debhelper
Section: Debhelper (7)
Updated: 2023-01-02
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NAME
debhelper - the debhelper tool suite
SYNOPSIS
dh_* [-v] [-a] [-i] [--no-act] [-ppackage] [-Npackage] [-Ptmpdir]
DESCRIPTION
Debhelper is used to help you build a Debian package. The philosophy behind
debhelper is to provide a collection of small, simple, and easily
understood tools that are used in debian/rules to automate various common
aspects of building a package. This means less work for you, the packager.
It also, to some degree means that these tools can be changed if Debian
policy changes, and packages that use them will require only a rebuild to
comply with the new policy.
A typical debian/rules file that uses debhelper will call several debhelper
commands in sequence, or use dh(1) to automate this process. Examples of
rules files that use debhelper are in /usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/
To create a new Debian package using debhelper, you can just copy one of
the sample rules files and edit it by hand. Or you can try the dh-make
package, which contains a dh_make command that partially
automates the process. For a more gentle introduction, the maint-guide Debian
package contains a tutorial about making your first package using debhelper.
Except where the tool explicitly denotes otherwise, all of the debhelper
tools assume that they run from the root directory of an unpacked source
package. This is so they can locate find files like debian/control
when needed.
DEBHELPER COMMANDS
Here is the list of debhelper commands you can use. See their man
pages for additional documentation.
- dh_assistant(1)
-
tool for supporting debhelper tools and provide introspection
- dh_auto_build(1)
-
automatically builds a package
- dh_auto_clean(1)
-
automatically cleans up after a build
- dh_auto_configure(1)
-
automatically configure a package prior to building
- dh_auto_install(1)
-
automatically runs make install or similar
- dh_auto_test(1)
-
automatically runs a package's test suites
- dh_bugfiles(1)
-
install bug reporting customization files into package build directories
- dh_builddeb(1)
-
build Debian binary packages
- dh_clean(1)
-
clean up package build directories
- dh_compress(1)
-
compress files and fix symlinks in package build directories
- dh_dwz(1)
-
optimize DWARF debug information in ELF binaries via dwz
- dh_fixperms(1)
-
fix permissions of files in package build directories
- dh_gencontrol(1)
-
generate and install control file
- dh_icons(1)
-
Update caches of Freedesktop icons
- dh_install(1)
-
install files into package build directories
- dh_installalternatives(1)
-
install declarative alternative rules
- dh_installcatalogs(1)
-
install and register SGML Catalogs
- dh_installchangelogs(1)
-
install changelogs into package build directories
- dh_installcron(1)
-
install cron scripts into etc/cron.*
- dh_installdeb(1)
-
install files into the DEBIAN directory
- dh_installdebconf(1)
-
install files used by debconf in package build directories
- dh_installdirs(1)
-
create subdirectories in package build directories
- dh_installdocs(1)
-
install documentation into package build directories
- dh_installemacsen(1)
-
register an Emacs add on package
- dh_installexamples(1)
-
install example files into package build directories
- dh_installgsettings(1)
-
install GSettings overrides and set dependencies
- dh_installifupdown(1)
-
install if-up and if-down hooks
- dh_installinfo(1)
-
install info files
- dh_installinit(1)
-
install service init files into package build directories
- dh_installinitramfs(1)
-
install initramfs hooks and setup maintscripts
- dh_installlogcheck(1)
-
install logcheck rulefiles into etc/logcheck/
- dh_installlogrotate(1)
-
install logrotate config files
- dh_installman(1)
-
install man pages into package build directories
- dh_installmenu(1)
-
install Debian menu files into package build directories
- dh_installmime(1)
-
install mime files into package build directories
- dh_installmodules(1)
-
register kernel modules
- dh_installpam(1)
-
install pam support files
- dh_installppp(1)
-
install ppp ip-up and ip-down files
- dh_installsystemd(1)
-
install systemd unit files
- dh_installsystemduser(1)
-
install systemd unit files
- dh_installsysusers(1)
-
install and integrates systemd sysusers files
- dh_installtmpfiles(1)
-
install tmpfiles.d configuration files
- dh_installudev(1)
-
install udev rules files
- dh_installwm(1)
-
register a window manager
- dh_installxfonts(1)
-
register X fonts
- dh_link(1)
-
create symlinks in package build directories
- dh_lintian(1)
-
install lintian override files into package build directories
- dh_listpackages(1)
-
list binary packages debhelper will act on
- dh_makeshlibs(1)
-
automatically create shlibs file and call dpkg-gensymbols
- dh_md5sums(1)
-
generate DEBIAN/md5sums file
- dh_missing(1)
-
check for missing files
- dh_movefiles(1)
-
move files out of debian/tmp into subpackages
- dh_perl(1)
-
calculates Perl dependencies and cleans up after MakeMaker
- dh_prep(1)
-
perform cleanups in preparation for building a binary package
- dh_shlibdeps(1)
-
calculate shared library dependencies
- dh_strip(1)
-
strip executables, shared libraries, and some static libraries
- dh_systemd_enable(1)
-
enable/disable systemd unit files
- dh_systemd_start(1)
-
start/stop/restart systemd unit files
- dh_testdir(1)
-
test directory before building Debian package
- dh_testroot(1)
-
ensure that a package is built with necessary level of root permissions
- dh_ucf(1)
-
register configuration files with ucf
- dh_update_autotools_config(1)
-
Update autotools config files
- dh_usrlocal(1)
-
migrate usr/local directories to maintainer scripts
Deprecated Commands
A few debhelper commands are deprecated and should not be used.
- dh_installmanpages(1)
-
old-style man page installer (deprecated)
Other Commands
If a program's name starts with dh_, and the program is not on the above
lists, then it is not part of the debhelper package, but it should still
work like the other programs described on this page.
DEBHELPER CONFIG FILES
Many debhelper commands make use of files in debian/ to control what they
do. Besides the common debian/changelog and debian/control, which are
in all packages, not just those using debhelper, some additional files can
be used to configure the behavior of specific debhelper commands. These
files are typically named debian/package.foo (where package of course,
is replaced with the package that is being acted on).
For example, dh_installdocs uses files named debian/package.docs to list
the documentation files it will install. See the man pages of individual
commands for details about the names and formats of the files they use.
Generally, these files will list files to act on, one file per line. Some
programs in debhelper use pairs of files and destinations or slightly more
complicated formats.
Note for the first (or only) binary package listed in
debian/control, debhelper will use debian/foo when there's no
debian/package.foo file. However, it is often a good idea to keep
the package. prefix as it is more explicit. The primary exception
to this are files that debhelper by default installs in every binary
package when it does not have a package prefix (such as
debian/copyright or debian/changelog).
In some rare cases, you may want to have different versions of these files
for different architectures or OSes. If files named debian/package.foo.ARCH
or debian/package.foo.OS exist, where ARCH and OS are the same as the
output of "dpkg-architecture -qDEB_HOST_ARCH`` /
''dpkg-architecture -qDEB_HOST_ARCH_OS",
then they will be used in preference to other, more general files.
Mostly, these config files are used to specify lists of various types of
files. Documentation or example files to install, files to move, and so on.
When appropriate, in cases like these, you can use standard shell wildcard
characters (? and * and [..] character classes) in the files.
You can also put comments in these files; lines beginning with # are
ignored.
The syntax of these files is intentionally kept very simple to make them
easy to read, understand, and modify.
Substitutions in debhelper config files
In compatibility level 13 and later, it is possible to use simple
substitutions in debhelper config files for the following tools:
- •
-
dh_clean
- •
-
dh_install
- •
-
dh_installcatalogs
- •
-
dh_installdeb
- •
-
dh_installdirs
- •
-
dh_installdocs
- •
-
dh_installexamples
- •
-
dh_installinfo
- •
-
dh_installman
- •
-
dh_installwm
- •
-
dh_link
- •
-
dh_missing
- •
-
dh_ucf
All substitution variables are of the form ${foo} and the braces
are mandatory. Variable names are case-sensitive and consist of
alphanumerics (a-zA-Z0-9), hyphens (-), underscores (_), and colons (:).
The first character must be an alphanumeric.
If you need a literal dollar sign that cannot trigger a substitution,
you can either use the ${Dollar} substitution or the sequence ${}.
The following expansions are available:
- DEB_HOST_*, DEB_BUILD_*, DEB_TARGET_*
-
Expands to the relevant dpkg-architecture(1) value (similar to
dpkg-architecture -qVARIABLE_HERE).
When in doubt, the DEB_HOST_* variant is the one that will work both
for native and cross builds.
For performance reasons, debhelper will attempt to resolve these
names from the environment first before consulting
dpkg-architecture(1). This is mostly mentioned for completeness
as it will not matter for most cases.
- Dollar
-
Expands to a single literal $-symbol. This symbol will never
be considered part of a substitution variable. That is:
# Triggers an error
${NO_SUCH_TOKEN}
# Expands to the literal value "${NO_SUCH_TOKEN}"
${Dollar}{NO_SUCH_TOKEN}
This variable equivalent to the sequence ${} and the two can be
used interchangeably.
- Newline, Space, Tab
-
Expands to a single ASCII newline, space and tab respectively.
This can be useful if you need to include a literal whitespace
character (e.g. space) where it would otherwise be stripped or
used as a separator.
- env:NAME
-
Expands to the environment variable NAME. The environment
variable must be set (but can be set to the empty string).
Note that all variables must expand to a defined value. As an example,
if debhelper sees ${env:FOO}, then it will insist that the environment
variable FOO is set (it can be set to the empty string).
Substitution limits
To avoid infinite loops and resource exhaustion, debhelper will stop
with an error if the text contains many substitution variables (50) or
they expand beyond a certain size (4096 characters or 3x length of
the original input - whichever is bigger).
Executable debhelper config files
If you need additional flexibility, many of the debhelper tools
(e.g. dh_install(1)) support executing a config file as a script.
To use this feature, simply mark the config file as executable
(e.g. chmod +x debian/package.install) and the tool will
attempt to execute it and use the output of the script. In many
cases, you can use dh-exec(1) as interpreter of the config file to
retain most of the original syntax while getting the additional
flexibility you need.
When using executable debhelper config files, please be aware of the
following:
- •
-
The executable config file must exit with success (i.e. its return
code should indicate success).
- •
-
In compatibility level 13+, the output will be subject to substitutions
(see ``Substitutions in debhelper config files'') where the tool
support these. Remember to be careful if your generator also provides
substitutions as this can cause unnecessary confusion.
Otherwise, the output will be used exactly as-is. Notably, debhelper
will not expand wildcards or strip comments or strip whitespace
in the output.
If you need the package to build on a file system where you cannot
disable the executable bit, then you can use dh-exec(1) and its
strip-output script.
SHARED DEBHELPER OPTIONS
The following command line options are supported by all debhelper programs.
- -v, --verbose
-
Verbose mode: show commands that modify the package build directory.
Note that verbose mode may also output other ``internal'' commands that do not
directly affect the package build directory.
- --no-act
-
Do not really do anything. If used with -v, the result is that the command
will output what it would have done.
- -a, --arch
-
Act on architecture dependent packages that should be built for the
DEB_HOST_ARCH architecture.
- -i, --indep
-
Act on all architecture independent packages.
- -ppackage, --package=package
-
Act on the package named package. This option may be specified multiple
times to make debhelper operate on a given set of packages.
- -s, --same-arch
-
Deprecated alias of -a.
This option is removed in compat 12.
- -Npackage, --no-package=package
-
Do not act on the specified package even if an -a, -i, or -p option lists
the package as one that should be acted on.
- --remaining-packages
-
Do not act on the packages which have already been acted on by this debhelper
command earlier (i.e. if the command is present in the package debhelper log).
For example, if you need to call the command with special options only for a
couple of binary packages, pass this option to the last call of the command to
process the rest of packages with default settings.
- -Ptmpdir, --tmpdir=tmpdir
-
Use tmpdir for package build directory. The default is debian/package
- --mainpackage=package
-
This little-used option changes the package which debhelper considers the
``main package'', that is, the first one listed in debian/control, and the
one for which debian/foo files can be used instead of the usual
debian/package.foo files.
- -O=option|bundle
-
This is used by dh(1) when passing user-specified options to all the
commands it runs. If the command supports the specified option or option
bundle, it will take effect. If the command does not support the option (or
any part of an option bundle), it will be ignored.
COMMON DEBHELPER OPTIONS
The following command line options are supported by some debhelper programs.
See the man page of each program for a complete explanation of what each
option does.
- -n
-
Do not modify postinst, postrm, etc. scripts.
- -Xitem, --exclude=item
-
Exclude an item from processing. This option may be used multiple times,
to exclude more than one thing. The item is typically part of a
filename, and any file containing the specified text will be excluded.
- -A, --all
-
Makes files or other items that are specified on the command line take effect
in ALL packages acted on, not just the first.
BUILD SYSTEM OPTIONS
The following command line options are supported by all of the dh_auto_*
debhelper programs. These programs support a variety of build systems,
and normally heuristically determine which to use, and how to use them.
You can use these command line options to override the default behavior.
Typically these are passed to dh(1), which then passes them to all the
dh_auto_* programs.
- -Sbuildsystem, --buildsystem=buildsystem
-
Force use of the specified buildsystem, instead of trying to auto-select
one which might be applicable for the package.
Pass none as buildsystem to disable auto-selection.
- -Ddirectory, --sourcedir=directory, --sourcedirectory=directory
-
Assume that the original package source tree is at the specified
directory rather than the top level directory of the Debian
source package tree.
Warning: The --sourcedir variant matches a similar named option in
dh_install and dh_missing (etc.) for historical reasons. While they
have a similar name, they have very distinct purposes and in some cases
it can cause errors when this variant is passed to dh (when then passes
it on to all tools).
- -B[directory], --builddir[=directory], --builddirectory[=directory]
-
Enable out of source building and use the specified directory as the build
directory. If directory parameter is omitted, a default build directory
will be chosen.
If this option is not specified, building will be done in source by default
unless the build system requires or prefers out of source tree building.
In such a case, the default build directory will be used even if
--builddirectory is not specified.
If the build system prefers out of source tree building but still
allows in source building, the latter can be re-enabled by passing a build
directory path that is the same as the source directory path.
- --parallel, --no-parallel
-
Control whether parallel builds should be used if underlying build
system supports them. The number of parallel jobs is controlled by
the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS environment variable (``Debian Policy,
section 4.9.1'') at build time. It might also be subject to a build
system specific limit.
If neither option is specified, debhelper currently defaults to
--parallel in compat 10 (or later) and --no-parallel otherwise.
As an optimization, dh will try to avoid passing these options to
subprocesses, if they are unnecessary and the only options passed.
Notably this happens when DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS does not have a
parallel parameter (or its value is 1).
- --max-parallel=maximum
-
This option implies --parallel and allows further limiting the number of
jobs that can be used in a parallel build. If the package build is known to
only work with certain levels of concurrency, you can set this to the maximum
level that is known to work, or that you wish to support.
Notably, setting the maximum to 1 is effectively the same as using
--no-parallel.
- --reload-all-buildenv-variables
-
By default, dh(1) will compute several environment variables (e.g. by
using dpkg-buildflags(1)) and cache them to avoid having all dh_auto_*
tool recompute them.
When passing this option, the concrete dh_auto_* tool will ignore
the cache from dh(1) and retrigger a rebuild of these variables.
This is useful in the very rare case where the package need to do
multiple builds but with different ...FLAGS options. A concrete
example would be needing to change the -O parameter in CFLAGS in
the second build:
export DEB_CFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND=-O3
%:
dh $@
override_dh_auto_configure:
dh_auto_configure -Bbuild-deb ...
DEB_CFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND=-Os dh_auto_configure \
--reload-all-buildenv-variables -Bbuild-udeb ...
Without --reload-all-buildenv-variables in the second call to
dh_auto_configure(1), the change in DEB_CFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND
would be ignored as dh_auto_configure(1) would use the cached value
of CFLAGS set by dh(1).
This option is only available with debhelper (>= 12.7~) when
the package uses compatibility level 9 or later.
- --list, -l
-
List all build systems supported by debhelper on this system. The list
includes both default and third party build systems (marked as such). Also
shows which build system would be automatically selected, or which one
is manually specified with the --buildsystem option.
COMPATIBILITY LEVELS
From time to time, major non-backwards-compatible changes need to be made
to debhelper, to keep it clean and well-designed as needs change and its
author gains more experience. To prevent such major changes from breaking
existing packages, the concept of debhelper compatibility levels was
introduced. You must tell debhelper which compatibility level it should use, and
it modifies its behavior in various ways.
In current debhelper, you can specify the compatibility level in
debian/control by adding a Build-Depends on the debhelper-compat package.
For example, to use v13 mode, ensure debian/control has:
Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 13)
This also serves as an appropriate versioned build dependency on a sufficient
version of the debhelper package, so you do not need to specify a separate
versioned build dependency on the debhelper package unless you need a specific
point release of debhelper (such as for the introduction of a new feature or
bugfix within a compatibility level).
Note that debhelper does not provide debhelper-compat for experimental or beta
compatibility levels; packages experimenting with those compatibility levels
should use debian/compat (or, if only for selected commands, DH_COMPAT).
Prior versions of debhelper required specifying the compatibility level in the
file debian/compat, and current debhelper still supports this for backward
compatibility. To use this method, the debian/compat file should contain
the compatibility level as a single number, and no other content. If you
specify the compatibility level by this method, your package will also need a
versioned build dependency on a version of the debhelper package equal to (or
greater than) the compatibility level your package uses. So, if you specify
compatibility level 13 in debian/compat, ensure
debian/control has:
Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 13~)
Note that you must use either the build-dependency on debhelper-compat or
the debian/compat file. Whenever possible, the debhelper-compat
build-dependency is recommended.
If needed be, the DH_COMPAT environment variable can be used to override
the compat level for a given command. The feature is mostly useful for
either temporarily upgrading a few commands to a new compat level or
keeping a few commands on a lower compat level. The feature is best used
sparingly as it effectively introduces special-cases into the
debian/rules file that may be surprising to maintainers or reviewers
(or, in the long term, to yourself).
Unless otherwise indicated, all debhelper documentation assumes that you
are using the most recent compatibility level, and in most cases does not
indicate if the behavior is different in an earlier compatibility level, so
if you are not using the most recent compatibility level, you're advised to
read below for notes about what is different in earlier compatibility
levels.
Supported compatibility levels
The list of supported compatibility levels and the related upgrade check
list has moved to debhelper-compat-upgrade-checklist(7).
NOTES
Multiple binary package support
If your source package generates more than one binary package, debhelper
programs will default to acting on all binary packages when run. If your
source package happens to generate one architecture dependent package, and
another architecture independent package, this is not the correct behavior,
because you need to generate the architecture dependent packages in the
binary-arch debian/rules target, and the architecture independent packages
in the binary-indep debian/rules target.
To facilitate this, as well as give you more control over which packages
are acted on by debhelper programs, all debhelper programs accept the
-a, -i, -p, and -s parameters. These parameters are cumulative.
If none are given, debhelper programs default to acting on all packages listed
in the control file, with the exceptions below.
First, any package whose Architecture field in debian/control does not
match the DEB_HOST_ARCH architecture will be excluded
(``Debian Policy, section 5.6.8'').
Also, some additional packages may be excluded based on the contents of the
DEB_BUILD_PROFILES environment variable and Build-Profiles fields in
binary package stanzas in debian/control, according to the draft policy at
<https://wiki.debian.org/BuildProfileSpec>.
Interaction between package selections and Build-Profiles
Build-Profiles affect which packages are included in the package
selections mechanisms in debhelper. Generally, the package selections
are described from the assumption that all packages are enabled. This
section describes how the selections react when a package is disabled
due to the active Build-Profiles (or lack of active Build-Profiles).
- -a/--arch, -i/--indep OR no selection options (a raw "dh_X" call)
-
The package disabled by Build-Profiles is silently excluded from the
selection.
Note you will receive a warning if all packages related to these
selections are disabled. In that case, it generally does not make
sense to do the build in the first place.
- -N package / --no-package package
-
The option is accepted and effectively does nothing.
- -p package / --package package
-
The option is accepted, but debhelper will not act on the package.
Note that it does not matter whether a package is enabled or disabled
by default.
Automatic generation of Debian install scripts
Some debhelper commands will automatically generate parts of Debian
maintainer scripts. If you want these automatically generated things
included in your existing Debian maintainer scripts, then you need to add
#DEBHELPER# to your scripts, in the place the code should be added.
#DEBHELPER# will be replaced by any auto-generated code when you run
dh_installdeb.
If a script does not exist at all and debhelper needs to add something to
it, then debhelper will create the complete script.
All debhelper commands that automatically generate code in this way let it
be disabled by the -n parameter (see above).
Note that the inserted code will be shell code, so you cannot directly use
it in a Perl script. If you would like to embed it into a Perl script, here
is one way to do that (note that I made sure that $1, $2, etc are set with
the set command):
my $temp="set -e\nset -- @ARGV\n" . << 'EOF';
#DEBHELPER#
EOF
if (system($temp)) {
my $exit_code = ($? >> 8) & 0xff;
my $signal = $? & 0x7f;
if ($exit_code) {
die("The debhelper script failed with error code: ${exit_code}");
} else {
die("The debhelper script was killed by signal: ${signal}");
}
}
Automatic generation of miscellaneous dependencies.
Some debhelper commands may make the generated package need to depend on
some other packages. For example, if you use dh_installdebconf(1), your
package will generally need to depend on debconf. Or if you use
dh_installxfonts(1), your package will generally need to depend on a
particular version of xutils. Keeping track of these miscellaneous
dependencies can be annoying since they are dependent on how debhelper does
things, so debhelper offers a way to automate it.
All commands of this type, besides documenting what dependencies may be
needed on their man pages, will automatically generate a substvar called
${misc:Depends}. If you put that token into your debian/control file, it
will be expanded to the dependencies debhelper figures you need.
This is entirely independent of the standard ${shlibs:Depends} generated by
dh_makeshlibs(1), and the ${perl:Depends} generated by dh_perl(1).
You can choose not to use any of these, if debhelper's guesses don't match
reality.
Package build directories
By default, all debhelper programs assume that the temporary directory used
for assembling the tree of files in a package is debian/package.
Sometimes, you might want to use some other temporary directory. This is
supported by the -P flag. For example, "dh_installdocs -Pdebian/tmp", will
use debian/tmp as the temporary directory. Note that if you use -P, the
debhelper programs can only be acting on a single package at a time. So if
you have a package that builds many binary packages, you will need to also
use the -p flag to specify which binary package the debhelper program will
act on.
udebs
Debhelper includes support for udebs. To create a udeb with debhelper,
add "Package-Type: udeb" to the package's stanza in debian/control.
Debhelper will try to create udebs that comply with debian-installer
policy, by making the generated package files end in .udeb, not
installing any documentation into a udeb, skipping over
preinst, postrm, prerm, and config scripts, etc.
ENVIRONMENT
This section describes some of the environment variables that influences
the behaviour of debhelper or which debhelper interacts with.
It is important to note that these must be actual environment variables in
order to affect the behaviour of debhelper (not simply Makefile variables).
To specify them properly in debian/rules, be sure to "export`` them. For
example, ''export DH_VERBOSE".
- DH_VERBOSE
-
Set to a non-empty value to enable verbose mode. Please see the -v / --verbose
option for details.
- DH_QUIET
-
Set to a non-empty value to enable quiet mode. Debhelper will not output commands calling
the upstream build system nor will dh print which subcommands are called
and depending on the upstream build system might make that more quiet, too.
This makes it easier to spot important messages but makes the output quite
useless as buildd log.
Ignored if DH_VERBOSE is also set or -v / --verbose is passed.
- DH_COMPAT
-
Temporarily specifies what compatibility level debhelper should run at,
overriding any value specified via Build-Depends on debhelper-compat or via the
debian/compat file.
- DH_NO_ACT
-
Set to 1 to enable no-act mode.
- DH_OPTIONS
-
All debhelper tools will parse command line arguments listed in this variable
before any command option (as if they had been prepended to the command
line arguments). Unfortunately, some third-party provided tools may not
support this variable and will ignore these command line arguments.
When using dh(1), it can be passed options that will be passed on to each
debhelper command, which is generally better than using DH_OPTIONS.
- DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE
-
If set, this adds the value the variable is set to to the -X options of all
commands that support the -X option. Moreover, dh_builddeb will rm -rf
anything that matches the value in your package build tree.
This can be useful if you are doing a build from a CVS source tree, in
which case setting DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS will prevent any CVS directories
from sneaking into the package you build. Or, if a package has a source
tarball that (unwisely) includes CVS directories, you might want to export
DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS in debian/rules, to make it take effect wherever
your package is built.
Multiple things to exclude can be separated with colons, as in
DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS:.svn
- DH_EXTRA_ADDONS
-
If set, this adds the specified dh addons to be run in the appropriate places
in the sequence of commands. This is equivalent to specifying the addon to run
with the --with flag in the debian/rules file. Any --without calls specifying
an addon in this environment variable will not be run.
This is intended to be used by downstreams or specific local configurations
that require a debhelper addon to be run during multiple builds without
having to patch a large number of rules file. If at all possible, this should
be avoided in favor of a --with flag in the rules file.
- DH_COLORS, DPKG_COLORS
-
These variables can be used to control whether debhelper commands should use
colors in their textual output. Can be set to ``always'', ``auto'' (the default),
or ``never''.
Note that DPKG_COLOR also affects a number of dpkg related tools and
debhelper uses it on the assumption that you want the same color setting for
dpkg and debhelper. In the off-hand chance you want different color setting
for debhelper, you can use DH_COLORS instead or in addition to
DPKG_COLORS.
- NO_COLOR
-
If no explicit request for color has been given (e.g. DH_COLORS and
DPKG_COLORS are both unset), the presence of this environment variable
cause the default color setting to be ``never''.
The variable is defined according to <https://no-color.org/>. In this
project, the environment variables (such as DH_COLORS) are considered
an explicit request for color.
- CFLAGS, CPPFLAGS, CXXFLAGS, OBJCFLAGS, OBJCXXFLAGS, GCJFLAGS, FFLAGS, FCFLAGS, LDFLAGS
-
By default (in any non-deprecated compat level), debhelper will automatically
set these flags by using dpkg-buildflags(1), when they are unset. If you
need to change the default flags, please use the features from
dpkg-buildflags(1) to do this (e.g. DEB_BUILD_MAINT_OPTIONS=hardening=all
or DEB_CPPFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND=-DCUSTOM_MACRO=true) rather than setting the
concrete variable directly.
- HOME, XDG_*
-
In compat 13 and later, these environment variables are reset before invoking
the upstream build system via the dh_auto_* helpers. The variables HOME
(all dh_auto_* helpers) and XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (dh_auto_test only) will
be set to a writable directory. All remaining variables and XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
(except for during dh_auto_test) will be cleared.
The HOME directory will be created as an empty directory but it will be
reused between calls to dh_auto_*. Any content will persist until
explicitly deleted or dh_clean.
- DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
-
Please see ``Supported flags in DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS'' for this environment
variable.
Please note that this variable should not be altered by package maintainers
inside debian/rules to change the behaviour of debhelper. Instead, where
the package maintainer need these features, they should look disabling the
relevant feature directly (e.g. by overriding the concrete tools).
- DEB_BUILD_MAINT_OPTIONS
-
This is a dpkg specific environment variable (see e.g. dpkg-buildflags(1)).
The debhelper tool suite silently ignores it.
It is documented here because it has a similar name to DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS,
which make some people mistakenly assume that debhelper will also react to this
variable.
Supported flags in DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
The debhelper tool suite reacts to the following flags in DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS.
- dherroron=obsolete-compat-levels
-
This is a debhelper specific value.
When dherroron is present and set to obsolete-compat-levels, then
debhelper tools will promote deprecation warnings for usage of old soon
to be removed compat levels into errors.
This is useful for automated checking for code relying on deprecated
compat levels that is scheduled for removal.
This option is intended for testing purposes; not production builds.
- nostrip
-
This value will change the content of the debs being built. The .deb
packages built when this is set is therefore not bit-for-bit reproducible
with a regular build in the general case.
This value will cause the official debhelper tools will skip actions and
helpers that either remove, detach or deduplicate debugging symbols in
ELF binaries.
This value affects dh_dwz(1) and dh_strip(1).
- nocheck
-
This value will cause the official debhelper build systems to skip runs
of upstream test suites.
Package maintainers looking to avoid running the upstream tests should
not rely on this. Instead, they can add an empty override target
to skip dh_auto_test.
This value affects dh_auto_test(1).
- nodoc
-
This value will change the content of the debs being built. The .deb
packages built when this is set is therefore not bit-for-bit reproducible
with a regular build in the general case.
This value will cause several debhelper tools to skip installation of
documentation such as manpages or upstream provided documentation.
Additionally, the tools will also ignore if declared documentation is
``missing'' on the assumption that the documentation has not been built.
This value effects tools like dh_installdocs(1), which knows
it is working with documentation.
- notrimdch
-
This value will change the content of the debs being built. The .deb
packages built when this is set is therefore not bit-for-bit reproducible
with a regular build in the general case.
This value will cause dh_installchangelogs(1) to act as if it
had been passed the --no-trim option, forcing it to forgo removing
older entries from changelogs.
- noautodbgsym, noddebs
-
The official name is noautodbgsym. The noddebs variant is accepted
for historical reasons.
This value causes debhelper to skip the generation of automatically
generated debug symbol packages.
This value affects dh_strip(1).
- parallel=N
-
This value enables debhelper to use up to N threads or processes
(subject to parameters like --no-parallel and --max-parallel=M).
Not all debhelper tools work with parallel tasks and may silently
ignore the request.
This value affects many debhelper tools. Most notably dh_auto_*,
which will attempt to run the underlying upstream build system with
that number of threads.
- terse
-
This value will cause the official debhelper build systems to configure
upstream builds to be terse (i.e. reduce verbosity in their output).
This is subject to the upstream and the debhelper build system
supporting such features.
This value affects most dh_auto_* tools directly. For commands
provided by the debhelper package, it also causes the tools to act like
the DH_QUIET environment variable was non-empty.
Unknown flags are silently ignored.
Note third-party debhelper-like tools or third-party provided build systems
may or may not react to the above flags. This tends to depend on
implementation details of the tool.
SEE ALSO
- debhelper-compat-upgrade-checklist(7)
-
List of supported compat levels and an upgrade checklist for each of them.
- /usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/
-
A set of example debian/rules files that use debhelper.
- <http://joeyh.name/code/debhelper/>
-
Debhelper web site.
AUTHOR
Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- DEBHELPER COMMANDS
-
- Deprecated Commands
-
- Other Commands
-
- DEBHELPER CONFIG FILES
-
- Substitutions in debhelper config files
-
- Executable debhelper config files
-
- SHARED DEBHELPER OPTIONS
-
- COMMON DEBHELPER OPTIONS
-
- BUILD SYSTEM OPTIONS
-
- COMPATIBILITY LEVELS
-
- Supported compatibility levels
-
- NOTES
-
- Multiple binary package support
-
- Automatic generation of Debian install scripts
-
- Automatic generation of miscellaneous dependencies.
-
- Package build directories
-
- udebs
-
- ENVIRONMENT
-
- Supported flags in DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- AUTHOR
-
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Time: 11:07:28 GMT, April 26, 2024