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5 upgrading-checklist.html
6 Author : Manoj Srivastava ( srivasta@tiamat.datasync.com )
7 Created On : Thu Oct 29 20:54:48 1998
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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>
57 * Package version numbers may contain tildes, which sort before
58 anything, even the end of a part. [5.6.12]
59 * Scripts may assume that /bin/sh supports local (at a basic level)
60 and that its test builtin (if any) supports -a and -o binary
61 logical operators. [10.4]
62 * The substitution variable ${binary:Version} should be used in place
63 of ${Source-Version} for dependencies between packages of the same
65 * Substantial reorganization and renaming of sections in the Debian
66 menu structure. Packages with menu entries should be reviewed to
67 see if the menu section has been renamed or if one of the new
68 sections would be more appropriate. [menu policy]
69 * The Source field in a .changes file may contain a version number
70 in parentheses. [5.6.1]
71 * The acceptable values for the Urgency field are low, medium, high,
72 critical, or emergency. [5.6.17]
73 * The shlibs file now allows an optional type field, indicating the
74 type of package for which the line is valid. The only currently
75 supported type is udeb, used with packages for the Debian
77 * Packages following the Debian Configuration management
78 specification must allow for translation of their messages by using
79 a gettext-based system such as po-debconf. [3.9.1]
80 * GFDL 1.2, GPL 3, and LGPL 3 are now in common-licenses and should
81 be referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
83 * Maintainer scripts must not be world writeable (up from a
84 should to a must) [6.1]
86 * Revert the cgi-lib change. [11.5]
89 * It is now possible to create shared libraries without
90 relocatable code (using -fPIC) in certain exceptional cases,
91 provided some procedures are followed, and for creating static
92 libraries with relocatable code (again, using -fPIC).
93 Discussion on debian-devel@lists.debian.org, getting a rough
94 consensus, and documenting it in README.Debian constitute most
95 of the process. [10.2]
96 * Packages should install any relevant files into the directories
97 /usr/include/X11/and /usr/lib/X11/, but if they do so, they
98 must pre-depend on x11-common (>= 1:7.0.0) [11.8.7]
101 * Packages shipping web server CGI files are expected to install
102 them in /usr/lib/cgi-lib/ directories. This location change
103 perhaps should be documented in NEWS [11.5]
104 * Web server packages should include a standard scriptAlias of
105 cgi-lib to /usr/lib/cgi-lib. [11.5]
106 * The version of FHS mandated by policy has been upped to
107 2.3. There should be no changes required for most packages,
108 though new top level directories /media, /srv, etc may be of
110 * All fields, apart from the Uploaders field, in the control file
111 are supposed to be a single logical line, which may be spread
112 over multiple physical lines (newline followed by space is
113 elided). However, any parser for the control file must allow
114 the Uploaders field to be spread over multiple physical lines
115 as well, to prepare for future changes. [ 5.1, 5.6.3 ]
116 * When scripts are installed into a directory in the system
117 PATH, the script name should not include an extension that
118 denotes the scripting language currently used to implement it.
120 * packages that invoke initscripts now must use invoke-rc.d to do
121 so since it also pays attention to run levels and other local
122 constraints. [ 9.3.3.2 ]
123 * We no longer use /usr/X11R6, since we have migrated away to
124 using Xorg paths. This means, for one thing, fonts live in
125 /usr/share/fonts/X11/ now, and /usr/X11R6 is gone.
126 [ 11.8.5.2, 11.8.7, etc]
130 * Recommend doc-base, and not menu, for registering package documentation.
131 * Run time support programs should live in subdirectories of
132 /usr/lib/ or /usr/share, and preferably the shared lib is named
133 the same as the package name (to avoid name collisions). [8.1]
134 * It is recommended that HTTP servers provide an alias /images to
135 allow packages to share image files with the web server [11.5]
138 + Prompting the user should be done using debconf. Non debconf
139 user prompts are now deprecated. [3.10.1]
143 - Restructuring causing shifts in section numbers and bumping of
144 the minor version number:
145 + Many packaging manual appendices that were integrated into policy
146 sections are now empty, and replaced with links to the Policy.
147 In particular, the appendices that included the list of control
148 fields were updated (new fields like Closes, Changed-By were added)
149 and the list of fields for each of control, .changes and .dsc files
150 is now in Policy, and they're marked mandatory, recommended or
151 optional based on the current practice and the behavior of the
152 deb-building tool-chain.
153 + Elimination of needlessly deep section levels, primarily in the
154 chapter Debian Archive, from which two new chapters were split out,
155 Binary packages and Source packages. What remained was reordered
156 properly, that is, some sect1s became sects etc.
157 + Several sections that were redundant, crufty or simply not designed
158 with any sort of vision, were rearranged according to the formula that
159 everything should be either in the same place or properly interlinked.
160 Some things remained split up between different chapters when they
161 talked about different aspects of files: their content, their syntax,
162 and their placement in the file system. In particular, see the new
163 sections about changelog files.
164 - Added Games/Simulation and Apps/Education to menu sub-policy
166 - Debian changelogs should be UTF-8 encoded. [C.2.2]
167 - shared libraries must be linked against all libraries that they
168 use symbols from in the same way that binaries are. [10.2]
169 - build-depends-indep need not be satisfied during clean
174 - packages providing the x-terminal-emulator virtual package
175 ought to ensure that they interpret the command line exactly
176 like xterm does. [11.8.3]
177 - Window managers compliant with the Window Manager Specification
178 Project may add 40 points for ranking in the alternatives [11.8.4]
183 - The section describing the Description: package field once again has
184 full details of the long description format. [3.4.2]
185 - Clarified that if a package has non-build-essential
186 build-dependencies, it should have them listed in the Build-Depends
187 and related fields (i.e. it's not merely optional). [4.2]
188 - When asked to restart a service that isn't already running,
189 the init script should start the service. [9.3.2]
190 - If the purpose of a package is to provide examples, then the
191 example files can be installed into <tt>/usr/share/doc/package</tt>
192 (rather than <tt>/usr/share/doc/package/examples</tt>). [12.6]
197 - It is no longer necessary to keep a log of changes to the upstream
198 sources in the copyright file. Instead, all such changes should be
199 documented in the changelog file. [12.7]
200 - <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>,
201 <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, and
202 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> must also be satisfied when the
203 clean target is called. [7.6]
204 - A new Apps/Science menu section is available [menu policy]
205 - debconf specification cleared up, various changes. [debconf
207 - It is no longer recommended to create symlinks from nonexistent
208 manual pages to undocumented(7). Missing manual pages for programs
209 are still a bug. [12.1]
213 - Packages no longer have to ask permission to call MAKEDEV in
214 postinst, merely notifying the user ought to be enough. [10.6]
215 - cryptographic software may now be included in the main
217 - task packages are no longer permitted; tasks are now created by a
218 special Tasks: field in the control file. [3.9]
219 - window managers that support netwm can now add 20 points when
220 they add themselves as an alternative for
221 /usr/bin/x-window-manager [11.8.4]
222 - The default compilation options have now changed, one should
223 provide debugging symbols in all cases, and optionally step
224 back optimization to -O0, depending on the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
225 environment variable. [10.1]
226 - Added mention of build-arch, build-indep, etc, in describing
227 the relationships with `Build-Depends', `Build-Conflicts',
228 `Build-Depends-Indep', and `Build-Conflicts-Indep'. May need to
229 review the new rules. [7.6, 4.8]
230 - Changed rules on how, and when, to invoke ldconfig in maintainer
231 scripts. Long rationale. [8]
232 - [Added the last note in 3.5.6 upgrading checklist item regarding
233 build rules, please see below]
237 - Emacs and TeX are no longer mandated by policy to be priority
238 standard packages [2.5]
239 - Programs that access docs need to do so via /usr/share/doc, and
240 not via /usr/doc/ as was the policy previously [11.5]
241 - Putting documentation in /usr/doc versus /usr/share/doc is now
242 a ``serious'' policy violation. [12.3]
243 - For web servers, one should not provide non-local access to the
244 /usr/share/doc hierarchy. If one can't provide access controls for
245 the http://localhost/doc/ directory, then it is preferred that one
246 ask permission to expose that information during the install. [11.5]
247 - There are new rules for build-indep/build-arch targets and
248 there is a new Build-Depend-Indep semantic. [7]
253 - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
254 alternative manpage names available; it should only use
255 symlinks or .so pages to do this [12.1]
256 - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
257 examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
258 by scripts; see section 10.7.3 for the whole story]
259 - Included a new section 10.9.1 describing the use of
260 dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
261 - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
262 packages just to change the Standards-Version!
263 - Plugins are no longer bound by all the rules of shared
265 - X Windows related things:
266 * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
268 * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [11.8.3]
269 * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
270 fonts for the X Window System [11.8.5]
271 * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [11.8.6]
272 * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
273 locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [11.8.7]
274 * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
275 OSF/Motif-linked ones [11.8.8]
280 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
281 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
282 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
284 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
285 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
291 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
292 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
293 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
294 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
295 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples as
301 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
302 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [11.8.6]
307 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
308 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [8.1]
313 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
314 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [11.8.5]
319 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
320 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
321 /etc/default/; see [9.3.2] for details
322 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
323 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
324 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
325 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [12.3]
326 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
332 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
333 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
334 and the other without [11.8.1]
339 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
340 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
341 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [10.1]
342 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
343 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
344 should always be generated for the upstream changes [12.8]
345 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (3.2)
346 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
347 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
349 - X server (virtual package xserver) [11.8.2]
350 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator) [11.8.3]
351 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
352 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
353 calculation guidelines) [11.8.4]
354 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch) [12.8.5]
355 - X application defaults [11.8.6]
356 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
357 has been clarified; see [11.8.7]
358 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
359 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
360 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
366 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
367 etc. Should not affect many packages [7.1]
372 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
373 /usr/share/doc/<package>, to be maintained by postinst
374 and prerm scripts. Details are in [defunct]
375 - Introduced source dependencies (Build-Depends, etc.) [7.1, 7.6]
376 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
377 (Packages should not be touching this directory, but should use
378 update-rc.d instead) [9.3.4]
379 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
380 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
381 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
382 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
383 incompatible way.) [9.3.3]
384 - Architecture-specific examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples
385 with symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
386 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself [12.7]
387 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
389 - Added MIME sub-policy document [9.7; mime-policy]
390 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR [12.4]
391 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
392 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
394 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
395 version should also be included. (Such a version may be prepared
396 using lynx -dump -nolist.) [12.7]
397 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
403 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
404 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
405 .la files must go in the run-time library package [10.2]
410 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
411 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
413 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
414 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [4.1]
415 - The location of the GPL has changed to
416 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
417 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
418 other major licenses [12.6]
419 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
420 include the .la files in the -dev packages [10.2]
421 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [10.8]
422 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
424 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
425 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [9.6; menu-policy]
426 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
427 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [11.3]
430 ** Please note that section numbers below this point may not be up to date **
436 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
437 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
438 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
439 Section 5 and Section 6.
440 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
441 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
442 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
443 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
444 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
446 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
447 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
448 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
449 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
450 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
451 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
452 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
453 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
454 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
455 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
456 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
462 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
463 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
464 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
465 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
467 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
468 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
469 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
472 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
473 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
474 installs shared libraries
475 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
479 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
480 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
481 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
483 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
484 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
487 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
488 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
489 file extension as the referenced file
491 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
492 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
494 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
495 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
496 start, stop, restart, force-reload
497 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
500 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
501 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
502 be installed into /etc/cron.d
504 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
505 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
506 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
507 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
510 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
511 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
514 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
515 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
516 reasonable default configuration
518 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
519 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
520 by all news servers and clients
522 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Window System:
523 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
524 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
525 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
526 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
528 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
529 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
532 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 1997
534 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
535 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
537 * updated section about `Configuration files':
538 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
540 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
544 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
547 where <arch> is one of the following:
548 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
550 * detailed rules for /usr/local
554 * editor/pager policy
560 * don't install shared libraries as executable
562 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
564 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 1997
566 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
571 * "Standard for Console Messages"
573 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
575 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
577 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 1996
579 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
583 * No hard links in source packages
585 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
587 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
591 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
599 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
603 sgml-live-element-indicator: t