should also turn on
6833 as many reasonable compilation warnings as possible; this
6834 makes life easier for porters, who can then look at build
6835 logs for possible problems. For the C programming language,
6836 this means the following compilation parameters should be
6838 <example compact="compact">
6840 CFLAGS = -O2 -g -Wall # sane warning options vary between programs
6842 INSTALL = install -s # (or use strip on the files in debian/tmp)
6847 Note that by default all installed binaries should be stripped,
6848 either by using the <tt>-s</tt> flag to
6849 <prgn>install</prgn>, or by calling <prgn>strip</prgn> on
6850 the binaries after they have been copied into
6851 <file>debian/tmp</file> but before the tree is made into a
6856 Although binaries in the build tree should be compiled with
6857 debugging information by default, it can often be difficult to
6858 debug programs if they are also subjected to compiler
6859 optimization. For this reason, it is recommended to support the
6860 standardized environment variable <tt>DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS</tt>
6861 (see <ref id="debianrules-options">). This variable can contain
6862 several flags to change how a package is compiled and built.
6866 It is up to the package maintainer to decide what
6867 compilation options are best for the package. Certain
6868 binaries (such as computationally-intensive programs) will
6869 function better with certain flags (<tt>-O3</tt>, for
6870 example); feel free to use them. Please use good judgment
6871 here. Don't use flags for the sake of it; only use them
6872 if there is good reason to do so. Feel free to override
6873 the upstream author's ideas about which compilation
6874 options are best: they are often inappropriate for our
6880 <sect id="libraries">
6881 <heading>Libraries</heading>
6884 If the package is <strong>architecture: any</strong>, then
6885 the shared library compilation and linking flags must have
6886 <tt>-fPIC</tt>, or the package shall not build on some of
6887 the supported architectures<footnote>
6889 If you are using GCC, <tt>-fPIC</tt> produces code with
6890 relocatable position independent code, which is required for
6891 most architectures to create a shared library, with i386 and
6892 perhaps some others where non position independent code is
6893 permitted in a shared library.
6896 Position independent code may have a performance penalty,
6897 especially on <tt>i386</tt>. However, in most cases the
6898 speed penalty must be measured against the memory wasted on
6899 the few architectures where non position independent code is
6902 </footnote>. Any exception to this rule must be discussed on
6903 the mailing list <em>debian-devel@lists.debian.org</em>, and
6904 a rough consensus obtained. The reasons for not compiling
6905 with <tt>-fPIC</tt> flag must be recorded in the file
6906 <tt>README.Debian</tt>, and care must be taken to either
6907 restrict the architecture or arrange for <tt>-fPIC</tt> to
6908 be used on architectures where it is required.<footnote>
6910 Some of the reasons why this might be required is if the
6911 library contains hand crafted assembly code that is not
6912 relocatable, the speed penalty is excessive for compute
6913 intensive libs, and similar reasons.
6918 As to the static libraries, the common case is not to have
6919 relocatable code, since there is no benefit, unless in specific
6920 cases; therefore the static version must not be compiled
6921 with the <tt>-fPIC</tt> flag. Any exception to this rule
6922 should be discussed on the mailing list
6923 <em>debian-devel@lists.debian.org</em>, and the reasons for
6924 compiling with the <tt>-fPIC</tt> flag must be recorded in
6925 the file <tt>README.Debian</tt>. <footnote>
6927 Some of the reasons for linking static libraries with
6928 the <tt>-fPIC</tt> flag are if, for example, one needs a
6929 Perl API for a library that is under rapid development,
6930 and has an unstable API, so shared libraries are
6931 pointless at this phase of the library's development. In
6932 that case, since Perl needs a library with relocatable
6933 code, it may make sense to create a static library with
6934 relocatable code. Another reason cited is if you are
6935 distilling various libraries into a common shared
6936 library, like <tt>mklibs</tt> does in the Debian
6942 In other words, if both a shared and a static library is
6943 being built, each source unit (<tt>*.c</tt>, for example,
6944 for C files) will need to be compiled twice, for the normal
6948 You must specify the gcc option <tt>-D_REENTRANT</tt>
6949 when building a library (either static or shared) to make
6950 the library compatible with LinuxThreads.
6954 Although not enforced by the build tools, shared libraries
6955 must be linked against all libraries that they use symbols from
6956 in the same way that binaries are. This ensures the correct
6957 functioning of the <qref id="sharedlibs-shlibdeps">shlibs</qref>
6958 system and guarantees that all libraries can be safely opened
6959 with <tt>dlopen()</tt>. Packagers may wish to use the gcc
6960 option <tt>-Wl,-z,defs</tt> when building a shared library.
6961 Since this option enforces symbol resolution at build time,
6962 a missing library reference will be caught early as a fatal
6967 All installed shared libraries should be stripped with
6968 <example compact="compact">
6969 strip --strip-unneeded <var>your-lib</var>
6971 (The option <tt>--strip-unneeded</tt> makes
6972 <prgn>strip</prgn> remove only the symbols which aren't
6973 needed for relocation processing.) Shared libraries can
6974 function perfectly well when stripped, since the symbols for
6975 dynamic linking are in a separate part of the ELF object
6977 You might also want to use the options
6978 <tt>--remove-section=.comment</tt> and
6979 <tt>--remove-section=.note</tt> on both shared libraries
6980 and executables, and <tt>--strip-debug</tt> on static
6986 Note that under some circumstances it may be useful to
6987 install a shared library unstripped, for example when
6988 building a separate package to support debugging.
6992 Shared object files (often <file>.so</file> files) that are not
6993 public libraries, that is, they are not meant to be linked
6994 to by third party executables (binaries of other packages),
6995 should be installed in subdirectories of the
6996 <file>/usr/lib</file> directory. Such files are exempt from the
6997 rules that govern ordinary shared libraries, except that
6998 they must not be installed executable and should be
7000 A common example are the so-called "plug-ins",
7001 internal shared objects that are dynamically loaded by
7002 programs using <manref name="dlopen" section="3">.
7007 Packages containing shared libraries that may be linked to
7008 by other packages' binaries, but which for some
7009 <em>compelling</em> reason can not be installed in
7010 <file>/usr/lib</file> directory, may install the shared library
7011 files in subdirectories of the <file>/usr/lib</file> directory,
7012 in which case they should arrange to add that directory in
7013 <file>/etc/ld.so.conf</file> in the package's post-installation
7014 script, and remove it in the package's post-removal script.
7018 An ever increasing number of packages are using
7019 <prgn>libtool</prgn> to do their linking. The latest GNU
7020 libtools (>= 1.3a) can take advantage of the metadata in the
7021 installed <prgn>libtool</prgn> archive files (<file>*.la</file>
7022 files). The main advantage of <prgn>libtool</prgn>'s
7023 <file>.la</file> files is that it allows <prgn>libtool</prgn> to
7024 store and subsequently access metadata with respect to the
7025 libraries it builds. <prgn>libtool</prgn> will search for
7026 those files, which contain a lot of useful information about
7027 a library (such as library dependency information for static
7028 linking). Also, they're <em>essential</em> for programs
7029 using <tt>libltdl</tt>.<footnote>
7030 Although <prgn>libtool</prgn> is fully capable of
7031 linking against shared libraries which don't have
7032 <tt>.la</tt> files, as it is a mere shell script it can
7033 add considerably to the build time of a
7034 <prgn>libtool</prgn>-using package if that shell script
7035 has to derive all this information from first principles
7036 for each library every time it is linked. With the
7037 advent of <prgn>libtool</prgn> version 1.4 (and to a
7038 lesser extent <prgn>libtool</prgn> version 1.3), the
7039 <file>.la</file> files also store information about
7040 inter-library dependencies which cannot necessarily be
7041 derived after the <file>.la</file> file is deleted.
7046 Packages that use <prgn>libtool</prgn> to create shared
7047 libraries should include the <file>.la</file> files in the
7048 <tt>-dev</tt> package, unless the package relies on
7049 <tt>libtool</tt>'s <tt>libltdl</tt> library, in which case
7050 the <tt>.la</tt> files must go in the run-time library
7055 You must make sure that you use only released versions of
7056 shared libraries to build your packages; otherwise other
7057 users will not be able to run your binaries
7058 properly. Producing source packages that depend on
7059 unreleased compilers is also usually a bad
7066 <heading>Shared libraries</heading>
7068 This section has moved to <ref id="sharedlibs">.
7074 <heading>Scripts</heading>
7077 All command scripts, including the package maintainer
7078 scripts inside the package and used by <prgn>dpkg</prgn>,
7079 should have a <tt>#!</tt> line naming the shell to be used
7084 In the case of Perl scripts this should be
7085 <tt>#!/usr/bin/perl</tt>.
7089 When scripts are installed into a directory in the system
7090 PATH, the script name should not include an extension such
7091 as <tt>.sh</tt> or <tt>.pl</tt> that denotes the scripting
7092 language currently used to implement it.
7095 Shell scripts (<prgn>sh</prgn> and <prgn>bash</prgn>)
7096 should almost certainly start with <tt>set -e</tt> so that
7097 errors are detected. Every script should use
7098 <tt>set -e</tt> or check the exit status of <em>every</em>
7103 Scripts may assume that <file>/bin/sh</file> implements the
7104 SUSv3 Shell Command Language<footnote>
7105 Single UNIX Specification, version 3, which is also IEEE
7106 1003.1-2004 (POSIX), and is available on the World Wide Web
7107 from <url id="http://www.unix.org/version3/online.html"
7108 name="The Open Group"> after free
7109 registration.</footnote>
7110 plus the following additional features not mandated by
7112 These features are in widespread use in the Linux community
7113 and are implemented in all of bash, dash, and ksh, the most
7114 common shells users may wish to use as <file>/bin/sh</file>.
7117 <item><tt>echo -n</tt>, if implemented as a shell built-in,
7118 must not generate a newline.</item>
7119 <item><tt>test</tt>, if implemented as a shell built-in, must
7120 support <tt>-a</tt> and <tt>-o</tt> as binary logical
7122 <item><tt>local</tt> to create a scoped variable must be
7123 supported, including listing multiple variables in a single
7124 local command and assigning a value to a variable at the
7125 same time as localizing it. <tt>local</tt> may or
7126 may not preserve the variable value from an outer scope if
7127 no assignment is present. Uses such as:
7131 # ... use a, b, c, d ...
7134 must be supported and must set the value of <tt>c</tt> to
7138 If a shell script requires non-SUSv3 features from the shell
7139 interpreter other than those listed above, the appropriate shell
7140 must be specified in the first line of the script (e.g.,
7141 <tt>#!/bin/bash</tt>) and the package must depend on the package
7142 providing the shell (unless the shell package is marked
7143 "Essential", as in the case of <prgn>bash</prgn>).
7147 You may wish to restrict your script to SUSv3 features plus the
7148 above set when possible so that it may use <file>/bin/sh</file>
7149 as its interpreter. If your script works with <prgn>dash</prgn>
7150 (originally called <prgn>ash</prgn>), it probably complies with
7151 the above requirements, but if you are in doubt, use
7152 <file>/bin/bash</file>.
7156 Perl scripts should check for errors when making any
7157 system calls, including <tt>open</tt>, <tt>print</tt>,
7158 <tt>close</tt>, <tt>rename</tt> and <tt>system</tt>.
7162 <prgn>csh</prgn> and <prgn>tcsh</prgn> should be avoided as
7163 scripting languages. See <em>Csh Programming Considered
7164 Harmful</em>, one of the <tt>comp.unix.*</tt> FAQs, which
7165 can be found at <url id="http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/shell/csh-whynot/">.
7166 If an upstream package comes with <prgn>csh</prgn> scripts
7167 then you must make sure that they start with
7168 <tt>#!/bin/csh</tt> and make your package depend on the
7169 <prgn>c-shell</prgn> virtual package.
7173 Any scripts which create files in world-writeable
7174 directories (e.g., in <file>/tmp</file>) must use a
7175 mechanism which will fail atomically if a file with the same
7176 name already exists.
7180 The Debian base system provides the <prgn>tempfile</prgn>
7181 and <prgn>mktemp</prgn> utilities for use by scripts for
7188 <heading>Symbolic links</heading>
7191 In general, symbolic links within a top-level directory
7192 should be relative, and symbolic links pointing from one
7193 top-level directory into another should be absolute. (A
7194 top-level directory is a sub-directory of the root
7195 directory <file>/</file>.)
7199 In addition, symbolic links should be specified as short as
7200 possible, i.e., link targets like <file>foo/../bar</file> are
7205 Note that when creating a relative link using
7206 <prgn>ln</prgn> it is not necessary for the target of the
7207 link to exist relative to the working directory you're
7208 running <prgn>ln</prgn> from, nor is it necessary to change
7209 directory to the directory where the link is to be made.
7210 Simply include the string that should appear as the target
7211 of the link (this will be a pathname relative to the
7212 directory in which the link resides) as the first argument
7217 For example, in your <prgn>Makefile</prgn> or
7218 <file>debian/rules</file>, you can do things like:
7219 <example compact="compact">
7220 ln -fs gcc $(prefix)/bin/cc
7221 ln -fs gcc debian/tmp/usr/bin/cc
7222 ln -fs ../sbin/sendmail $(prefix)/bin/runq
7223 ln -fs ../sbin/sendmail debian/tmp/usr/bin/runq
7228 A symbolic link pointing to a compressed file should always
7229 have the same file extension as the referenced file. (For
7230 example, if a file <file>foo.gz</file> is referenced by a
7231 symbolic link, the filename of the link has to end with
7232 "<file>.gz</file>" too, as in <file>bar.gz</file>.)
7237 <heading>Device files</heading>
7240 Packages must not include device files in the package file
7245 If a package needs any special device files that are not
7246 included in the base system, it must call
7247 <prgn>MAKEDEV</prgn> in the <prgn>postinst</prgn> script,
7248 after notifying the user<footnote>
7249 This notification could be done via a (low-priority)
7250 debconf message, or an echo (printf) statement.
7255 Packages must not remove any device files in the
7256 <prgn>postrm</prgn> or any other script. This is left to the
7257 system administrator.
7261 Debian uses the serial devices
7262 <file>/dev/ttyS*</file>. Programs using the old
7263 <file>/dev/cu*</file> devices should be changed to use
7264 <file>/dev/ttyS*</file>.
7268 <sect id="config-files">
7269 <heading>Configuration files</heading>
7272 <heading>Definitions</heading>
7276 <tag>configuration file</tag>
7278 A file that affects the operation of a program, or
7279 provides site- or host-specific information, or
7280 otherwise customizes the behavior of a program.
7281 Typically, configuration files are intended to be
7282 modified by the system administrator (if needed or
7283 desired) to conform to local policy or to provide
7284 more useful site-specific behavior.
7287 <tag><tt>conffile</tt></tag>
7289 A file listed in a package's <tt>conffiles</tt>
7290 file, and is treated specially by <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
7291 (see <ref id="configdetails">).
7297 The distinction between these two is important; they are
7298 not interchangeable concepts. Almost all
7299 <tt>conffile</tt>s are configuration files, but many
7300 configuration files are not <tt>conffiles</tt>.
7304 As noted elsewhere, <file>/etc/init.d</file> scripts,
7305 <file>/etc/default</file> files, scripts installed in
7306 <file>/etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly}</file>, and cron
7307 configuration installed in <file>/etc/cron.d</file> must be
7308 treated as configuration files. In general, any script that
7309 embeds configuration information is de-facto a configuration
7310 file and should be treated as such.
7315 <heading>Location</heading>
7318 Any configuration files created or used by your package
7319 must reside in <file>/etc</file>. If there are several,
7320 consider creating a subdirectory of <file>/etc</file>
7321 named after your package.
7325 If your package creates or uses configuration files
7326 outside of <file>/etc</file>, and it is not feasible to modify
7327 the package to use <file>/etc</file> directly, put the files
7328 in <file>/etc</file> and create symbolic links to those files
7329 from the location that the package requires.
7334 <heading>Behavior</heading>
7337 Configuration file handling must conform to the following
7339 <list compact="compact">
7341 local changes must be preserved during a package
7345 configuration files must be preserved when the
7346 package is removed, and only deleted when the
7353 The easy way to achieve this behavior is to make the
7354 configuration file a <tt>conffile</tt>. This is
7355 appropriate only if it is possible to distribute a default
7356 version that will work for most installations, although
7357 some system administrators may choose to modify it. This
7358 implies that the default version will be part of the
7359 package distribution, and must not be modified by the
7360 maintainer scripts during installation (or at any other
7365 In order to ensure that local changes are preserved
7366 correctly, no package may contain or make hard links to
7367 conffiles.<footnote>
7368 Rationale: There are two problems with hard links.
7369 The first is that some editors break the link while
7370 editing one of the files, so that the two files may
7371 unwittingly become unlinked and different. The second
7372 is that <prgn>dpkg</prgn> might break the hard link
7373 while upgrading <tt>conffile</tt>s.
7378 The other way to do it is via the maintainer scripts. In
7379 this case, the configuration file must not be listed as a
7380 <tt>conffile</tt> and must not be part of the package
7381 distribution. If the existence of a file is required for
7382 the package to be sensibly configured it is the
7383 responsibility of the package maintainer to provide
7384 maintainer scripts which correctly create, update and
7385 maintain the file and remove it on purge. (See <ref
7386 id="maintainerscripts"> for more information.) These
7387 scripts must be idempotent (i.e., must work correctly if
7388 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> needs to re-run them due to errors
7389 during installation or removal), must cope with all the
7390 variety of ways <prgn>dpkg</prgn> can call maintainer
7391 scripts, must not overwrite or otherwise mangle the user's
7392 configuration without asking, must not ask unnecessary
7393 questions (particularly during upgrades), and must
7394 otherwise be good citizens.
7398 The scripts are not required to configure every possible
7399 option for the package, but only those necessary to get
7400 the package running on a given system. Ideally the
7401 sysadmin should not have to do any configuration other
7402 than that done (semi-)automatically by the
7403 <prgn>postinst</prgn> script.
7407 A common practice is to create a script called
7408 <file><var>package</var>-configure</file> and have the
7409 package's <prgn>postinst</prgn> call it if and only if the
7410 configuration file does not already exist. In certain
7411 cases it is useful for there to be an example or template
7412 file which the maintainer scripts use. Such files should
7413 be in <file>/usr/share/<var>package</var></file> or
7414 <file>/usr/lib/<var>package</var></file> (depending on whether
7415 they are architecture-independent or not). There should
7416 be symbolic links to them from
7417 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/examples</file> if
7418 they are examples, and should be perfectly ordinary
7419 <prgn>dpkg</prgn>-handled files (<em>not</em>
7420 configuration files).
7424 These two styles of configuration file handling must
7425 not be mixed, for that way lies madness:
7426 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will ask about overwriting the file
7427 every time the package is upgraded.
7432 <heading>Sharing configuration files</heading>
7435 Packages which specify the same file as a
7436 <tt>conffile</tt> must be tagged as <em>conflicting</em>
7437 with each other. (This is an instance of the general rule
7438 about not sharing files. Note that neither alternatives
7439 nor diversions are likely to be appropriate in this case;
7440 in particular, <prgn>dpkg</prgn> does not handle diverted
7441 <tt>conffile</tt>s well.)
7445 The maintainer scripts must not alter a <tt>conffile</tt>
7446 of <em>any</em> package, including the one the scripts
7451 If two or more packages use the same configuration file
7452 and it is reasonable for both to be installed at the same
7453 time, one of these packages must be defined as
7454 <em>owner</em> of the configuration file, i.e., it will be
7455 the package which handles that file as a configuration
7456 file. Other packages that use the configuration file must
7457 depend on the owning package if they require the
7458 configuration file to operate. If the other package will
7459 use the configuration file if present, but is capable of
7460 operating without it, no dependency need be declared.
7464 If it is desirable for two or more related packages to
7465 share a configuration file <em>and</em> for all of the
7466 related packages to be able to modify that configuration
7467 file, then the following should be done:
7468 <enumlist compact="compact">
7470 One of the related packages (the "owning" package)
7471 will manage the configuration file with maintainer
7472 scripts as described in the previous section.
7475 The owning package should also provide a program
7476 that the other packages may use to modify the
7480 The related packages must use the provided program
7481 to make any desired modifications to the
7482 configuration file. They should either depend on
7483 the core package to guarantee that the configuration
7484 modifier program is available or accept gracefully
7485 that they cannot modify the configuration file if it
7486 is not. (This is in addition to the fact that the
7487 configuration file may not even be present in the
7494 Sometimes it's appropriate to create a new package which
7495 provides the basic infrastructure for the other packages
7496 and which manages the shared configuration files. (The
7497 <tt>sgml-base</tt> package is a good example.)
7502 <heading>User configuration files ("dotfiles")</heading>
7505 The files in <file>/etc/skel</file> will automatically be
7506 copied into new user accounts by <prgn>adduser</prgn>.
7507 No other program should reference the files in
7508 <file>/etc/skel</file>.
7512 Therefore, if a program needs a dotfile to exist in
7513 advance in <file>$HOME</file> to work sensibly, that dotfile
7514 should be installed in <file>/etc/skel</file> and treated as a
7519 However, programs that require dotfiles in order to
7520 operate sensibly are a bad thing, unless they do create
7521 the dotfiles themselves automatically.
7525 Furthermore, programs should be configured by the Debian
7526 default installation to behave as closely to the upstream
7527 default behavior as possible.
7531 Therefore, if a program in a Debian package needs to be
7532 configured in some way in order to operate sensibly, that
7533 should be done using a site-wide configuration file placed
7534 in <file>/etc</file>. Only if the program doesn't support a
7535 site-wide default configuration and the package maintainer
7536 doesn't have time to add it may a default per-user file be
7537 placed in <file>/etc/skel</file>.
7541 <file>/etc/skel</file> should be as empty as we can make it.
7542 This is particularly true because there is no easy (or
7543 necessarily desirable) mechanism for ensuring that the
7544 appropriate dotfiles are copied into the accounts of
7545 existing users when a package is installed.
7551 <heading>Log files</heading>
7553 Log files should usually be named
7554 <file>/var/log/<var>package</var>.log</file>. If you have many
7555 log files, or need a separate directory for permission
7556 reasons (<file>/var/log</file> is writable only by
7557 <file>root</file>), you should usually create a directory named
7558 <file>/var/log/<var>package</var></file> and place your log
7563 Log files must be rotated occasionally so that they don't
7564 grow indefinitely; the best way to do this is to drop a log
7565 rotation configuration file into the directory
7566 <file>/etc/logrotate.d</file> and use the facilities provided by
7567 logrotate.<footnote>
7569 The traditional approach to log files has been to set up
7570 <em>ad hoc</em> log rotation schemes using simple shell
7571 scripts and cron. While this approach is highly
7572 customizable, it requires quite a lot of sysadmin work.
7573 Even though the original Debian system helped a little
7574 by automatically installing a system which can be used
7575 as a template, this was deemed not enough.
7579 The use of <prgn>logrotate</prgn>, a program developed
7580 by Red Hat, is better, as it centralizes log management.
7581 It has both a configuration file
7582 (<file>/etc/logrotate.conf</file>) and a directory where
7583 packages can drop their individual log rotation
7584 configurations (<file>/etc/logrotate.d</file>).
7587 Here is a good example for a logrotate config
7588 file (for more information see <manref name="logrotate"
7590 <example compact="compact">
7591 /var/log/foo/*.log {
7596 /etc/init.d/foo force-reload
7600 This rotates all files under <file>/var/log/foo</file>, saves 12
7601 compressed generations, and forces the daemon to reload its
7602 configuration information after the log rotation.
7606 Log files should be removed when the package is
7607 purged (but not when it is only removed). This should be
7608 done by the <prgn>postrm</prgn> script when it is called
7609 with the argument <tt>purge</tt> (see <ref
7610 id="removedetails">).
7615 <heading>Permissions and owners</heading>
7618 The rules in this section are guidelines for general use.
7619 If necessary you may deviate from the details below.
7620 However, if you do so you must make sure that what is done
7621 is secure and you should try to be as consistent as possible
7622 with the rest of the system. You should probably also
7623 discuss it on <prgn>debian-devel</prgn> first.
7627 Files should be owned by <tt>root:root</tt>, and made
7628 writable only by the owner and universally readable (and
7629 executable, if appropriate), that is mode 644 or 755.
7633 Directories should be mode 755 or (for group-writability)
7634 mode 2775. The ownership of the directory should be
7635 consistent with its mode: if a directory is mode 2775, it
7636 should be owned by the group that needs write access to
7639 When a package is upgraded, and the owner or permissions
7640 of a file included in the package has changed, dpkg
7641 arranges for the ownership and permissions to be
7642 correctly set upon installation. However, this does not
7643 extend to directories; the permissions and ownership of
7644 directories already on the system does not change on
7645 install or upgrade of packages. This makes sense, since
7646 otherwise common directories like <tt>/usr</tt> would
7647 always be in flux. To correctly change permissions of a
7648 directory the package owns, explicit action is required,
7649 usually in the <tt>postinst</tt> script. Care must be
7650 taken to handle downgrades as well, in that case.
7657 Setuid and setgid executables should be mode 4755 or 2755
7658 respectively, and owned by the appropriate user or group.
7659 They should not be made unreadable (modes like 4711 or
7660 2711 or even 4111); doing so achieves no extra security,
7661 because anyone can find the binary in the freely available
7662 Debian package; it is merely inconvenient. For the same
7663 reason you should not restrict read or execute permissions
7664 on non-set-id executables.
7668 Some setuid programs need to be restricted to particular
7669 sets of users, using file permissions. In this case they
7670 should be owned by the uid to which they are set-id, and by
7671 the group which should be allowed to execute them. They
7672 should have mode 4754; again there is no point in making
7673 them unreadable to those users who must not be allowed to
7678 It is possible to arrange that the system administrator can
7679 reconfigure the package to correspond to their local
7680 security policy by changing the permissions on a binary:
7681 they can do this by using <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn>, as
7682 described below.<footnote>
7683 Ordinary files installed by <prgn>dpkg</prgn> (as
7684 opposed to <tt>conffile</tt>s and other similar objects)
7685 normally have their permissions reset to the distributed
7686 permissions when the package is reinstalled. However,
7687 the use of <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn> overrides this
7688 default behavior. If you use this method, you should
7689 remember to describe <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn> in
7690 the package documentation; being a relatively new
7691 addition to Debian, it is probably not yet well-known.
7693 Another method you should consider is to create a group for
7694 people allowed to use the program(s) and make any setuid
7695 executables executable only by that group.
7699 If you need to create a new user or group for your package
7700 there are two possibilities. Firstly, you may need to
7701 make some files in the binary package be owned by this
7702 user or group, or you may need to compile the user or
7703 group id (rather than just the name) into the binary
7704 (though this latter should be avoided if possible, as in
7705 this case you need a statically allocated id).</p>
7708 If you need a statically allocated id, you must ask for a
7709 user or group id from the <tt>base-passwd</tt> maintainer,
7710 and must not release the package until you have been
7711 allocated one. Once you have been allocated one you must
7712 either make the package depend on a version of the
7713 <tt>base-passwd</tt> package with the id present in
7714 <file>/etc/passwd</file> or <file>/etc/group</file>, or arrange for
7715 your package to create the user or group itself with the
7716 correct id (using <tt>adduser</tt>) in its
7717 <prgn>preinst</prgn> or <prgn>postinst</prgn>. (Doing it in
7718 the <prgn>postinst</prgn> is to be preferred if it is
7719 possible, otherwise a pre-dependency will be needed on the
7720 <tt>adduser</tt> package.)
7724 On the other hand, the program might be able to determine
7725 the uid or gid from the user or group name at runtime, so
7726 that a dynamically allocated id can be used. In this case
7727 you should choose an appropriate user or group name,
7728 discussing this on <prgn>debian-devel</prgn> and checking
7729 with the <package/base-passwd/ maintainer that it is unique and that
7730 they do not wish you to use a statically allocated id
7731 instead. When this has been checked you must arrange for
7732 your package to create the user or group if necessary using
7733 <prgn>adduser</prgn> in the <prgn>preinst</prgn> or
7734 <prgn>postinst</prgn> script (again, the latter is to be
7735 preferred if it is possible).
7739 Note that changing the numeric value of an id associated
7740 with a name is very difficult, and involves searching the
7741 file system for all appropriate files. You need to think
7742 carefully whether a static or dynamic id is required, since
7743 changing your mind later will cause problems.
7746 <sect1><heading>The use of <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn></heading>
7748 This section is not intended as policy, but as a
7749 description of the use of <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn>.
7753 If a system administrator wishes to have a file (or
7754 directory or other such thing) installed with owner and
7755 permissions different from those in the distributed Debian
7756 package, they can use the <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn>
7757 program to instruct <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to use the different
7758 settings every time the file is installed. Thus the
7759 package maintainer should distribute the files with their
7760 normal permissions, and leave it for the system
7761 administrator to make any desired changes. For example, a
7762 daemon which is normally required to be setuid root, but
7763 in certain situations could be used without being setuid,
7764 should be installed setuid in the <tt>.deb</tt>. Then the
7765 local system administrator can change this if they wish.
7766 If there are two standard ways of doing it, the package
7767 maintainer can use <tt>debconf</tt> to find out the
7768 preference, and call <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn> in the
7769 maintainer script if necessary to accommodate the system
7770 administrator's choice. Care must be taken during
7771 upgrades to not override an existing setting.
7775 Given the above, <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn> is
7776 essentially a tool for system administrators and would not
7777 normally be needed in the maintainer scripts. There is
7778 one type of situation, though, where calls to
7779 <prgn>dpkg-statoverride</prgn> would be needed in the
7780 maintainer scripts, and that involves packages which use
7781 dynamically allocated user or group ids. In such a
7782 situation, something like the following idiom can be very
7783 helpful in the package's <prgn>postinst</prgn>, where
7784 <tt>sysuser</tt> is a dynamically allocated id:
7786 for i in /usr/bin/foo /usr/sbin/bar
7788 # only do something when no setting exists
7789 if ! dpkg-statoverride --list $i >/dev/null 2>&1
7791 #include: debconf processing, question about foo and bar
7792 if [ "$RET" = "true" ] ; then
7793 dpkg-statoverride --update --add sysuser root 4755 $i
7798 The corresponding <tt>dpkg-statoverride --remove</tt>
7799 calls can then be made unconditionally when the package is
7807 <chapt id="customized-programs">
7808 <heading>Customized programs</heading>
7810 <sect id="arch-spec">
7811 <heading>Architecture specification strings</heading>
7814 If a program needs to specify an <em>architecture specification
7815 string</em> in some place, it should select one of the
7816 strings provided by <tt>dpkg-architecture -L</tt>. The
7817 strings are in the format
7818 <tt><var>os</var>-<var>arch</var></tt>, though the OS part
7819 is sometimes elided, as when the OS is Linux.<footnote>
7820 <p>Currently, the strings are:
7821 i386 ia64 alpha amd64 armeb arm hppa m32r m68k mips
7822 mipsel powerpc ppc64 s390 s390x sh3 sh3eb sh4 sh4eb
7823 sparc darwin-i386 darwin-ia64 darwin-alpha darwin-amd64
7824 darwin-armeb darwin-arm darwin-hppa darwin-m32r
7825 darwin-m68k darwin-mips darwin-mipsel darwin-powerpc
7826 darwin-ppc64 darwin-s390 darwin-s390x darwin-sh3
7827 darwin-sh3eb darwin-sh4 darwin-sh4eb darwin-sparc
7828 freebsd-i386 freebsd-ia64 freebsd-alpha freebsd-amd64
7829 freebsd-armeb freebsd-arm freebsd-hppa freebsd-m32r
7830 freebsd-m68k freebsd-mips freebsd-mipsel freebsd-powerpc
7831 freebsd-ppc64 freebsd-s390 freebsd-s390x freebsd-sh3
7832 freebsd-sh3eb freebsd-sh4 freebsd-sh4eb freebsd-sparc
7833 kfreebsd-i386 kfreebsd-ia64 kfreebsd-alpha
7834 kfreebsd-amd64 kfreebsd-armeb kfreebsd-arm kfreebsd-hppa
7835 kfreebsd-m32r kfreebsd-m68k kfreebsd-mips
7836 kfreebsd-mipsel kfreebsd-powerpc kfreebsd-ppc64
7837 kfreebsd-s390 kfreebsd-s390x kfreebsd-sh3 kfreebsd-sh3eb
7838 kfreebsd-sh4 kfreebsd-sh4eb kfreebsd-sparc knetbsd-i386
7839 knetbsd-ia64 knetbsd-alpha knetbsd-amd64 knetbsd-armeb
7840 knetbsd-arm knetbsd-hppa knetbsd-m32r knetbsd-m68k
7841 knetbsd-mips knetbsd-mipsel knetbsd-powerpc
7842 knetbsd-ppc64 knetbsd-s390 knetbsd-s390x knetbsd-sh3
7843 knetbsd-sh3eb knetbsd-sh4 knetbsd-sh4eb knetbsd-sparc
7844 netbsd-i386 netbsd-ia64 netbsd-alpha netbsd-amd64
7845 netbsd-armeb netbsd-arm netbsd-hppa netbsd-m32r
7846 netbsd-m68k netbsd-mips netbsd-mipsel netbsd-powerpc
7847 netbsd-ppc64 netbsd-s390 netbsd-s390x netbsd-sh3
7848 netbsd-sh3eb netbsd-sh4 netbsd-sh4eb netbsd-sparc
7849 openbsd-i386 openbsd-ia64 openbsd-alpha openbsd-amd64
7850 openbsd-armeb openbsd-arm openbsd-hppa openbsd-m32r
7851 openbsd-m68k openbsd-mips openbsd-mipsel openbsd-powerpc
7852 openbsd-ppc64 openbsd-s390 openbsd-s390x openbsd-sh3
7853 openbsd-sh3eb openbsd-sh4 openbsd-sh4eb openbsd-sparc
7854 hurd-i386 hurd-ia64 hurd-alpha hurd-amd64 hurd-armeb
7855 hurd-arm hurd-hppa hurd-m32r hurd-m68k hurd-mips
7856 hurd-mipsel hurd-powerpc hurd-ppc64 hurd-s390 hurd-s390x
7857 hurd-sh3 hurd-sh3eb hurd-sh4 hurd-sh4eb hurd-sparc
7863 Note that we don't want to use
7864 <tt><var>arch</var>-debian-linux</tt> to apply to the rule
7865 <tt><var>architecture</var>-<var>vendor</var>-<var>os</var></tt>
7866 since this would make our programs incompatible with other
7867 Linux distributions. We also don't use something like
7868 <tt><var>arch</var>-unknown-linux</tt>, since the
7869 <tt>unknown</tt> does not look very good.
7874 <heading>Daemons</heading>
7877 The configuration files <file>/etc/services</file>,
7878 <file>/etc/protocols</file>, and <file>/etc/rpc</file> are managed
7879 by the <prgn>netbase</prgn> package and must not be modified
7884 If a package requires a new entry in one of these files, the
7885 maintainer should get in contact with the
7886 <prgn>netbase</prgn> maintainer, who will add the entries
7887 and release a new version of the <prgn>netbase</prgn>
7892 The configuration file <file>/etc/inetd.conf</file> must not be
7893 modified by the package's scripts except via the
7894 <prgn>update-inetd</prgn> script or the
7895 <file>DebianNet.pm</file> Perl module. See their documentation
7896 for details on how to add entries.
7900 If a package wants to install an example entry into
7901 <file>/etc/inetd.conf</file>, the entry must be preceded with
7902 exactly one hash character (<tt>#</tt>). Such lines are
7903 treated as "commented out by user" by the
7904 <prgn>update-inetd</prgn> script and are not changed or
7905 activated during package updates.
7910 <heading>Using pseudo-ttys and modifying wtmp, utmp and
7914 Some programs need to create pseudo-ttys. This should be done
7915 using Unix98 ptys if the C library supports it. The resulting
7916 program must not be installed setuid root, unless that
7917 is required for other functionality.
7921 The files <file>/var/run/utmp</file>, <file>/var/log/wtmp</file> and
7922 <file>/var/log/lastlog</file> must be installed writable by
7923 group <tt>utmp</tt>. Programs which need to modify those
7924 files must be installed setgid <tt>utmp</tt>.
7929 <heading>Editors and pagers</heading>
7932 Some programs have the ability to launch an editor or pager
7933 program to edit or display a text document. Since there are
7934 lots of different editors and pagers available in the Debian
7935 distribution, the system administrator and each user should
7936 have the possibility to choose their preferred editor and
7941 In addition, every program should choose a good default
7942 editor/pager if none is selected by the user or system
7947 Thus, every program that launches an editor or pager must
7948 use the EDITOR or PAGER environment variable to determine
7949 the editor or pager the user wishes to use. If these
7950 variables are not set, the programs <file>/usr/bin/editor</file>
7951 and <file>/usr/bin/pager</file> should be used, respectively.
7955 These two files are managed through the <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
7956 "alternatives" mechanism. Thus every package providing an
7957 editor or pager must call the
7958 <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn> script to register these
7963 If it is very hard to adapt a program to make use of the
7964 EDITOR or PAGER variables, that program may be configured to
7965 use <file>/usr/bin/sensible-editor</file> and
7966 <file>/usr/bin/sensible-pager</file> as the editor or pager
7967 program respectively. These are two scripts provided in the
7968 Debian base system that check the EDITOR and PAGER variables
7969 and launch the appropriate program, and fall back to
7970 <file>/usr/bin/editor</file> and <file>/usr/bin/pager</file> if the
7971 variable is not set.
7975 A program may also use the VISUAL environment variable to
7976 determine the user's choice of editor. If it exists, it
7977 should take precedence over EDITOR. This is in fact what
7978 <file>/usr/bin/sensible-editor</file> does.
7982 It is not required for a package to depend on
7983 <tt>editor</tt> and <tt>pager</tt>, nor is it required for a
7984 package to provide such virtual packages.<footnote>
7985 The Debian base system already provides an editor and a
7991 <sect id="web-appl">
7992 <heading>Web servers and applications</heading>
7995 This section describes the locations and URLs that should
7996 be used by all web servers and web applications in the
8003 Cgi-bin executable files are installed in the
8005 <example compact="compact">
8006 /usr/lib/cgi-bin/<var>cgi-bin-name</var>
8008 and should be referred to as
8009 <example compact="compact">
8010 http://localhost/cgi-bin/<var>cgi-bin-name</var>
8016 <p>Access to HTML documents</p>
8019 HTML documents for a package are stored in
8020 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></file>
8021 and can be referred to as
8022 <example compact="compact">
8023 http://localhost/doc/<var>package</var>/<var>filename</var>
8028 The web server should restrict access to the document
8029 tree so that only clients on the same host can read
8030 the documents. If the web server does not support such
8031 access controls, then it should not provide access at
8032 all, or ask about providing access during installation.
8037 <p>Access to images</p>
8039 It is recommended that images for a package be stored
8040 in <tt>/usr/share/images/<var>package</var></tt> and
8041 may be referred to through an alias <tt>/images/</tt>
8044 http://localhost/images/<package>/<filename>
8051 <p>Web Document Root</p>
8054 Web Applications should try to avoid storing files in
8055 the Web Document Root. Instead they should use the
8056 /usr/share/doc/<var>package</var> directory for
8057 documents and register the Web Application via the
8058 <package>doc-base</package> package. If access to the
8059 web document root is unavoidable then use
8060 <example compact="compact">
8063 as the Document Root. This might be just a symbolic
8064 link to the location where the system administrator
8065 has put the real document root.
8068 <item><p>Providing httpd and/or httpd-cgi</p>
8070 All web servers should provide the virtual package
8071 <tt>httpd</tt>. If a web server has CGI support it should
8072 provide <tt>httpd-cgi</tt> additionally.
8075 All web applications which do not contain CGI scripts should
8076 depend on <tt>httpd</tt>, all those web applications which
8077 <tt>do</tt> contain CGI scripts, should depend on
8085 <sect id="mail-transport-agents">
8086 <heading>Mail transport, delivery and user agents</heading>
8089 Debian packages which process electronic mail, whether mail
8090 user agents (MUAs) or mail transport agents (MTAs), must
8091 ensure that they are compatible with the configuration
8092 decisions below. Failure to do this may result in lost
8093 mail, broken <tt>From:</tt> lines, and other serious brain
8098 The mail spool is <file>/var/mail</file> and the interface to
8099 send a mail message is <file>/usr/sbin/sendmail</file> (as per
8100 the FHS). On older systems, the mail spool may be
8101 physically located in <file>/var/spool/mail</file>, but all
8102 access to the mail spool should be via the
8103 <file>/var/mail</file> symlink. The mail spool is part of the
8104 base system and not part of the MTA package.
8108 All Debian MUAs, MTAs, MDAs and other mailbox accessing
8109 programs (such as IMAP daemons) must lock the mailbox in an
8110 NFS-safe way. This means that <tt>fcntl()</tt> locking must
8111 be combined with dot locking. To avoid deadlocks, a program
8112 should use <tt>fcntl()</tt> first and dot locking after
8113 this, or alternatively implement the two locking methods in
8114 a non blocking way<footnote>
8115 If it is not possible to establish both locks, the
8116 system shouldn't wait for the second lock to be
8117 established, but remove the first lock, wait a (random)
8118 time, and start over locking again.
8119 </footnote>. Using the functions <tt>maillock</tt> and
8120 <tt>mailunlock</tt> provided by the
8121 <tt>liblockfile*</tt><footnote>
8122 You will need to depend on <tt>liblockfile1 (>>1.01)</tt>
8123 to use these functions.
8124 </footnote> packages is the recommended way to realize this.
8128 Mailboxes are generally either mode 600 and owned by
8129 <var>user</var> or mode 660 and owned by
8130 <tt><var>user</var>:mail</tt><footnote>
8131 There are two traditional permission schemes for mail spools:
8132 mode 600 with all mail delivery done by processes running as
8133 the destination user, or mode 660 and owned by group mail with
8134 mail delivery done by a process running as a system user in
8135 group mail. Historically, Debian required mode 660 mail
8136 spools to enable the latter model, but that model has become
8137 increasingly uncommon and the principle of least privilege
8138 indicates that mail systems that use the first model should
8139 use permissions of 600. If delivery to programs is permitted,
8140 it's easier to keep the mail system secure if the delivery
8141 agent runs as the destination user. Debian Policy therefore
8142 permits either scheme.
8143 </footnote>. The local system administrator may choose a
8144 different permission scheme; packages should not make
8145 assumptions about the permission and ownership of mailboxes
8146 unless required (such as when creating a new mailbox). A MUA
8147 may remove a mailbox (unless it has nonstandard permissions) in
8148 which case the MTA or another MUA must recreate it if needed.
8152 The mail spool is 2775 <tt>root:mail</tt>, and MUAs should
8153 be setgid mail to do the locking mentioned above (and
8154 must obviously avoid accessing other users' mailboxes
8155 using this privilege).</p>
8158 <file>/etc/aliases</file> is the source file for the system mail
8159 aliases (e.g., postmaster, usenet, etc.), it is the one
8160 which the sysadmin and <prgn>postinst</prgn> scripts may
8161 edit. After <file>/etc/aliases</file> is edited the program or
8162 human editing it must call <prgn>newaliases</prgn>. All MTA
8163 packages must come with a <prgn>newaliases</prgn> program,
8164 even if it does nothing, but older MTA packages did not do
8165 this so programs should not fail if <prgn>newaliases</prgn>
8166 cannot be found. Note that because of this, all MTA
8167 packages must have <tt>Provides</tt>, <tt>Conflicts</tt> and
8168 <tt>Replaces: mail-transport-agent</tt> control file
8173 The convention of writing <tt>forward to
8174 <var>address</var></tt> in the mailbox itself is not
8175 supported. Use a <tt>.forward</tt> file instead.</p>
8178 The <prgn>rmail</prgn> program used by UUCP
8179 for incoming mail should be <file>/usr/sbin/rmail</file>.
8180 Likewise, <prgn>rsmtp</prgn>, for receiving
8181 batch-SMTP-over-UUCP, should be <file>/usr/sbin/rsmtp</file> if it
8185 If your package needs to know what hostname to use on (for
8186 example) outgoing news and mail messages which are generated
8187 locally, you should use the file <file>/etc/mailname</file>. It
8188 will contain the portion after the username and <tt>@</tt>
8189 (at) sign for email addresses of users on the machine
8190 (followed by a newline).
8194 Such a package should check for the existence of this file
8195 when it is being configured. If it exists, it should be
8196 used without comment, although an MTA's configuration script
8197 may wish to prompt the user even if it finds that this file
8198 exists. If the file does not exist, the package should
8199 prompt the user for the value (preferably using
8200 <prgn>debconf</prgn>) and store it in <file>/etc/mailname</file>
8201 as well as using it in the package's configuration. The
8202 prompt should make it clear that the name will not just be
8203 used by that package. For example, in this situation the
8204 <tt>inn</tt> package could say something like:
8205 <example compact="compact">
8206 Please enter the "mail name" of your system. This is the
8207 hostname portion of the address to be shown on outgoing
8208 news and mail messages. The default is
8209 <var>syshostname</var>, your system's host name. Mail
8210 name ["<var>syshostname</var>"]:
8212 where <var>syshostname</var> is the output of <tt>hostname
8218 <heading>News system configuration</heading>
8221 All the configuration files related to the NNTP (news)
8222 servers and clients should be located under
8223 <file>/etc/news</file>.</p>
8226 There are some configuration issues that apply to a number
8227 of news clients and server packages on the machine. These
8231 <tag><file>/etc/news/organization</file></tag>
8233 A string which should appear as the
8234 organization header for all messages posted
8235 by NNTP clients on the machine
8238 <tag><file>/etc/news/server</file></tag>
8240 Contains the FQDN of the upstream NNTP
8241 server, or localhost if the local machine is
8246 Other global files may be added as required for cross-package news
8253 <heading>Programs for the X Window System</heading>
8256 <heading>Providing X support and package priorities</heading>
8259 Programs that can be configured with support for the X
8260 Window System must be configured to do so and must declare
8261 any package dependencies necessary to satisfy their
8262 runtime requirements when using the X Window System. If
8263 such a package is of higher priority than the X packages
8264 on which it depends, it is required that either the
8265 X-specific components be split into a separate package, or
8266 that an alternative version of the package, which includes
8267 X support, be provided, or that the package's priority be
8273 <heading>Packages providing an X server</heading>
8276 Packages that provide an X server that, directly or
8277 indirectly, communicates with real input and display
8278 hardware should declare in their control data that they
8279 provide the virtual package <tt>xserver</tt>.<footnote>
8280 This implements current practice, and provides an
8281 actual policy for usage of the <tt>xserver</tt>
8282 virtual package which appears in the virtual packages
8283 list. In a nutshell, X servers that interface
8284 directly with the display and input hardware or via
8285 another subsystem (e.g., GGI) should provide
8286 <tt>xserver</tt>. Things like <tt>Xvfb</tt>,
8287 <tt>Xnest</tt>, and <tt>Xprt</tt> should not.
8293 <heading>Packages providing a terminal emulator</heading>
8296 Packages that provide a terminal emulator for the X Window
8297 System which meet the criteria listed below should declare
8298 in their control data that they provide the virtual
8299 package <tt>x-terminal-emulator</tt>. They should also
8300 register themselves as an alternative for
8301 <file>/usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator</file>, with a priority of
8306 To be an <tt>x-terminal-emulator</tt>, a program must:
8307 <list compact="compact">
8309 Be able to emulate a DEC VT100 terminal, or a
8310 compatible terminal.
8314 Support the command-line option <tt>-e
8315 <var>command</var></tt>, which creates a new
8316 terminal window<footnote>
8317 "New terminal window" does not necessarily mean
8318 a new top-level X window directly parented by
8319 the window manager; it could, if the terminal
8320 emulator application were so coded, be a new
8321 "view" in a multiple-document interface (MDI).
8323 and runs the specified <var>command</var>,
8324 interpreting the entirety of the rest of the command
8325 line as a command to pass straight to exec, in the
8326 manner that <tt>xterm</tt> does.
8330 Support the command-line option <tt>-T
8331 <var>title</var></tt>, which creates a new terminal
8332 window with the window title <var>title</var>.
8339 <heading>Packages providing a window manager</heading>
8342 Packages that provide a window manager should declare in
8343 their control data that they provide the virtual package
8344 <tt>x-window-manager</tt>. They should also register
8345 themselves as an alternative for
8346 <file>/usr/bin/x-window-manager</file>, with a priority
8347 calculated as follows:
8348 <list compact="compact">
8350 Start with a priority of 20.
8354 If the window manager supports the Debian menu
8355 system, add 20 points if this support is available
8356 in the package's default configuration (i.e., no
8357 configuration files belonging to the system or user
8358 have to be edited to activate the feature); if
8359 configuration files must be modified, add only 10
8365 If the window manager complies with <url
8366 id="http://www.freedesktop.org/Standards/wm-spec"
8367 name="The Window Manager Specification Project">,
8368 written by the <url id="http://www.freedesktop.org/"
8369 name="Free Desktop Group">, add 40 points.
8373 If the window manager permits the X session to be
8374 restarted using a <em>different</em> window manager
8375 (without killing the X server) in its default
8376 configuration, add 10 points; otherwise add none.
8383 <heading>Packages providing fonts</heading>
8386 Packages that provide fonts for the X Window
8388 For the purposes of Debian Policy, a "font for the X
8389 Window System" is one which is accessed via X protocol
8390 requests. Fonts for the Linux console, for PostScript
8391 renderer, or any other purpose, do not fit this
8392 definition. Any tool which makes such fonts available
8393 to the X Window System, however, must abide by this
8396 must do a number of things to ensure that they are both
8397 available without modification of the X or font server
8398 configuration, and that they do not corrupt files used by
8399 other font packages to register information about
8403 Fonts of any type supported by the X Window System
8404 must be in a separate binary package from any
8405 executables, libraries, or documentation (except
8406 that specific to the fonts shipped, such as their
8407 license information). If one or more of the fonts
8408 so packaged are necessary for proper operation of
8409 the package with which they are associated the font
8410 package may be Recommended; if the fonts merely
8411 provide an enhancement, a Suggests relationship may
8412 be used. Packages must not Depend on font
8414 This is because the X server may retrieve fonts
8415 from the local file system or over the network
8416 from an X font server; the Debian package system
8417 is empowered to deal only with the local
8423 BDF fonts must be converted to PCF fonts with the
8424 <prgn>bdftopcf</prgn> utility (available in the
8425 <tt>xfonts-utils</tt> package, <prgn>gzip</prgn>ped, and
8426 placed in a directory that corresponds to their
8428 <list compact="compact">
8430 100 dpi fonts must be placed in
8431 <file>/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/</file>.
8435 75 dpi fonts must be placed in
8436 <file>/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/</file>.
8440 Character-cell fonts, cursor fonts, and other
8441 low-resolution fonts must be placed in
8442 <file>/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc/</file>.
8448 Type 1 fonts must be placed in
8449 <file>/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/</file>. If font
8450 metric files are available, they must be placed here
8455 Subdirectories of <file>/usr/share/fonts/X11/</file>
8456 other than those listed above must be neither
8457 created nor used. (The <file>PEX</file>, <file>CID</file>,
8458 <file>Speedo</file>, and <file>cyrillic</file> directories
8459 are excepted for historical reasons, but installation of
8460 files into these directories remains discouraged.)
8464 Font packages may, instead of placing files directly
8465 in the X font directories listed above, provide
8466 symbolic links in that font directory pointing to
8467 the files' actual location in the filesystem. Such
8468 a location must comply with the FHS.
8472 Font packages should not contain both 75dpi and
8473 100dpi versions of a font. If both are available,
8474 they should be provided in separate binary packages
8475 with <tt>-75dpi</tt> or <tt>-100dpi</tt> appended to
8476 the names of the packages containing the
8477 corresponding fonts.
8481 Fonts destined for the <file>misc</file> subdirectory
8482 should not be included in the same package as 75dpi
8483 or 100dpi fonts; instead, they should be provided in
8484 a separate package with <tt>-misc</tt> appended to
8489 Font packages must not provide the files
8490 <file>fonts.dir</file>, <file>fonts.alias</file>, or
8491 <file>fonts.scale</file> in a font directory:
8494 <file>fonts.dir</file> files must not be provided at all.
8498 <file>fonts.alias</file> and <file>fonts.scale</file>
8499 files, if needed, should be provided in the
8501 <file>/etc/X11/fonts/<var>fontdir</var>/<var>package</var>.<var>extension</var></file>,
8502 where <var>fontdir</var> is the name of the
8504 <file>/usr/share/fonts/X11/</file> where the
8505 package's corresponding fonts are stored
8506 (e.g., <tt>75dpi</tt> or <tt>misc</tt>),
8507 <var>package</var> is the name of the package
8508 that provides these fonts, and
8509 <var>extension</var> is either <tt>scale</tt>
8510 or <tt>alias</tt>, whichever corresponds to
8517 Font packages must declare a dependency on
8518 <tt>xfonts-utils</tt> in their control
8523 Font packages that provide one or more
8524 <file>fonts.scale</file> files as described above must
8525 invoke <prgn>update-fonts-scale</prgn> on each
8526 directory into which they installed fonts
8527 <em>before</em> invoking
8528 <prgn>update-fonts-dir</prgn> on that directory.
8529 This invocation must occur in both the
8530 <prgn>postinst</prgn> (for all arguments) and
8531 <prgn>postrm</prgn> (for all arguments except
8532 <tt>upgrade</tt>) scripts.
8536 Font packages that provide one or more
8537 <file>fonts.alias</file> files as described above must
8538 invoke <prgn>update-fonts-alias</prgn> on each
8539 directory into which they installed fonts. This
8540 invocation must occur in both the
8541 <prgn>postinst</prgn> (for all arguments) and
8542 <prgn>postrm</prgn> (for all arguments except
8543 <tt>upgrade</tt>) scripts.
8547 Font packages must invoke
8548 <prgn>update-fonts-dir</prgn> on each directory into
8549 which they installed fonts. This invocation must
8550 occur in both the <prgn>postinst</prgn> (for all
8551 arguments) and <prgn>postrm</prgn> (for all
8552 arguments except <tt>upgrade</tt>) scripts.
8556 Font packages must not provide alias names for the
8557 fonts they include which collide with alias names
8558 already in use by fonts already packaged.
8562 Font packages must not provide fonts with the same
8563 XLFD registry name as another font already packaged.
8570 <heading>Application defaults files</heading>
8573 Application defaults files must be installed in the
8574 directory <file>/etc/X11/app-defaults/</file> (use of a
8575 localized subdirectory of <file>/etc/X11/</file> as described
8576 in the <em>X Toolkit Intrinsics - C Language
8577 Interface</em> manual is also permitted). They must be
8578 registered as <tt>conffile</tt>s or handled as
8579 configuration files.
8583 Customization of programs' X resources may also be
8584 supported with the provision of a file with the same name
8585 as that of the package placed in the
8586 <file>/etc/X11/Xresources/</file> directory, which must
8587 registered as a <tt>conffile</tt> or handled as a
8588 configuration file.<footnote>
8589 Note that this mechanism is not the same as using
8590 app-defaults; app-defaults are tied to the client
8591 binary on the local file system, whereas X resources
8592 are stored in the X server and affect all connecting
8599 <heading>Installation directory issues</heading>
8602 Packages using the X Window System should not be
8603 configured to install files under the
8604 <file>/usr/X11R6/</file> directory. The
8605 <file>/usr/X11R6/</file> directory hierarchy should be
8606 regarded as obsolete.
8610 Programs that use GNU <prgn>autoconf</prgn> and
8611 <prgn>automake</prgn> are usually easily configured at
8612 compile time to use <file>/usr/</file> instead of
8613 <file>/usr/X11R6/</file>, and this should be done whenever
8614 possible. Configuration files for window managers and
8615 display managers should be placed in a subdirectory of
8616 <file>/etc/X11/</file> corresponding to the package name due
8617 to these programs' tight integration with the mechanisms
8618 of the X Window System. Application-level programs should
8619 use the <file>/etc/</file> directory unless otherwise mandated
8624 The installation of files into subdirectories
8625 of <file>/usr/X11R6/include/X11/</file> and
8626 <file>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/</file> is now prohibited;
8627 package maintainers should determine if subdirectories of
8628 <file>/usr/lib/</file> and <file>/usr/share/</file> can be used
8633 Packages should install any relevant files into the
8634 directories <file>/usr/include/X11/</file> and
8635 <file>/usr/lib/X11/</file>, but if they do so, they must
8636 pre-depend on <tt>x11-common (>=
8637 1:7.0.0)</tt><footnote>
8639 These libraries used to be all symbolic
8640 links. However, with <tt>X11R7</tt>,
8641 <tt>/usr/include/X11</tt> and <tt>/usr/lib/X11</tt>
8642 are now real directories, and packages
8643 <strong>should</strong> ship their files here instead
8644 of in <tt>/usr/X11R6/{include,lib}/X11</tt>.
8645 <tt>x11-common (>= 1:7.0.0) </tt> is the package
8646 responsible for converting these symlinks into
8654 <heading>The OSF/Motif and OpenMotif libraries</heading>
8657 <em>Programs that require the non-DFSG-compliant OSF/Motif or
8658 OpenMotif libraries</em><footnote>
8659 OSF/Motif and OpenMotif are collectively referred to as
8660 "Motif" in this policy document.
8662 should be compiled against and tested with LessTif (a free
8663 re-implementation of Motif) instead. If the maintainer
8664 judges that the program or programs do not work
8665 sufficiently well with LessTif to be distributed and
8666 supported, but do so when compiled against Motif, then two
8667 versions of the package should be created; one linked
8668 statically against Motif and with <tt>-smotif</tt>
8669 appended to the package name, and one linked dynamically
8670 against Motif and with <tt>-dmotif</tt> appended to the
8675 Both Motif-linked versions are dependent
8676 upon non-DFSG-compliant software and thus cannot be
8677 uploaded to the <em>main</em> distribution; if the
8678 software is itself DFSG-compliant it may be uploaded to
8679 the <em>contrib</em> distribution. While known existing
8680 versions of Motif permit unlimited redistribution of
8681 binaries linked against the library (whether statically or
8682 dynamically), it is the package maintainer's
8683 responsibility to determine whether this is permitted by
8684 the license of the copy of Motif in their possession.
8690 <heading>Perl programs and modules</heading>
8693 Perl programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy.
8697 The Perl policy can be found in the <tt>perl-policy</tt>
8698 files in the <tt>debian-policy</tt> package.
8699 It is also available from the Debian web mirrors at
8700 <tt><url name="/doc/packaging-manuals/perl-policy/"
8701 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/perl-policy/"></tt>.
8706 <heading>Emacs lisp programs</heading>
8709 Please refer to the "Debian Emacs Policy" for details of how to
8710 package emacs lisp programs.
8714 The Emacs policy is available in
8715 <file>debian-emacs-policy.gz</file> of the
8716 <package>emacsen-common</package> package.
8717 It is also available from the Debian web mirrors at
8718 <tt><url name="/doc/packaging-manuals/debian-emacs-policy"
8719 id="http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/debian-emacs-policy"></tt>.
8724 <heading>Games</heading>
8727 The permissions on <file>/var/games</file> are mode 755, owner
8728 <tt>root</tt> and group <tt>root</tt>.
8732 Each game decides on its own security policy.</p>
8735 Games which require protected, privileged access to
8736 high-score files, saved games, etc., may be made
8737 set-<em>group</em>-id (mode 2755) and owned by
8738 <tt>root:games</tt>, and use files and directories with
8739 appropriate permissions (770 <tt>root:games</tt>, for
8740 example). They must not be made
8741 set-<em>user</em>-id, as this causes security problems. (If
8742 an attacker can subvert any set-user-id game they can
8743 overwrite the executable of any other, causing other players
8744 of these games to run a Trojan horse program. With a
8745 set-group-id game the attacker only gets access to less
8746 important game data, and if they can get at the other
8747 players' accounts at all it will take considerably more
8751 Some packages, for example some fortune cookie programs, are
8752 configured by the upstream authors to install with their
8753 data files or other static information made unreadable so
8754 that they can only be accessed through set-id programs
8755 provided. You should not do this in a Debian package: anyone can
8756 download the <file>.deb</file> file and read the data from it,
8757 so there is no point making the files unreadable. Not
8758 making the files unreadable also means that you don't have
8759 to make so many programs set-id, which reduces the risk of a
8763 As described in the FHS, binaries of games should be
8764 installed in the directory <file>/usr/games</file>. This also
8765 applies to games that use the X Window System. Manual pages
8766 for games (X and non-X games) should be installed in
8767 <file>/usr/share/man/man6</file>.</p>
8773 <heading>Documentation</heading>
8776 <heading>Manual pages</heading>
8779 You should install manual pages in <prgn>nroff</prgn> source
8780 form, in appropriate places under <file>/usr/share/man</file>.
8781 You should only use sections 1 to 9 (see the FHS for more
8782 details). You must not install a pre-formatted "cat page".
8786 Each program, utility, and function should have an
8787 associated manual page included in the same package. It is
8788 suggested that all configuration files also have a manual
8789 page included as well. Manual pages for protocols and other
8790 auxiliary things are optional.
8794 If no manual page is available, this is considered as a bug
8795 and should be reported to the Debian Bug Tracking System (the
8796 maintainer of the package is allowed to write this bug report
8797 themselves, if they so desire). Do not close the bug report
8798 until a proper man page is available.<footnote>
8799 It is not very hard to write a man page. See the
8800 <url id="http://www.schweikhardt.net/man_page_howto.html"
8801 name="Man-Page-HOWTO">,
8802 <manref name="man" section="7">, the examples
8803 created by <prgn>debmake</prgn> or <prgn>dh_make</prgn>,
8804 the helper programs <prgn>help2man</prgn>, or the
8805 directory <file>/usr/share/doc/man-db/examples</file>.
8810 You may forward a complaint about a missing man page to the
8811 upstream authors, and mark the bug as forwarded in the
8812 Debian bug tracking system. Even though the GNU Project do
8813 not in general consider the lack of a man page to be a bug,
8814 we do; if they tell you that they don't consider it a bug
8815 you should leave the bug in our bug tracking system open
8820 Manual pages should be installed compressed using <tt>gzip -9</tt>.
8824 If one man page needs to be accessible via several names it
8825 is better to use a symbolic link than the <file>.so</file>
8826 feature, but there is no need to fiddle with the relevant
8827 parts of the upstream source to change from <file>.so</file> to
8828 symlinks: don't do it unless it's easy. You should not
8829 create hard links in the manual page directories, nor put
8830 absolute filenames in <file>.so</file> directives. The filename
8831 in a <file>.so</file> in a man page should be relative to the
8832 base of the man page tree (usually
8833 <file>/usr/share/man</file>). If you do not create any links
8834 (whether symlinks, hard links, or <tt>.so</tt> directives)
8835 in the file system to the alternate names of the man page,
8836 then you should not rely on <prgn>man</prgn> finding your
8837 man page under those names based solely on the information in
8838 the man page's header.<footnote>
8839 Supporting this in <prgn>man</prgn> often requires
8840 unreasonable processing time to find a manual page or to
8841 report that none exists, and moves knowledge into man's
8842 database that would be better left in the file system.
8843 This support is therefore deprecated and will cease to
8844 be present in the future.
8849 Manual pages in locale-specific subdirectories of
8850 <file>/usr/share/man</file> should use either UTF-8 or the usual
8851 legacy encoding for that language (normally the one corresponding
8852 to the shortest relevant locale name in
8853 <file>/usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED</file>). For example, pages under
8854 <file>/usr/share/man/fr</file> should use either UTF-8 or
8855 ISO-8859-1.<footnote>
8856 <prgn>man</prgn> will automatically detect whether UTF-8 is in
8857 use. In future, all manual pages will be required to use
8863 A country name (the <tt>DE</tt> in <tt>de_DE</tt>) should not be
8864 included in the subdirectory name unless it indicates a
8865 significant difference in the language, as this excludes
8866 speakers of the language in other countries.<footnote>
8867 At the time of writing, Chinese and Portuguese are the main
8868 languages with such differences, so <file>pt_BR</file>,
8869 <file>zh_CN</file>, and <file>zh_TW</file> are all allowed.
8874 Due to limitations in current implementations, all characters
8875 in the manual page source should be representable in the usual
8876 legacy encoding for that language, even if the file is
8877 actually encoded in UTF-8. Safe alternative ways to write many
8878 characters outside that range may be found in
8879 <manref name="groff_char" section="7">.
8884 <heading>Info documents</heading>
8887 Info documents should be installed in <file>/usr/share/info</file>.
8888 They should be compressed with <tt>gzip -9</tt>.
8892 Your package should call <prgn>install-info</prgn> to update
8893 the Info <file>dir</file> file in its <prgn>postinst</prgn>
8894 script when called with a <tt>configure</tt> argument, for
8896 <example compact="compact">
8897 install-info --quiet --section Development Development \
8898 /usr/share/info/foobar.info
8902 It is a good idea to specify a section for the location of
8903 your program; this is done with the <tt>--section</tt>
8904 switch. To determine which section to use, you should look
8905 at <file>/usr/share/info/dir</file> on your system and choose the most
8906 relevant (or create a new section if none of the current
8907 sections are relevant). Note that the <tt>--section</tt>
8908 flag takes two arguments; the first is a regular expression
8909 to match (case-insensitively) against an existing section,
8910 the second is used when creating a new one.</p>
8913 You should remove the entries in the <prgn>prerm</prgn>
8914 script when called with a <tt>remove</tt> argument:
8915 <example compact="compact">
8916 install-info --quiet --remove /usr/share/info/foobar.info
8920 If <prgn>install-info</prgn> cannot find a description entry
8921 in the Info file you must supply one. See <manref
8922 name="install-info" section="8"> for details.</p>
8926 <heading>Additional documentation</heading>
8929 Any additional documentation that comes with the package may
8930 be installed at the discretion of the package maintainer.
8931 Plain text documentation should be installed in the directory
8932 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></file>, where
8933 <var>package</var> is the name of the package, and
8934 compressed with <tt>gzip -9</tt> unless it is small.
8938 If a package comes with large amounts of documentation which
8939 many users of the package will not require you should create
8940 a separate binary package to contain it, so that it does not
8941 take up disk space on the machines of users who do not need
8942 or want it installed.</p>
8945 It is often a good idea to put text information files
8946 (<file>README</file>s, changelogs, and so forth) that come with
8947 the source package in <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></file>
8948 in the binary package. However, you don't need to install
8949 the instructions for building and installing the package, of
8953 Packages must not require the existence of any files in
8954 <file>/usr/share/doc/</file> in order to function
8956 The system administrator should be able to
8957 delete files in <file>/usr/share/doc/</file> without causing
8958 any programs to break.
8960 Any files that are referenced by programs but are also
8961 useful as stand alone documentation should be installed under
8962 <file>/usr/share/<var>package</var>/</file> with symbolic links from
8963 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></file>.
8967 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></file> may be a symbolic
8968 link to another directory in <file>/usr/share/doc</file> only if
8969 the two packages both come from the same source and the
8970 first package Depends on the second.<footnote>
8972 Please note that this does not override the section on
8973 changelog files below, so the file
8974 <file>/usr/share/<var>package</var>/changelog.Debian.gz</file>
8975 must refer to the changelog for the current version of
8976 <var>package</var> in question. In practice, this means
8977 that the sources of the target and the destination of the
8978 symlink must be the same (same source package and
8985 Former Debian releases placed all additional documentation
8986 in <file>/usr/doc/<var>package</var></file>. This has been
8987 changed to <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></file>,
8988 and packages must not put documentation in the directory
8989 <file>/usr/doc/<var>package</var></file>. <footnote>
8990 At this phase of the transition, we no longer require a
8991 symbolic link in <file>/usr/doc/</file>. At a later point,
8992 policy shall change to make the symbolic links a bug.
8998 <heading>Preferred documentation formats</heading>
9001 The unification of Debian documentation is being carried out
9005 If your package comes with extensive documentation in a
9006 markup format that can be converted to various other formats
9007 you should if possible ship HTML versions in a binary
9008 package, in the directory
9009 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>appropriate-package</var></file> or
9010 its subdirectories.<footnote>
9011 The rationale: The important thing here is that HTML
9012 docs should be available in <em>some</em> package, not
9013 necessarily in the main binary package.
9018 Other formats such as PostScript may be provided at the
9019 package maintainer's discretion.
9023 <sect id="copyrightfile">
9024 <heading>Copyright information</heading>
9027 Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its
9028 copyright and distribution license in the file
9029 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file>. This
9030 file must neither be compressed nor be a symbolic link.
9034 In addition, the copyright file must say where the upstream
9035 sources (if any) were obtained. It should name the original
9036 authors of the package and the Debian maintainer(s) who were
9037 involved with its creation.
9041 Packages in the <em>contrib</em> or <em>non-free</em> archive
9042 areas should state in the copyright file that the package is not
9043 part of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution and briefly explain
9048 A copy of the file which will be installed in
9049 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/copyright</file> should
9050 be in <file>debian/copyright</file> in the source package.
9054 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></file> may be a symbolic
9055 link to another directory in <file>/usr/share/doc</file> only if
9056 the two packages both come from the same source and the
9057 first package Depends on the second. These rules are
9058 important because copyrights must be extractable by
9063 Packages distributed under the UCB BSD license, the Apache
9064 license (version 2.0), the Artistic license, the GNU GPL
9065 (version 2 or 3), the GNU LGPL (versions 2, 2.1, or 3), and the
9066 GNU FDL (versions 1.2 or 1.3) should refer to the corresponding
9067 files under <file>/usr/share/common-licenses</file>,<footnote>
9070 <file>/usr/share/common-licenses/BSD</file>,
9071 <file>/usr/share/common-licenses/Apache-2.0</file>,
9072 <file>/usr/share/common-licenses/Artistic</file>,
9073 <file>/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2</file>,
9074 <file>/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-3</file>,
9075 <file>/usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL-2</file>,
9076 <file>/usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL-2.1</file>,
9077 <file>/usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL-3</file>,
9078 <file>/usr/share/common-licenses/GFDL-1.2</file>, and
9079 <file>/usr/share/common-licenses/GFDL-1.3</file>
9082 </footnote> rather than quoting them in the copyright
9087 You should not use the copyright file as a general <file>README</file>
9088 file. If your package has such a file it should be
9089 installed in <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/README</file> or
9090 <file>README.Debian</file> or some other appropriate place.</p>
9094 <heading>Examples</heading>
9097 Any examples (configurations, source files, whatever),
9098 should be installed in a directory
9099 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/examples</file>. These
9100 files should not be referenced by any program: they're there
9101 for the benefit of the system administrator and users as
9102 documentation only. Architecture-specific example files
9103 should be installed in a directory
9104 <file>/usr/lib/<var>package</var>/examples</file> with symbolic
9106 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/examples</file>, or the
9107 latter directory itself may be a symbolic link to the
9112 If the purpose of a package is to provide examples, then the
9113 example files may be installed into
9114 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></file>.
9118 <sect id="changelogs">
9119 <heading>Changelog files</heading>
9122 Packages that are not Debian-native must contain a
9123 compressed copy of the <file>debian/changelog</file> file from
9124 the Debian source tree in
9125 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var></file> with the name
9126 <file>changelog.Debian.gz</file>.
9130 If an upstream changelog is available, it should be accessible as
9131 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/changelog.gz</file> in
9132 plain text. If the upstream changelog is distributed in
9133 HTML, it should be made available in that form as
9134 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/changelog.html.gz</file>
9135 and a plain text <file>changelog.gz</file> should be generated
9136 from it using, for example, <tt>lynx -dump -nolist</tt>. If
9137 the upstream changelog files do not already conform to this
9138 naming convention, then this may be achieved either by
9139 renaming the files, or by adding a symbolic link, at the
9140 maintainer's discretion.<footnote>
9141 Rationale: People should not have to look in places for
9142 upstream changelogs merely because they are given
9143 different names or are distributed in HTML format.
9148 All of these files should be installed compressed using
9149 <tt>gzip -9</tt>, as they will become large with time even
9150 if they start out small.
9154 If the package has only one changelog which is used both as
9155 the Debian changelog and the upstream one because there is
9156 no separate upstream maintainer then that changelog should
9157 usually be installed as
9158 <file>/usr/share/doc/<var>package</var>/changelog.gz</file>; if
9159 there is a separate upstream maintainer, but no upstream
9160 changelog, then the Debian changelog should still be called
9161 <file>changelog.Debian.gz</file>.
9165 For details about the format and contents of the Debian
9166 changelog file, please see <ref id="dpkgchangelog">.
9171 <appendix id="pkg-scope">
9172 <heading>Introduction and scope of these appendices</heading>
9175 These appendices are taken essentially verbatim from the
9176 now-deprecated Packaging Manual, version 3.2.1.0. They are
9177 the chapters which are likely to be of use to package
9178 maintainers and which have not already been included in the
9179 policy document itself. Most of these sections are very likely
9180 not relevant to policy; they should be treated as
9181 documentation for the packaging system. Please note that these
9182 appendices are included for convenience, and for historical
9183 reasons: they used to be part of policy package, and they have
9184 not yet been incorporated into dpkg documentation. However,
9185 they still have value, and hence they are presented here.
9189 They have not yet been checked to ensure that they are
9190 compatible with the contents of policy, and if there are any
9191 contradictions, the version in the main policy document takes
9192 precedence. The remaining chapters of the old Packaging
9193 Manual have also not been read in detail to ensure that there
9194 are not parts which have been left out. Both of these will be
9199 Certain parts of the Packaging manual were integrated into the
9200 Policy Manual proper, and removed from the appendices. Links
9201 have been placed from the old locations to the new ones.
9205 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> is a suite of programs for creating binary
9206 package files and installing and removing them on Unix
9208 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> is targeted primarily at Debian
9209 GNU/Linux, but may work on or be ported to other
9215 The binary packages are designed for the management of
9216 installed executable programs (usually compiled binaries) and
9217 their associated data, though source code examples and
9218 documentation are provided as part of some packages.</p>
9221 This manual describes the technical aspects of creating Debian
9222 binary packages (<file>.deb</file> files). It documents the
9223 behavior of the package management programs
9224 <prgn>dpkg</prgn>, <prgn>dselect</prgn> et al. and the way
9225 they interact with packages.</p>
9228 It also documents the interaction between
9229 <prgn>dselect</prgn>'s core and the access method scripts it
9230 uses to actually install the selected packages, and describes
9231 how to create a new access method.</p>
9234 This manual does not go into detail about the options and
9235 usage of the package building and installation tools. It
9236 should therefore be read in conjunction with those programs'
9241 The utility programs which are provided with <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
9242 for managing various system configuration and similar issues,
9243 such as <prgn>update-rc.d</prgn> and
9244 <prgn>install-info</prgn>, are not described in detail here -
9245 please see their man pages.
9249 It is assumed that the reader is reasonably familiar with the
9250 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> System Administrators' manual.
9251 Unfortunately this manual does not yet exist.
9255 The Debian version of the FSF's GNU hello program is provided
9256 as an example for people wishing to create Debian
9257 packages. The Debian <prgn>debmake</prgn> package is
9258 recommended as a very helpful tool in creating and maintaining
9259 Debian packages. However, while the tools and examples are
9260 helpful, they do not replace the need to read and follow the
9261 Policy and Programmer's Manual.</p>
9264 <appendix id="pkg-binarypkg">
9265 <heading>Binary packages (from old Packaging Manual)</heading>
9268 The binary package has two main sections. The first part
9269 consists of various control information files and scripts used
9270 by <prgn>dpkg</prgn> when installing and removing. See <ref
9271 id="pkg-controlarea">.
9275 The second part is an archive containing the files and
9276 directories to be installed.
9280 In the future binary packages may also contain other
9281 components, such as checksums and digital signatures. The
9282 format for the archive is described in full in the
9283 <file>deb(5)</file> man page.
9287 <sect id="pkg-bincreating"><heading>Creating package files -
9288 <prgn>dpkg-deb</prgn>
9292 All manipulation of binary package files is done by
9293 <prgn>dpkg-deb</prgn>; it's the only program that has
9294 knowledge of the format. (<prgn>dpkg-deb</prgn> may be
9295 invoked by calling <prgn>dpkg</prgn>, as <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
9296 will spot that the options requested are appropriate to
9297 <prgn>dpkg-deb</prgn> and invoke that instead with the same
9302 In order to create a binary package you must make a
9303 directory tree which contains all the files and directories
9304 you want to have in the file system data part of the package.
9305 In Debian-format source packages this directory is usually
9306 <file>debian/tmp</file>, relative to the top of the package's
9311 They should have the locations (relative to the root of the
9312 directory tree you're constructing) ownerships and
9313 permissions which you want them to have on the system when
9318 With current versions of <prgn>dpkg</prgn> the uid/username
9319 and gid/groupname mappings for the users and groups being
9320 used should be the same on the system where the package is
9321 built and the one where it is installed.
9325 You need to add one special directory to the root of the
9326 miniature file system tree you're creating:
9327 <prgn>DEBIAN</prgn>. It should contain the control
9328 information files, notably the binary package control file
9329 (see <ref id="pkg-controlfile">).
9333 The <prgn>DEBIAN</prgn> directory will not appear in the
9334 file system archive of the package, and so won't be installed
9335 by <prgn>dpkg</prgn> when the package is installed.
9339 When you've prepared the package, you should invoke:
9341 dpkg --build <var>directory</var>
9346 This will build the package in
9347 <file><var>directory</var>.deb</file>. (<prgn>dpkg</prgn> knows
9348 that <tt>--build</tt> is a <prgn>dpkg-deb</prgn> option, so
9349 it invokes <prgn>dpkg-deb</prgn> with the same arguments to
9354 See the man page <manref name="dpkg-deb" section="8"> for details of how
9355 to examine the contents of this newly-created file. You may find the
9356 output of following commands enlightening:
9358 dpkg-deb --info <var>filename</var>.deb
9359 dpkg-deb --contents <var>filename</var>.deb
9360 dpkg --contents <var>filename</var>.deb
9362 To view the copyright file for a package you could use this command:
9364 dpkg --fsys-tarfile <var>filename</var>.deb | tar xOf - --wildcards \*/copyright | pager
9369 <sect id="pkg-controlarea">
9370 <heading>Package control information files</heading>
9373 The control information portion of a binary package is a
9374 collection of files with names known to <prgn>dpkg</prgn>.
9375 It will treat the contents of these files specially - some
9376 of them contain information used by <prgn>dpkg</prgn> when
9377 installing or removing the package; others are scripts which
9378 the package maintainer wants <prgn>dpkg</prgn> to run.
9382 It is possible to put other files in the package control
9383 area, but this is not generally a good idea (though they
9384 will largely be ignored).
9388 Here is a brief list of the control info files supported by
9389 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> and a summary of what they're used for.
9394 <tag><tt>control</tt>
9397 This is the key description file used by
9398 <prgn>dpkg</prgn>. It specifies the package's name
9399 and version, gives its description for the user,
9400 states its relationships with other packages, and so
9401 forth. See <ref id="sourcecontrolfiles"> and
9402 <ref id="binarycontrolfiles">.
9406 It is usually generated automatically from information
9407 in the source package by the
9408 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> program, and with
9409 assistance from <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn>.
9410 See <ref id="pkg-sourcetools">.
9414 <tag><tt>postinst</tt>, <tt>preinst</tt>, <tt>postrm</tt>,
9419 These are executable files (usually scripts) which
9420 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> runs during installation, upgrade
9421 and removal of packages. They allow the package to
9422 deal with matters which are particular to that package
9423 or require more complicated processing than that
9424 provided by <prgn>dpkg</prgn>. Details of when and
9425 how they are called are in <ref id="maintainerscripts">.
9429 It is very important to make these scripts idempotent.
9430 See <ref id="idempotency">.
9434 The maintainer scripts are guaranteed to run with a
9435 controlling terminal and can interact with the user.
9436 See <ref id="controllingterminal">.
9440 <tag><tt>conffiles</tt>
9443 This file contains a list of configuration files which
9444 are to be handled automatically by <prgn>dpkg</prgn>
9445 (see <ref id="pkg-conffiles">). Note that not necessarily
9446 every configuration file should be listed here.
9449 <tag><tt>shlibs</tt>
9452 This file contains a list of the shared libraries
9453 supplied by the package, with dependency details for
9454 each. This is used by <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn>
9455 when it determines what dependencies are required in a
9456 package control file. The <tt>shlibs</tt> file format
9457 is described on <ref id="shlibs">.
9462 <sect id="pkg-controlfile">
9463 <heading>The main control information file: <tt>control</tt></heading>
9466 The most important control information file used by
9467 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> when it installs a package is
9468 <tt>control</tt>. It contains all the package's "vital
9473 The binary package control files of packages built from
9474 Debian sources are made by a special tool,
9475 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn>, which reads
9476 <file>debian/control</file> and <file>debian/changelog</file> to
9477 find the information it needs. See <ref id="pkg-sourcepkg"> for
9482 The fields in binary package control files are listed in
9483 <ref id="binarycontrolfiles">.
9487 A description of the syntax of control files and the purpose
9488 of the fields is available in <ref id="controlfields">.
9493 <heading>Time Stamps</heading>
9496 See <ref id="timestamps">.
9501 <appendix id="pkg-sourcepkg">
9502 <heading>Source packages (from old Packaging Manual) </heading>
9505 The Debian binary packages in the distribution are generated
9506 from Debian sources, which are in a special format to assist
9507 the easy and automatic building of binaries.
9510 <sect id="pkg-sourcetools">
9511 <heading>Tools for processing source packages</heading>
9514 Various tools are provided for manipulating source packages;
9515 they pack and unpack sources and help build of binary
9516 packages and help manage the distribution of new versions.
9520 They are introduced and typical uses described here; see
9521 <manref name="dpkg-source" section="1"> for full
9522 documentation about their arguments and operation.
9526 For examples of how to construct a Debian source package,
9527 and how to use those utilities that are used by Debian
9528 source packages, please see the <prgn>hello</prgn> example
9532 <sect1 id="pkg-dpkg-source">
9534 <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn> - packs and unpacks Debian source
9539 This program is frequently used by hand, and is also
9540 called from package-independent automated building scripts
9541 such as <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn>.
9545 To unpack a package it is typically invoked with
9547 dpkg-source -x <var>.../path/to/filename</var>.dsc
9552 with the <file><var>filename</var>.tar.gz</file> and
9553 <file><var>filename</var>.diff.gz</file> (if applicable) in
9554 the same directory. It unpacks into
9555 <file><var>package</var>-<var>version</var></file>, and if
9557 <file><var>package</var>-<var>version</var>.orig</file>, in
9558 the current directory.
9562 To create a packed source archive it is typically invoked:
9564 dpkg-source -b <var>package</var>-<var>version</var>
9569 This will create the <file>.dsc</file>, <file>.tar.gz</file> and
9570 <file>.diff.gz</file> (if appropriate) in the current
9571 directory. <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn> does not clean the
9572 source tree first - this must be done separately if it is
9577 See also <ref id="pkg-sourcearchives">.</p>
9581 <sect1 id="pkg-dpkg-buildpackage">
9583 <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn> - overall package-building
9588 <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn> is a script which invokes
9589 <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn>, the <file>debian/rules</file>
9590 targets <tt>clean</tt>, <tt>build</tt> and
9591 <tt>binary</tt>, <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> and
9592 <prgn>gpg</prgn> (or <prgn>pgp</prgn>) to build a signed
9593 source and binary package upload.
9597 It is usually invoked by hand from the top level of the
9598 built or unbuilt source directory. It may be invoked with
9599 no arguments; useful arguments include:
9600 <taglist compact="compact">
9601 <tag><tt>-uc</tt>, <tt>-us</tt></tag>
9604 Do not sign the <tt>.changes</tt> file or the
9605 source package <tt>.dsc</tt> file, respectively.</p>
9607 <tag><tt>-p<var>sign-command</var></tt></tag>
9610 Invoke <var>sign-command</var> instead of finding
9611 <tt>gpg</tt> or <tt>pgp</tt> on the <prgn>PATH</prgn>.
9612 <var>sign-command</var> must behave just like
9613 <prgn>gpg</prgn> or <tt>pgp</tt>.</p>
9615 <tag><tt>-r<var>root-command</var></tt></tag>
9618 When root privilege is required, invoke the command
9619 <var>root-command</var>. <var>root-command</var>
9620 should invoke its first argument as a command, from
9621 the <prgn>PATH</prgn> if necessary, and pass its
9622 second and subsequent arguments to the command it
9623 calls. If no <var>root-command</var> is supplied
9624 then <var>dpkg-buildpackage</var> will take no
9625 special action to gain root privilege, so that for
9626 most packages it will have to be invoked as root to
9629 <tag><tt>-b</tt>, <tt>-B</tt></tag>
9632 Two types of binary-only build and upload - see
9633 <manref name="dpkg-source" section="1">.
9640 <sect1 id="pkg-dpkg-gencontrol">
9642 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> - generates binary package
9647 This program is usually called from <file>debian/rules</file>
9648 (see <ref id="pkg-sourcetree">) in the top level of the source
9653 This is usually done just before the files and directories in the
9654 temporary directory tree where the package is being built have their
9655 permissions and ownerships set and the package is constructed using
9656 <prgn>dpkg-deb/</prgn>
9658 This is so that the control file which is produced has
9659 the right permissions
9664 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> must be called after all the
9665 files which are to go into the package have been placed in
9666 the temporary build directory, so that its calculation of
9667 the installed size of a package is correct.
9671 It is also necessary for <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> to
9672 be run after <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> so that the
9673 variable substitutions created by
9674 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> in <file>debian/substvars</file>
9679 For a package which generates only one binary package, and
9680 which builds it in <file>debian/tmp</file> relative to the top
9681 of the source package, it is usually sufficient to call
9682 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn>.
9686 Sources which build several binaries will typically need
9689 dpkg-gencontrol -Pdebian/tmp-<var>pkg</var> -p<var>package</var>
9690 </example> The <tt>-P</tt> tells
9691 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> that the package is being
9692 built in a non-default directory, and the <tt>-p</tt>
9693 tells it which package's control file should be generated.
9697 <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> also adds information to the
9698 list of files in <file>debian/files</file>, for the benefit of
9699 (for example) a future invocation of
9700 <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn>.</p>
9703 <sect1 id="pkg-dpkg-shlibdeps">
9705 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> - calculates shared library
9710 This program is usually called from <file>debian/rules</file>
9711 just before <prgn>dpkg-gencontrol</prgn> (see <ref
9712 id="pkg-sourcetree">), in the top level of the source tree.
9716 Its arguments are executables and shared libraries
9719 They may be specified either in the locations in the
9720 source tree where they are created or in the locations
9721 in the temporary build tree where they are installed
9722 prior to binary package creation.
9724 </footnote> for which shared library dependencies should
9725 be included in the binary package's control file.
9729 If some of the found shared libraries should only
9730 warrant a <tt>Recommends</tt> or <tt>Suggests</tt>, or if
9731 some warrant a <tt>Pre-Depends</tt>, this can be achieved
9732 by using the <tt>-d<var>dependency-field</var></tt> option
9733 before those executable(s). (Each <tt>-d</tt> option
9734 takes effect until the next <tt>-d</tt>.)
9738 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> does not directly cause the
9739 output control file to be modified. Instead by default it
9740 adds to the <file>debian/substvars</file> file variable
9741 settings like <tt>shlibs:Depends</tt>. These variable
9742 settings must be referenced in dependency fields in the
9743 appropriate per-binary-package sections of the source
9748 For example, a package that generates an essential part
9749 which requires dependencies, and optional parts that
9750 which only require a recommendation, would separate those
9751 two sets of dependencies into two different fields.<footnote>
9752 At the time of writing, an example for this was the
9753 <package/xmms/ package, with Depends used for the xmms
9754 executable, Recommends for the plug-ins and Suggests for
9755 even more optional features provided by unzip.
9757 It can say in its <file>debian/rules</file>:
9759 dpkg-shlibdeps -dDepends <var>program anotherprogram ...</var> \
9760 -dRecommends <var>optionalpart anotheroptionalpart</var>
9762 and then in its main control file <file>debian/control</file>:
9765 Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
9766 Recommends: ${shlibs:Recommends}
9772 Sources which produce several binary packages with
9773 different shared library dependency requirements can use
9774 the <tt>-p<var>varnameprefix</var></tt> option to override
9775 the default <tt>shlibs:</tt> prefix (one invocation of
9776 <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> per setting of this option).
9777 They can thus produce several sets of dependency
9778 variables, each of the form
9779 <tt><var>varnameprefix</var>:<var>dependencyfield</var></tt>,
9780 which can be referred to in the appropriate parts of the
9781 binary package control files.
9786 <sect1 id="pkg-dpkg-distaddfile">
9788 <prgn>dpkg-distaddfile</prgn> - adds a file to
9789 <file>debian/files</file>
9793 Some packages' uploads need to include files other than
9794 the source and binary package files.
9798 <prgn>dpkg-distaddfile</prgn> adds a file to the
9799 <file>debian/files</file> file so that it will be included in
9800 the <file>.changes</file> file when
9801 <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> is run.
9805 It is usually invoked from the <tt>binary</tt> target of
9806 <file>debian/rules</file>:
9808 dpkg-distaddfile <var>filename</var> <var>section</var> <var>priority</var>
9810 The <var>filename</var> is relative to the directory where
9811 <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> will expect to find it - this
9812 is usually the directory above the top level of the source
9813 tree. The <file>debian/rules</file> target should put the
9814 file there just before or just after calling
9815 <prgn>dpkg-distaddfile</prgn>.
9819 The <var>section</var> and <var>priority</var> are passed
9820 unchanged into the resulting <file>.changes</file> file.
9825 <sect1 id="pkg-dpkg-genchanges">
9827 <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> - generates a <file>.changes</file>
9832 This program is usually called by package-independent
9833 automatic building scripts such as
9834 <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn>, but it may also be called
9839 It is usually called in the top level of a built source
9840 tree, and when invoked with no arguments will print out a
9841 straightforward <file>.changes</file> file based on the
9842 information in the source package's changelog and control
9843 file and the binary and source packages which should have
9849 <sect1 id="pkg-dpkg-parsechangelog">
9851 <prgn>dpkg-parsechangelog</prgn> - produces parsed
9852 representation of a changelog
9856 This program is used internally by
9857 <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn> et al. It may also occasionally
9858 be useful in <file>debian/rules</file> and elsewhere. It
9859 parses a changelog, <file>debian/changelog</file> by default,
9860 and prints a control-file format representation of the
9861 information in it to standard output.
9865 <sect1 id="pkg-dpkg-architecture">
9867 <prgn>dpkg-architecture</prgn> - information about the build and
9872 This program can be used manually, but is also invoked by
9873 <tt>dpkg-buildpackage</tt> or <file>debian/rules</file> to set
9874 environment or make variables which specify the build and host
9875 architecture for the package building process.
9880 <sect id="pkg-sourcetree">
9881 <heading>The Debianised source tree</heading>
9884 The source archive scheme described later is intended to
9885 allow a Debianised source tree with some associated control
9886 information to be reproduced and transported easily. The
9887 Debianised source tree is a version of the original program
9888 with certain files added for the benefit of the
9889 Debianisation process, and with any other changes required
9890 made to the rest of the source code and installation
9895 The extra files created for Debian are in the subdirectory
9896 <file>debian</file> of the top level of the Debianised source
9897 tree. They are described below.
9900 <sect1 id="pkg-debianrules">
9901 <heading><file>debian/rules</file> - the main building script</heading>
9904 See <ref id="debianrules">.
9909 <sect1 id="pkg-dpkgchangelog">
9910 <heading><file>debian/changelog</file></heading>
9913 See <ref id="dpkgchangelog">.
9916 <sect2><heading>Defining alternative changelog formats
9920 It is possible to use a different format to the standard
9921 one, by providing a parser for the format you wish to
9926 In order to have <tt>dpkg-parsechangelog</tt> run your
9927 parser, you must include a line within the last 40 lines
9928 of your file matching the Perl regular expression:
9929 <tt>\schangelog-format:\s+([0-9a-z]+)\W</tt> The part in
9930 parentheses should be the name of the format. For
9931 example, you might say:
9933 @@@ changelog-format: joebloggs @@@
9935 Changelog format names are non-empty strings of alphanumerics.
9939 If such a line exists then <tt>dpkg-parsechangelog</tt>
9940 will look for the parser as
9941 <file>/usr/lib/dpkg/parsechangelog/<var>format-name</var></file>
9943 <file>/usr/local/lib/dpkg/parsechangelog/<var>format-name</var></file>;
9944 it is an error for it not to find it, or for it not to
9945 be an executable program. The default changelog format
9946 is <tt>dpkg</tt>, and a parser for it is provided with
9947 the <tt>dpkg</tt> package.
9951 The parser will be invoked with the changelog open on
9952 standard input at the start of the file. It should read
9953 the file (it may seek if it wishes) to determine the
9954 information required and return the parsed information
9955 to standard output in the form of a series of control
9956 fields in the standard format. By default it should
9957 return information about only the most recent version in
9958 the changelog; it should accept a
9959 <tt>-v<var>version</var></tt> option to return changes
9960 information from all versions present <em>strictly
9961 after</em> <var>version</var>, and it should then be an
9962 error for <var>version</var> not to be present in the
9968 <list compact="compact">
9969 <item><qref id="f-Source"><tt>Source</tt></qref></item>
9970 <item><qref id="f-Version"><tt>Version</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
9971 <item><qref id="f-Distribution"><tt>Distribution</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
9972 <item><qref id="f-Urgency"><tt>Urgency</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
9973 <item><qref id="f-Maintainer"><tt>Maintainer</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
9974 <item><qref id="f-Date"><tt>Date</tt></qref></item>
9975 <item><qref id="f-Changes"><tt>Changes</tt></qref> (mandatory)</item>
9980 If several versions are being returned (due to the use
9981 of <tt>-v</tt>), the urgency value should be of the
9982 highest urgency code listed at the start of any of the
9983 versions requested followed by the concatenated
9984 (space-separated) comments from all the versions
9985 requested; the maintainer, version, distribution and
9986 date should always be from the most recent version.
9990 For the format of the <tt>Changes</tt> field see
9991 <ref id="f-Changes">.
9995 If the changelog format which is being parsed always or
9996 almost always leaves a blank line between individual
9997 change notes these blank lines should be stripped out,
9998 so as to make the resulting output compact.
10002 If the changelog format does not contain date or package
10003 name information this information should be omitted from
10004 the output. The parser should not attempt to synthesize
10005 it or find it from other sources.
10009 If the changelog does not have the expected format the
10010 parser should exit with a nonzero exit status, rather
10011 than trying to muddle through and possibly generating
10016 A changelog parser may not interact with the user at
10022 <sect1 id="pkg-srcsubstvars">
10023 <heading><file>debian/substvars</file> and variable substitutions</heading>
10026 See <ref id="substvars">.
10032 <heading><file>debian/files</file></heading>
10035 See <ref id="debianfiles">.
10039 <sect1><heading><file>debian/tmp</file>
10043 This is the canonical temporary location for the
10044 construction of binary packages by the <tt>binary</tt>
10045 target. The directory <file>tmp</file> serves as the root of
10046 the file system tree as it is being constructed (for
10047 example, by using the package's upstream makefiles install
10048 targets and redirecting the output there), and it also
10049 contains the <tt>DEBIAN</tt> subdirectory. See <ref
10050 id="pkg-bincreating">.
10054 If several binary packages are generated from the same
10055 source tree it is usual to use several
10056 <file>debian/tmp<var>something</var></file> directories, for
10057 example <file>tmp-a</file> or <file>tmp-doc</file>.
10061 Whatever <file>tmp</file> directories are created and used by
10062 <tt>binary</tt> must of course be removed by the
10063 <tt>clean</tt> target.</p></sect1>
10067 <sect id="pkg-sourcearchives"><heading>Source packages as archives
10071 As it exists on the FTP site, a Debian source package
10072 consists of three related files. You must have the right
10073 versions of all three to be able to use them.
10078 <tag>Debian source control file - <tt>.dsc</tt></tag>
10080 This file is a control file used by <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn>
10081 to extract a source package.
10082 See <ref id="debiansourcecontrolfiles">.
10086 Original source archive -
10088 <var>package</var>_<var>upstream-version</var>.orig.tar.gz
10094 This is a compressed (with <tt>gzip -9</tt>)
10095 <prgn>tar</prgn> file containing the source code from
10096 the upstream authors of the program.
10101 Debianisation diff -
10103 <var>package</var>_<var>upstream_version-revision</var>.diff.gz
10109 This is a unified context diff (<tt>diff -u</tt>)
10110 giving the changes which are required to turn the
10111 original source into the Debian source. These changes
10112 may only include editing and creating plain files.
10113 The permissions of files, the targets of symbolic
10114 links and the characteristics of special files or
10115 pipes may not be changed and no files may be removed
10120 All the directories in the diff must exist, except the
10121 <file>debian</file> subdirectory of the top of the source
10122 tree, which will be created by
10123 <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn> if necessary when unpacking.
10127 The <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn> program will
10128 automatically make the <file>debian/rules</file> file
10129 executable (see below).</p></item>
10134 If there is no original source code - for example, if the
10135 package is specially prepared for Debian or the Debian
10136 maintainer is the same as the upstream maintainer - the
10137 format is slightly different: then there is no diff, and the
10139 <file><var>package</var>_<var>version</var>.tar.gz</file>,
10140 and preferably contains a directory named
10141 <file><var>package</var>-<var>version</var></file>.
10146 <heading>Unpacking a Debian source package without <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn></heading>
10149 <tt>dpkg-source -x</tt> is the recommended way to unpack a
10150 Debian source package. However, if it is not available it
10151 is possible to unpack a Debian source archive as follows:
10152 <enumlist compact="compact">
10155 Untar the tarfile, which will create a <file>.orig</file>
10159 <p>Rename the <file>.orig</file> directory to
10160 <file><var>package</var>-<var>version</var></file>.</p>
10164 Create the subdirectory <file>debian</file> at the top of
10165 the source tree.</p>
10167 <item><p>Apply the diff using <tt>patch -p0</tt>.</p>
10169 <item><p>Untar the tarfile again if you want a copy of the original
10170 source code alongside the Debianised version.</p>
10175 It is not possible to generate a valid Debian source archive
10176 without using <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn>. In particular,
10177 attempting to use <prgn>diff</prgn> directly to generate the
10178 <file>.diff.gz</file> file will not work.
10182 <heading>Restrictions on objects in source packages</heading>
10185 The source package may not contain any hard links
10187 This is not currently detected when building source
10188 packages, but only when extracting
10192 Hard links may be permitted at some point in the
10193 future, but would require a fair amount of
10195 </footnote>, device special files, sockets or setuid or
10198 Setgid directories are allowed.
10203 The source packaging tools manage the changes between the
10204 original and Debianised source using <prgn>diff</prgn> and
10205 <prgn>patch</prgn>. Turning the original source tree as
10206 included in the <file>.orig.tar.gz</file> into the debianised
10207 source must not involve any changes which cannot be
10208 handled by these tools. Problematic changes which cause
10209 <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn> to halt with an error when
10210 building the source package are:
10211 <list compact="compact">
10212 <item><p>Adding or removing symbolic links, sockets or pipes.</p>
10214 <item><p>Changing the targets of symbolic links.</p>
10216 <item><p>Creating directories, other than <file>debian</file>.</p>
10218 <item><p>Changes to the contents of binary files.</p></item>
10219 </list> Changes which cause <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn> to
10220 print a warning but continue anyway are:
10221 <list compact="compact">
10224 Removing files, directories or symlinks.
10226 Renaming a file is not treated specially - it is
10227 seen as the removal of the old file (which
10228 generates a warning, but is otherwise ignored),
10229 and the creation of the new one.
10235 Changed text files which are missing the usual final
10236 newline (either in the original or the modified
10241 Changes which are not represented, but which are not detected by
10242 <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn>, are:
10243 <list compact="compact">
10244 <item><p>Changing the permissions of files (other than
10245 <file>debian/rules</file>) and directories.</p></item>
10250 The <file>debian</file> directory and <file>debian/rules</file>
10251 are handled specially by <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn> - before
10252 applying the changes it will create the <file>debian</file>
10253 directory, and afterwards it will make
10254 <file>debian/rules</file> world-executable.
10260 <appendix id="pkg-controlfields">
10261 <heading>Control files and their fields (from old Packaging Manual)</heading>
10264 Many of the tools in the <prgn>dpkg</prgn> suite manipulate
10265 data in a common format, known as control files. Binary and
10266 source packages have control data as do the <file>.changes</file>
10267 files which control the installation of uploaded files, and
10268 <prgn>dpkg</prgn>'s internal databases are in a similar
10273 <heading>Syntax of control files</heading>
10276 See <ref id="controlsyntax">.
10280 It is important to note that there are several fields which
10281 are optional as far as <prgn>dpkg</prgn> and the related
10282 tools are concerned, but which must appear in every Debian
10283 package, or whose omission may cause problems.
10288 <heading>List of fields</heading>
10291 See <ref id="controlfieldslist">.
10295 This section now contains only the fields that didn't belong
10296 to the Policy manual.
10299 <sect1 id="pkg-f-Filename">
10300 <heading><tt>Filename</tt> and <tt>MSDOS-Filename</tt></heading>
10303 These fields in <tt>Packages</tt> files give the
10304 filename(s) of (the parts of) a package in the
10305 distribution directories, relative to the root of the
10306 Debian hierarchy. If the package has been split into
10307 several parts the parts are all listed in order, separated
10312 <sect1 id="pkg-f-Size">
10313 <heading><tt>Size</tt> and <tt>MD5sum</tt></heading>
10316 These fields in <file>Packages</file> files give the size (in
10317 bytes, expressed in decimal) and MD5 checksum of the
10318 file(s) which make(s) up a binary package in the
10319 distribution. If the package is split into several parts
10320 the values for the parts are listed in order, separated by
10325 <sect1 id="pkg-f-Status">
10326 <heading><tt>Status</tt></heading>
10329 This field in <prgn>dpkg</prgn>'s status file records
10330 whether the user wants a package installed, removed or
10331 left alone, whether it is broken (requiring
10332 re-installation) or not and what its current state on the
10333 system is. Each of these pieces of information is a
10338 <sect1 id="pkg-f-Config-Version">
10339 <heading><tt>Config-Version</tt></heading>
10342 If a package is not installed or not configured, this
10343 field in <prgn>dpkg</prgn>'s status file records the last
10344 version of the package which was successfully
10349 <sect1 id="pkg-f-Conffiles">
10350 <heading><tt>Conffiles</tt></heading>
10353 This field in <prgn>dpkg</prgn>'s status file contains
10354 information about the automatically-managed configuration
10355 files held by a package. This field should <em>not</em>
10356 appear anywhere in a package!
10361 <heading>Obsolete fields</heading>
10364 These are still recognized by <prgn>dpkg</prgn> but should
10365 not appear anywhere any more.
10367 <taglist compact="compact">
10369 <tag><tt>Revision</tt></tag>
10370 <tag><tt>Package-Revision</tt></tag>
10371 <tag><tt>Package_Revision</tt></tag>
10373 The Debian revision part of the package version was
10374 at one point in a separate control file field. This
10375 field went through several names.
10378 <tag><tt>Recommended</tt></tag>
10379 <item>Old name for <tt>Recommends</tt>.</item>
10381 <tag><tt>Optional</tt></tag>
10382 <item>Old name for <tt>Suggests</tt>.</item>
10384 <tag><tt>Class</tt></tag>
10385 <item>Old name for <tt>Priority</tt>.</item>
10394 <appendix id="pkg-conffiles">
10395 <heading>Configuration file handling (from old Packaging Manual)</heading>
10398 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> can do a certain amount of automatic
10399 handling of package configuration files.
10403 Whether this mechanism is appropriate depends on a number of
10404 factors, but basically there are two approaches to any
10405 particular configuration file.
10409 The easy method is to ship a best-effort configuration in the
10410 package, and use <prgn>dpkg</prgn>'s conffile mechanism to
10411 handle updates. If the user is unlikely to want to edit the
10412 file, but you need them to be able to without losing their
10413 changes, and a new package with a changed version of the file
10414 is only released infrequently, this is a good approach.
10418 The hard method is to build the configuration file from
10419 scratch in the <prgn>postinst</prgn> script, and to take the
10420 responsibility for fixing any mistakes made in earlier
10421 versions of the package automatically. This will be
10422 appropriate if the file is likely to need to be different on
10426 <sect><heading>Automatic handling of configuration files by
10431 A package may contain a control area file called
10432 <tt>conffiles</tt>. This file should be a list of filenames
10433 of configuration files needing automatic handling, separated
10434 by newlines. The filenames should be absolute pathnames,
10435 and the files referred to should actually exist in the
10440 When a package is upgraded <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will process
10441 the configuration files during the configuration stage,
10442 shortly before it runs the package's <prgn>postinst</prgn>
10447 For each file it checks to see whether the version of the
10448 file included in the package is the same as the one that was
10449 included in the last version of the package (the one that is
10450 being upgraded from); it also compares the version currently
10451 installed on the system with the one shipped with the last
10456 If neither the user nor the package maintainer has changed
10457 the file, it is left alone. If one or the other has changed
10458 their version, then the changed version is preferred - i.e.,
10459 if the user edits their file, but the package maintainer
10460 doesn't ship a different version, the user's changes will
10461 stay, silently, but if the maintainer ships a new version
10462 and the user hasn't edited it the new version will be
10463 installed (with an informative message). If both have
10464 changed their version the user is prompted about the problem
10465 and must resolve the differences themselves.
10469 The comparisons are done by calculating the MD5 message
10470 digests of the files, and storing the MD5 of the file as it
10471 was included in the most recent version of the package.
10475 When a package is installed for the first time
10476 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will install the file that comes with it,
10477 unless that would mean overwriting a file already on the
10482 However, note that <prgn>dpkg</prgn> will <em>not</em>
10483 replace a conffile that was removed by the user (or by a
10484 script). This is necessary because with some programs a
10485 missing file produces an effect hard or impossible to
10486 achieve in another way, so that a missing file needs to be
10487 kept that way if the user did it.
10491 Note that a package should <em>not</em> modify a
10492 <prgn>dpkg</prgn>-handled conffile in its maintainer
10493 scripts. Doing this will lead to <prgn>dpkg</prgn> giving
10494 the user confusing and possibly dangerous options for
10495 conffile update when the package is upgraded.</p>
10498 <sect><heading>Fully-featured maintainer script configuration
10503 For files which contain site-specific information such as
10504 the hostname and networking details and so forth, it is
10505 better to create the file in the package's
10506 <prgn>postinst</prgn> script.
10510 This will typically involve examining the state of the rest
10511 of the system to determine values and other information, and
10512 may involve prompting the user for some information which
10513 can't be obtained some other way.
10517 When using this method there are a couple of important
10518 issues which should be considered:
10522 If you discover a bug in the program which generates the
10523 configuration file, or if the format of the file changes
10524 from one version to the next, you will have to arrange for
10525 the postinst script to do something sensible - usually this
10526 will mean editing the installed configuration file to remove
10527 the problem or change the syntax. You will have to do this
10528 very carefully, since the user may have changed the file,
10529 perhaps to fix the very problem that your script is trying
10530 to deal with - you will have to detect these situations and
10531 deal with them correctly.
10535 If you do go down this route it's probably a good idea to
10536 make the program that generates the configuration file(s) a
10537 separate program in <file>/usr/sbin</file>, by convention called
10538 <file><var>package</var>config</file> and then run that if
10539 appropriate from the post-installation script. The
10540 <tt><var>package</var>config</tt> program should not
10541 unquestioningly overwrite an existing configuration - if its
10542 mode of operation is geared towards setting up a package for
10543 the first time (rather than any arbitrary reconfiguration
10544 later) you should have it check whether the configuration
10545 already exists, and require a <tt>--force</tt> flag to
10546 overwrite it.</p></sect>
10549 <appendix id="pkg-alternatives"><heading>Alternative versions of
10550 an interface - <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn> (from old
10555 When several packages all provide different versions of the
10556 same program or file it is useful to have the system select a
10557 default, but to allow the system administrator to change it
10558 and have their decisions respected.
10562 For example, there are several versions of the <prgn>vi</prgn>
10563 editor, and there is no reason to prevent all of them from
10564 being installed at once, each under their own name
10565 (<prgn>nvi</prgn>, <prgn>vim</prgn> or whatever).
10566 Nevertheless it is desirable to have the name <tt>vi</tt>
10567 refer to something, at least by default.
10571 If all the packages involved cooperate, this can be done with
10572 <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn>.
10576 Each package provides its own version under its own name, and
10577 calls <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn> in its postinst to
10578 register its version (and again in its prerm to deregister
10583 See the man page <manref name="update-alternatives"
10584 section="8"> for details.
10588 If <prgn>update-alternatives</prgn> does not seem appropriate
10589 you may wish to consider using diversions instead.</p>
10592 <appendix id="pkg-diversions"><heading>Diversions - overriding a
10593 package's version of a file (from old Packaging Manual)
10597 It is possible to have <prgn>dpkg</prgn> not overwrite a file
10598 when it reinstalls the package it belongs to, and to have it
10599 put the file from the package somewhere else instead.
10603 This can be used locally to override a package's version of a
10604 file, or by one package to override another's version (or
10605 provide a wrapper for it).
10609 Before deciding to use a diversion, read <ref
10610 id="pkg-alternatives"> to see if you really want a diversion
10611 rather than several alternative versions of a program.
10615 There is a diversion list, which is read by <prgn>dpkg</prgn>,
10616 and updated by a special program <prgn>dpkg-divert</prgn>.
10617 Please see <manref name="dpkg-divert" section="8"> for full
10618 details of its operation.
10622 When a package wishes to divert a file from another, it should
10623 call <prgn>dpkg-divert</prgn> in its preinst to add the
10624 diversion and rename the existing file. For example,
10625 supposing that a <prgn>smailwrapper</prgn> package wishes to
10626 install a wrapper around <file>/usr/sbin/smail</file>:
10628 dpkg-divert --package smailwrapper --add --rename \
10629 --divert /usr/sbin/smail.real /usr/sbin/smail
10630 </example> The <tt>--package smailwrapper</tt> ensures that
10631 <prgn>smailwrapper</prgn>'s copy of <file>/usr/sbin/smail</file>
10632 can bypass the diversion and get installed as the true version.
10633 It's safe to add the diversion unconditionally on upgrades since
10634 it will be left unchanged if it already exists, but
10635 <prgn>dpkg-divert</prgn> will display a message. To suppress that
10636 message, make the command conditional on the version from which
10637 the package is being upgraded:
10639 if [ upgrade != "$1" ] || dpkg --compare-versions "$2" lt 1.0-2; then
10640 dpkg-divert --package smailwrapper --add --rename \
10641 --divert /usr/sbin/smail.real /usr/sbin/smail
10643 </example> where <tt>1.0-2</tt> is the version at which the
10644 diversion was first added to the package. Running the command
10645 during abort-upgrade is pointless but harmless.
10649 The postrm has to do the reverse:
10651 if [ remove = "$1" -o abort-install = "$1" -o disappear = "$1" ]; then
10652 dpkg-divert --package smailwrapper --remove --rename \
10653 --divert /usr/sbin/smail.real /usr/sbin/smail
10655 </example> If the diversion was added at a particular version, the
10656 postrm should also handle the failure case of upgrading from an
10657 older version (unless the older version is so old that direct
10658 upgrades are no longer supported):
10660 if [ abort-upgrade = "$1" ] && dpkg --compare-versions "$2" lt 1.0-2; then
10661 dpkg-divert --package smailwrapper --remove --rename \
10662 --divert /usr/sbin/smail.real /usr/sbin/smail
10664 </example> where <tt>1.02-2</tt> is the version at which the
10665 diversion was first added to the package. The postrm should not
10666 remove the diversion on upgrades both because there's no reason to
10667 remove the diversion only to immediately re-add it and since the
10668 postrm of the old package is run after unpacking so the removal of
10669 the diversion will fail.
10673 Do not attempt to divert a file which is vitally important for
10674 the system's operation - when using <prgn>dpkg-divert</prgn>
10675 there is a time, after it has been diverted but before
10676 <prgn>dpkg</prgn> has installed the new version, when the file
10677 does not exist.</p>
10682 <!-- Local variables: -->
10683 <!-- indent-tabs-mode: t -->
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