debhelper(7) Debhelper debhelper(7)
NAME
debhelper-compat-upgrade-checklist - Upgrade checklist for supported
debhelper compat levels
SYNOPSIS
This document is an upgrade checklist of all the supported debhelper
compat levels. It also lists all the support 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
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 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.
v14 This compatibility level is still open for development; use with
caution.
Changes from v13 are:
- The cmake buildsystem now passes
-DCMAKE_BUILD_RPATH_USE_ORIGIN=ON to cmake(1) to avoid some
reproducibility issues.
- The tool dh_installsysusers is now included in the default
sequence. This helper tool will process systemd sysusers
files.
- 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 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 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_installalternatives tool will now be run after
dh_link rather than after dh_installinitramfs in the
default dh sequence.
- 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.
- The meson+ninja and cmake build systems now use meson
install and cmake --install, respectively, instead of ninja
install and 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.
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" 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 ยง12.3
(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 install 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
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
Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>
Joey Hess
13.11.4 2023-01-02 debhelper(7)
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