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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
8 Created On Node : tiamat.datasync.com
9 Last Modified By : Manoj Srivastava
10 Last Modified On : Fri Jan 19 14:01:36 2001
11 Last Machine Used: glaurung.green-gryphon.com
13 Status : Unknown, Use with caution!
20 <title>Policy checklist for upgrading your packages</title>
24 <h1>Policy checklist for upgrading your packages</h1>
26 <h2>About the checklist</h2>
29 The checklist below has been created to simplify the upgrading process
30 of old packages. Note, that this list is not `official.' If you have
31 doubts about a certain topic, if you need more details, or if you
32 think some other package does not comply with policy, please refer to
37 Here is how the check list works: Check out which policy version your
38 packages complies with currently. Than move upwards until the top and
39 check which of the items on the list might concern your package. If an
40 item does not give you enough details, please check out the Policy
44 <h2>The checklist</h2>
50 - If your package has a daemon startup script in /etc/init.d/,
51 and that script has parameters a system administrator may need,
52 you need to modify the script to read values from a conffile
53 placed in /etc/default/ directory. This conffile maybe sourced
54 by the init.d script to determine the sonfigurable values (and
55 the conffile may contain only variable settings and comments).
56 - Files in /usr/share/doc may not be referenced by any
57 program. If such files are needed, they must be placed in
58 /usr/share/package-name/, and symbolic links created as required
59 in /usr/share/doc/package-name/
64 - A package of priority standard or higher may provide two
65 binaries, one compiled with support for the X Window System,
66 and the other without.
72 - By default executables should not be built with the debugging
73 option -g. Instead, it is recommended to support building the
74 package with debugging information optionally. Please look at the
75 examples using DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS in the policy manual.
76 - Policy for packages where the upstream uses html changelog
77 files has been expanded. In short, a plain text changelog file
78 should always be generated for the upstream changes.
79 - Please note that the new release of the X window system (4.x)
80 shall probably need sweeping changes in policy.
81 - Policy for packages providing an X server has been codified
82 (formalizes existing practice - use virtual package xserver)
83 - Policy for packages providing an X terminal emulator has been
84 codified (use virtual package x-terminal-emulator)
85 - Policy for packages providing an X window manager has been
86 codified (use virtual package x-window-manager, and also as an
87 alternative for /usr/bin/x-window-manager. The policy has
88 guidelines on how to calculate priority)
89 - Policy for packages providing an X fonts has been
90 codified. Please look into the manual for details; this section
91 has been written from scratch.
92 - Policy for packages using the X Window System and FHS issues
93 has been clarified. Please read the manual for details.
94 - Policy for packages providing an X application default has been
96 - No package may contain or make hard links to conffiles.
99 - Noted that newer dpkg versions do not require extreme care in
100 always creating the shared lib before the symlink, so the unpack
106 - Correction to semantics of architecture lists in Build-Depends
107 etc. Should not affect many packages.
112 - /usr/doc/<package> has to be a symlink pointing to
113 /usr/share/doc/<package>. This symlink has to be
114 maintained by postinst and prerm, because dpkg will cause
115 problems otherwise. Create/remote the symlinks using debhelper
116 or see section "6.4. Accessing the documentation" for more
118 - Introduced source dependencies. (Whereas this ought to demand a
119 major policy number rise, we've only just had one of them, so
120 I'm going to use a minor number instead.)
121 - /etc/rc.boot has been deprecated in favour of /etc/rcS.d.
122 Packages should not be touching this directory, anyway, but
123 should use update-rc.d instead.
124 - update-rc.d is now the *only* allowable way of accessing the
125 /etc/rc?.d/[SK]??* links. Any scripts which manipulate them
126 directly must be changed to use update-rc.d instead. (This is
127 because the file-rc package handles this information in an
129 - Compiled examples go in /usr/lib/<package>/examples with
130 symlinks from /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples/* or from
131 /usr/share/doc/<package>/examples itself.
132 - Updated FHS to a 2.1 draft; this reverts /var/state to
134 - Added MIME sub-policy document.
135 - VISUAL is allowed as a (higher priority) alternative to EDITOR.
136 - Modified liblockfile description, which affects
137 mailbox-accessing programs. Please see the policy document for
139 - If a package provides a changelog in HTML format, a text-only
140 version should also be included. Such a version may be prepared
141 using lynx -dump -nolist.)
144 - Description of how to handle version numbers based on dates
145 added: see section 5.1.
151 - Added the clarification that the .la files are essential for the
152 packages using libtool's libltdl library, in which case the
153 .la files must go in the run-time library package.
159 - Debian formally moves from the FSSTND to the FHS. This is a
160 major change, and the implications of this move are probably
162 - Only 3 digits of the Standards version need be included in
163 control files, though all four digits are still permitted.
164 - The location of the GPL has changed to
165 /usr/share/common-licenses. This may require changing the
166 copyright files to point to the correct location of the GPL and
168 - Packages that use libtool to create shared libraries must
169 include the .la files in the -dev packages.
170 - Use logrotate to rotate log files
171 - section 5.8 has been rewritten (Programs for the X Window
173 - There is now anassociated menu policy, in a separate document,
174 that carries the full weight of Debian policy.
175 - The files `/var/run/utmp', `/var/log/wtmp' and
176 `/var/log/lastlog' must be installed writeable by group
177 utmp. Programs who need to modify those files must be installed
184 - Rearranged the manual to create a new Section 4, Files
185 + Section 3.3 ("Files") was moved to Section 4. The Sections
186 that were Section 4 and Section 5 were moved down to become
187 Section 5 and Section 6.
188 + What was Section 5.5 ("Log files") is now a subsection of the
189 new Section 4 ("Files"), becoming section 4.8, placed after
190 "Configuration files", moving the Section 4.8 ("Permissions
191 and owners") to Section 4.9. All subsections of the old
192 Section 5 after 5.5 were moved down to fill in the number
194 - Modified the section about changelog files to accommodate
195 upstream changelogs which were formatted as HTML/ These
196 upstream changelog files should now be accessible as
197 /usr/doc/package/changelog.html.gz
198 + Symlinks are permissible to link the real, or upstream,
199 changelog name to the Debian mandated name.
200 - Clarified that HTML documentation should be present in some
201 package, though not necessarily the main binary package.
202 - Corrected all references to the location of the copyright
203 files. The correct location is /usr/doc/package/copyright
204 - Ratified the architecture specification strings to cater to the
210 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic links:
211 + symbolic links within a toplevel directory should be relative,
212 symbolic links between toplevel directories should be absolute
213 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 2)
215 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
216 + manpages for games should be installed in /usr/man/man6
217 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue#6, topic 3)
220 - Updated prefix of chapter 12, Shared Libraries:
221 ldconfig must be called in the postinst script if the package
222 installs shared libraries
223 (cf., Policy Weekly Issue #6, fixes:bug#20515)
227 - Updated section 3.3.4 Scripts:
228 + /bin/sh may be any POSIX compatible shell
229 + scripts including bashisms have to specify /bin/bash as
231 + scripts which create files in world-writable directories
232 (e.g., in /tmp) should use tempfile or mktemp for creating
235 - Updated section 3.3.5 Symbolic Links:
236 + symbolic links referencing compressed files must have the same
237 file extension as the referenced file
239 - Updated section 3.3.6 Device files:
240 + /dev/tty* serial devices should be used instead of /dev/cu*
242 - Updated section 3.4.2 Writing the scripts [in /etc/init.d]:
243 + all /etc/init.d scripts have to provide the following options:
244 start, stop, restart, force-reload
245 + the reload option is optional and must never stop and restart
248 - Updated section 3.5 Cron jobs:
249 + cron jobs that need to be executed more often than daily should
250 be installed into /etc/cron.d
252 - Updated section 3.7 Menus:
253 + removed section about how to register HTML docs to `menu'
254 (the corresponding section in 4.4, Web servers and applications,
255 has been removed in policy 2.2.0.0 already, so this one was
258 - New section 3.8 Keyboard configuration:
259 + details about how the backspace and delete keys should be
262 - New section 3.9 Environment variables:
263 + no program must depend on environment variables to get a
264 reasonable default configuration
266 - New section 4.6 News system configuration:
267 + /etc/news/organization and /etc/news/server should be supported
268 by all news servers and clients
270 - Updated section 4.7 Programs for the X Windows system:
271 + programs requiring a non-free Motif library should be provided
272 as foo-smotif and foo-dmotif package
273 + if lesstif works reliably for such program, it should be linked
274 against lesstif and not against a non-free Motif library
276 - Updated section 4.9 Games:
277 + games for X Windows have to be installed in /usr/games, just as
280 2.3.0.1, 2.3.0.0 Sep 97
282 * new section `4.2 Daemons' including rules for
283 /etc/services, /etc/protocols, /etc/rpc, and /etc/inetd.conf
285 * updated section about `Configuration files':
286 packages may not touch other packages' configuration files
288 * MUAs and MTAs have to use liblockfile
292 * added section 4.1 `Architecture specification strings':
295 where <arch> is one of the following:
296 i386, alpha, arm, m68k, powerpc, sparc.
298 * detailed rules for /usr/local
302 * editor/pager policy
308 * don't install shared libraries as executable
310 * app-defaults files may not be conffiles
312 2.1.3.2, 2.1.3.1, 2.1.3.0 Mar 97
314 * two programs with different functionality must not have the
319 * "Standard for Console Messages"
321 * Libraries should be compiled with `-D_REENTRANT'
323 * Libraries should be stripped with "strip --strip-unneeded"
325 2.1.2.2, 2.1.2.1, 2.1.2.0 Nov 96
327 * Some changes WRT shared libraries
331 * No hard links in source packages
333 * Do not use dpkg-divert or update-alternatives without consultation
335 * Shared libraries must be installed stripped
339 * Upstream changelog must be installed too
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