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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 * Package version numbers may contain tildes, which sort before
58 anything, even the end of a part. [5.6.12]
59 * Scripts may assume that /bin/sh supports local (at a basic level)
60 and that its test builtin (if any) supports -a and -o binary
61 logical operators. [10.4]
62 * The substitution variable ${binary:Version} should be used in place
63 of ${Source-Version} for dependencies between packages of the same
65 * Substantial reorganization and renaming of sections in the Debian
66 menu structure. Packages with menu entries should be reviewed to
67 see if the menu section has been renamed or if one of the new
68 sections would be more appropriate. [menu policy]
69 * The Source field in a .changes file may contain a version number
70 in parentheses. [5.6.1]
71 * The acceptable values for the Urgency field are low, medium, high,
72 critical, or emergency. [5.6.17]
74 * Maintainer scripts must not be world writeable (up from a
75 should to a must) [6.1]
77 * Revert the cgi-lib change. [11.5]
80 * It is now possible to create shared libraries without
81 relocatable code (using -fPIC) in certain exceptional cases,
82 provided some procedures are followed, and for creating static
83 libraries with relocatable code (again, using -fPIC).
84 Discussion on debian-devel@lists.debian.org, getting a rough
85 consensus, and documenting it in README.Debian constitute most
86 of the process. [10.2]
87 * Packages should install any relevant files into the directories
88 /usr/include/X11/and /usr/lib/X11/, but if they do so, they
89 must pre-depend on x11-common (>= 1:7.0.0) [11.8.7]
92 * Packages shipping web server CGI files are expected to install
93 them in /usr/lib/cgi-lib/ directories. This location change
94 perhaps should be documented in NEWS [11.5]
95 * Web server packages should include a standard scriptAlias of
96 cgi-lib to /usr/lib/cgi-lib. [11.5]
97 * The version of FHS mandated by policy has been upped to
98 2.3. There should be no changes required for most packages,
99 though new top level directories /media, /srv, etc may be of
101 * All fields, apart from the Uploaders field, in the control file
102 are supposed to be a single logical line, which may be spread
103 over multiple physical lines (newline followed by space is
104 elided). However, any parser for the control file must allow
105 the Uploaders field to be spread over multiple physical lines
106 as well, to prepare for future changes. [ 5.1, 5.6.3 ]
107 * When scripts are installed into a directory in the system
108 PATH, the script name should not include an extension that
109 denotes the scripting language currently used to implement it.
111 * packages that invoke initscripts now must use invoke-rc.d to do
112 so since it also pays attention to run levels and other local
113 constraints. [ 9.3.3.2 ]
114 * We no longer use /usr/X11R6, since we have migrated away to
115 using Xorg paths. This means, for one thing, fonts live in
116 /usr/share/fonts/X11/ now, and /usr/X11R6 is gone.
117 [ 11.8.5.2, 11.8.7, etc]
121 * Recommend doc-base, and not menu, for registering package documentation.
122 * Run time support programs should live in subdirectories of
123 /usr/lib/ or /usr/share, and preferably the shared lib is named
124 the same as the package name (to avoid name collisions). [8.1]
125 * It is recommended that HTTP servers provide an alias /images to
126 allow packages to share image files with the web server [11.5]
129 + Prompting the user should be done using debconf. Non debconf
130 user prompts are now deprecated. [3.10.1]
134 - Restructuring causing shifts in section numbers and bumping of
135 the minor version number:
136 + Many packaging manual appendices that were integrated into policy
137 sections are now empty, and replaced with links to the Policy.
138 In particular, the appendices that included the list of control
139 fields were updated (new fields like Closes, Changed-By were added)
140 and the list of fields for each of control, .changes and .dsc files
141 is now in Policy, and they're marked mandatory, recommended or
142 optional based on the current practice and the behavior of the
143 deb-building tool-chain.
144 + Elimination of needlessly deep section levels, primarily in the
145 chapter Debian Archive, from which two new chapters were split out,
146 Binary packages and Source packages. What remained was reordered
147 properly, that is, some sect1s became sects etc.
148 + Several sections that were redundant, crufty or simply not designed
149 with any sort of vision, were rearranged according to the formula that
150 everything should be either in the same place or properly interlinked.
151 Some things remained split up between different chapters when they
152 talked about different aspects of files: their content, their syntax,
153 and their placement in the file system. In particular, see the new
154 sections about changelog files.
155 - Added Games/Simulation and Apps/Education to menu sub-policy
157 - Debian changelogs should be UTF-8 encoded. [C.2.2]
158 - shared libraries must be linked against all libraries that they
159 use symbols from in the same way that binaries are. [10.2]
160 - build-depends-indep need not be satisfied during clean
165 - packages providing the x-terminal-emulator virtual package
166 ought to ensure that they interpret the command line exactly
167 like xterm does. [11.8.3]
168 - Window managers compliant with the Window Manager Specification
169 Project may add 40 points for ranking in the alternatives [11.8.4]
174 - The section describing the Description: package field once again has
175 full details of the long description format. [3.4.2]
176 - Clarified that if a package has non-build-essential
177 build-dependencies, it should have them listed in the Build-Depends
178 and related fields (i.e. it's not merely optional). [4.2]
179 - When asked to restart a service that isn't already running,
180 the init script should start the service. [9.3.2]
181 - If the purpose of a package is to provide examples, then the
182 example files can be installed into <tt>/usr/share/doc/package</tt>
183 (rather than <tt>/usr/share/doc/package/examples</tt>). [12.6]
188 - It is no longer necessary to keep a log of changes to the upstream
189 sources in the copyright file. Instead, all such changes should be
190 documented in the changelog file. [12.7]
191 - <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>,
192 <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, and
193 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> must also be satisfied when the
194 clean target is called. [7.6]
195 - A new Apps/Science menu section is available [menu policy]
196 - debconf specification cleared up, various changes. [debconf
198 - It is no longer recommended to create symlinks from nonexistent
199 manual pages to undocumented(7). Missing manual pages for programs
200 are still a bug. [12.1]
204 - Packages no longer have to ask permission to call MAKEDEV in
205 postinst, merely notifying the user ought to be enough. [10.6]
206 - cryptographic software may now be included in the main
208 - task packages are no longer permitted; tasks are now created by a
209 special Tasks: field in the control file. [3.9]
210 - window managers that support netwm can now add 20 points when
211 they add themselves as an alternative for
212 /usr/bin/x-window-manager [11.8.4]
213 - The default compilation options have now changed, one should
214 provide debugging symbols in all cases, and optionally step
215 back optimization to -O0, depending on the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
216 environment variable. [10.1]
217 - Added mention of build-arch, build-indep, etc, in describing
218 the relationships with `Build-Depends', `Build-Conflicts',
219 `Build-Depends-Indep', and `Build-Conflicts-Indep'. May need to
220 review the new rules. [7.6, 4.8]
221 - Changed rules on how, and when, to invoke ldconfig in maintainer
222 scripts. Long rationale. [8]
223 - [Added the last note in 3.5.6 upgrading checklist item regarding
224 build rules, please see below]
228 - Emacs and TeX are no longer mandated by policy to be priority
229 standard packages [2.5]
230 - Programs that access docs need to do so via /usr/share/doc, and
231 not via /usr/doc/ as was the policy previously [11.5]
232 - Putting documentation in /usr/doc versus /usr/share/doc is now
233 a ``serious'' policy violation. [12.3]
234 - For web servers, one should not provide non-local access to the
235 /usr/share/doc hierarchy. If one can't provide access controls for
236 the http://localhost/doc/ directory, then it is preferred that one
237 ask permission to expose that information during the install. [11.5]
238 - There are new rules for build-indep/build-arch targets and
239 there is a new Build-Depend-Indep semantic. [7]
244 - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
245 alternative manpage names available; it should only use
246 symlinks or .so pages to do this [12.1]
247 - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
248 examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
249 by scripts; see section 10.7.3 for the whole story]
250 - Included a new section 10.9.1 describing the use of
251 dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
252 - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
253 packages just to change the Standards-Version!
254 - Plugins are no longer bound by all the rules of shared
256 - X Windows related things:
257 * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
259 * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [11.8.3]
260 * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
261 fonts for the X Window System [11.8.5]
262 * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [11.8.6]
263 * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
264 locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [11.8.7]
265 * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
266 OSF/Motif-linked ones [11.8.8]
271 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
272 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
273 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
275 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
276 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
282 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
283 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
284 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
285 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
286 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples as
292 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
293 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [11.8.6]
298 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
299 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [8.1]
304 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
305 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [11.8.5]
310 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
311 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
312 /etc/default/; see [9.3.2] for details
313 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
314 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
315 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
316 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [12.3]
317 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
323 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
324 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
325 and the other without [11.8.1]
330 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
331 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
332 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [10.1]
333 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
334 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
335 should always be generated for the upstream changes [12.8]
336 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (3.2)
337 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
338 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
340 - X server (virtual package xserver) [11.8.2]
341 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator) [11.8.3]
342 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
343 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
344 calculation guidelines) [11.8.4]
345 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch) [12.8.5]
346 - X application defaults [11.8.6]
347 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
348 has been clarified; see [11.8.7]
349 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
350 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
351 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
357 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
358 etc. Should not affect many packages [7.1]
363 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
364 /usr/share/doc/<package>, to be maintained by postinst
365 and prerm scripts. Details are in [defunct]
366 - Introduced source dependencies (Build-Depends, etc.) [7.1, 7.6]
367 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
368 (Packages should not be touching this directory, but should use
369 update-rc.d instead) [9.3.4]
370 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
371 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
372 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
373 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
374 incompatible way.) [9.3.3]
375 - Architecture-specific examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples
376 with symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
377 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself [12.7]
378 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
380 - Added MIME sub-policy document [9.7; mime-policy]
381 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR [12.4]
382 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
383 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
385 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
386 version should also be included. (Such a version may be prepared
387 using lynx -dump -nolist.) [12.7]
388 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
394 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
395 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
396 .la files must go in the run-time library package [10.2]
401 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
402 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
404 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
405 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [4.1]
406 - The location of the GPL has changed to
407 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
408 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
409 other major licenses [12.6]
410 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
411 include the .la files in the -dev packages [10.2]
412 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [10.8]
413 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
415 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
416 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [9.6; menu-policy]
417 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
418 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [11.3]
421 ** Please note that section numbers below this point may not be up to date **
427 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
428 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
429 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
430 Section 5 and Section 6.
431 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
432 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
433 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
434 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
435 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
437 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
438 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
439 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
440 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
441 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
442 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
443 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
444 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
445 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
446 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
447 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
453 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
454 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
455 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
456 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
458 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
459 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
460 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
463 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
464 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
465 installs shared libraries
466 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
470 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
471 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
472 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
474 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
475 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
478 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
479 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
480 file extension as the referenced file
482 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
483 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
485 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
486 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
487 start, stop, restart, force-reload
488 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
491 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
492 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
493 be installed into /etc/cron.d
495 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
496 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
497 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
498 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
501 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
502 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
505 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
506 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
507 reasonable default configuration
509 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
510 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
511 by all news servers and clients
513 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Window System:
514 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
515 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
516 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
517 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
519 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
520 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
523 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 1997
525 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
526 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
528 * updated section about `Configuration files':
529 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
531 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
535 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
538 where <arch> is one of the following:
539 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
541 * detailed rules for /usr/local
545 * editor/pager policy
551 * don't install shared libraries as executable
553 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
555 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 1997
557 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
562 * "Standard for Console Messages"
564 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
566 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
568 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 1996
570 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
574 * No hard links in source packages
576 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
578 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
582 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
590 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
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