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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
78 * Maintainer scripts must not be world writeable (up from a
79 should to a must) [6.1]
81 * Revert the cgi-lib change. [11.5]
84 * It is now possible to create shared libraries without
85 relocatable code (using -fPIC) in certain exceptional cases,
86 provided some procedures are followed, and for creating static
87 libraries with relocatable code (again, using -fPIC).
88 Discussion on debian-devel@lists.debian.org, getting a rough
89 consensus, and documenting it in README.Debian constitute most
90 of the process. [10.2]
91 * Packages should install any relevant files into the directories
92 /usr/include/X11/and /usr/lib/X11/, but if they do so, they
93 must pre-depend on x11-common (>= 1:7.0.0) [11.8.7]
96 * Packages shipping web server CGI files are expected to install
97 them in /usr/lib/cgi-lib/ directories. This location change
98 perhaps should be documented in NEWS [11.5]
99 * Web server packages should include a standard scriptAlias of
100 cgi-lib to /usr/lib/cgi-lib. [11.5]
101 * The version of FHS mandated by policy has been upped to
102 2.3. There should be no changes required for most packages,
103 though new top level directories /media, /srv, etc may be of
105 * All fields, apart from the Uploaders field, in the control file
106 are supposed to be a single logical line, which may be spread
107 over multiple physical lines (newline followed by space is
108 elided). However, any parser for the control file must allow
109 the Uploaders field to be spread over multiple physical lines
110 as well, to prepare for future changes. [ 5.1, 5.6.3 ]
111 * When scripts are installed into a directory in the system
112 PATH, the script name should not include an extension that
113 denotes the scripting language currently used to implement it.
115 * packages that invoke initscripts now must use invoke-rc.d to do
116 so since it also pays attention to run levels and other local
117 constraints. [ 9.3.3.2 ]
118 * We no longer use /usr/X11R6, since we have migrated away to
119 using Xorg paths. This means, for one thing, fonts live in
120 /usr/share/fonts/X11/ now, and /usr/X11R6 is gone.
121 [ 11.8.5.2, 11.8.7, etc]
125 * Recommend doc-base, and not menu, for registering package documentation.
126 * Run time support programs should live in subdirectories of
127 /usr/lib/ or /usr/share, and preferably the shared lib is named
128 the same as the package name (to avoid name collisions). [8.1]
129 * It is recommended that HTTP servers provide an alias /images to
130 allow packages to share image files with the web server [11.5]
133 + Prompting the user should be done using debconf. Non debconf
134 user prompts are now deprecated. [3.10.1]
138 - Restructuring causing shifts in section numbers and bumping of
139 the minor version number:
140 + Many packaging manual appendices that were integrated into policy
141 sections are now empty, and replaced with links to the Policy.
142 In particular, the appendices that included the list of control
143 fields were updated (new fields like Closes, Changed-By were added)
144 and the list of fields for each of control, .changes and .dsc files
145 is now in Policy, and they're marked mandatory, recommended or
146 optional based on the current practice and the behavior of the
147 deb-building tool-chain.
148 + Elimination of needlessly deep section levels, primarily in the
149 chapter Debian Archive, from which two new chapters were split out,
150 Binary packages and Source packages. What remained was reordered
151 properly, that is, some sect1s became sects etc.
152 + Several sections that were redundant, crufty or simply not designed
153 with any sort of vision, were rearranged according to the formula that
154 everything should be either in the same place or properly interlinked.
155 Some things remained split up between different chapters when they
156 talked about different aspects of files: their content, their syntax,
157 and their placement in the file system. In particular, see the new
158 sections about changelog files.
159 - Added Games/Simulation and Apps/Education to menu sub-policy
161 - Debian changelogs should be UTF-8 encoded. [C.2.2]
162 - shared libraries must be linked against all libraries that they
163 use symbols from in the same way that binaries are. [10.2]
164 - build-depends-indep need not be satisfied during clean
169 - packages providing the x-terminal-emulator virtual package
170 ought to ensure that they interpret the command line exactly
171 like xterm does. [11.8.3]
172 - Window managers compliant with the Window Manager Specification
173 Project may add 40 points for ranking in the alternatives [11.8.4]
178 - The section describing the Description: package field once again has
179 full details of the long description format. [3.4.2]
180 - Clarified that if a package has non-build-essential
181 build-dependencies, it should have them listed in the Build-Depends
182 and related fields (i.e. it's not merely optional). [4.2]
183 - When asked to restart a service that isn't already running,
184 the init script should start the service. [9.3.2]
185 - If the purpose of a package is to provide examples, then the
186 example files can be installed into <tt>/usr/share/doc/package</tt>
187 (rather than <tt>/usr/share/doc/package/examples</tt>). [12.6]
192 - It is no longer necessary to keep a log of changes to the upstream
193 sources in the copyright file. Instead, all such changes should be
194 documented in the changelog file. [12.7]
195 - <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>,
196 <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, and
197 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> must also be satisfied when the
198 clean target is called. [7.6]
199 - A new Apps/Science menu section is available [menu policy]
200 - debconf specification cleared up, various changes. [debconf
202 - It is no longer recommended to create symlinks from nonexistent
203 manual pages to undocumented(7). Missing manual pages for programs
204 are still a bug. [12.1]
208 - Packages no longer have to ask permission to call MAKEDEV in
209 postinst, merely notifying the user ought to be enough. [10.6]
210 - cryptographic software may now be included in the main
212 - task packages are no longer permitted; tasks are now created by a
213 special Tasks: field in the control file. [3.9]
214 - window managers that support netwm can now add 20 points when
215 they add themselves as an alternative for
216 /usr/bin/x-window-manager [11.8.4]
217 - The default compilation options have now changed, one should
218 provide debugging symbols in all cases, and optionally step
219 back optimization to -O0, depending on the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
220 environment variable. [10.1]
221 - Added mention of build-arch, build-indep, etc, in describing
222 the relationships with `Build-Depends', `Build-Conflicts',
223 `Build-Depends-Indep', and `Build-Conflicts-Indep'. May need to
224 review the new rules. [7.6, 4.8]
225 - Changed rules on how, and when, to invoke ldconfig in maintainer
226 scripts. Long rationale. [8]
227 - [Added the last note in 3.5.6 upgrading checklist item regarding
228 build rules, please see below]
232 - Emacs and TeX are no longer mandated by policy to be priority
233 standard packages [2.5]
234 - Programs that access docs need to do so via /usr/share/doc, and
235 not via /usr/doc/ as was the policy previously [11.5]
236 - Putting documentation in /usr/doc versus /usr/share/doc is now
237 a ``serious'' policy violation. [12.3]
238 - For web servers, one should not provide non-local access to the
239 /usr/share/doc hierarchy. If one can't provide access controls for
240 the http://localhost/doc/ directory, then it is preferred that one
241 ask permission to expose that information during the install. [11.5]
242 - There are new rules for build-indep/build-arch targets and
243 there is a new Build-Depend-Indep semantic. [7]
248 - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
249 alternative manpage names available; it should only use
250 symlinks or .so pages to do this [12.1]
251 - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
252 examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
253 by scripts; see section 10.7.3 for the whole story]
254 - Included a new section 10.9.1 describing the use of
255 dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
256 - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
257 packages just to change the Standards-Version!
258 - Plugins are no longer bound by all the rules of shared
260 - X Windows related things:
261 * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
263 * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [11.8.3]
264 * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
265 fonts for the X Window System [11.8.5]
266 * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [11.8.6]
267 * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
268 locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [11.8.7]
269 * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
270 OSF/Motif-linked ones [11.8.8]
275 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
276 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
277 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
279 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
280 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
286 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
287 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
288 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
289 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
290 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples as
296 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
297 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [11.8.6]
302 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
303 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [8.1]
308 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
309 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [11.8.5]
314 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
315 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
316 /etc/default/; see [9.3.2] for details
317 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
318 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
319 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
320 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [12.3]
321 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
327 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
328 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
329 and the other without [11.8.1]
334 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
335 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
336 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [10.1]
337 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
338 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
339 should always be generated for the upstream changes [12.8]
340 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (3.2)
341 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
342 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
344 - X server (virtual package xserver) [11.8.2]
345 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator) [11.8.3]
346 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
347 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
348 calculation guidelines) [11.8.4]
349 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch) [12.8.5]
350 - X application defaults [11.8.6]
351 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
352 has been clarified; see [11.8.7]
353 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
354 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
355 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
361 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
362 etc. Should not affect many packages [7.1]
367 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
368 /usr/share/doc/<package>, to be maintained by postinst
369 and prerm scripts. Details are in [defunct]
370 - Introduced source dependencies (Build-Depends, etc.) [7.1, 7.6]
371 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
372 (Packages should not be touching this directory, but should use
373 update-rc.d instead) [9.3.4]
374 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
375 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
376 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
377 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
378 incompatible way.) [9.3.3]
379 - Architecture-specific examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples
380 with symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
381 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself [12.7]
382 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
384 - Added MIME sub-policy document [9.7; mime-policy]
385 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR [12.4]
386 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
387 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
389 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
390 version should also be included. (Such a version may be prepared
391 using lynx -dump -nolist.) [12.7]
392 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
398 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
399 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
400 .la files must go in the run-time library package [10.2]
405 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
406 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
408 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
409 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [4.1]
410 - The location of the GPL has changed to
411 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
412 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
413 other major licenses [12.6]
414 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
415 include the .la files in the -dev packages [10.2]
416 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [10.8]
417 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
419 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
420 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [9.6; menu-policy]
421 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
422 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [11.3]
425 ** Please note that section numbers below this point may not be up to date **
431 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
432 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
433 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
434 Section 5 and Section 6.
435 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
436 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
437 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
438 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
439 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
441 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
442 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
443 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
444 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
445 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
446 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
447 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
448 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
449 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
450 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
451 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
457 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
458 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
459 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
460 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
462 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
463 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
464 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
467 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
468 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
469 installs shared libraries
470 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
474 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
475 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
476 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
478 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
479 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
482 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
483 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
484 file extension as the referenced file
486 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
487 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
489 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
490 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
491 start, stop, restart, force-reload
492 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
495 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
496 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
497 be installed into /etc/cron.d
499 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
500 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
501 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
502 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
505 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
506 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
509 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
510 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
511 reasonable default configuration
513 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
514 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
515 by all news servers and clients
517 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Window System:
518 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
519 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
520 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
521 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
523 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
524 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
527 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 1997
529 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
530 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
532 * updated section about `Configuration files':
533 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
535 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
539 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
542 where <arch> is one of the following:
543 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
545 * detailed rules for /usr/local
549 * editor/pager policy
555 * don't install shared libraries as executable
557 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
559 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 1997
561 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
566 * "Standard for Console Messages"
568 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
570 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
572 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 1996
574 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
578 * No hard links in source packages
580 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
582 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
586 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
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