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 : Sat Apr 28 13:36:28 2001
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 - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
59 alternative manpage names available; it should only use
60 symlinks or .so pages to do this [13.1]
61 - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
62 examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
63 by scripts; see section 11.7.3 for the whole story]
64 - Included a new section 11.9.1 describing the use of
65 dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
66 - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
67 packages just to change the Standards-Version!
68 - X Windows related things:
69 * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
71 * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [12.8.3]
72 * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
73 fonts for the X Window System [12.8.5]
74 * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [12.8.6]
75 * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
76 locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [12.8.7]
77 * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
78 OSF/Motif-linked ones [12.8.8]
83 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
84 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
85 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
87 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
88 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
94 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
95 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
96 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
97 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
98 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc//<package>/examples as
104 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
105 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [12.8.6]
110 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
111 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [9.1]
116 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
117 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [12.8.5]
122 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
123 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
124 /etc/default/; see [10.3.2] for details
125 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
126 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
127 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
128 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [13.3]
129 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
135 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
136 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
137 and the other without [12.8.1]
142 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
143 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
144 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [11.1]
145 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
146 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
147 should always be generated for the upstream changes [13.8]
148 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (4.x)
149 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
150 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
152 - X server (virtual package xserver) [12.8.2]
153 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator) [12.8.3]
154 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
155 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
156 calculation guidelines) [12.8.4]
157 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch) [12.8.5]
158 - X application defaults [12.8.6]
159 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
160 has been clarified; see [12.8.7]
161 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
162 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
163 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
169 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
170 etc. Should not affect many packages [7.1]
175 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
176 /usr/share/doc/<package>, to be maintained by postinst
177 and prerm scripts. Details are in [13.4]
178 - Introduced source dependencies (Build-Depends, etc.) [7.1, 7.6]
179 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
180 (Packages should not be touching this directory, but should use
181 update-rc.d instead) [10.3.4]
182 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
183 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
184 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
185 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
186 incompatible way.) [10.3.3]
187 - Architecture-specific examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples
188 with symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
189 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself [13.7]
190 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
192 - Added MIME sub-policy document [10.7; mime-policy]
193 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR [12.4]
194 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
195 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
197 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
198 version should also be included. (Such a version may be prepared
199 using lynx -dump -nolist.) [13.8]
200 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
206 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
207 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
208 .la files must go in the run-time library package [11.2]
213 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
214 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
215 not all known. [10.1]
216 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
217 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [2.4.1]
218 - The location of the GPL has changed to
219 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
220 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
221 other major licenses [13.6]
222 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
223 include the .la files in the -dev packages [11.2]
224 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [11.8]
225 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
227 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
228 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [10.6; menu-policy]
229 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
230 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [12.3]
236 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
237 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
238 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
239 Section 5 and Section 6.
240 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
241 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
242 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
243 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
244 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
246 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
247 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
248 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
249 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
250 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
251 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
252 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
253 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
254 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
255 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
256 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
262 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
263 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
264 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
265 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
267 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
268 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
269 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
272 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
273 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
274 installs shared libraries
275 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
279 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
280 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
281 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
283 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
284 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
287 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
288 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
289 file extension as the referenced file
291 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
292 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
294 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
295 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
296 start, stop, restart, force-reload
297 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
300 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
301 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
302 be installed into /etc/cron.d
304 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
305 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
306 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
307 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
310 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
311 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
314 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
315 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
316 reasonable default configuration
318 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
319 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
320 by all news servers and clients
322 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Window System:
323 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
324 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
325 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
326 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
328 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
329 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
332 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 97
334 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
335 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
337 * updated section about `Configuration files':
338 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
340 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
344 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
347 where <arch> is one of the following:
348 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
350 * detailed rules for /usr/local
354 * editor/pager policy
360 * don't install shared libraries as executable
362 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
364 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 97
366 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
371 * "Standard for Console Messages"
373 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
375 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
377 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 96
379 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
383 * No hard links in source packages
385 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
387 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
391 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
399 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
403 sgml-live-element-indicator: t