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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 * 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 * Debian packages should not use convience copies of code from other
61 packages unless the included package is explicitly intended to be
63 * The Uploaders field in debian/control may be wrapped. [5.6.3]
64 * New Homepage field for upstream web sites. [5.6.23]
65 * The Breaks field declares that this package breaks another and
66 prevents installation of the breaking package unless the package
67 named in Breaks is deconfigured first. This field should not be
68 used until the dpkg in Debian stable supports it. [6.5, 6.6, 7]
69 * Manual pages in locale-specific directories should use either the
70 legacy encoding for that directory or UTF-8. Country names should
71 not be included in locale-specific manual page directories unless
72 indicating a significant difference in the language. All
73 characters in the manual page source should be representable in the
74 legacy encoding for a locale even if the man page is encoded in
76 * The Apache 2.0 license is now in common-licenses and should be
77 referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
79 * Package version numbers may contain tildes, which sort before
80 anything, even the end of a part. [5.6.12]
81 * Scripts may assume that /bin/sh supports local (at a basic level)
82 and that its test builtin (if any) supports -a and -o binary
83 logical operators. [10.4]
84 * The substitution variable ${binary:Version} should be used in place
85 of ${Source-Version} for dependencies between packages of the same
87 * Substantial reorganization and renaming of sections in the Debian
88 menu structure. Packages with menu entries should be reviewed to
89 see if the menu section has been renamed or if one of the new
90 sections would be more appropriate. [menu policy]
91 * The Source field in a .changes file may contain a version number
92 in parentheses. [5.6.1]
93 * The acceptable values for the Urgency field are low, medium, high,
94 critical, or emergency. [5.6.17]
95 * The shlibs file now allows an optional type field, indicating the
96 type of package for which the line is valid. The only currently
97 supported type is udeb, used with packages for the Debian
99 * Packages following the Debian Configuration management
100 specification must allow for translation of their messages by using
101 a gettext-based system such as po-debconf. [3.9.1]
102 * GFDL 1.2, GPL 3, and LGPL 3 are now in common-licenses and should
103 be referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
105 * Maintainer scripts must not be world writeable (up from a
106 should to a must) [6.1]
108 * Revert the cgi-lib change. [11.5]
111 * It is now possible to create shared libraries without
112 relocatable code (using -fPIC) in certain exceptional cases,
113 provided some procedures are followed, and for creating static
114 libraries with relocatable code (again, using -fPIC).
115 Discussion on debian-devel@lists.debian.org, getting a rough
116 consensus, and documenting it in README.Debian constitute most
117 of the process. [10.2]
118 * Packages should install any relevant files into the directories
119 /usr/include/X11/and /usr/lib/X11/, but if they do so, they
120 must pre-depend on x11-common (>= 1:7.0.0) [11.8.7]
123 * Packages shipping web server CGI files are expected to install
124 them in /usr/lib/cgi-lib/ directories. This location change
125 perhaps should be documented in NEWS [11.5]
126 * Web server packages should include a standard scriptAlias of
127 cgi-lib to /usr/lib/cgi-lib. [11.5]
128 * The version of FHS mandated by policy has been upped to
129 2.3. There should be no changes required for most packages,
130 though new top level directories /media, /srv, etc may be of
132 * All fields, apart from the Uploaders field, in the control file
133 are supposed to be a single logical line, which may be spread
134 over multiple physical lines (newline followed by space is
135 elided). However, any parser for the control file must allow
136 the Uploaders field to be spread over multiple physical lines
137 as well, to prepare for future changes. [ 5.1, 5.6.3 ]
138 * When scripts are installed into a directory in the system
139 PATH, the script name should not include an extension that
140 denotes the scripting language currently used to implement it.
142 * packages that invoke initscripts now must use invoke-rc.d to do
143 so since it also pays attention to run levels and other local
144 constraints. [ 9.3.3.2 ]
145 * We no longer use /usr/X11R6, since we have migrated away to
146 using Xorg paths. This means, for one thing, fonts live in
147 /usr/share/fonts/X11/ now, and /usr/X11R6 is gone.
148 [ 11.8.5.2, 11.8.7, etc]
152 * Recommend doc-base, and not menu, for registering package documentation.
153 * Run time support programs should live in subdirectories of
154 /usr/lib/ or /usr/share, and preferably the shared lib is named
155 the same as the package name (to avoid name collisions). [8.1]
156 * It is recommended that HTTP servers provide an alias /images to
157 allow packages to share image files with the web server [11.5]
160 + Prompting the user should be done using debconf. Non debconf
161 user prompts are now deprecated. [3.10.1]
165 - Restructuring causing shifts in section numbers and bumping of
166 the minor version number:
167 + Many packaging manual appendices that were integrated into policy
168 sections are now empty, and replaced with links to the Policy.
169 In particular, the appendices that included the list of control
170 fields were updated (new fields like Closes, Changed-By were added)
171 and the list of fields for each of control, .changes and .dsc files
172 is now in Policy, and they're marked mandatory, recommended or
173 optional based on the current practice and the behavior of the
174 deb-building tool-chain.
175 + Elimination of needlessly deep section levels, primarily in the
176 chapter Debian Archive, from which two new chapters were split out,
177 Binary packages and Source packages. What remained was reordered
178 properly, that is, some sect1s became sects etc.
179 + Several sections that were redundant, crufty or simply not designed
180 with any sort of vision, were rearranged according to the formula that
181 everything should be either in the same place or properly interlinked.
182 Some things remained split up between different chapters when they
183 talked about different aspects of files: their content, their syntax,
184 and their placement in the file system. In particular, see the new
185 sections about changelog files.
186 - Added Games/Simulation and Apps/Education to menu sub-policy
188 - Debian changelogs should be UTF-8 encoded. [C.2.2]
189 - shared libraries must be linked against all libraries that they
190 use symbols from in the same way that binaries are. [10.2]
191 - build-depends-indep need not be satisfied during clean
196 - packages providing the x-terminal-emulator virtual package
197 ought to ensure that they interpret the command line exactly
198 like xterm does. [11.8.3]
199 - Window managers compliant with the Window Manager Specification
200 Project may add 40 points for ranking in the alternatives [11.8.4]
205 - The section describing the Description: package field once again has
206 full details of the long description format. [3.4.2]
207 - Clarified that if a package has non-build-essential
208 build-dependencies, it should have them listed in the Build-Depends
209 and related fields (i.e. it's not merely optional). [4.2]
210 - When asked to restart a service that isn't already running,
211 the init script should start the service. [9.3.2]
212 - If the purpose of a package is to provide examples, then the
213 example files can be installed into <tt>/usr/share/doc/package</tt>
214 (rather than <tt>/usr/share/doc/package/examples</tt>). [12.6]
219 - It is no longer necessary to keep a log of changes to the upstream
220 sources in the copyright file. Instead, all such changes should be
221 documented in the changelog file. [12.7]
222 - <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>,
223 <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, and
224 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> must also be satisfied when the
225 clean target is called. [7.6]
226 - A new Apps/Science menu section is available [menu policy]
227 - debconf specification cleared up, various changes. [debconf
229 - It is no longer recommended to create symlinks from nonexistent
230 manual pages to undocumented(7). Missing manual pages for programs
231 are still a bug. [12.1]
235 - Packages no longer have to ask permission to call MAKEDEV in
236 postinst, merely notifying the user ought to be enough. [10.6]
237 - cryptographic software may now be included in the main
239 - task packages are no longer permitted; tasks are now created by a
240 special Tasks: field in the control file. [3.9]
241 - window managers that support netwm can now add 20 points when
242 they add themselves as an alternative for
243 /usr/bin/x-window-manager [11.8.4]
244 - The default compilation options have now changed, one should
245 provide debugging symbols in all cases, and optionally step
246 back optimization to -O0, depending on the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
247 environment variable. [10.1]
248 - Added mention of build-arch, build-indep, etc, in describing
249 the relationships with `Build-Depends', `Build-Conflicts',
250 `Build-Depends-Indep', and `Build-Conflicts-Indep'. May need to
251 review the new rules. [7.6, 4.8]
252 - Changed rules on how, and when, to invoke ldconfig in maintainer
253 scripts. Long rationale. [8]
254 - [Added the last note in 3.5.6 upgrading checklist item regarding
255 build rules, please see below]
259 - Emacs and TeX are no longer mandated by policy to be priority
260 standard packages [2.5]
261 - Programs that access docs need to do so via /usr/share/doc, and
262 not via /usr/doc/ as was the policy previously [11.5]
263 - Putting documentation in /usr/doc versus /usr/share/doc is now
264 a ``serious'' policy violation. [12.3]
265 - For web servers, one should not provide non-local access to the
266 /usr/share/doc hierarchy. If one can't provide access controls for
267 the http://localhost/doc/ directory, then it is preferred that one
268 ask permission to expose that information during the install. [11.5]
269 - There are new rules for build-indep/build-arch targets and
270 there is a new Build-Depend-Indep semantic. [7]
275 - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
276 alternative manpage names available; it should only use
277 symlinks or .so pages to do this [12.1]
278 - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
279 examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
280 by scripts; see section 10.7.3 for the whole story]
281 - Included a new section 10.9.1 describing the use of
282 dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
283 - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
284 packages just to change the Standards-Version!
285 - Plugins are no longer bound by all the rules of shared
287 - X Windows related things:
288 * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
290 * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [11.8.3]
291 * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
292 fonts for the X Window System [11.8.5]
293 * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [11.8.6]
294 * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
295 locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [11.8.7]
296 * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
297 OSF/Motif-linked ones [11.8.8]
302 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
303 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
304 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
306 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
307 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
313 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
314 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
315 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
316 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
317 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples as
323 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
324 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [11.8.6]
329 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
330 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [8.1]
335 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
336 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [11.8.5]
341 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
342 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
343 /etc/default/; see [9.3.2] for details
344 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
345 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
346 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
347 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [12.3]
348 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
354 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
355 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
356 and the other without [11.8.1]
361 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
362 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
363 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [10.1]
364 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
365 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
366 should always be generated for the upstream changes [12.8]
367 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (3.2)
368 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
369 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
371 - X server (virtual package xserver) [11.8.2]
372 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator) [11.8.3]
373 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
374 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
375 calculation guidelines) [11.8.4]
376 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch) [12.8.5]
377 - X application defaults [11.8.6]
378 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
379 has been clarified; see [11.8.7]
380 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
381 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
382 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
388 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
389 etc. Should not affect many packages [7.1]
394 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
395 /usr/share/doc/<package>, to be maintained by postinst
396 and prerm scripts. Details are in [defunct]
397 - Introduced source dependencies (Build-Depends, etc.) [7.1, 7.6]
398 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
399 (Packages should not be touching this directory, but should use
400 update-rc.d instead) [9.3.4]
401 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
402 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
403 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
404 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
405 incompatible way.) [9.3.3]
406 - Architecture-specific examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples
407 with symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
408 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself [12.7]
409 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
411 - Added MIME sub-policy document [9.7; mime-policy]
412 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR [12.4]
413 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
414 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
416 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
417 version should also be included. (Such a version may be prepared
418 using lynx -dump -nolist.) [12.7]
419 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
425 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
426 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
427 .la files must go in the run-time library package [10.2]
432 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
433 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
435 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
436 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [4.1]
437 - The location of the GPL has changed to
438 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
439 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
440 other major licenses [12.6]
441 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
442 include the .la files in the -dev packages [10.2]
443 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [10.8]
444 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
446 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
447 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [9.6; menu-policy]
448 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
449 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [11.3]
452 ** Please note that section numbers below this point may not be up to date **
458 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
459 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
460 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
461 Section 5 and Section 6.
462 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
463 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
464 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
465 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
466 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
468 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
469 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
470 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
471 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
472 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
473 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
474 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
475 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
476 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
477 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
478 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
484 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
485 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
486 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
487 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
489 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
490 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
491 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
494 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
495 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
496 installs shared libraries
497 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
501 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
502 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
503 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
505 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
506 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
509 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
510 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
511 file extension as the referenced file
513 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
514 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
516 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
517 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
518 start, stop, restart, force-reload
519 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
522 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
523 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
524 be installed into /etc/cron.d
526 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
527 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
528 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
529 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
532 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
533 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
536 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
537 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
538 reasonable default configuration
540 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
541 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
542 by all news servers and clients
544 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Window System:
545 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
546 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
547 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
548 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
550 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
551 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
554 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 1997
556 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
557 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
559 * updated section about `Configuration files':
560 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
562 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
566 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
569 where <arch> is one of the following:
570 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
572 * detailed rules for /usr/local
576 * editor/pager policy
582 * don't install shared libraries as executable
584 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
586 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 1997
588 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
593 * "Standard for Console Messages"
595 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
597 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
599 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 1996
601 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
605 * No hard links in source packages
607 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
609 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
613 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
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