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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 : Sat Oct 26 12:22:40 2002
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 - It is no longer necessary to keep a log of changes to the upstream
59 sources in the copyright file. Instead, all such changes should be
60 documented in the changelog file. [13.7]
61 - <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>,
62 <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, and
63 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> must also be satisfied when the
64 clean target is called[7.6]
65 - A new apps/Science menu section is available [menu policy]
66 - debconf specification cleared up, various changes. [debconf
68 - It is no longer recommended to create symlinks from nonexistent
69 manual pages to undocumented(7). Missing manual pages for programs
70 are still a bug. [13.1]
74 - Packages no longer have to ask permission to call MAKEDEV in
75 postinst, merely notifying the user ought to be enough. [11.6]
76 - cryptographic software may now be included in the main
78 - task packages are now not permitted; tasks are now created by a
79 special Tasks: field in the control file. [2.3.8]
80 - window managers that support netwm now can added 20 points when
81 they add themselves as an alternative for
82 /usr/bin/x-window-manager [12.8.4]
83 - There are new rules for build-indep/build-arch targets and
84 there is a new Build-Depend-Indep semantic. These were actually
85 introduced in 3.5.6, but I forgot to mention them here. [7]
86 - The default compilation options have now changed, one should
87 provide debugging symbols in all cases, and optionally step
88 back optimization to -O0, depending on the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
89 environment variable. [11.1]
90 - Added mention of build-arch, build-indep, etc, in describing
91 the relationships with `Build-Depends', `Build-Conflicts',
92 `Build-Depends-Indep', and `Build-Conflicts-Indep'. May need to
93 review the new rules. [7.6, 5.2]
94 - Changed rules on how, and when, to invoke ldconfig in maintiner
95 scripts. Long rationale. [9]
99 - Emacs and TeX are no longer mandated by policy to be priority
100 standard packages [2.2]
101 - Programs that access docs need to do so via /usr/share/doc, and
102 not via /usr/doc/ as was the policy previously [12.5]
103 - Putting documentation in /usr/doc versus /usr/share/doc is now
104 a ``serious'' policy violation
105 - For web servers, one should not provide non-local access to the
106 /usr/share/doc hierarchy. If one can't provide access controls for
107 the //localhost/doc/ directory, then it is preferred that one
108 ask permission to expose that information during the install [12.5]
113 - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
114 alternative manpage names available; it should only use
115 symlinks or .so pages to do this [13.1]
116 - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
117 examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
118 by scripts; see section 11.7.3 for the whole story]
119 - Included a new section 11.9.1 describing the use of
120 dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
121 - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
122 packages just to change the Standards-Version!
123 - Plugins are no longer bound by all the rules of shared
125 - X Windows related things:
126 * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
128 * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [12.8.3]
129 * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
130 fonts for the X Window System [12.8.5]
131 * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [12.8.6]
132 * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
133 locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [12.8.7]
134 * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
135 OSF/Motif-linked ones [12.8.8]
140 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
141 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
142 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
144 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
145 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
151 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
152 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
153 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
154 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
155 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc//<package>/examples as
161 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
162 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [12.8.6]
167 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
168 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [9.1]
173 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
174 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [12.8.5]
179 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
180 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
181 /etc/default/; see [10.3.2] for details
182 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
183 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
184 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
185 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [13.3]
186 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
192 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
193 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
194 and the other without [12.8.1]
199 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
200 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
201 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [11.1]
202 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
203 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
204 should always be generated for the upstream changes [13.8]
205 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (4.x)
206 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
207 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
209 - X server (virtual package xserver) [12.8.2]
210 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator) [12.8.3]
211 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
212 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
213 calculation guidelines) [12.8.4]
214 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch) [12.8.5]
215 - X application defaults [12.8.6]
216 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
217 has been clarified; see [12.8.7]
218 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
219 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
220 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
226 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
227 etc. Should not affect many packages [7.1]
232 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
233 /usr/share/doc/<package>, to be maintained by postinst
234 and prerm scripts. Details are in [13.4]
235 - Introduced source dependencies (Build-Depends, etc.) [7.1, 7.6]
236 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
237 (Packages should not be touching this directory, but should use
238 update-rc.d instead) [10.3.4]
239 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
240 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
241 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
242 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
243 incompatible way.) [10.3.3]
244 - Architecture-specific examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples
245 with symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
246 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself [13.7]
247 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
249 - Added MIME sub-policy document [10.7; mime-policy]
250 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR [12.4]
251 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
252 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
254 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
255 version should also be included. (Such a version may be prepared
256 using lynx -dump -nolist.) [13.8]
257 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
263 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
264 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
265 .la files must go in the run-time library package [11.2]
270 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
271 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
272 not all known. [10.1]
273 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
274 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [2.4.1]
275 - The location of the GPL has changed to
276 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
277 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
278 other major licenses [13.6]
279 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
280 include the .la files in the -dev packages [11.2]
281 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [11.8]
282 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
284 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
285 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [10.6; menu-policy]
286 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
287 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [12.3]
293 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
294 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
295 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
296 Section 5 and Section 6.
297 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
298 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
299 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
300 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
301 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
303 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
304 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
305 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
306 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
307 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
308 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
309 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
310 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
311 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
312 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
313 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
319 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
320 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
321 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
322 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
324 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
325 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
326 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
329 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
330 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
331 installs shared libraries
332 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
336 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
337 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
338 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
340 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
341 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
344 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
345 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
346 file extension as the referenced file
348 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
349 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
351 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
352 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
353 start, stop, restart, force-reload
354 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
357 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
358 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
359 be installed into /etc/cron.d
361 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
362 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
363 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
364 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
367 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
368 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
371 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
372 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
373 reasonable default configuration
375 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
376 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
377 by all news servers and clients
379 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Window System:
380 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
381 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
382 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
383 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
385 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
386 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
389 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 97
391 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
392 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
394 * updated section about `Configuration files':
395 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
397 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
401 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
404 where <arch> is one of the following:
405 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
407 * detailed rules for /usr/local
411 * editor/pager policy
417 * don't install shared libraries as executable
419 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
421 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 97
423 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
428 * "Standard for Console Messages"
430 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
432 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
434 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 96
436 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
440 * No hard links in source packages
442 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
444 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
448 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
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