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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>
58 * The base section has been removed. contrib and non-free have been
59 removed from the section list; they are only categories. The base
60 system is now defined by priority. [2.4, 3.7]
61 * Debian packages should not use convience copies of code from other
62 packages unless the included package is explicitly intended to be
64 * The Uploaders field in debian/control may be wrapped. [5.6.3]
65 * New Homepage field for upstream web sites. [5.6.23]
66 * The Breaks field declares that this package breaks another and
67 prevents installation of the breaking package unless the package
68 named in Breaks is deconfigured first. This field should not be
69 used until the dpkg in Debian stable supports it. [6.5, 6.6, 7]
70 * Manual pages in locale-specific directories should use either the
71 legacy encoding for that directory or UTF-8. Country names should
72 not be included in locale-specific manual page directories unless
73 indicating a significant difference in the language. All
74 characters in the manual page source should be representable in the
75 legacy encoding for a locale even if the man page is encoded in
77 * The Apache 2.0 license is now in common-licenses and should be
78 referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
79 * Packages in contrib and non-free should state in the copyright file
80 that the package is not part of Debian GNU/Linux and briefly
85 * Package version numbers may contain tildes, which sort before
86 anything, even the end of a part. [5.6.12]
87 * Scripts may assume that /bin/sh supports local (at a basic level)
88 and that its test builtin (if any) supports -a and -o binary
89 logical operators. [10.4]
90 * The substitution variable ${binary:Version} should be used in place
91 of ${Source-Version} for dependencies between packages of the same
93 * Substantial reorganization and renaming of sections in the Debian
94 menu structure. Packages with menu entries should be reviewed to
95 see if the menu section has been renamed or if one of the new
96 sections would be more appropriate. [menu policy]
97 * The Source field in a .changes file may contain a version number
98 in parentheses. [5.6.1]
99 * The acceptable values for the Urgency field are low, medium, high,
100 critical, or emergency. [5.6.17]
101 * The shlibs file now allows an optional type field, indicating the
102 type of package for which the line is valid. The only currently
103 supported type is udeb, used with packages for the Debian
105 * Packages following the Debian Configuration management
106 specification must allow for translation of their messages by using
107 a gettext-based system such as po-debconf. [3.9.1]
108 * GFDL 1.2, GPL 3, and LGPL 3 are now in common-licenses and should
109 be referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
113 * Maintainer scripts must not be world writeable (up from a
114 should to a must) [6.1]
118 * Revert the cgi-lib change. [11.5]
122 * It is now possible to create shared libraries without
123 relocatable code (using -fPIC) in certain exceptional cases,
124 provided some procedures are followed, and for creating static
125 libraries with relocatable code (again, using -fPIC).
126 Discussion on debian-devel@lists.debian.org, getting a rough
127 consensus, and documenting it in README.Debian constitute most
128 of the process. [10.2]
129 * Packages should install any relevant files into the directories
130 /usr/include/X11/and /usr/lib/X11/, but if they do so, they
131 must pre-depend on x11-common (>= 1:7.0.0) [11.8.7]
135 * Packages shipping web server CGI files are expected to install
136 them in /usr/lib/cgi-lib/ directories. This location change
137 perhaps should be documented in NEWS [11.5]
138 * Web server packages should include a standard scriptAlias of
139 cgi-lib to /usr/lib/cgi-lib. [11.5]
140 * The version of FHS mandated by policy has been upped to
141 2.3. There should be no changes required for most packages,
142 though new top level directories /media, /srv, etc may be of
144 * All fields, apart from the Uploaders field, in the control file
145 are supposed to be a single logical line, which may be spread
146 over multiple physical lines (newline followed by space is
147 elided). However, any parser for the control file must allow
148 the Uploaders field to be spread over multiple physical lines
149 as well, to prepare for future changes. [ 5.1, 5.6.3 ]
150 * When scripts are installed into a directory in the system
151 PATH, the script name should not include an extension that
152 denotes the scripting language currently used to implement it.
154 * packages that invoke initscripts now must use invoke-rc.d to do
155 so since it also pays attention to run levels and other local
156 constraints. [ 9.3.3.2 ]
157 * We no longer use /usr/X11R6, since we have migrated away to
158 using Xorg paths. This means, for one thing, fonts live in
159 /usr/share/fonts/X11/ now, and /usr/X11R6 is gone.
160 [ 11.8.5.2, 11.8.7, etc]
164 * Recommend doc-base, and not menu, for registering package documentation.
165 * Run time support programs should live in subdirectories of
166 /usr/lib/ or /usr/share, and preferably the shared lib is named
167 the same as the package name (to avoid name collisions). [8.1]
168 * It is recommended that HTTP servers provide an alias /images to
169 allow packages to share image files with the web server [11.5]
173 + Prompting the user should be done using debconf. Non debconf
174 user prompts are now deprecated. [3.10.1]
178 - Restructuring causing shifts in section numbers and bumping of
179 the minor version number:
180 + Many packaging manual appendices that were integrated into policy
181 sections are now empty, and replaced with links to the Policy.
182 In particular, the appendices that included the list of control
183 fields were updated (new fields like Closes, Changed-By were added)
184 and the list of fields for each of control, .changes and .dsc files
185 is now in Policy, and they're marked mandatory, recommended or
186 optional based on the current practice and the behavior of the
187 deb-building tool-chain.
188 + Elimination of needlessly deep section levels, primarily in the
189 chapter Debian Archive, from which two new chapters were split out,
190 Binary packages and Source packages. What remained was reordered
191 properly, that is, some sect1s became sects etc.
192 + Several sections that were redundant, crufty or simply not designed
193 with any sort of vision, were rearranged according to the formula that
194 everything should be either in the same place or properly interlinked.
195 Some things remained split up between different chapters when they
196 talked about different aspects of files: their content, their syntax,
197 and their placement in the file system. In particular, see the new
198 sections about changelog files.
199 - Added Games/Simulation and Apps/Education to menu sub-policy
201 - Debian changelogs should be UTF-8 encoded. [C.2.2]
202 - shared libraries must be linked against all libraries that they
203 use symbols from in the same way that binaries are. [10.2]
204 - build-depends-indep need not be satisfied during clean
209 - packages providing the x-terminal-emulator virtual package
210 ought to ensure that they interpret the command line exactly
211 like xterm does. [11.8.3]
212 - Window managers compliant with the Window Manager Specification
213 Project may add 40 points for ranking in the alternatives [11.8.4]
217 - The section describing the Description: package field once again has
218 full details of the long description format. [3.4.2]
219 - Clarified that if a package has non-build-essential
220 build-dependencies, it should have them listed in the Build-Depends
221 and related fields (i.e. it's not merely optional). [4.2]
222 - When asked to restart a service that isn't already running,
223 the init script should start the service. [9.3.2]
224 - If the purpose of a package is to provide examples, then the
225 example files can be installed into <tt>/usr/share/doc/package</tt>
226 (rather than <tt>/usr/share/doc/package/examples</tt>). [12.6]
230 - It is no longer necessary to keep a log of changes to the upstream
231 sources in the copyright file. Instead, all such changes should be
232 documented in the changelog file. [12.7]
233 - <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>,
234 <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, and
235 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> must also be satisfied when the
236 clean target is called. [7.6]
237 - A new Apps/Science menu section is available [menu policy]
238 - debconf specification cleared up, various changes. [debconf
240 - It is no longer recommended to create symlinks from nonexistent
241 manual pages to undocumented(7). Missing manual pages for programs
242 are still a bug. [12.1]
246 - Packages no longer have to ask permission to call MAKEDEV in
247 postinst, merely notifying the user ought to be enough. [10.6]
248 - cryptographic software may now be included in the main
250 - task packages are no longer permitted; tasks are now created by a
251 special Tasks: field in the control file. [3.9]
252 - window managers that support netwm can now add 20 points when
253 they add themselves as an alternative for
254 /usr/bin/x-window-manager [11.8.4]
255 - The default compilation options have now changed, one should
256 provide debugging symbols in all cases, and optionally step
257 back optimization to -O0, depending on the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
258 environment variable. [10.1]
259 - Added mention of build-arch, build-indep, etc, in describing
260 the relationships with `Build-Depends', `Build-Conflicts',
261 `Build-Depends-Indep', and `Build-Conflicts-Indep'. May need to
262 review the new rules. [7.6, 4.8]
263 - Changed rules on how, and when, to invoke ldconfig in maintainer
264 scripts. Long rationale. [8]
265 - [Added the last note in 3.5.6 upgrading checklist item regarding
266 build rules, please see below]
270 - Emacs and TeX are no longer mandated by policy to be priority
271 standard packages [2.5]
272 - Programs that access docs need to do so via /usr/share/doc, and
273 not via /usr/doc/ as was the policy previously [11.5]
274 - Putting documentation in /usr/doc versus /usr/share/doc is now
275 a ``serious'' policy violation. [12.3]
276 - For web servers, one should not provide non-local access to the
277 /usr/share/doc hierarchy. If one can't provide access controls for
278 the http://localhost/doc/ directory, then it is preferred that one
279 ask permission to expose that information during the install. [11.5]
280 - There are new rules for build-indep/build-arch targets and
281 there is a new Build-Depend-Indep semantic. [7]
285 - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
286 alternative manpage names available; it should only use
287 symlinks or .so pages to do this [12.1]
288 - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
289 examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
290 by scripts; see section 10.7.3 for the whole story]
291 - Included a new section 10.9.1 describing the use of
292 dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
293 - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
294 packages just to change the Standards-Version!
295 - Plugins are no longer bound by all the rules of shared
297 - X Windows related things:
298 * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
300 * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [11.8.3]
301 * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
302 fonts for the X Window System [11.8.5]
303 * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [11.8.6]
304 * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
305 locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [11.8.7]
306 * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
307 OSF/Motif-linked ones [11.8.8]
311 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
312 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
313 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
315 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
316 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
321 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
322 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
323 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
324 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
325 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples as
330 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
331 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [11.8.6]
335 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
336 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [8.1]
340 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
341 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [11.8.5]
345 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
346 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
347 /etc/default/; see [9.3.2] for details
348 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
349 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
350 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
351 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [12.3]
352 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
357 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
358 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
359 and the other without [11.8.1]
363 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
364 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
365 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [10.1]
366 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
367 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
368 should always be generated for the upstream changes [12.8]
369 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (3.2)
370 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
371 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
373 - X server (virtual package xserver) [11.8.2]
374 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator) [11.8.3]
375 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
376 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
377 calculation guidelines) [11.8.4]
378 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch) [12.8.5]
379 - X application defaults [11.8.6]
380 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
381 has been clarified; see [11.8.7]
382 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
383 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
384 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
389 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
390 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
424 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
425 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
426 .la files must go in the run-time library package [10.2]
430 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
431 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
433 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
434 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [4.1]
435 - The location of the GPL has changed to
436 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
437 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
438 other major licenses [12.6]
439 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
440 include the .la files in the -dev packages [10.2]
441 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [10.8]
442 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
444 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
445 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [9.6; menu-policy]
446 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
447 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [11.3]
450 ** Please note that section numbers below this point may not be up to date **
456 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
457 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
458 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
459 Section 5 and Section 6.
460 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
461 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
462 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
463 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
464 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
466 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
467 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
468 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
469 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
470 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
471 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
472 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
473 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
474 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
475 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
476 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
482 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
483 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
484 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
485 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
487 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
488 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
489 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
492 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
493 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
494 installs shared libraries
495 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
499 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
500 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
501 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
503 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
504 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
507 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
508 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
509 file extension as the referenced file
511 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
512 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
514 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
515 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
516 start, stop, restart, force-reload
517 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
520 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
521 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
522 be installed into /etc/cron.d
524 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
525 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
526 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
527 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
530 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
531 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
534 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
535 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
536 reasonable default configuration
538 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
539 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
540 by all news servers and clients
542 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Window System:
543 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
544 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
545 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
546 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
548 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
549 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
552 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 1997
554 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
555 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
557 * updated section about `Configuration files':
558 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
560 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
564 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
567 where <arch> is one of the following:
568 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
570 * detailed rules for /usr/local
574 * editor/pager policy
580 * don't install shared libraries as executable
582 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
584 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 1997
586 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
591 * "Standard for Console Messages"
593 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
595 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
597 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 1996
599 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
603 * No hard links in source packages
605 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
607 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
611 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
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