debhelper-compat-upgrade-checklist(7) — Linux manual page

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debhelper(7)                    Debhelper                    debhelper(7)

NAME         top

       debhelper-compat-upgrade-checklist - Upgrade checklist for
       supported debhelper compat levels

SYNOPSIS         top

       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).

DESCRIPTION         top

   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 single-binary add-on for dh is no longer
                   implicitly activated by source packages that have a
                   single Package stanza in debian/control. If the
                   package needs the short-cuts for single-binary
                   packages, it must explicitly activate the
                   single-binary add-in.

                   This can be done via a Build-Depends on
                   dh-sequence-single-binary.

                   Any --without single-binary passed to dh to avoid the
                   warning in compat 14 can now be removed to simplify
                   debian/rules without triggering the warning.

           -       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.

           -       It is now an error to use a packaging file without the
                   package prefix for --name even if the source package
                   only produces one binary package. As example, if you
                   had a debian/bar.service with the following snippet in
                   debian/rules:

                    override_dh_installsystemd:
                       dh_installsystemd -p foo --name bar

                   Then you need to rename debian/bar.service to
                   debian/foo.bar.service.

       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 order and placement has changed for
                       dh_strip_nondeterminism, dh_compress, and
                       dh_fixperm. Previously, these three commands were
                       run in the listed order between dh_installxfonts
                       and dh_missing.

                       Their new placement is after dh_missing (arch:all)
                       or dh_shlibdeps (arch:any) and before
                       dh_installdeb. Additionally, their new order is
                       dh_fixperms, dh_strip_nondeterminism, and then
                       dh_compress.

                       This change may require updates to third-party
                       add-ons that use either of these three commands as
                       anchor or to hook targets for any of these
                       commands that made assumptions about the command
                       order.

                       Additionally, dh_strip_nondeterminism and
                       dh_compress plus any commands added by third-party
                       add-ons using these as anchors will no longer be
                       able to rely on the mode/ownership normalization
                       by dh_fixperms, which may expose bugs in the form
                       of incorrect mode or ownership in the resulting
                       binary package.

                       Please file any such bugs against the relevant
                       tool. Feel free to include the debhelper
                       maintainers in CC.

                   -   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
                       have exactly one Package stanza in debian/control.

                       The dh_auto_install command now unconditionally
                       uses --destdir=debian/tmp by default. The
                       special-case for source packages building a single
                       binary package is now moved to single-binary dh
                       addon. Note, this add-on is activated by default
                       in compat 14 but not in compat 15 (see next bullet
                       item).

                   -   This item only applies to source packages that
                       have 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. The implicit activation is a
                       transitional feature to reduce the changes of
                       risks with this change.  In compat 15, the
                       implicit activation will no longer trigger.

                       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_gencontrol 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 will cause false-positives from an
                   unfixed lintian(1). Please check
                   <https://bugs.debian.org/1067653> for lintian(1)
                   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.

           -       When running dh_auto_install, debhelper provided build
                   systems will now ensure all paths in the destdir have
                   minimal user permissions (chmod -R u+rwX) to avoid
                   weird permission denied errors during builds.

                   Third-party provided debhelper build systems are
                   recommended to support this as well.  This can be done
                   by running

                        $this->ensure_minimal_permissions($destdir) if not compat(13);

                   in the debhelper Buildsystem code from their sub
                   install implementation after the upstream code has
                   been run.

                   If you are not using dh_auto_install and you run into
                   weird permission denied errors, you can often solve
                   this by running chmod -R u+rwX DIRECTORY after running
                   the install target from the upstream build system.

                   Please take care to check if your package has any
                   special cases for permissions where files or
                   directories for some reason must not have the "user
                   write bit" set. Known cases are *.ali files and
                   /etc/sudoers.d, which dh_fixperms will fix up by
                   default.

                   The problem with uncommon permissions have always been
                   present in theory. However, it has become considerable
                   more visible with dh_fixperms being run later in the
                   sequence as of compat 14 and with the move to remove
                   fakeroot by default (which papered over some of these
                   issues). This change is aimed at mitigating the
                   problem.

           -       The debhelper configuration files are subject to the
                   following changes:

                   -   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.

                   -   It now triggers a warning to use a packaging file
                       without the package prefix for --name even if the
                       source package only produces one binary package.
                       As example, if you had a debian/bar.service with
                       the following snippet in debian/rules:

                        override_dh_installsystemd:
                           dh_installsystemd -p foo --name bar

                       Then you need to rename debian/bar.service to
                       debian/foo.bar.service.

                       In compat 15 (or later), this is changed to an
                       error.

                   -   The default look up rules for Dh_Lib based tools
                       now assume that configuration files are no longer
                       named (--name) nor support architecture
                       restrictions by default.  If you work with a
                       third-party debhelper-like tool and need support
                       for either of these features, please file a bug
                       against the tool asking it to declare its
                       configuration file with the relevant options in
                       its pkgfile call.

                       Note that debhelper itself tweaked its rules for
                       most of its tools as well based on analysis of
                       usage via codesearch.debian.org. Should you be
                       relying on a feature like architecture
                       restrictions for a given config file that is no
                       longer supported, please file a feature request
                       for the use-case and it might be restored.

           -       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.

           -       The dh_lintian tool no longer accepts architecture
                   specific overrides files for packages with Multi-Arch:
                   same in debian/control, since these would not be
                   co-installable. Instances affected by this error
                   should migrate to lintian(1) architecture specific
                   overrides.

       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
                   variable HOME and the common XDG_* variables.  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 install 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 rely on this
                   behavior can often use the PERL5LIB environment
                   variable as a substitute.  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).

SEE ALSO         top

       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.

AUTHORS         top

       Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>

       Joey Hess

COLOPHON         top

       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 2025-02-02.
       (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found
       in the repository was 2025-01-19.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
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       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

13.24.1                         2025-02-01                   debhelper(7)

Pages that refer to this page: debhelper(7)