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8 <title>Policy checklist for upgrading your packages</title>
12 <h1>Policy checklist for upgrading your packages</h1>
14 <h2>About the checklist</h2>
17 The checklist below has been created to simplify the upgrading process
18 of old packages. Note that this list is not `official'; it simply
19 gives an indication of what has changed and whether you are likely to
20 need to make changes to your package in light of this. If you have
21 doubts about a certain topic, if you need more details, or if you
22 think some other package does not comply with policy, please refer to
23 the Policy Manual itself. All of the changes from version 3.0.0
24 onwards indicate which section of the Policy Manual discusses the
25 issue: [3.4] means section 3.4. The section numbering changed when
26 the packaging manual was incorporated into policy; the section numbers
27 used below refer to the current version.
31 Here is how the check list works: Check which policy version your
32 package complies with currently (indicated in the "Standards-Version"
33 field of the source package). Then move upwards until the top and
34 check which of the items on the list might concern your package. Note
35 which sections of policy discuss this, and then check out the Policy
36 Manual for details. If you are upgrading from Policy version < 2.5.0,
37 it may be easier to check through the whole of policy instead of
38 picking your way through this list.
41 <h2>The checklist</h2>
46 * The GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3 is included in
47 common-licenses and should be referenced from there. [12.5]
51 * Care should be taken when adding functionality to essential and
52 such additions create an obligation to support that functionality
53 in essential forever unless significant work is done. [3.8]
54 * Changelog files must be encoded in UTF-8. [4.4]
55 * Tighten some format requirements for changelog files from a should
57 * Remove alternative changelog formats. Debian only supports one
58 changelog format for the Debian Archive. [4.4.1]
59 * New nocheck option for DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS indicating any build-time
60 test suite provided by the package should not be run. [4.9.1]
61 * All control files must be encoded in UTF-8. [5.1]
62 * debian/control allows comment lines starting with # with no
63 preceding whitespace. [5.2]
64 * Init scripts ending in .sh are not handled specially. They are not
65 sourced and are not guaranteed to be run by /bin/sh regardless of
66 the #! line. This brings Policy in line with the long-standing
67 behavior of the init system in Debian. [9.3]
68 * The start action of an init script must exit successfully and not
69 start the daemon again if it's already running. [9.3.2]
70 * /var/run and /var/lock may be mounted as temporary filesystems, and
71 init scripts must therefore create any necessary subdirectories
73 * /bin/sh scripts may assume that local can take multiple variable
74 arguments and supports assignment. [10.4]
75 * User mailboxes may be mode 600 and owned by the user rather than
76 mode 660, owned by user, and group mail. [11.6]
80 * The base section has been removed. contrib and non-free have been
81 removed from the section list; they are only categories. The base
82 system is now defined by priority. [2.4, 3.7]
83 * If dpkg-source -x doesn't provide the source that will be compiled,
84 a debian/rules patch target is recommended and should do whatever
85 else is necessary. [4.9]
86 * Standardized the format of DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS. Specified permitted
87 characters for tags, required that tags be whitespace-separated,
88 allowed packages to assume non-conflicting tags, and required
89 unknown flags be ignored. [4.9.1, 10.1]
90 * Added parallel=n to the standardized DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS tags,
91 indicating that a package should be built using up to n parallel
92 processes if the package supports it [4.9.1]
93 * Debian packages should not use convenience copies of code from other
94 packages unless the included package is explicitly intended to be
96 * If dpkg-source -x doesn't produce source ready for editing and
97 building with dpkg-buildpackage, packages should include a
98 debian/README.source file explaining how to generate the patched
99 source, add a new modification, and remove an existing
100 modification. This file may also be used to document packaging a
101 new upstream release and any other complexity of the Debian build
103 * The Uploaders field in debian/control may be wrapped. [5.6.3]
104 * An empty Debian revision is equivalent to a Debian revision of 0 in
105 a version number. [5.6.12]
106 * New Homepage field for upstream web sites. [5.6.23]
107 * The Breaks field declares that this package breaks another and
108 prevents installation of the breaking package unless the package
109 named in Breaks is deconfigured first. This field should not be
110 used until the dpkg in Debian stable supports it. [6.5, 6.6, 7]
111 * Clarify which files should go into a shared library package, into a
112 separate package, or into the -dev package. Suggest -tools instead
113 of -runtime for runtime support programs, since that naming is more
114 common in Debian. [8.1, 8.2]
115 * Files in /etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly} must be
116 configuration files (upgraded from should). Mention the hourly
118 * Packages providing /etc/X11/Xresources files need not conflict with
119 xbase (<< 3.3.2.3a-2), which is long-obsolete. [11.8.6]
120 * Manual pages in locale-specific directories should use either the
121 legacy encoding for that directory or UTF-8. Country names should
122 not be included in locale-specific manual page directories unless
123 indicating a significant difference in the language. All
124 characters in the manual page source should be representable in the
125 legacy encoding for a locale even if the man page is encoded in
127 * The Apache 2.0 license is now in common-licenses and should be
128 referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
129 * Packages in contrib and non-free should state in the copyright file
130 that the package is not part of Debian GNU/Linux and briefly
132 * Underscore (_) is allowed in debconf template names. [debconf]
136 * Package version numbers may contain tildes, which sort before
137 anything, even the end of a part. [5.6.12]
138 * Scripts may assume that /bin/sh supports local (at a basic level)
139 and that its test builtin (if any) supports -a and -o binary
140 logical operators. [10.4]
141 * The substitution variable ${binary:Version} should be used in place
142 of ${Source-Version} for dependencies between packages of the same
144 * Substantial reorganization and renaming of sections in the Debian
145 menu structure. Packages with menu entries should be reviewed to
146 see if the menu section has been renamed or if one of the new
147 sections would be more appropriate. [menu policy]
148 * The Source field in a .changes file may contain a version number
149 in parentheses. [5.6.1]
150 * The acceptable values for the Urgency field are low, medium, high,
151 critical, or emergency. [5.6.17]
152 * The shlibs file now allows an optional type field, indicating the
153 type of package for which the line is valid. The only currently
154 supported type is udeb, used with packages for the Debian
156 * Packages following the Debian Configuration management
157 specification must allow for translation of their messages by using
158 a gettext-based system such as po-debconf. [3.9.1]
159 * GFDL 1.2, GPL 3, and LGPL 3 are now in common-licenses and should
160 be referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
164 * Maintainer scripts must not be world writeable (up from a
165 should to a must) [6.1]
169 * Revert the cgi-lib change. [11.5]
173 * It is now possible to create shared libraries without
174 relocatable code (using -fPIC) in certain exceptional cases,
175 provided some procedures are followed, and for creating static
176 libraries with relocatable code (again, using -fPIC).
177 Discussion on debian-devel@lists.debian.org, getting a rough
178 consensus, and documenting it in README.Debian constitute most
179 of the process. [10.2]
180 * Packages should install any relevant files into the directories
181 /usr/include/X11/and /usr/lib/X11/, but if they do so, they
182 must pre-depend on x11-common (>= 1:7.0.0) [11.8.7]
186 * Packages shipping web server CGI files are expected to install
187 them in /usr/lib/cgi-lib/ directories. This location change
188 perhaps should be documented in NEWS [11.5]
189 * Web server packages should include a standard scriptAlias of
190 cgi-lib to /usr/lib/cgi-lib. [11.5]
191 * The version of FHS mandated by policy has been upped to
192 2.3. There should be no changes required for most packages,
193 though new top level directories /media, /srv, etc may be of
195 * All fields, apart from the Uploaders field, in the control file
196 are supposed to be a single logical line, which may be spread
197 over multiple physical lines (newline followed by space is
198 elided). However, any parser for the control file must allow
199 the Uploaders field to be spread over multiple physical lines
200 as well, to prepare for future changes. [ 5.1, 5.6.3 ]
201 * When scripts are installed into a directory in the system
202 PATH, the script name should not include an extension that
203 denotes the scripting language currently used to implement it.
205 * packages that invoke initscripts now must use invoke-rc.d to do
206 so since it also pays attention to run levels and other local
207 constraints. [ 9.3.3.2 ]
208 * We no longer use /usr/X11R6, since we have migrated away to
209 using Xorg paths. This means, for one thing, fonts live in
210 /usr/share/fonts/X11/ now, and /usr/X11R6 is gone.
211 [ 11.8.5.2, 11.8.7, etc]
215 * Recommend doc-base, and not menu, for registering package documentation.
216 * Run time support programs should live in subdirectories of
217 /usr/lib/ or /usr/share, and preferably the shared lib is named
218 the same as the package name (to avoid name collisions). [8.1]
219 * It is recommended that HTTP servers provide an alias /images to
220 allow packages to share image files with the web server [11.5]
224 + Prompting the user should be done using debconf. Non debconf
225 user prompts are now deprecated. [3.10.1]
229 - Restructuring causing shifts in section numbers and bumping of
230 the minor version number:
231 + Many packaging manual appendices that were integrated into policy
232 sections are now empty, and replaced with links to the Policy.
233 In particular, the appendices that included the list of control
234 fields were updated (new fields like Closes, Changed-By were added)
235 and the list of fields for each of control, .changes and .dsc files
236 is now in Policy, and they're marked mandatory, recommended or
237 optional based on the current practice and the behavior of the
238 deb-building tool-chain.
239 + Elimination of needlessly deep section levels, primarily in the
240 chapter Debian Archive, from which two new chapters were split out,
241 Binary packages and Source packages. What remained was reordered
242 properly, that is, some sect1s became sects etc.
243 + Several sections that were redundant, crufty or simply not designed
244 with any sort of vision, were rearranged according to the formula that
245 everything should be either in the same place or properly interlinked.
246 Some things remained split up between different chapters when they
247 talked about different aspects of files: their content, their syntax,
248 and their placement in the file system. In particular, see the new
249 sections about changelog files.
250 - Added Games/Simulation and Apps/Education to menu sub-policy
252 - Debian changelogs should be UTF-8 encoded. [C.2.2]
253 - shared libraries must be linked against all libraries that they
254 use symbols from in the same way that binaries are. [10.2]
255 - build-depends-indep need not be satisfied during clean
260 - packages providing the x-terminal-emulator virtual package
261 ought to ensure that they interpret the command line exactly
262 like xterm does. [11.8.3]
263 - Window managers compliant with the Window Manager Specification
264 Project may add 40 points for ranking in the alternatives [11.8.4]
268 - The section describing the Description: package field once again has
269 full details of the long description format. [3.4.2]
270 - Clarified that if a package has non-build-essential
271 build-dependencies, it should have them listed in the Build-Depends
272 and related fields (i.e. it's not merely optional). [4.2]
273 - When asked to restart a service that isn't already running,
274 the init script should start the service. [9.3.2]
275 - If the purpose of a package is to provide examples, then the
276 example files can be installed into <tt>/usr/share/doc/package</tt>
277 (rather than <tt>/usr/share/doc/package/examples</tt>). [12.6]
281 - It is no longer necessary to keep a log of changes to the upstream
282 sources in the copyright file. Instead, all such changes should be
283 documented in the changelog file. [12.7]
284 - <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>,
285 <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, and
286 <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> must also be satisfied when the
287 clean target is called. [7.6]
288 - A new Apps/Science menu section is available [menu policy]
289 - debconf specification cleared up, various changes. [debconf
291 - It is no longer recommended to create symlinks from nonexistent
292 manual pages to undocumented(7). Missing manual pages for programs
293 are still a bug. [12.1]
297 - Packages no longer have to ask permission to call MAKEDEV in
298 postinst, merely notifying the user ought to be enough. [10.6]
299 - cryptographic software may now be included in the main
301 - task packages are no longer permitted; tasks are now created by a
302 special Tasks: field in the control file. [3.9]
303 - window managers that support netwm can now add 20 points when
304 they add themselves as an alternative for
305 /usr/bin/x-window-manager [11.8.4]
306 - The default compilation options have now changed, one should
307 provide debugging symbols in all cases, and optionally step
308 back optimization to -O0, depending on the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
309 environment variable. [10.1]
310 - Added mention of build-arch, build-indep, etc, in describing
311 the relationships with `Build-Depends', `Build-Conflicts',
312 `Build-Depends-Indep', and `Build-Conflicts-Indep'. May need to
313 review the new rules. [7.6, 4.8]
314 - Changed rules on how, and when, to invoke ldconfig in maintainer
315 scripts. Long rationale. [8]
316 - [Added the last note in 3.5.6 upgrading checklist item regarding
317 build rules, please see below]
321 - Emacs and TeX are no longer mandated by policy to be priority
322 standard packages [2.5]
323 - Programs that access docs need to do so via /usr/share/doc, and
324 not via /usr/doc/ as was the policy previously [11.5]
325 - Putting documentation in /usr/doc versus /usr/share/doc is now
326 a ``serious'' policy violation. [12.3]
327 - For web servers, one should not provide non-local access to the
328 /usr/share/doc hierarchy. If one can't provide access controls for
329 the http://localhost/doc/ directory, then it is preferred that one
330 ask permission to expose that information during the install. [11.5]
331 - There are new rules for build-indep/build-arch targets and
332 there is a new Build-Depend-Indep semantic. [7]
336 - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
337 alternative manpage names available; it should only use
338 symlinks or .so pages to do this [12.1]
339 - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
340 examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
341 by scripts; see section 10.7.3 for the whole story]
342 - Included a new section 10.9.1 describing the use of
343 dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
344 - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
345 packages just to change the Standards-Version!
346 - Plugins are no longer bound by all the rules of shared
348 - X Windows related things:
349 * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
351 * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [11.8.3]
352 * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
353 fonts for the X Window System [11.8.5]
354 * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [11.8.6]
355 * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
356 locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [11.8.7]
357 * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
358 OSF/Motif-linked ones [11.8.8]
362 - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
363 /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
364 access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
366 - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
367 programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
372 - Build-Depends arch syntax has been changed to be less
373 ambiguous. This should not affect any current packages [7.1]
374 - Examples and templates files for use by scripts should now live
375 in /usr/share/<package> or /usr/lib/<package>, with
376 symbolic links from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples as
381 - X app-defaults directory has moved from
382 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults to /etc/X11/app-defaults [11.8.6]
386 - dpkg-shlibdeps now uses objdump, so shared libraries have to be
387 run through dpkg-shlibdeps as well as executables [8.1]
391 - Font packages for the X Window System must now declare a
392 dependency on xutils (>= 4.0.2) [11.8.5]
396 - Daemon startup scripts in /etc/init.d/ should not contain
397 modifiable parameters; these should be moved to a file in
398 /etc/default/; see [9.3.2] for details
399 - Files in /usr/share/doc must not be referenced by any
400 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
401 /usr/share/<package>/, and symbolic links created as required
402 in /usr/share/doc/<package>/ [12.3]
403 - Much of the packaging manual has now been imported into the
408 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
409 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
410 and the other without [11.8.1]
414 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
415 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
416 package with debugging information optionally. Details in [10.1]
417 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses HTML changelog
418 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
419 should always be generated for the upstream changes [12.8]
420 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (3.2)
421 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy
422 - Policy for packages providing the following X-based features
424 - X server (virtual package xserver) [11.8.2]
425 - X terminal emulator (virtual package x-terminal-emulator) [11.8.3]
426 - X window manager (virtual package x-window-manager, and
427 /usr/bin/x-window-manager alternative, with priority
428 calculation guidelines) [11.8.4]
429 - X fonts (this section has been written from scratch) [12.8.5]
430 - X application defaults [11.8.6]
431 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
432 has been clarified; see [11.8.7]
433 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles [11.7.3]
434 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
435 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
440 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
441 etc. Should not affect many packages [7.1]
445 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
446 /usr/share/doc/<package>, to be maintained by postinst
447 and prerm scripts. Details are in [defunct]
448 - Introduced source dependencies (Build-Depends, etc.) [7.1, 7.6]
449 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
450 (Packages should not be touching this directory, but should use
451 update-rc.d instead) [9.3.4]
452 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
453 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
454 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
455 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
456 incompatible way.) [9.3.3]
457 - Architecture-specific examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples
458 with symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
459 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself [12.7]
460 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
462 - Added MIME sub-policy document [9.7; mime-policy]
463 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR [12.4]
464 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
465 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
467 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
468 version should also be included. (Such a version may be prepared
469 using lynx -dump -nolist.) [12.7]
470 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
475 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
476 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
477 .la files must go in the run-time library package [10.2]
481 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
482 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
484 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
485 control files, though all four digits are still permitted. [4.1]
486 - The location of the GPL has changed to
487 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
488 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
489 other major licenses [12.6]
490 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
491 include the .la files in the -dev packages [10.2]
492 - Use logrotate to rotate log files [10.8]
493 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
495 - There is now an associated menu policy, in a separate document,
496 that carries the full weight of Debian policy [9.6; menu-policy]
497 - Programs which need to modify the files /var/run/utmp,
498 /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/lastlog must be installed setgid utmp [11.3]
501 ** Please note that section numbers below this point may not be up to date **
507 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
508 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
509 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
510 Section 5 and Section 6.
511 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
512 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
513 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
514 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
515 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
517 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
518 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
519 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
520 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
521 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
522 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
523 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
524 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
525 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
526 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
527 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
533 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
534 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
535 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
536 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
538 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
539 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
540 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
543 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
544 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
545 installs shared libraries
546 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
550 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
551 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
552 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
554 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
555 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
558 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
559 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
560 file extension as the referenced file
562 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
563 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
565 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
566 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
567 start, stop, restart, force-reload
568 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
571 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
572 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
573 be installed into /etc/cron.d
575 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
576 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
577 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
578 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
581 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
582 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
585 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
586 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
587 reasonable default configuration
589 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
590 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
591 by all news servers and clients
593 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Window System:
594 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
595 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
596 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
597 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
599 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
600 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
603 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 1997
605 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
606 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
608 * updated section about `Configuration files':
609 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
611 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
615 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
618 where <arch> is one of the following:
619 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
621 * detailed rules for /usr/local
625 * editor/pager policy
631 * don't install shared libraries as executable
633 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
635 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 1997
637 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
642 * "Standard for Console Messages"
644 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
646 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
648 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 1996
650 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
654 * No hard links in source packages
656 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
658 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
662 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
670 <!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
674 sgml-live-element-indicator: t