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