1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
4 <!-- -*- Mode: Sgml -*-
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 : Julian Gilbey
10 Last Modified On : Mon Jun 19 20:06:50 2000
11 Last Machine Used: polya.maths.qmw.ac.uk
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>
50 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
51 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
52 package with debugging information optionally.
53 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses html changelog
54 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
55 should always be generated for the upstream changes.
56 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (4.x)
57 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy.
58 - Policy for packages providing an X server has been codified
59 (formalizes existing practice - use virtual package xserver)
60 - Policy for packages providing an X terminal emulator has been
61 codified (use virtual package x-terminal-emulator)
62 - Policy for packages providing an X window manager has been
63 codified (use virtual package x-window-anager, and also as an
64 alternative for /usr/bin/x-window-manager. The policy has
65 guidelines on how to calculate priority)
66 - Policy for packages providing an X fonts has been
67 codified. Please look into the manual for details; this section
68 has been written from scratch.
69 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
70 has been clarified. Please read the manual for details.
71 - Policy for packages providing an X application default has been
73 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles.
76 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
77 always creating theshared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
79 - Note that the newer dpkg-shlibdeps use objdump to determine the
80 shared libraries directly, and now should be run on both
81 executables and libraries.
86 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
87 etc. Should not affect many packages.
92 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
93 /usr/share/doc/<package>. This symlink has to be
94 maintained by postinst and prerm, because dpkg will cause
95 problems otherwise. Create/remote the symlinks using debhelper
96 or see section "6.4. Accessing the documentation" for more
98 - Introduced source dependencies. (Whereas this ought to demand a
99 major policy number rise, we've only just had one of them, so
100 I'm going to use a minor number instead.)
101 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
102 Packages should not be touching this directory, anyway, but
103 should use update-rc.d instead.
104 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
105 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
106 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
107 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
109 - Compiled examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples with
110 symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
111 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself.
112 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
114 - Added MIME sub-policy document.
115 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR.
116 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
117 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
119 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
120 version should also be included. Such a version may be prepared
121 using lynx -dump -nolist.)
124 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
125 added: see section 5.1.
131 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
132 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
133 .la files must go in the run-time library package.
139 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
140 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
142 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
143 control files, though all four digits are still permitted.
144 - The location of the GPL has changed to
145 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
146 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
148 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
149 include the .la files in the -dev packages.
150 - Use logrotate to rotate log files
151 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
153 - There is now anassi=ociated menu policy, in a separate document,
154 that carries the full weight of Debian policy.
155 - The files `/var/run/utmp', `/var/log/wtmp' and
156 `/var/log/lastlog' must be installed writeable by group
157 utmp. Programs who need to modify those files must be installed
164 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
165 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
166 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
167 Section 5 and Section 6.
168 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
169 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
170 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
171 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
172 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
174 - Modified the section about changelog files to accomodate
175 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
176 upstream chagelog files should now be accessible as
177 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
178 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
179 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
180 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
181 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
182 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
183 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
184 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
190 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
191 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
192 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
193 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
195 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
196 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
197 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
200 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
201 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
202 installs shared libraries
203 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
207 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
208 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
209 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
211 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
212 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
215 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
216 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
217 file extension as the referenced file
219 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
220 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
222 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
223 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
224 start, stop, restart, force-reload
225 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
228 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
229 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
230 be installed into /etc/cron.d
232 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
233 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
234 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
235 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
238 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
239 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
242 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
243 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
244 reasonable default configuration
246 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
247 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
248 by all news servers and clients
250 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Windows system:
251 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
252 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
253 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
254 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
256 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
257 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
260 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 97
262 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
263 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
265 * updated section about `Configuration files':
266 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
268 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
272 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
275 where <arch> is one of the following:
276 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
278 * detailed rules for /usr/local
282 * editor/pager policy
288 * don't install shared libraries as executable
290 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
292 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 97
294 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
299 * "Standard for Console Messages"
301 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
303 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
305 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 96
307 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
311 * No hard links in source packages
313 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
315 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
319 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
336 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
340 sgml-live-element-indicator: t