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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
8 Created On Node : tiamat.datasync.com
9 Last Modified By : Manoj Srivastava
10 Last Modified On : Fri Jan 19 14:01:36 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.' If you have
31 doubts about a certain topic, if you need more details, or if you
32 think some other package does not comply with policy, please refer to
37 Here is how the check list works: Check out which policy version your
38 packages complies with currently. Than move upwards until the top and
39 check which of the items on the list might concern your package. If an
40 item does not give you enough details, please check out the Policy
44 <h2>The checklist</h2>
49 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
50 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables
55 - If your package had fonts for the X Window System, and you
56 converted BDF to PCF formats, the <tt>bdftopcf</tt> utility has
57 moved to the xutils package.
58 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
59 dependency on xutils >= 4.0.2
64 - If your package has a daemon startup script in /etc/init.d/,
65 and that script has parameters a system administrator may need,
66 you need to modify the script to read values from a conffile
67 placed in /etc/default/ directory. This conffile maybe sourced
68 by the init.d script to determine the sonfigurable values (and
69 the conffile may contain only variable settings and comments).
70 - Files in /usr/share/doc may not be referenced by any
71 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
72 /usr/share/package-name/, and symbolic links created as required
73 in /usr/share/doc/package-name/
74 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
80 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
81 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
82 and the other without.
87 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
88 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
89 package with debugging information optionally. Please look at the
90 examples using DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS in the policy manual.
91 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses html changelog
92 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
93 should always be generated for the upstream changes.
94 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (4.x)
95 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy.
96 - Policy for packages providing an X server has been codified
97 (formalizes existing practice - use virtual package xserver)
98 - Policy for packages providing an X terminal emulator has been
99 codified (use virtual package x-terminal-emulator)
100 - Policy for packages providing an X window manager has been
101 codified (use virtual package x-window-manager, and also as an
102 alternative for /usr/bin/x-window-manager. The policy has
103 guidelines on how to calculate priority)
104 - Policy for packages providing an X fonts has been
105 codified. Please look into the manual for details; this section
106 has been written from scratch.
107 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
108 has been clarified. Please read the manual for details.
109 - Policy for packages providing an X application default has been
111 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles.
114 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
115 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
121 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
122 etc. Should not affect many packages.
127 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
128 /usr/share/doc/<package>. This symlink has to be
129 maintained by postinst and prerm, because dpkg will cause
130 problems otherwise. Create/remote the symlinks using debhelper
131 or see section "6.4. Accessing the documentation" for more
133 - Introduced source dependencies. (Whereas this ought to demand a
134 major policy number rise, we've only just had one of them, so
135 I'm going to use a minor number instead.)
136 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
137 Packages should not be touching this directory, anyway, but
138 should use update-rc.d instead.
139 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
140 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
141 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
142 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
144 - Compiled examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples with
145 symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
146 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself.
147 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
149 - Added MIME sub-policy document.
150 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR.
151 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
152 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
154 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
155 version should also be included. Such a version may be prepared
156 using lynx -dump -nolist.)
159 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
160 added: see section 5.1.
166 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
167 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
168 .la files must go in the run-time library package.
174 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
175 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
177 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
178 control files, though all four digits are still permitted.
179 - The location of the GPL has changed to
180 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
181 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
183 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
184 include the .la files in the -dev packages.
185 - Use logrotate to rotate log files
186 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
188 - There is now anassociated menu policy, in a separate document,
189 that carries the full weight of Debian policy.
190 - The files `/var/run/utmp', `/var/log/wtmp' and
191 `/var/log/lastlog' must be installed writeable by group
192 utmp. Programs who need to modify those files must be installed
199 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
200 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
201 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
202 Section 5 and Section 6.
203 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
204 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
205 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
206 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
207 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
209 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
210 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
211 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
212 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
213 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
214 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
215 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
216 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
217 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
218 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
219 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
225 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
226 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
227 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
228 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
230 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
231 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
232 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
235 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
236 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
237 installs shared libraries
238 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
242 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
243 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
244 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
246 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
247 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
250 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
251 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
252 file extension as the referenced file
254 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
255 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
257 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
258 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
259 start, stop, restart, force-reload
260 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
263 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
264 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
265 be installed into /etc/cron.d
267 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
268 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
269 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
270 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
273 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
274 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
277 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
278 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
279 reasonable default configuration
281 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
282 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
283 by all news servers and clients
285 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Windows system:
286 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
287 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
288 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
289 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
291 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
292 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
295 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 97
297 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
298 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
300 * updated section about `Configuration files':
301 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
303 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
307 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
310 where <arch> is one of the following:
311 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
313 * detailed rules for /usr/local
317 * editor/pager policy
323 * don't install shared libraries as executable
325 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
327 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 97
329 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
334 * "Standard for Console Messages"
336 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
338 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
340 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 96
342 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
346 * No hard links in source packages
348 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
350 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
354 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
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