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8 <title>Policy checklist for upgrading your packages</title>
12 <h1>Policy checklist for upgrading your packages</h1>
14 <h2>About the checklist</h2>
17 The checklist below has been created to simplify the upgrading process
18 of old packages. Note that this list is not `official'; it simply
19 gives an indication of what has changed and whether you are likely to
20 need to make changes to your package in light of this. If you have
21 doubts about a certain topic, if you need more details, or if you
22 think some other package does not comply with policy, please refer to
23 the Policy Manual itself. All of the changes from version 3.0.0
24 onwards indicate which section of the Policy Manual discusses the
25 issue: [3.4] means section 3.4. The section numbering changed when
26 the packaging manual was incorporated into policy; the section numbers
27 used below refer to the current version.
31 Here is how the check list works: Check which policy version your
32 package complies with currently (indicated in the "Standards-Version"
33 field of the source package). Then move upwards until the top and
34 check which of the items on the list might concern your package. Note
35 which sections of policy discuss this, and then check out the Policy
36 Manual for details. If you are upgrading from Policy version < 2.5.0,
37 it may be easier to check through the whole of policy instead of
38 picking your way through this list.
41 <h2>The checklist</h2>
46 * Changelog files must be encoded in UTF-8. [4.4]
47 * Tighten some format requirements for changelog files from a should
49 * Remove alternative changelog formats. Debian only supports one
50 changelog format for the Debian Archive. [4.4.1]
51 * All control files must be encoded in UTF-8. [5.1]
52 * The start action of an init script must exit successfully and not
53 start the daemon again if it's already running. [9.3.2]
57 * The base section has been removed. contrib and non-free have been
58 removed from the section list; they are only categories. The base
59 system is now defined by priority. [2.4, 3.7]
60 * If dpkg-source -x doesn't provide the source that will be compiled,
61 a debian/rules patch target is recommended and should do whatever
62 else is necessary. [4.9]
63 * Standardized the format of DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS. Specified permitted
64 characters for tags, required that tags be whitespace-separated,
65 allowed packages to assume non-conflicting tags, and required
66 unknown flags be ignored. [4.9.1, 10.1]
67 * Added parallel=n to the standardized DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS tags,
68 indicating that a package should be built using up to n parallel
69 processes if the package supports it [4.9.1]
70 * Debian packages should not use convenience copies of code from other
71 packages unless the included package is explicitly intended to be
73 * If dpkg-source -x doesn't produce source ready for editing and
74 building with dpkg-buildpackage, packages should include a
75 debian/README.source file explaining how to generate the patched
76 source, add a new modification, and remove an existing
77 modification. This file may also be used to document packaging a
78 new upstream release and any other complexity of the Debian build
80 * The Uploaders field in debian/control may be wrapped. [5.6.3]
81 * An empty Debian revision is equivalent to a Debian revision of 0 in
82 a version number. [5.6.12]
83 * New Homepage field for upstream web sites. [5.6.23]
84 * The Breaks field declares that this package breaks another and
85 prevents installation of the breaking package unless the package
86 named in Breaks is deconfigured first. This field should not be
87 used until the dpkg in Debian stable supports it. [6.5, 6.6, 7]
88 * Clarify which files should go into a shared library package, into a
89 separate package, or into the -dev package. Suggest -tools instead
90 of -runtime for runtime support programs, since that naming is more
91 common in Debian. [8.1, 8.2]
92 * Files in /etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly} must be
93 configuration files (upgraded from should). Mention the hourly
95 * Packages providing /etc/X11/Xresources files need not conflict with
96 xbase (<< 3.3.2.3a-2), which is long-obsolete. [11.8.6]
97 * Manual pages in locale-specific directories should use either the
98 legacy encoding for that directory or UTF-8. Country names should
99 not be included in locale-specific manual page directories unless
100 indicating a significant difference in the language. All
101 characters in the manual page source should be representable in the
102 legacy encoding for a locale even if the man page is encoded in
104 * The Apache 2.0 license is now in common-licenses and should be
105 referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
106 * Packages in contrib and non-free should state in the copyright file
107 that the package is not part of Debian GNU/Linux and briefly
109 * Underscore (_) is allowed in debconf template names. [debconf]
113 * Package version numbers may contain tildes, which sort before
114 anything, even the end of a part. [5.6.12]
115 * Scripts may assume that /bin/sh supports local (at a basic level)
116 and that its test builtin (if any) supports -a and -o binary
117 logical operators. [10.4]
118 * The substitution variable ${binary:Version} should be used in place
119 of ${Source-Version} for dependencies between packages of the same
121 * Substantial reorganization and renaming of sections in the Debian
122 menu structure. Packages with menu entries should be reviewed to
123 see if the menu section has been renamed or if one of the new
124 sections would be more appropriate. [menu policy]
125 * The Source field in a .changes file may contain a version number
126 in parentheses. [5.6.1]
127 * The acceptable values for the Urgency field are low, medium, high,
128 critical, or emergency. [5.6.17]
129 * The shlibs file now allows an optional type field, indicating the
130 type of package for which the line is valid. The only currently
131 supported type is udeb, used with packages for the Debian
133 * Packages following the Debian Configuration management
134 specification must allow for translation of their messages by using
135 a gettext-based system such as po-debconf. [3.9.1]
136 * GFDL 1.2, GPL 3, and LGPL 3 are now in common-licenses and should
137 be referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
141 * Maintainer scripts must not be world writeable (up from a
142 should to a must) [6.1]
146 * Revert the cgi-lib change. [11.5]
150 * It is now possible to create shared libraries without
151 relocatable code (using -fPIC) in certain exceptional cases,
152 provided some procedures are followed, and for creating static
153 libraries with relocatable code (again, using -fPIC).
154 Discussion on debian-devel@lists.debian.org, getting a rough
155 consensus, and documenting it in README.Debian constitute most
156 of the process. [10.2]
157 * Packages should install any relevant files into the directories
158 /usr/include/X11/and /usr/lib/X11/, but if they do so, they
159 must pre-depend on x11-common (>= 1:7.0.0) [11.8.7]
163 * Packages shipping web server CGI files are expected to install
164 them in /usr/lib/cgi-lib/ directories. This location change
165 perhaps should be documented in NEWS [11.5]
166 * Web server packages should include a standard scriptAlias of
167 cgi-lib to /usr/lib/cgi-lib. [11.5]
168 * The version of FHS mandated by policy has been upped to
169 2.3. There should be no changes required for most packages,
170 though new top level directories /media, /srv, etc may be of
172 * All fields, apart from the Uploaders field, in the control file
173 are supposed to be a single logical line, which may be spread
174 over multiple physical lines (newline followed by space is
175 elided). However, any parser for the control file must allow
176 the Uploaders field to be spread over multiple physical lines
177 as well, to prepare for future changes. [ 5.1, 5.6.3 ]
178 * When scripts are installed into a directory in the system
179 PATH, the script name should not include an extension that
180 denotes the scripting language currently used to implement it.
182 * packages that invoke initscripts now must use invoke-rc.d to do
183 so since it also pays attention to run levels and other local
184 constraints. [ 9.3.3.2 ]
185 * We no longer use /usr/X11R6, since we have migrated away to
186 using Xorg paths. This means, for one thing, fonts live in
187 /usr/share/fonts/X11/ now, and /usr/X11R6 is gone.
188 [ 11.8.5.2, 11.8.7, etc]
192 * Recommend doc-base, and not menu, for registering package documentation.
193 * Run time support programs should live in subdirectories of
194 /usr/lib/ or /usr/share, and preferably the shared lib is named
195 the same as the package name (to avoid name collisions). [8.1]
196 * It is recommended that HTTP servers provide an alias /images to
197 allow packages to share image files with the web server [11.5]
201 + Prompting the user should be done using debconf. Non debconf
202 user prompts are now deprecated. [3.10.1]
206 - Restructuring causing shifts in section numbers and bumping of
207 the minor version number:
208 + Many packaging manual appendices that were integrated into policy
209 sections are now empty, and replaced with links to the Policy.
210 In particular, the appendices that included the list of control
211 fields were updated (new fields like Closes, Changed-By were added)
212 and the list of fields for each of control, .changes and .dsc files
213 is now in Policy, and they're marked mandatory, recommended or
214 optional based on the current practice and the behavior of the
215 deb-building tool-chain.
216 + Elimination of needlessly deep section levels, primarily in the
217 chapter Debian Archive, from which two new chapters were split out,
218 Binary packages and Source packages. What remained was reordered
219 properly, that is, some sect1s became sects etc.
220 + Several sections that were redundant, crufty or simply not designed
221 with any sort of vision, were rearranged according to the formula that
222 everything should be either in the same place or properly interlinked.
223 Some things remained split up between different chapters when they
224 talked about different aspects of files: their content, their syntax,
225 and their placement in the file system. In particular, see the new
226 sections about changelog files.
227 - Added Games/Simulation and Apps/Education to menu sub-policy
229 - Debian changelogs should be UTF-8 encoded. [C.2.2]
230 - shared libraries must be linked against all libraries that they
231 use symbols from in the same way that binaries are. [10.2]
232 - build-depends-indep need not be satisfied during clean
237 - packages providing the x-terminal-emulator virtual package
238 ought to ensure that they interpret the command line exactly
239 like xterm does. [11.8.3]
240 - Window managers compliant with the Window Manager Specification
241 Project may add 40 points for ranking in the alternatives [11.8.4]
245 - The section describing the Description: package field once again has
246 full details of the long description format. [3.4.2]
247 - Clarified that if a package has non-build-essential
248 build-dependencies, it should have them listed in the Build-Depends
249 and related fields (i.e. it's not merely optional). [4.2]
250 - When asked to restart a service that isn't already running,
251 the init script should start the service. [9.3.2]
252 - If the purpose of a package is to provide examples, then the
253 example files can be installed into <tt>/usr/share/doc/package</tt>
254 (rather than <tt>/usr/share/doc/package/examples</tt>). [12.6]
258 - It is no longer necessary to keep a log of changes to the upstream
259 sources in the copyright file. Instead, all such changes should be
260 documented in the changelog file. [12.7]
261 - <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>,
262 <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, and
263 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> must also be satisfied when the
264 clean target is called. [7.6]
265 - A new Apps/Science menu section is available [menu policy]
266 - debconf specification cleared up, various changes. [debconf
268 - It is no longer recommended to create symlinks from nonexistent
269 manual pages to undocumented(7). Missing manual pages for programs
270 are still a bug. [12.1]
274 - Packages no longer have to ask permission to call MAKEDEV in
275 postinst, merely notifying the user ought to be enough. [10.6]
276 - cryptographic software may now be included in the main
278 - task packages are no longer permitted; tasks are now created by a
279 special Tasks: field in the control file. [3.9]
280 - window managers that support netwm can now add 20 points when
281 they add themselves as an alternative for
282 /usr/bin/x-window-manager [11.8.4]
283 - The default compilation options have now changed, one should
284 provide debugging symbols in all cases, and optionally step
285 back optimization to -O0, depending on the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
286 environment variable. [10.1]
287 - Added mention of build-arch, build-indep, etc, in describing
288 the relationships with `Build-Depends', `Build-Conflicts',
289 `Build-Depends-Indep', and `Build-Conflicts-Indep'. May need to
290 review the new rules. [7.6, 4.8]
291 - Changed rules on how, and when, to invoke ldconfig in maintainer
292 scripts. Long rationale. [8]
293 - [Added the last note in 3.5.6 upgrading checklist item regarding
294 build rules, please see below]
298 - Emacs and TeX are no longer mandated by policy to be priority
299 standard packages [2.5]
300 - Programs that access docs need to do so via /usr/share/doc, and
301 not via /usr/doc/ as was the policy previously [11.5]
302 - Putting documentation in /usr/doc versus /usr/share/doc is now
303 a ``serious'' policy violation. [12.3]
304 - For web servers, one should not provide non-local access to the
305 /usr/share/doc hierarchy. If one can't provide access controls for
306 the http://localhost/doc/ directory, then it is preferred that one
307 ask permission to expose that information during the install. [11.5]
308 - There are new rules for build-indep/build-arch targets and
309 there is a new Build-Depend-Indep semantic. [7]
313 - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
314 alternative manpage names available; it should only use
315 symlinks or .so pages to do this [12.1]
316 - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
317 examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
318 by scripts; see section 10.7.3 for the whole story]
319 - Included a new section 10.9.1 describing the use of
320 dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
321 - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
322 packages just to change the Standards-Version!
323 - Plugins are no longer bound by all the rules of shared
325 - X Windows related things:
326 * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
328 * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [11.8.3]
329 * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
330 fonts for the X Window System [11.8.5]
331 * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [11.8.6]
332 * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
333 locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [11.8.7]
334 * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
335 OSF/Motif-linked ones [11.8.8]
339 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
340 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
341 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
343 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
344 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
349 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
350 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
351 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
352 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
353 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples as
358 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
359 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [11.8.6]
363 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
364 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [8.1]
368 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
369 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [11.8.5]
373 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
374 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
375 /etc/default/; see [9.3.2] for details
376 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
377 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
378 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
379 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [12.3]
380 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
385 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
386 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
387 and the other without [11.8.1]
391 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
392 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
393 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [10.1]
394 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
395 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
396 should always be generated for the upstream changes [12.8]
397 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (3.2)
398 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
399 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
401 - X server (virtual package xserver) [11.8.2]
402 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator) [11.8.3]
403 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
404 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
405 calculation guidelines) [11.8.4]
406 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch) [12.8.5]
407 - X application defaults [11.8.6]
408 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
409 has been clarified; see [11.8.7]
410 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
411 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
412 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
417 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
418 etc. Should not affect many packages [7.1]
422 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
423 /usr/share/doc/<package>, to be maintained by postinst
424 and prerm scripts. Details are in [defunct]
425 - Introduced source dependencies (Build-Depends, etc.) [7.1, 7.6]
426 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
427 (Packages should not be touching this directory, but should use
428 update-rc.d instead) [9.3.4]
429 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
430 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
431 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
432 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
433 incompatible way.) [9.3.3]
434 - Architecture-specific examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples
435 with symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
436 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself [12.7]
437 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
439 - Added MIME sub-policy document [9.7; mime-policy]
440 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR [12.4]
441 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
442 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
444 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
445 version should also be included. (Such a version may be prepared
446 using lynx -dump -nolist.) [12.7]
447 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
452 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
453 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
454 .la files must go in the run-time library package [10.2]
458 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
459 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
461 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
462 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [4.1]
463 - The location of the GPL has changed to
464 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
465 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
466 other major licenses [12.6]
467 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
468 include the .la files in the -dev packages [10.2]
469 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [10.8]
470 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
472 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
473 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [9.6; menu-policy]
474 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
475 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [11.3]
478 ** Please note that section numbers below this point may not be up to date **
484 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
485 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
486 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
487 Section 5 and Section 6.
488 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
489 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
490 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
491 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
492 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
494 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
495 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
496 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
497 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
498 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
499 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
500 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
501 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
502 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
503 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
504 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
510 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
511 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
512 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
513 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
515 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
516 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
517 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
520 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
521 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
522 installs shared libraries
523 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
527 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
528 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
529 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
531 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
532 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
535 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
536 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
537 file extension as the referenced file
539 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
540 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
542 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
543 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
544 start, stop, restart, force-reload
545 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
548 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
549 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
550 be installed into /etc/cron.d
552 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
553 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
554 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
555 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
558 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
559 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
562 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
563 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
564 reasonable default configuration
566 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
567 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
568 by all news servers and clients
570 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Window System:
571 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
572 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
573 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
574 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
576 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
577 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
580 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 1997
582 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
583 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
585 * updated section about `Configuration files':
586 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
588 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
592 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
595 where <arch> is one of the following:
596 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
598 * detailed rules for /usr/local
602 * editor/pager policy
608 * don't install shared libraries as executable
610 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
612 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 1997
614 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
619 * "Standard for Console Messages"
621 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
623 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
625 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 1996
627 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
631 * No hard links in source packages
633 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
635 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
639 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
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