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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | SEE ALSO | AUTHORS | COLOPHON |
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debhelper(7) Debhelper debhelper(7)
debhelper-compat-upgrade-checklist - Upgrade checklist for
supported debhelper compat levels
This document is an upgrade checklist of all the supported
debhelper compat levels. It also lists all the supported
debhelper compat levels.
Information about how to declare the compat level is in
"COMPATIBILITY LEVELS" in debhelper(7).
If you are upgrading from a (now) obsolete compat level, then
please refer to debhelper-obsolete-compat(7).
Upgrade checklist for supported compatibility levels
These are the available compatibility levels:
v15 This compatibility level is still open for development; use
with caution.
Changes from v14 are:
- The dh_auto_install tool no longer defaults to
--destdir=debian/package for source packages only
producing a single binary. If this behaviour is
wanted, the package should explicitly activate the
single-binary dh addon (e.g., by adding dh-sequence-
single-binary to Build-Depends) or pass --destdir to
dh_auto_install.
The rationale for this change is to avoid "surprises"
when adding a second binary package later.
Previously, debhelper would silently change behaviour
often resulting in empty binary packages being
uploaded to the archive by mistake. With the new
behaviour, the single-binary addon will detect the
mismatch and warn the maintainer of what is about to
happen.
- It is now an error to use package-less versions of
debhelper configuration files when there are 2 or
more binary packages listed in debian/control in most
cases. Legacy files should be renamed to
debian/package.foo (from debian/foo) where package is
the first binary package listed in debian/control.
The primary exception to this change are files such
as debian/changelog, debian/NEWS, and
debian/copyright, where the same file is used for all
packages by default. These cases will remain
unchanged.
v14 This compatibility level is still open for development; use
with caution.
Changes from v13 are:
- The dh_installpam tool will now install PAM
configuration files under /usr/lib/pam.d/package
instead of /etc/pam.d/package.
Please consider using the "rm_conffile" feature from
dh_installdeb(1) to ensure the proper removal of
previous PAM files.
- Packages using the dh sequencer should be aware the
following changes:
- The tool dh_installsysusers is now included in
the default sequence. This helper tool will
process systemd sysusers files.
- The dh_installsystemduser tool will default to
enabling systemd user units, start them on
installation, restart them on upgrades and stop
them on uninstalling the package.
- Use of the dh_gconf command in override and hook
targets now causes an error. The dh_gconf
command has been a no-op for years and was
removed in debhelper 13.4.
- The dh_installalternatives tool will now be run
after dh_link rather than after
dh_installinitramfs in the default dh sequence.
- This item only applies to source packages that
has exactly one Package stanza in debian/control.
The dh sequencer will warn if the single-binary
addon is implicitly activated to warn maintainers
of the pending compat 15 change in
dh_auto_install.
Maintainers are urged to either explicitly
activate the single-binary addon to preserve the
existing behaviour (e.g., by adding dh-sequence-
single-binary to Build-Depends), or explicitly
passing --destdir to dh_auto_install if used and
then passing --without single-binary to dh (the
latter to silence the warning).
The rationale for this change is to avoid
"surprises" when adding a second binary package
later. Previously, debhelper would silently
change behaviour often resulting in empty binary
packages being uploaded to the archive by
mistake. With the new behaviour, the single-
binary addon will detect the mismatch and warn
the maintainer of what is about to happen.
- The dh_control tool now automatically applies
relationship substvars to relevant fields. That means
that many substvars such as ${misc:Depends} and
${shlibs:Depends} no longer need to be explicitly
mentioned in debian/control. This applies to any
substvar named after a field that the installed
version of dpkg considers a relation or dependency-
like field. At the time of writing, the list consists
of:
- Pre-Depends
- Depends
- Recommends
- Suggests
- Enhances
- Conflicts
- Breaks
- Replaces
- Provides
- Built-Using
- Static-Built-Using
This means that Depends: foo, ${misc:Depends} in
debian/control can now be reduced to Depends: foo and
Depends: ${misc:Depends}, ${shlibs:Depends} can be
removed entirely as examples of how the feature
works.
Note that other substvars such as ${binary:Version}
are unaffected by this change and should still be
used explicitly as necessary. Additionally, for
Essential: yes packages that manually promoted
${shlibs:Depends} into Pre-Depends field,
dh_shlibdeps will handle this automatically as well
(see the next compat item).
See
<https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2024/02/msg00230.html>
for the details of this proposal. The summary in
<https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2024/03/msg00030.html>
also covers when the substvars need tweaking. The
most common case involves using the -d option from
dpkg-shlibdeps possibly via dh_shlibdeps.
Note: This change changes will cause false-positives
from an unfixed lintian. Please check
<https://bugs.debian.org/1067653> for lintian support
for this change.
- The dh_shlibdeps tool now defaults to using
${shlibs:Pre-Depends} for packages that are
Essential: yes.
Note due to the dh_gencontrol change above, any
package using dh_gencontrol will not have to do
anything for this migration.
- It now triggers a warning to use package-less
versions of debhelper configuration files when there
are 2 or more binary packages listed in
debian/control in most cases. Legacy files should be
renamed to debian/package.foo (from debian/foo) where
package is the first binary package listed in
debian/control.
The primary exception to this change are files such
as debian/changelog, debian/NEWS, and
debian/copyright, where the same file is used for all
packages by default. These cases will remain
unchanged. The debhelper tool using the files will
trigger warnings on usage.
In compat 15 (or later), this is changed to an error.
- Packages using the cmake build system should be aware
of the following changes:
- The cmake buildsystem now passes
-DCMAKE_BUILD_RPATH_USE_ORIGIN=ON to cmake(1) to
avoid some reproducibility issues.
- The cmake build system now sets the ASMFLAGS
environment variable when it is unset and ASFLAGS
is present. The former name (ASMFLAGS) is the
name cmake expects, while the latter (ASFLAGS) is
the name that dpkg-buildpackage(1) uses.
- The cmake build systems now use cmake --install
instead of make install in the dh_auto_install(1)
call. Any override of dh_auto_install that
passes extra parameters to the upstream build
system should be reviewed.
- Packages using the meson build system should be aware
of the following changes:
- The meson build system now passes
--auto-features=enabled to meson.
- The meson+ninja build system now use meson
install instead of ninja install in the
dh_auto_install(1) call. Any override of
dh_auto_install that passes extra parameters to
the upstream build system should be reviewed.
- The debian/compat file is no longer accepted as a
source for specifying the debhelper compat level. Put
the compat level in the X-DH-Compat field of the
source stanza of debian/control.
Note to avoid breaking packages that already migrated
to compat 14 immediately, while it was experimental
this change is first enforced when compat 14 becomes
stable.
- The tool dh_installtmpfiles now runs with --remove on
package removal, and --purge on package purge.
systemd v256 is required for the latter.
v13 This is the recommended mode of operation.
Changes from v12 are:
- The meson+ninja build system now uses meson test
instead of ninja test when running the test suite.
Any override of dh_auto_test that passes extra
parameters to upstream test runner should be reviewed
as meson test is not command line compatible with
ninja test.
- All debhelper like tools based on the official
debhelper library (including dh and the official dh_*
tools) no longer accepts abbreviated command
parameters. At the same time, dh now optimizes out
calls to redundant dh_* helpers even when passed long
command line options.
- The ELF related debhelper tools (dh_dwz, dh_strip,
dh_makeshlibs, dh_shlibdeps) are now only run for
arch dependent packages by default (i.e. they are
excluded from *-indep targets and are passed -a by
default). If you need them for *-indep targets, you
can add an explicit Build-Depends on dh-sequence-elf-
tools.
- The third-party gradle build system (from gradle-
debian-helper package) now runs the upstream-provided
test suite automatically. To suppress such behavior,
override dh_auto_test.
- The dh_installman tool now aborts if it sees
conflicting definitions of a manpage. This typically
happens if the upstream build system is installing a
compressed version and the package lists an
uncompressed version of the manpage in
debian/package.manpages. Often the easiest fix is to
remove the manpage from debian/package.manpages
(assuming both versions are identical).
- The dh_auto_* helpers now reset the environment
variables HOME and common XDG_* variable. Please see
description of the environment variables in
"ENVIRONMENT" in debhelper(1) for how this is
handled.
This feature changed between debhelper 13 and
debhelper 13.2.
- The dh command will now error if an override or hook
target for an obsolete command are present in
debian/rules (e.g. override_dh_systemd_enable:).
- The dh_missing command will now default to
--fail-missing. This can be reverted to a non-fatal
warning by explicitly passing --list-missing like it
was in compat 12.
If you do not want the warning either, please omit
the call to dh_missing. If you use the dh command
sequencer, then you can do this by inserting an empty
override target in the debian/rules file of the
relevant package. As an example:
# Disable dh_missing
override_dh_missing:
- The dh command sequencer now runs dh_installtmpfiles
in the default sequence. The dh_installtmpfiles
takes over handling of tmpfiles.d configuration
files. Related functionality in dh_installsystemd is
now disabled.
Note that dh_installtmpfiles responds to
debian/package.tmpfiles where dh_installsystemd used
a name without the trailing "s".
- Many dh_* tools now support limited variable
expansion via the ${foo} syntax. In many cases, this
can be used to reference paths that contain either
spaces or dpkg-architecture(1) values. While this
can reduce the need for dh-exec(1) in some cases, it
is not a replacement dh-exec(1) in general. If you
need filtering, renaming, etc., the package will
still need dh-exec(1).
Please see "Substitutions in debhelper config files"
for syntax and available substitution variables. To
dh_* tool writers, substitution expansion occurs as a
part of the filearray and filedoublearray functions.
- The dh command sequencer will now skip all hook and
override targets for dh_auto_test, dh_dwz and
dh_strip when DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS lists the relevant
nocheck / nostrip options.
Any package relying on these targets to always be run
should instead move relevant logic out of those
targets. E.g. non-test related packaging code from
override_dh_auto_test would have to be moved to
execute_after_dh_auto_build or
execute_before_dh_auto_install.
- The cmake buildsystem now passes
-DCMAKE_SKIP_INSTALL_ALL_DEPENDENCY=ON to cmake(1) to
speed up automatic installation process. If for some
reason you need previous behavior, override the flag:
dh_auto_configure -- -DCMAKE_SKIP_INSTALL_ALL_DEPENDENCY=OFF ...
v12 Changes from v11 are:
- The dh_makeshlibs tool now generates shlibs files
with versioned dependency by default. This means
that -VUpstream-Version (a.k.a. -V) is now the
default.
If an unversioned dependency in the shlibs file is
wanted, this can be obtained by passing -VNone
instead. However, please see dh_makeshlibs(1) for
the caveat of unversioned dependencies.
- The -s (--same-arch) option is removed. Please use
-a (--arch) instead.
- Invoking dh_clean -k now causes an error instead of a
deprecation warning.
- The --no-restart-on-upgrade option in dh_installinit
has been removed. Please use the new name
--no-stop-on-upgrade
- There was a bug in the doit (and similar) functions
from Debian::Debhelper::Dh_Lib that made them spawn a
shell in one particular circumstance. This bug is
now removed and will cause helpers that rely on the
bug to fail with a "command not found"-error.
- The --list-missing and --fail-missing in dh_install
has been removed. Please use dh_missing and its
corresponding options, which can also see the files
installed by other helpers.
- The dh_installinit helper no longer installs
configuration for the upstart init system. Instead,
it will abort the build if it finds an old upstart
configuration file. The error is there to remind the
package maintainer to ensure the proper removal of
the conffiles shipped in previous versions of the
package (if any).
- The dh_installdeb tool will do basic validation of
some dpkg-maintscript-helper(1) commands and will
error out if the commands appear to be invalid.
- The dh_missing tool will now default to
--list-missing.
- The dh_makeshlibs tool will now only pass libraries
to dpkg-gensymbols(1) if the ELF binary has a SONAME
(containing ".so").
- The dh_compress tool no longer compresses examples
(i.e. anything installed in
</usr/share/doc/package/examples>.)
- The standard sequence in dh now includes dh_dwz and
dh_installinitramfs by default. This makes the dwz
and installinitramfs sequences obsolete and they will
now fail with an error. If you want to skip these
commands, then please insert an empty override target
for them in debian/rules (e.g. override_dh_dwz:)
- The build systems meson and autoconf no longer
explicitly set the --libexecdir variable and thus
relies on the build system default - which should be
/usr/libexec (per FHS 3.0, adopted in Debian Policy
4.1.5).
If a particular upstream package does not use the
correct default, the parameter can often be passed
manually via dh_auto_configure(1). E.g. via the
following example:
override_dh_auto_configure:
dh_auto_configure -- --libexecdir=/usr/libexec
Note the -- before the --libexecdir parameter.
- Retroactively removed in debhelper/13.5:
The dh_installdeb tool would no longer installs the
maintainer provided conffiles file as it was deemed
unnecessary. However, the remove-on-upgrade from
dpkg/1.20 made the file relevant again and
dh_installdeb now installs it again in compat levels
12+.
- The dh_installsystemd tool no longer relies on
dh_installinit for handling systemd services that
have a sysvinit alternative. Both tools must now be
used in such a case to ensure the service is properly
started under both sysvinit and systemd.
If you have an override for dh_installinit (e.g. to
call it with --no-start) then you will probably need
one for dh_installsystemd as well now.
This change makes dh_installinit inject a
misc:Pre-Depends for init-system-helpers (>= 1.54~).
Please ensure that the package lists
${misc:Pre-Depends} in its Pre-Depends field before
upgrading to compat 12.
- The third-party dh_golang tool (from dh-golang
package) now defaults on honoring DH_GOLANG_EXCLUDES
variable for source installation in -dev packages and
not only during the building process. Please set
DH_GOLANG_EXCLUDES_ALL to false to revert to the
previous behaviour. See
Debian::Debhelper::Buildsystem::golang(3pm) for
details and examples.
- dh_installsystemduser is now included in the dh
standard sequence by default.
- The python-distutils buildsystem is now removed.
Please use the third-party build system pybuild
instead.
v11 This mode is discouraged.
The compat 11 is discouraged for new packages as it suffers
from feature interaction between dh_installinit and
dh_installsystemd causing services to not run correctly in
some cases. Please consider using compatibility mode 10 or
12 instead. More details about the issue are available in
Debian#887904 and
<https://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2019/04/msg01442.html>.
Changes from v10 are:
- dh_installinit no longer installs service or tmpfile
files, nor generates maintainer scripts for those
files. Please use the new dh_installsystemd helper.
- The dh_systemd_enable and dh_systemd_start helpers
have been replaced by the new dh_installsystemd
helper. For the same reason, the systemd sequence
for dh has also been removed. If you need to disable
the dh_installsystemd helper tool, please use an
empty override target.
Please note that the dh_installsystemd tool has a
slightly different behaviour in some cases (e.g. when
using the --name parameter).
- dh_installdirs no longer creates debian/package
directories unless explicitly requested (or it has to
create a subdirectory in it).
The vast majority of all packages will be unaffected
by this change.
- The makefile buildsystem now passes INSTALL="install
--strip-program=true" to make(1). Derivative
buildsystems (e.g. configure or cmake) are unaffected
by this change.
- The autoconf buildsystem now passes
--runstatedir=/run to ./configure.
- The cmake buildsystem now passes
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_RUNSTATEDIR=/run to cmake(1).
- dh_installman will now prefer detecting the language
from the path name rather than the extension.
- dh_auto_install will now only create the destination
directory it needs. Previously, it would create the
package build directory for all packages. This will
not affect packages that only build with debhelper
commands, but it may expose bugs in commands not
included in debhelper.
- The helpers dh_installdocs, dh_installexamples,
dh_installinfo, and dh_installman now error out if
their config has a pattern that does not match
anything or reference a path that does not exist.
Known exceptions include building with the nodoc
profile, where the above tools will silently permit
failed matches where the patterns are used to specify
documentation.
- The helpers dh_installdocs, dh_installexamples,
dh_installinfo, and dh_installman now accept the
parameter --sourcedir with same meaning as
dh_install. Furthermore, they now also fall back to
debian/tmp like dh_install.
Migration note: A bug in debhelper 11 up to 11.1.5
made dh_installinfo incorrectly ignore --sourcedir.
- The perl-makemaker and perl-build build systems no
longer pass -I. to perl. Packages that still need
this behaviour can emulate it by using the PERL5LIB
environment variable. E.g. by adding export
PERL5LIB=. in their debian/rules file (or similar).
- The PERL_USE_UNSAFE_INC environment variable is no
longer set by dh or any of the dh_auto_* tools. It
was added as a temporary work around to avoid a lot
of packages failing to build at the same time.
Note this item will eventually become obsolete as
upstream intends to drop support for the
PERL_USE_UNSAFE_INC environment variable. When perl
drops support for it, then this variable will be
removed retroactively from existing compat levels as
well.
- The dh_makeshlibs helper will now exit with an error
if objdump returns a non-zero exit from analysing a
given file.
- The dh_installdocs and dh_installexamples tools may
now install most of the documentation in a different
path to comply with the recommendation from Debian
policy §12.3 (since version 3.9.7).
Note that if a given source package only contains a
single binary package in debian/control or none of
the packages are -doc packages, then this change is
not relevant for that source package and you can skip
to the next change.
By default, these tools will now attempt to determine
a "main package for the documentation" (called a doc-
main-package from here on) for every -doc package.
If they find such a doc-main-package, they will now
install the documentation into the path
/usr/share/doc/doc-main-package in the given doc
package. I.e. the path can change but the
documentation is still shipped in the -doc package.
The --doc-main-package option can be used when the
auto-detection is insufficient or to reset the path
to its previous value if there is a reason to diverge
from Debian policy recommendation.
Some documentation will not be affected by this
change. These exceptions include the copyright file,
changelog files, README.Debian, etc. These files
will still be installed in the path
/usr/share/doc/package.
- The dh_strip and dh_shlibdeps tools no longer uses
filename patterns to determine which files to
process. Instead, they open the file and look for an
ELF header to determine if a given file is an shared
object or an ELF executable.
This change may cause the tools to process more files
than previously.
v10 Changes from v9 are:
- dh_installinit will no longer installs a file named
debian/package as an init script.
- dh_installdocs will error out if it detects links
created with --link-doc between packages of
architecture "all" and non-"all" as it breaks
binNMUs.
- dh_installdeb no longer installs a maintainer-
provided debian/package.shlibs file. This is now
done by dh_makeshlibs instead.
- dh_installwm refuses to create a broken package if no
man page can be found (required to register for the
x-window-manager alternative).
- Debhelper will default to --parallel for all
buildsystems that support parallel building. This
can be disabled by using either --no-parallel or
passing --max-parallel with a value of 1.
- The dh command will not accept any of the deprecated
"manual sequence control" parameters (--before,
--after, etc.). Please use override targets instead.
Retroactively applied to earlier compat levels: dh no
longer accepts any of these since debhelper/12.4.
- The dh command will no longer use log files to track
which commands have been run. The dh command still
keeps track of whether it already ran the "build"
sequence and skip it if it did.
The main effects of this are:
- With this, it is now easier to debug the install
or/and binary sequences because they can now
trivially be re-run (without having to do a full
"clean and rebuild" cycle)
- The main caveat is that dh_* now only keeps track
of what happened in a single override target.
When all the calls to a given dh_cmd command
happens in the same override target everything
will work as before.
Example of where it can go wrong:
override_dh_foo:
dh_foo -pmy-pkg
override_dh_bar:
dh_bar
dh_foo --remaining
In this case, the call to dh_foo --remaining will
also include my-pkg, since dh_foo -pmy-pkg was
run in a separate override target. This issue is
not limited to --remaining, but also includes -a,
-i, etc.
- The dh_installdeb command now shell-escapes the lines
in the maintscript config file. This was the
original intent but it did not work properly and
packages have begun to rely on the incomplete shell
escaping (e.g. quoting file names).
- The dh_installinit command now defaults to
--restart-after-upgrade. For packages needing the
previous behaviour, please use
--no-restart-after-upgrade.
- The autoreconf sequence is now enabled by default.
Please pass --without autoreconf to dh if this is not
desirable for a given package
- The systemd sequence is now enabled by default.
Please pass --without systemd to dh if this is not
desirable for a given package.
- Retroactively removed: dh no longer creates the
package build directory when skipping running
debhelper commands. This will not affect packages
that only build with debhelper commands, but it may
expose bugs in commands not included in debhelper.
This compatibility feature had a bug since its
inception in debhelper/9.20130516 that made it fail
to apply in compat 9 and earlier. As there has been
no reports of issues caused by this bug in those ~5
years, this item have been removed rather than fixed.
v9 Changes from v8 are:
- Multiarch support. In particular, dh_auto_configure
passes multiarch directories to autoconf in --libdir
and --libexecdir.
- dh is aware of the usual dependencies between targets
in debian/rules. So, "dh binary" will run any build,
build-arch, build-indep, install, etc targets that
exist in the rules file. There's no need to define an
explicit binary target with explicit dependencies on
the other targets.
- dh_strip compresses debugging symbol files to reduce
the installed size of -dbg packages.
- dh_auto_configure does not include the source package
name in --libexecdir when using autoconf.
- dh does not default to enabling --with=python-support
(Obsolete: As the dh_pysupport tool was removed from
Debian stretch. Since debhelper/10.3, dh no longer
enables this sequence add-on regardless of compat
level)
- All of the dh_auto_* debhelper programs and dh set
environment variables listed by dpkg-buildflags,
unless they are already set.
- dh_auto_configure passes dpkg-buildflags CFLAGS,
CPPFLAGS, and LDFLAGS to perl Makefile.PL and
Build.PL
- dh_strip puts separated debug symbols in a location
based on their build-id.
- Executable debhelper config files are run and their
output used as the configuration.
This mode is deprecated.
v8 Changes from v7 are:
- Commands will fail rather than warning when they are
passed unknown options.
- dh_makeshlibs will run dpkg-gensymbols on all shared
libraries that it generates shlibs files for. So -X
can be used to exclude libraries. Also, libraries in
unusual locations that dpkg-gensymbols would not have
processed before will be passed to it, a behavior
change that can cause some packages to fail to build.
- dh requires the sequence to run be specified as the
first parameter, and any switches come after it. Ie,
use "dh $@ --foo", not "dh --foo $@".
- dh_auto_* prefer to use Perl's Module::Build in
preference to Makefile.PL.
This mode is deprecated.
v7 This mode is deprecated.
This is the lowest supported compatibility level.
If you are upgrading from an earlier compatibility level,
please review debhelper-obsolete-compat(7).
debhelper-obsolete-compat(7)
Upgrading from a (now) obsolete compatibility level? This
document covers the upgrade checklist up to the earliest
supported level.
debhelper(7)
General information about the debhelper framework. This
document also covers how to declare your chosen debhelper
compat level.
Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>
Joey Hess
This page is part of the debhelper (helper programs for
debian/rules) project. Information about the project can be
found at [unknown -- if you know, please contact man-
pages@man7.org] If you have a bug report for this manual page,
send it to submit@bugs.debian.org. This page was obtained from
the project's upstream Git repository
⟨https://salsa.debian.org/debian/debhelper.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.
(At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
in the repository was 2024-06-09.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
13.15.3 2024-06-07 debhelper(7)
Pages that refer to this page: debhelper(7)
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