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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 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 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
59 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
60 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
62 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
63 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
69 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
70 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
71 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
72 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
73 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc//<package>/examples as
79 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
80 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [12.8]
85 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
86 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [9.1]
91 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
92 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [12.8]
97 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
98 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
99 /etc/default/; see [10.3.2] for details
100 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
101 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
102 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
103 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [13.3]
104 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
110 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
111 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
112 and the other without [12.8]
117 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
118 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
119 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [11.1]
120 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
121 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
122 should always be generated for the upstream changes [13.8]
123 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (4.x)
124 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
125 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
126 has been codified [12.8]:
127 - X server (virtual package xserver)
128 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator)
129 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
130 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
131 calculation guidelines)
132 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch)
133 - X application defaults
134 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
135 has been clarified; see [12.8]
136 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
137 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
138 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
144 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
145 etc. Should not affect many packages [7.1]
150 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
151 /usr/share/doc/<package>, to be maintained by postinst
152 and prerm scripts. Details are in [13.4]
153 - Introduced source dependencies (Build-Depends, etc.) [7.1, 7.6]
154 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
155 (Packages should not be touching this directory, but should use
156 update-rc.d instead) [10.3.4]
157 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
158 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
159 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
160 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
161 incompatible way.) [10.3.3]
162 - Architecture-specific examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples
163 with symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
164 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself [13.7]
165 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
167 - Added MIME sub-policy document [10.7; mime-policy]
168 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR [12.4]
169 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
170 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
172 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
173 version should also be included. (Such a version may be prepared
174 using lynx -dump -nolist.) [13.8]
175 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
181 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
182 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
183 .la files must go in the run-time library package [11.2]
188 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
189 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
190 not all known. [10.1]
191 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
192 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [2.4.1]
193 - The location of the GPL has changed to
194 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
195 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
196 other major licenses [13.6]
197 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
198 include the .la files in the -dev packages [11.2]
199 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [11.8]
200 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
202 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
203 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [10.6; menu-policy]
204 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
205 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [12.3]
211 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
212 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
213 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
214 Section 5 and Section 6.
215 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
216 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
217 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
218 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
219 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
221 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
222 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
223 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
224 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
225 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
226 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
227 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
228 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
229 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
230 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
231 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
237 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
238 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
239 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
240 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
242 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
243 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
244 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
247 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
248 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
249 installs shared libraries
250 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
254 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
255 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
256 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
258 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
259 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
262 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
263 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
264 file extension as the referenced file
266 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
267 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
269 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
270 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
271 start, stop, restart, force-reload
272 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
275 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
276 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
277 be installed into /etc/cron.d
279 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
280 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
281 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
282 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
285 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
286 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
289 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
290 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
291 reasonable default configuration
293 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
294 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
295 by all news servers and clients
297 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Windows system:
298 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
299 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
300 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
301 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
303 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
304 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
307 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 97
309 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
310 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
312 * updated section about `Configuration files':
313 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
315 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
319 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
322 where <arch> is one of the following:
323 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
325 * detailed rules for /usr/local
329 * editor/pager policy
335 * don't install shared libraries as executable
337 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
339 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 97
341 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
346 * "Standard for Console Messages"
348 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
350 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
352 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 96
354 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
358 * No hard links in source packages
360 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
362 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
366 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
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