1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
4 <!-- -*- Mode: Sgml -*-
5 upgrading-checklist.html
6 Author : Manoj Srivastava ( srivasta@tiamat.datasync.com )
7 Created On : Thu Oct 29 20:54:48 1998
8 Created On Node : tiamat.datasync.com
9 Last Modified By : Manoj Srivastava
10 Last Modified On : Thu Mar 14 11:42:10 2002
11 Last Machine Used: glaurung.green-gryphon.com
13 Status : Unknown, Use with caution!
20 <title>Policy checklist for upgrading your packages</title>
24 <h1>Policy checklist for upgrading your packages</h1>
26 <h2>About the checklist</h2>
29 The checklist below has been created to simplify the upgrading process
30 of old packages. Note that this list is not `official'; it simply
31 gives an indication of what has changed and whether you are likely to
32 need to make changes to your package in light of this. If you have
33 doubts about a certain topic, if you need more details, or if you
34 think some other package does not comply with policy, please refer to
35 the Policy Manual itself. All of the changes from version 3.0.0
36 onwards indicate which section of the Policy Manual discusses the
37 issue: [3.4] means section 3.4. The section numbering changed when
38 the packaging manual was incorporated into policy; the section numbers
39 used below refer to the current version.
43 Here is how the check list works: Check which policy version your
44 package complies with currently (indicated in the "Standards-Version"
45 field of the source package). Then move upwards until the top and
46 check which of the items on the list might concern your package. Note
47 which sections of policy discuss this, and then check out the Policy
48 Manual for details. If you are upgrading from Policy version < 2.5.0,
49 it may be easier to check through the whole of policy instead of
50 picking your way through this list.
53 <h2>The checklist</h2>
58 - Emacs and TeX are no longer mandated by policy to be priority
59 standard packages [2.2]
60 - Programs that access docs need to do so via /usr/share/doc, and
61 not via /usr/doc/ as was the policy previously [12.5]
62 - Putting documentation in /usr/doc versus /usr/share/doc is now
63 a ``serious'' policy violation
64 - For web servers, one should not provide non-local access to the
65 /usr/share/doc hierarchy. If one can't provide access controls for
66 the //localhost/doc/ directory, then it is preferred that one
67 ask permission to expose that information during the install [12.5]
72 - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
73 alternative manpage names available; it should only use
74 symlinks or .so pages to do this [13.1]
75 - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
76 examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
77 by scripts; see section 11.7.3 for the whole story]
78 - Included a new section 11.9.1 describing the use of
79 dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
80 - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
81 packages just to change the Standards-Version!
82 - Plugins are no longer bound by all the rules of shared
84 - X Windows related things:
85 * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
87 * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [12.8.3]
88 * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
89 fonts for the X Window System [12.8.5]
90 * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [12.8.6]
91 * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
92 locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [12.8.7]
93 * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
94 OSF/Motif-linked ones [12.8.8]
99 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
100 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
101 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
103 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
104 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
110 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
111 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
112 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
113 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
114 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc//<package>/examples as
120 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
121 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [12.8.6]
126 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
127 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [9.1]
132 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
133 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [12.8.5]
138 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
139 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
140 /etc/default/; see [10.3.2] for details
141 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
142 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
143 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
144 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [13.3]
145 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
151 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
152 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
153 and the other without [12.8.1]
158 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
159 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
160 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [11.1]
161 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
162 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
163 should always be generated for the upstream changes [13.8]
164 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (4.x)
165 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
166 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
168 - X server (virtual package xserver) [12.8.2]
169 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator) [12.8.3]
170 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
171 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
172 calculation guidelines) [12.8.4]
173 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch) [12.8.5]
174 - X application defaults [12.8.6]
175 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
176 has been clarified; see [12.8.7]
177 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
178 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
179 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
185 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
186 etc. Should not affect many packages [7.1]
191 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
192 /usr/share/doc/<package>, to be maintained by postinst
193 and prerm scripts. Details are in [13.4]
194 - Introduced source dependencies (Build-Depends, etc.) [7.1, 7.6]
195 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
196 (Packages should not be touching this directory, but should use
197 update-rc.d instead) [10.3.4]
198 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
199 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
200 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
201 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
202 incompatible way.) [10.3.3]
203 - Architecture-specific examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples
204 with symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
205 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself [13.7]
206 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
208 - Added MIME sub-policy document [10.7; mime-policy]
209 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR [12.4]
210 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
211 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
213 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
214 version should also be included. (Such a version may be prepared
215 using lynx -dump -nolist.) [13.8]
216 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
222 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
223 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
224 .la files must go in the run-time library package [11.2]
229 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
230 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
231 not all known. [10.1]
232 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
233 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [2.4.1]
234 - The location of the GPL has changed to
235 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
236 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
237 other major licenses [13.6]
238 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
239 include the .la files in the -dev packages [11.2]
240 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [11.8]
241 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
243 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
244 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [10.6; menu-policy]
245 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
246 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [12.3]
252 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
253 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
254 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
255 Section 5 and Section 6.
256 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
257 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
258 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
259 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
260 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
262 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
263 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
264 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
265 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
266 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
267 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
268 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
269 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
270 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
271 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
272 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
278 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
279 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
280 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
281 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
283 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
284 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
285 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
288 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
289 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
290 installs shared libraries
291 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
295 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
296 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
297 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
299 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
300 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
303 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
304 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
305 file extension as the referenced file
307 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
308 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
310 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
311 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
312 start, stop, restart, force-reload
313 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
316 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
317 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
318 be installed into /etc/cron.d
320 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
321 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
322 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
323 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
326 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
327 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
330 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
331 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
332 reasonable default configuration
334 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
335 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
336 by all news servers and clients
338 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Window System:
339 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
340 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
341 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
342 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
344 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
345 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
348 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 97
350 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
351 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
353 * updated section about `Configuration files':
354 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
356 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
360 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
363 where <arch> is one of the following:
364 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
366 * detailed rules for /usr/local
370 * editor/pager policy
376 * don't install shared libraries as executable
378 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
380 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 97
382 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
387 * "Standard for Console Messages"
389 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
391 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
393 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 96
395 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
399 * No hard links in source packages
401 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
403 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
407 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
415 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
419 sgml-live-element-indicator: t