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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
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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>
57 * Debian packages should not use convience copies of code from other
58 packages unless the included package is explicitly intended to be
60 * The Uploaders field in debian/control may be wrapped. [5.6.3]
61 * The Breaks field declares that this package breaks another and
62 prevents installation of the breaking package unless the package
63 named in Breaks is deconfigured first. This field should not be
64 used until the dpkg in Debian stable supports it. [6.5, 6.6, 7]
65 * Manual pages in locale-specific directories should use either the
66 legacy encoding for that directory or UTF-8. Country names should
67 not be included in locale-specific manual page directories unless
68 indicating a significant difference in the language. All
69 characters in the manual page source should be representable in the
70 legacy encoding for a locale even if the man page is encoded in
73 * Package version numbers may contain tildes, which sort before
74 anything, even the end of a part. [5.6.12]
75 * Scripts may assume that /bin/sh supports local (at a basic level)
76 and that its test builtin (if any) supports -a and -o binary
77 logical operators. [10.4]
78 * The substitution variable ${binary:Version} should be used in place
79 of ${Source-Version} for dependencies between packages of the same
81 * Substantial reorganization and renaming of sections in the Debian
82 menu structure. Packages with menu entries should be reviewed to
83 see if the menu section has been renamed or if one of the new
84 sections would be more appropriate. [menu policy]
85 * The Source field in a .changes file may contain a version number
86 in parentheses. [5.6.1]
87 * The acceptable values for the Urgency field are low, medium, high,
88 critical, or emergency. [5.6.17]
89 * The shlibs file now allows an optional type field, indicating the
90 type of package for which the line is valid. The only currently
91 supported type is udeb, used with packages for the Debian
93 * Packages following the Debian Configuration management
94 specification must allow for translation of their messages by using
95 a gettext-based system such as po-debconf. [3.9.1]
96 * GFDL 1.2, GPL 3, and LGPL 3 are now in common-licenses and should
97 be referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
99 * Maintainer scripts must not be world writeable (up from a
100 should to a must) [6.1]
102 * Revert the cgi-lib change. [11.5]
105 * It is now possible to create shared libraries without
106 relocatable code (using -fPIC) in certain exceptional cases,
107 provided some procedures are followed, and for creating static
108 libraries with relocatable code (again, using -fPIC).
109 Discussion on debian-devel@lists.debian.org, getting a rough
110 consensus, and documenting it in README.Debian constitute most
111 of the process. [10.2]
112 * Packages should install any relevant files into the directories
113 /usr/include/X11/and /usr/lib/X11/, but if they do so, they
114 must pre-depend on x11-common (>= 1:7.0.0) [11.8.7]
117 * Packages shipping web server CGI files are expected to install
118 them in /usr/lib/cgi-lib/ directories. This location change
119 perhaps should be documented in NEWS [11.5]
120 * Web server packages should include a standard scriptAlias of
121 cgi-lib to /usr/lib/cgi-lib. [11.5]
122 * The version of FHS mandated by policy has been upped to
123 2.3. There should be no changes required for most packages,
124 though new top level directories /media, /srv, etc may be of
126 * All fields, apart from the Uploaders field, in the control file
127 are supposed to be a single logical line, which may be spread
128 over multiple physical lines (newline followed by space is
129 elided). However, any parser for the control file must allow
130 the Uploaders field to be spread over multiple physical lines
131 as well, to prepare for future changes. [ 5.1, 5.6.3 ]
132 * When scripts are installed into a directory in the system
133 PATH, the script name should not include an extension that
134 denotes the scripting language currently used to implement it.
136 * packages that invoke initscripts now must use invoke-rc.d to do
137 so since it also pays attention to run levels and other local
138 constraints. [ 9.3.3.2 ]
139 * We no longer use /usr/X11R6, since we have migrated away to
140 using Xorg paths. This means, for one thing, fonts live in
141 /usr/share/fonts/X11/ now, and /usr/X11R6 is gone.
142 [ 11.8.5.2, 11.8.7, etc]
146 * Recommend doc-base, and not menu, for registering package documentation.
147 * Run time support programs should live in subdirectories of
148 /usr/lib/ or /usr/share, and preferably the shared lib is named
149 the same as the package name (to avoid name collisions). [8.1]
150 * It is recommended that HTTP servers provide an alias /images to
151 allow packages to share image files with the web server [11.5]
154 + Prompting the user should be done using debconf. Non debconf
155 user prompts are now deprecated. [3.10.1]
159 - Restructuring causing shifts in section numbers and bumping of
160 the minor version number:
161 + Many packaging manual appendices that were integrated into policy
162 sections are now empty, and replaced with links to the Policy.
163 In particular, the appendices that included the list of control
164 fields were updated (new fields like Closes, Changed-By were added)
165 and the list of fields for each of control, .changes and .dsc files
166 is now in Policy, and they're marked mandatory, recommended or
167 optional based on the current practice and the behavior of the
168 deb-building tool-chain.
169 + Elimination of needlessly deep section levels, primarily in the
170 chapter Debian Archive, from which two new chapters were split out,
171 Binary packages and Source packages. What remained was reordered
172 properly, that is, some sect1s became sects etc.
173 + Several sections that were redundant, crufty or simply not designed
174 with any sort of vision, were rearranged according to the formula that
175 everything should be either in the same place or properly interlinked.
176 Some things remained split up between different chapters when they
177 talked about different aspects of files: their content, their syntax,
178 and their placement in the file system. In particular, see the new
179 sections about changelog files.
180 - Added Games/Simulation and Apps/Education to menu sub-policy
182 - Debian changelogs should be UTF-8 encoded. [C.2.2]
183 - shared libraries must be linked against all libraries that they
184 use symbols from in the same way that binaries are. [10.2]
185 - build-depends-indep need not be satisfied during clean
190 - packages providing the x-terminal-emulator virtual package
191 ought to ensure that they interpret the command line exactly
192 like xterm does. [11.8.3]
193 - Window managers compliant with the Window Manager Specification
194 Project may add 40 points for ranking in the alternatives [11.8.4]
199 - The section describing the Description: package field once again has
200 full details of the long description format. [3.4.2]
201 - Clarified that if a package has non-build-essential
202 build-dependencies, it should have them listed in the Build-Depends
203 and related fields (i.e. it's not merely optional). [4.2]
204 - When asked to restart a service that isn't already running,
205 the init script should start the service. [9.3.2]
206 - If the purpose of a package is to provide examples, then the
207 example files can be installed into <tt>/usr/share/doc/package</tt>
208 (rather than <tt>/usr/share/doc/package/examples</tt>). [12.6]
213 - It is no longer necessary to keep a log of changes to the upstream
214 sources in the copyright file. Instead, all such changes should be
215 documented in the changelog file. [12.7]
216 - <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>,
217 <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, and
218 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> must also be satisfied when the
219 clean target is called. [7.6]
220 - A new Apps/Science menu section is available [menu policy]
221 - debconf specification cleared up, various changes. [debconf
223 - It is no longer recommended to create symlinks from nonexistent
224 manual pages to undocumented(7). Missing manual pages for programs
225 are still a bug. [12.1]
229 - Packages no longer have to ask permission to call MAKEDEV in
230 postinst, merely notifying the user ought to be enough. [10.6]
231 - cryptographic software may now be included in the main
233 - task packages are no longer permitted; tasks are now created by a
234 special Tasks: field in the control file. [3.9]
235 - window managers that support netwm can now add 20 points when
236 they add themselves as an alternative for
237 /usr/bin/x-window-manager [11.8.4]
238 - The default compilation options have now changed, one should
239 provide debugging symbols in all cases, and optionally step
240 back optimization to -O0, depending on the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
241 environment variable. [10.1]
242 - Added mention of build-arch, build-indep, etc, in describing
243 the relationships with `Build-Depends', `Build-Conflicts',
244 `Build-Depends-Indep', and `Build-Conflicts-Indep'. May need to
245 review the new rules. [7.6, 4.8]
246 - Changed rules on how, and when, to invoke ldconfig in maintainer
247 scripts. Long rationale. [8]
248 - [Added the last note in 3.5.6 upgrading checklist item regarding
249 build rules, please see below]
253 - Emacs and TeX are no longer mandated by policy to be priority
254 standard packages [2.5]
255 - Programs that access docs need to do so via /usr/share/doc, and
256 not via /usr/doc/ as was the policy previously [11.5]
257 - Putting documentation in /usr/doc versus /usr/share/doc is now
258 a ``serious'' policy violation. [12.3]
259 - For web servers, one should not provide non-local access to the
260 /usr/share/doc hierarchy. If one can't provide access controls for
261 the http://localhost/doc/ directory, then it is preferred that one
262 ask permission to expose that information during the install. [11.5]
263 - There are new rules for build-indep/build-arch targets and
264 there is a new Build-Depend-Indep semantic. [7]
269 - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
270 alternative manpage names available; it should only use
271 symlinks or .so pages to do this [12.1]
272 - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
273 examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
274 by scripts; see section 10.7.3 for the whole story]
275 - Included a new section 10.9.1 describing the use of
276 dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
277 - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
278 packages just to change the Standards-Version!
279 - Plugins are no longer bound by all the rules of shared
281 - X Windows related things:
282 * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
284 * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [11.8.3]
285 * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
286 fonts for the X Window System [11.8.5]
287 * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [11.8.6]
288 * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
289 locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [11.8.7]
290 * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
291 OSF/Motif-linked ones [11.8.8]
296 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
297 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
298 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
300 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
301 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
307 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
308 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
309 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
310 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
311 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples as
317 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
318 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [11.8.6]
323 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
324 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [8.1]
329 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
330 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [11.8.5]
335 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
336 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
337 /etc/default/; see [9.3.2] for details
338 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
339 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
340 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
341 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [12.3]
342 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
348 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
349 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
350 and the other without [11.8.1]
355 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
356 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
357 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [10.1]
358 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
359 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
360 should always be generated for the upstream changes [12.8]
361 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (3.2)
362 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
363 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
365 - X server (virtual package xserver) [11.8.2]
366 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator) [11.8.3]
367 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
368 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
369 calculation guidelines) [11.8.4]
370 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch) [12.8.5]
371 - X application defaults [11.8.6]
372 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
373 has been clarified; see [11.8.7]
374 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
375 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
376 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
382 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
383 etc. Should not affect many packages [7.1]
388 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
389 /usr/share/doc/<package>, to be maintained by postinst
390 and prerm scripts. Details are in [defunct]
391 - Introduced source dependencies (Build-Depends, etc.) [7.1, 7.6]
392 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
393 (Packages should not be touching this directory, but should use
394 update-rc.d instead) [9.3.4]
395 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
396 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
397 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
398 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
399 incompatible way.) [9.3.3]
400 - Architecture-specific examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples
401 with symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
402 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself [12.7]
403 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
405 - Added MIME sub-policy document [9.7; mime-policy]
406 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR [12.4]
407 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
408 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
410 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
411 version should also be included. (Such a version may be prepared
412 using lynx -dump -nolist.) [12.7]
413 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
419 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
420 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
421 .la files must go in the run-time library package [10.2]
426 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
427 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
429 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
430 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [4.1]
431 - The location of the GPL has changed to
432 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
433 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
434 other major licenses [12.6]
435 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
436 include the .la files in the -dev packages [10.2]
437 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [10.8]
438 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
440 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
441 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [9.6; menu-policy]
442 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
443 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [11.3]
446 ** Please note that section numbers below this point may not be up to date **
452 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
453 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
454 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
455 Section 5 and Section 6.
456 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
457 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
458 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
459 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
460 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
462 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
463 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
464 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
465 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
466 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
467 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
468 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
469 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
470 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
471 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
472 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
478 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
479 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
480 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
481 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
483 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
484 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
485 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
488 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
489 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
490 installs shared libraries
491 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
495 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
496 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
497 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
499 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
500 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
503 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
504 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
505 file extension as the referenced file
507 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
508 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
510 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
511 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
512 start, stop, restart, force-reload
513 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
516 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
517 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
518 be installed into /etc/cron.d
520 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
521 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
522 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
523 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
526 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
527 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
530 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
531 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
532 reasonable default configuration
534 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
535 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
536 by all news servers and clients
538 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Window System:
539 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
540 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
541 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
542 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
544 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
545 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
548 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 1997
550 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
551 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
553 * updated section about `Configuration files':
554 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
556 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
560 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
563 where <arch> is one of the following:
564 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
566 * detailed rules for /usr/local
570 * editor/pager policy
576 * don't install shared libraries as executable
578 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
580 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 1997
582 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
587 * "Standard for Console Messages"
589 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
591 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
593 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 1996
595 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
599 * No hard links in source packages
601 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
603 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
607 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
615 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
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