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Introduction

Welcome to the Ubuntu Packaging Guide! This guide is primarily addressed to those who would like to make and maintain Ubuntu packages. Although many of the concepts in this guide could be used to make binary packages for personal use, it is designed for those people wanting to distribute their packages to and for others. While it is written with the Ubuntu Linux distribution in mind, it should also be useful for any Debian-based distribution. There are several reasons you might want to learn how to package for Ubuntu. First, building and fixing Ubuntu packages are great ways to contribute to the Ubuntucommunity. It is also useful for learning how Ubuntu and the applications you have installed work. Maybe you want to install a package that is not in the Ubunturepositories. Hopefully after you have completed this guide you will have the tools and knowledge you need to do all of these things. Where to Begin If you are completely new to Debian-based packaging then please read this guide completely, paying special attention to the section called Prerequisites, and the section Basic Packaging. People who are experienced with Debian-based packaging will find the section Ubuntu Packaging most helpful. Here is a basic introduction to debian packages.

Prerequisites
This guide assumes that the reader has a reasonable knowledge of building and installing software from source on Linux distributions. The guide also uses the Command Line Interface (CLI) throughout, so you should be comfortable using a terminal. You should be able to at least use the following:

make: GNU Make is a very important software building tool. It is used to transform a complex compilation task into
a trivial one. It is important that you know how to use it, because we will store most of the information about the packaging process in a Makefile. Documentation is available at the GNUwebsite.

./configure: This script is included in almost all Linux source, especially for software written in
compiled languages such as C and C++. It is used to generate a Makefile (file used by make) that is properly configured for your system. Standard Debian packaging tools use it, so it is important that you know what the configure script does. Information on ./configure can be found in the make documentation.

Apt/Dpkg: Beyond the basic use of installing programs, apt and dpkg have many features that
are useful for packaging.

apt-cache dump - lists every package in the cache. This command is especially helpful
in combination with a grep pipe such as apt-cache dump | grep foo to search for packages whose names or dependencies include foo.

apt-cache policy - lists the repositories (main/restricted/universe/multiverse) in which a


package exists.

apt-cache show - displays information about a binary package. apt-cache showsrc - displays information about a source package. apt-cache rdepends - shows reverse dependencies for a package (which packages
require the queried one.

dpkg -S - lists the binary package to which a particular file belongs. dpkg -l - lists currently installed packages. This is similar to apt-cache dump but for
installed packages.

dpkg -c - lists the contents of a binary package. It is useful for ensuring that files are
installed to the right places.

dpkg -f - shows the control file for a binary package. It is useful for ensuring that the
dependencies are correct.

grep-dctrl - searches for specialized information in packages. It is a specific use of


the grep package (but not installed by default).

diff and patch: The diff program can be used to compare two files and to make patches. A typical
example might be diff -ruN file.old file.new > file.diff. This command will create a diff (recursively if directories are used) that shows the changes, or delta, between the two files.

The patch program is used to apply a patch (usually created by diff or a similar
program) to a file or directory. To apply the patch created above, we can invoke patch p0 < file.diff. The option -p tellspatch how much it should strip from the paths for the file names in the patch. The option -p0 means to strip nothing, or leave the path intact. All of Ubuntu's Code, Translations, Packages, Bugs, access control lists, team information, etc. live in Launchpad. So for you to be able to contribute to bug discussions, upload packages, contribute code and translations, it's important that you

1. set up your Launchpad profile 2. set up your GPG key and register it with Launchpad 3. set up your SSH key and register it with Launchpad
Getting Started

Binary and Source Packages


Most users of a Debian-based distribution such as Ubuntu will never have to deal with the actual source code that is used to create all of the applications on their computers. Instead, the source code is compiled into binary packages from the source package that contains both the source code itself and the rules for making the binary package. Package maintainers upload the source packages with their changes to the build systems that then compile the binary packages for each architecture. A separate system distributes the generated binary .deb files and source changes to the repository mirrors.

Packaging Tools
There are many tools written specifically for packaging on Debian-based systems. Many of them are not essential to creating packages but are very helpful and often automate repetitive tasks. Their man and info pages are good sources of information. However, the following is a list of packages that are deemed necessary to begin packaging:

build-essential is a metapackage that depends on libc6-dev, gcc, g++, make, and dpkg-dev.
One package that you might not be familiar with is dpkg-dev. It contains tools such as dpkgbuildpackage and dpkg-source that are used to create, unpack, and build source and binary packages.

devscripts contains many scripts that make the packager's maintenance work much easier.
Some of the more commonly used aredebdiff, dch, debuild, and debsign.

ubuntu-dev-tools is also a collection of scripts (like devscripts), but specific for Ubuntu. It
contains tools like update-maintainer, dgetlp, what-patch, pbuilder-dist, etc.

debhelper are scripts that perform common packaging tasks. dh_make can be used to create a template for your packaging. diff and patch are used to create and apply patches, respectively. They are used extensively
in packaging because it is easier, cleaner, and more efficient to represent small changes as patches rather than to have multiple copies of a file. Note: In Ubuntu 10.04 the diffbinary is provided by the diffutils package. The diff package is a dummy transitional package.

cdbs is the Common Debian Build System. It provides (quoting from the package description)
a "sane set of default rules upon which packages can build; any or all rules may be overridden as needed."

quilt manages a series of patches by keeping track of the changes each of them makes. They
are logically organized as a stack, and you can apply, un-apply, refresh them easily by traveling into the stack (push/pop). This package completely integrates into the CDBS, allowing maintainers using this new paradigm for their packaging scripts to benefit from the comfort of quilt when editing their diff against upstream. The package also provides some basic support for those not using CDBS.

gnupg is a complete and free replacement for PGP used to digitally sign files (including
packages).

fakeroot simulates running a command with root privileges. This is useful for creating binary
packages as a regular user.

lintian dissects Debian packages and reports bugs and Policy violations. It contains automated
checks for many aspects of Debian Policy as well as for common errors.

pbuilder constructs a chroot system and builds a package inside the chroot. It is an ideal
system to use to check that a package has correct build dependencies and to build clean packages to be tested and distributed. For convenience, here's an apt-get command to install all of them: sudo apt-get install build-essential devscripts ubuntu-dev-tools debhelper dh-make diff patch cdbs quilt gnupg \ fakeroot lintian pbuilder piuparts

The Personal Builder: pbuilder


Using pbuilder as a package builder allows you to build the package from within a chroot environment. You can build binary packages without using pbuilder, but you must have all the build dependencies installed on your system first. However,

pbuilder allows the packager to check the build dependencies because the package is built within a minimal Ubuntu installation, and the build dependencies are downloaded according to the debian/control file. PbuilderHowto is a comprehensive guide to almost anything you could wish to do with pbuilder. A short overview: to create a pbuilder environment, run sudo pbuilder create --distribution $(lsb_release -cs) \ --othermirror "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) main restricted universe multiverse"

to build a package using pbuilder, run


sudo pbuilder build *.dsc to update a pbuilder environment, run sudo pbuilder update

use pbuilder-dist (of the ubuntu-dev-tools) to have several different pbuilder setups for
different Ubuntu releases.

Basic Packaging Two of the problems that many novice packagers face are that there are multiple ways of packaging, and there is more than one tool to do the job. Package development often requires installing many packages (especially -dev packages containing headers and other common development files) that are not part of a normal desktop Ubuntu installation. If you want to avoid installing extra packages or would like to develop for a different Ubuntu release (the development one, for instance) from what you currently have, the use of a chroot environment is highly recommended. A guide to setting up a chroot can be found at DebootstrapChroot. We will go through two examples with the common build systems. We will use debhelper, the most common build system in Debian. It helps the packager by automating repetitive tasks. Then we will briefly cover the Common Debian Build System (CDBS), a more streamlined build system that uses debhelper.

Packaging from Scratch


Requirements: build-essential, automake, gnupg, lintian, fakeroot, pbuilder, debhelper, dpatch, and dh-make. In this example we will be using the GNU hello program as our example. You can download the source tarball from ftp.gnu.org. For the purposes of this example, we will be using the ~/hello/ directory. mkdir ~/hello cd ~/hello wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/hello/hello-2.4.tar.gz If you are packaging your own software, or the software is not available as a tar.gz file, you can create the required .tar.gz from an unpacked source directory with a command like the following:

mkdir hello-2.4 tar czf hello-2.4.tar.gz hello-2.4 For the purpose of this example, we will also compare our package (hello) to one that is already packaged in the Ubuntu repository (calledhello-debhelper). For now, we will place it in the ubuntu directory so we can look at it later. This will unpack the source: mkdir ubuntu cd ubuntu apt-get source hello-debhelper cd .. Unlike most apt-get commands, you do not need to have root privileges to get the source package, because it is downloaded to the current directory. In fact, it is recommended that you only use aptget source as a regular user, because then you can edit files in the source package without needing root privileges. What the apt-get source command does is: 1. Download the source package. A source package commonly contains: a .dsc file describing the package and giving md5sums for the source package,

an .orig.tar.gz file containing the source code from the author(s), and a .diff.gz file containing the packaging (in the debian/ directory) and patches applied against the source code.

2. Untar the .orig.tar.gz file into the current directory. 3. Apply the unzipped .diff.gz to the unpacked source directory. If you manually download the source package (.dsc, .orig.tar.gz, and .diff.gz files), you can unpack them in the same way apt-get source does by using dpkg-source as follows: dpkg-source -x *.dsc We want to recreate the above from scratch. The first thing you will need to do is make a copy of the original (sometimes called "upstream") tarball in the following format: <packagename>_<version>.orig.tar.gz. This step does two things. First, it creates an additional copy of the source code. If you accidentally change or delete the working copy you can use the one you downloaded. Second, it is considered poor packaging practice to change the original source tarball unless absolutely necessary. See the section called Common Mistakes for reasons. cp hello-2.4.tar.gz hello_2.4.orig.tar.gz tar -xzvf hello_2.4.orig.tar.gz Using an underscore ('_') between the package name (hello) and the version (2.4) in the orig.tar.gz, as opposed to a hyphen ('-'), is very important. The packaging tools look for a filename of this exact format, so if you get it wrong, the tools will incorrectly assume that there is no original source at all, and the package will be built as a Debian native package. We now have a hello-2.4 directory containing the source files. Now we need to create the customary debian directory where all the packaging information is stored, allowing us to separate the packaging files from the application source files. We will let dh-make do the work for us: (Note: dh_make is the executable and dh-make is the package it's found in.)

cd hello-2.4 dh_make -e your.maintainer@address dh-make will then ask you a series of questions about your package: Type of package: single binary, multiple binary, library, kernel module or cdbs? [s/m/l/k/b] s Maintainer name : Your Name Email-Address : your.maintainer@address Date : Thu, 6 Apr 2006 10:07:19 -0700 Package Name : hello Version : 2.4 License : blank Type of Package : Single Hit <enter> to confirm: Enter Only run dh_make once. If you run it again after you do it the first time, it will not work properly. If you want to change it or made a mistake, remove the source directory and untar the upstream tarball afresh. Then you can change to the source directory and try again. Running dh_make creates the basic files needed in debian/ and many template files (.ex) that may be needed. The Hello program is not very complicated, and as we have seen in the section called Packaging From Scratch, packaging it does not require much more than the basic files. Therefore, let us remove the .ex files: cd debian rm *.ex *.EX For hello, some additional files from the debian directory will also be unnecessary:

README.Debian: Debian and Ubuntu end-user documentation file, sometimes simply


named README. Not to be confused withREADME.source, which (if present) is documentation for those interested in modifying the source package.

dirs: Used by dh_installdirs to create needed directories. docs: Used by dh_installdocs to install program documentation. info: Used by dh_installinfo to install the info file.
Keep in mind that for most packages, these files are required. For more information on them, see the section called dh-make example files. At this point, you should have only changelog, compat, control, copyright, and rules files in the debian directory. changelog The changelog file is, as its name implies, a listing of the changes made in each version. It has a specific format that gives the package name, version, distribution, changes, and who made the changes at a given time. If you have a GPG key, make sure to use the same name and email address in changelog as you have in your key. The following is a template changelog: package (version) distribution; urgency=urgency

* change details more change details * even more change details -- maintainer name <email address>[two spaces] date The format (especially of the date) is important. The date should be in RFC822 format, which can be obtained by using the command date -R. For convenience, the command dch may be used to edit changelog. It will update the date automatically. Minor bullet points are indicated by a dash "-", while major points use an asterisk "*". If you are packaging from scratch, dch --create (dch is in the devscripts package) will create a standard debian/changelog for you. Here is a sample changelog file for hello: hello (2.4-0ubuntu1) jaunty; urgency=low * New upstream release with lots of bug fixes and feature improvements. -- Captain Packager <packager@coolness.com> Wed, 5 Jan 2009 22:38:49 -0700 Notice that the version has a -0ubuntu1 appended to it, this is the distro revision, used so that the packaging can be updated (to fix bugs for example) with new uploads within the same source release version. Ubuntu and Debian have slightly different package versioning schemes to avoid conflicting packages with the same source version. If a Debian package has been changed in Ubuntu, it has ubuntuX (where X is the Ubuntu revision number) appended to the end of the Debian version. So if the Debian hello 2.4-1 package was changed by Ubuntu, the version string would be 2.4-1ubuntu1. If a package for the application does not exist in Debian, then the Debian revision is 0 (e.g., 2.4-0ubuntu1). Now look at the changelog for the Ubuntu source package that we downloaded earlier: less ../../ubuntu/hello-debhelper-2.2/debian/changelog Notice that in this case the distribution is unstable (a Debian branch), because the Debian package has not been changed by Ubuntu. Remember to set the distribution to your target distribution release. Consult Debian changelog Policy for more information. control The control file contains the information that the package manager (such as apt-get, synaptic, and adept) uses, buildtime dependencies, maintainer information, and much more. For the Ubuntu hello package, the control file looks something like: Source: hello Section: devel Priority: optional

Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com> XSBC-Original-Maintainer: Captain Packager <packager@coolness.com> Standards-Version: 3.7.3 Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 5) Homepage: http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/ Package: hello Architecture: any Depends: ${shlibs:Depends} Description: The classic greeting, and a good example The GNU hello program produces a familiar, friendly greeting. It allows non-programmers to use a classic computer science tool which would otherwise be unavailable to them. Seriously, though: this is an example of how to do a Debian package. It is the Debian version of the GNU Project's `hello world' program (which is itself an example for the GNU Project). In Ubuntu we set the Maintainer field to a general address because anyone can change any package (this differs from Debian where changing packages is usually restricted to an individual or a team). Edit control using the information above (making sure to provide your information for the XSBCOriginal-Maintainer field). The first paragraph gives information about the source package. Let us go through each line:

Source: This is the name of the source package. Section: The apt repositories are split up into sections for ease of browsing and categorization
of software.

Priority: This sets the importance of the package to users. It should be one of the following: Required - packages that are essential for the system to work properly. If they are
removed it is highly likely that your system will break in an unrecoverable way.

Important - minimal set of packages for a usable system. Removing these packages
will not produce an unrecoverable breakage of your system, but they are generally considered important tools without which any Linux installation would be incomplete. Note: This does not include things like Emacs or even the X Window System.

Standard - Somewhat self explanatory. Optional - in essence this category is for non-required packages, or the bulk of
packages. However, these packages should not conflict with each other.

Extra - packages that may conflict with packages in one of the above categories. Also
used for specialized packages that would only be useful to people who already know the purpose of the package.

Maintainer: The name of the package maintainer and their email address. Standards-Version: The version of the Debian Policy to which the package adheres. An easy
way to find the current version is apt-cache show debian-policy | grep Version .

Build-Depends: One of the most important fields and often the source of bugs, this line lists
the binary packages (with versions if necessary) that need to be installed in order to create the binary package(s) from the source package. Packages that are essential are required by build-essential and do not need to be included in the Build-Depends line. The list of buildessential packages can be found at/usr/share/doc/build-essential/list.

Homepage: A URL where more information on the software can be found.


The second paragraph is for the binary package that will be built from the source. If multiple binary packages are built from the source package, there should be one section for each one. Again, let us go through each line:

Package: The name for the binary package. Many times for simple programs (such as hello),
the source and binary packages' names are identical.

Architecture: The architectures for which the binary package(s) will be built. Examples are: all - The source is not architecture-dependent. Programs that use Python or other
interpreted languages would use this. The resulting binary package would end with _all.deb.

any - The source is architecture-dependent and should compile on all the supported
architectures. There will be a .deb file for each architecture (_i386.deb for instance)

A subset of architectures (i386, amd64, ppc, etc.) can be listed to indicate that the
source is architecture-dependent and does not work for all architectures supported by Ubuntu.

Depends: The list of packages that the binary package depends on for functionality. For hello,
we see ${shlibs:Depends}, which is a variable that is used by dpkg-shlibdeps to add the shared library packages needed by the binaries to Depends:. See the dpkgsource(1) and dpkg-shlibdeps(1) man page for more information.

Recommends: Used for packages that are highly recommended and usually are installed with
the package. Some package managers, most notably aptitude, automatically install Recommended packages.

Suggests: Used for packages that are similar or useful when this package is installed. Conflicts: Used for packages that will conflict with this package. Both cannot be installed at
the same time. If one is being installed, the other will be removed.

Description: Both short and long descriptions are used by package managers. Note that there
is one space at the beginning of each line in the long description. More information on how to make a good description can be found at http://www.debian.org/doc/developersreference/best-pkging-practices.html#bpp-debian-control copyright This file gives the copyright information. Generally, copyright information is found in the COPYING file in the program's source directory. This file should include such information as the names of the author and the packager, the URL from which the source came, a Copyright line with the year and copyright holder, and the text of the copyright itself. An example template would be: This package was debianized by {Your Name} <your email address>

{Date} It was downloaded from: {URL of webpage} Upstream Author(s): {Name(s) and email address(es) of author(s)} Copyright: Copyright (C) {Year(s)} by {Author(s)} {Email address(es)} License: {Add licence text here. For GNU licences add the licence header and a link to the appropriate file in /usr/share/common-licences.} Packaging: Copyright (C) {Year(s)} by {Your Name} <your email address> released under {the licence you choose for your packaging} As one can imagine, hello is released under the GPL license. In this case it is easiest to just copy the copyright file from the Ubuntu package: cp ../../ubuntu/hello-debhelper-2.2/debian/copyright . Notice that the Ubuntu package's copyright includes a license statement for the manual. It is important that all the files in the source be covered by a license statement. More information, caveats and tips are available in the Copyright section. source/version The debian build system wants to know which format the package source is to be kept in. This is done by the file source/format (a file namedformat in a directory named source) in the debian/` direcory. This file contains nothing but a single line. A sane content for this line is: 3.0 (native) If this file is missing debuild complains both about having to use the legacy source format 1.0 and about any directory it can find subversion, cvs or bazaar is keeping its data in. rules The last file we need to look at is rules. This does all the work for creating our package. It is a Makefile with targets to compile and install the application, then create the .deb file from the installed files. It also has a target to clean up all the build files so you end up with just a source package again. Here is a simplified version of the rules file created by dh_make: #!/usr/bin/make -f # -*- makefile -*# Uncomment this to turn on verbose mode.

#export DH_VERBOSE=1 %: dh $@ Let us go through this file in some detail. What this does is pass every build target that debian/rules is called with as an argument to/usr/bin/dh, which itself will call all the necessary dh_* commands. dh runs a sequence of debhelper commands. The supported sequences correspond to the targets of a debian/rules file: "build", "clean", "install", "binary-arch", "binary-indep", and "binary". Commands in the binary-indep sequence are passed the "-i" option to ensure they only work on binary independent packages, and commands in the binary-arch sequences are passed the "-a" option to ensure they only work on architecture dependent packages. Each debhelper command will record when it's successfully run in debian/package.debhelper.log. (Which dh_clean deletes.) So dh can tell which commands have already been run, for which packages, and skip running those commands again. Each time dh is run, it examines the log, and finds the last logged command that is in the specified sequence. It then continues with the next command in the sequence. The --until, --before, --after, and --remaining options can override this behavior. If debian/rules contains a target with a name like "override_dh_command", then when it gets to that command in the sequence, dh will run that target from the rules file, rather than running the actual command. The override target can then run the command with additional options, or run entirely different commands instead. (Note that to use this feature, you should Build-Depend on debhelper 7.0.50 or above.) Have a look at /usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/ for more examples. Building the Package Locally (Binary Only) There is a simple command to build the binary package: debuild debuild will first check that all the build-depends packages are installed, it will then use dpkgbuildpackage to compile, install and build the.debs using the rules in debian/rules. If that succeeds it will attempt to digitally sign the packages with GPG, if it gives an error that it can not find your key that means it has successfully compiled the .deb packages but you do not have a GPG key with the same name, comment, and e-mail as you used in debian/changelog. See GnuPrivacyGuardHowto for instructions on creating your key. Your finished binary package (.deb file) has now been built locally; you should be able to find it in the directory above your source (i.e. in~/hello/). Have a look and install it using the following commands: cd .. lesspipe *deb sudo dpkg --install *deb Building the Package (Source and Binary)

Perhaps more common than building the binary package locally is to do it through pbuilder after building the source package. Let's move into the root of the extracted source (i.e. ~/hello/hello-2.4) where we build the source package using debuild along with a special option: debuild -S What the -S flag does is tell debuild to build a source package using another script, dpkgbuildpackage, together with fakeroot, which grants us fake root privileges while making the package. It will take the .orig.tar.gz file and produce a .diff.gz (the difference between the original tarball from the author and the directory we have created, debian/ and its contents) and a .dsc file that has the description and md5sums for the source package. The .dsc and *_source.changes (used for uploading the source package) files are signed using your GPG key. If you do not have a gpg key set up you will get an error from debuild. You can either set up a gpg key or use the -us -uc keys with debuild to turn off signing. However, you will not be able to have your packages uploaded to Ubuntu without signing them. To make sure debuild finds the right gpg key you should set the DEBFULLNAME and DEBEMAIL environment variables (in your ~/.bashrc for instance) to the name and email address you use for your gpg key and in the debian/changelog. Some people have reported that they were unable to get debuild to find their gpg key properly, even after setting the above environment variables. To get around this you can give debuild the -k<keyid> flag where<keyid> is your gpg key ID. With the source package now built, we can now use its .dsc file to build the corresponding binary package in a clean pbuilder environement: sudo pbuilder build ../*.dsc Using pbuilder to build the binary packages is very important. It ensures that the build dependencies are correct, because pbuilder provides only a minimal environment, so all the build-time dependencies are determined by the control file. We can check the source package for common mistakes using lintian: cd .. lintian -Ivi *.dsc Requirements for New Ubuntu Packages When a source package is uploaded to Ubuntu which does not yet exist in the archive, or builds a new binary package, it will be held in the NEW queue and has to be reviewed by an Ubuntu archive team member.
Packaging

Most importantly: see copyright and licensing information below.


The source and binary packages should have a sane name: neither should they clutter the namespace (such as "editor") nor should they have an entirely nonsensical name (such as "new-stuff-manager"). debian/control and debian/rules should build packages with the right Architecture:, BuildDepends[-Indep]:, and rules target (binary-arch vs. binary-indep). Maintainer and init scripts should not excessively mess up the system. A more comprehensive list of package checks is available from the Code Review page.

Other

The Debian NEW Reject FAQ lists some important special cases which mostly apply
to Ubuntu as well.

Process documentation: UbuntuDevelopment/NewPackages

Packaging with CDBS


CDBS is a set of Makefile includes that uses debhelper to make building and maintaining Debian packages even easier. It uses advanced features of Makefiles to abstract the build process, so rules files end up primarily as a series of include statements. It has many advantages:

It produces a short, readable, and efficient debian/rules It automates debhelper use for you, so you do not have to worry about repetitive tasks
It helps you focus on more important packaging problems, because it helps without limiting customization Its classes have been well tested, so you can avoid dirty hacks to solve common problems It is extendable

Switching to CDBS is easy


However if your package has an oddity about how it is built you may need to tackle some of the Makefile syntax to extend CDBS and tell it what is needed. Using CDBS for Ubuntu packages is very easy, if the software you are packaging can be configured and built using the GNU autoconf tools (the "configure-make-make install" idiom). After adding cdbs to the Build-Depends in debian/control, a basic debian/rules file using CDBS can fit in 2 lines. For a simple C/C++ application with no extra rules, such as hello, debian/rules can look like this: #!/usr/bin/make -f include /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/debhelper.mk include /usr/share/cdbs/1/class/autotools.mk That is all you need to build the program! CDBS handles installing and cleaning. You can then use the .install and .info files to tune your package with the usual debhelper functions in the various sections for debian/rules. Sometimes the upstream author has hardwired non-standard defaults into the autoconf scripts. For example, a package may place man pages in /usr/share/man/. In this case, you can specify the correct path using the following: DEB_CONFIGURE_MANDIR=/usr/share/man/ Another situation frequently encountered with configure scripts is that you need to specify certain configuration options provided by the software author. This is handled by substituting the appropriate option for the right side of a DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS assign statement like the following: DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS = --enable-graphics --with-gsl=/usr Here is the list of standard configure options that are always passed to configure:

--prefix=$(DEB_CONFIGURE_PREFIX) --includedir=$(DEB_CONFIGURE_INCLUDEDIR) --mandir=$(DEB_CONFIGURE_MANDIR) --infodir=$(DEB_CONFIGURE_INFODIR) --sysconfdir=$(DEB_CONFIGURE_SYSCONFDIR) --localstatedir=$(DEB_CONFIGURE_LOCALSTATEDIR) --libexecdir=$(DEB_CONFIGURE_LIBEXECDIR) CDBS mostly works by including .mk Makefiles in debian/rules. The cdbs package provides such files in /usr/share/cdbs/1/ that allow you to do quite a lot of packaging tasks. Other packages, such as quilt, add modules to CDBS and can be used as Build-Depends. Note that you can also use your own CDBS rules and include them in the package. The most useful modules included with the cdbs package are:

rules/debhelper.mk: Calls debhelper in all required sections rules/dpatch.mk: Allows you to use dpatch to ease patching the source. Must be included
before any other rule.

rules/simple-patchsys.mk: Provides a very easy way to patch the source rules/tarball.mk: Allows you to build packages using the compressed tarball in the package class/autotools.mk: Calls autotools in all required sections class/gnome.mk: Builds GNOME programs (requires the proper Build-Depends
in debian/control)

class/kde.mk: Builds KDE programs (requires the proper Build-Depends in debian/control) class/xfce.mk: Build Xfce4 programs (requires the proper Build-Depends in debian/control) class/python-distutils.mk: Facilitates packaging Python programs
It may happen that you need to patch files belonging to the autoconf system, in which case you will probably need to run aclocal, automakeand autoconf after applying the patch. CDBS has options to assist you in this situation. It will run patch first, then rebuild autotools, and finally run configure "et al." Here is an example where versions 1.10 of autoconf and automake are chosen: include /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/dpatch.mk include /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/debhelper.mk CDBS runs the debhelper scripts after the package has been compiled and installed. Sometimes you may need to modify the behaviour of certain debhelper scripts. A bunch of variables are available for this purpose: debhelper script dh_builddeb dh_compress dh_fixperms dh_gencontrol dh_installcatalog dh_installdebconf cdbs variable DEB_BUILD_DEB_ARGS DEB_COMPRESS_ARGS DEB_FIXPERMS_ARGS DEB_GENCONTROL_ARGS DEB_INSTALLCATALOGS_ARGS DEB_INSTALLDEBCONF_ARGS

dh_installchangelogs DEB_INSTALLCHANGELOGS_ARGS

dh_installdeb dh_installemacsen dh_installinit dh_installlogcheck dh_installlogrotate dh_installmime dh_installpam dh_installudev dh_install dh_makeshlibs dh_md5sums dh_perl dh_shlibdeps dh_strip

DEB_INSTALL_DEB_ARGS DEB_INSTALLEMACSEN_ARGS DEB_INSTALLINIT_ARGS DEB_INSTALLLOGCHECK_ARGS DEB_INSTALLLOGROTATE_ARGS DEB_INSTALLMIME_ARGS DEB_INSTALLPAM_ARGS DEB_INSTALLUDEV_ARGS DEB_INSTALL_ARGS DEB_MAKESHLIBS_ARGS DEB_MD5SUMS_ARGS DEB_PERL_ARGS DEB_SHLIBDEPS_ARGS DEB_STRIP_ARGS

See the manpages of the individual debhelper scripts to see what options are available. One thing that is commonly needed is to exclude files from the action of certain debhelper scripts. For example, you may arrange that a certain file maintains the permissions with which it was installed, and not become modified by the dh_fixperms script: DEB_FIXPERMS_EXCLUDE = /usr/sbin/suid-program The complete list of cdbs' exclude variables is: DEB_COMPRESS_EXCLUDE DEB_FIXPERMS_EXCLUDE DEB_CLEAN_EXCLUDE DEB_DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE DEB_STRIP_EXCLUDE Packaging Python modules with CDBS CDBS is also very well suited for packaging Python modules, when these make use of the distutils building system. The following is an example of a debian/rules file, which in fact could be used ad verbatim for a great number of not-too-complicated modules. Notice that we tellcdbs not to compress Python source files: DEB_PYTHON_SYSTEM=pysupport include /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/debhelper.mk include /usr/share/cdbs/1/class/python-distutils.mk # Don't compress .py files DEB_COMPRESS_EXCLUDE := .py Important note on DEB_AUTO_UPDATE_DEBIAN_CONTROL: Do not use DEB_AUTO_UPDATE_DEBIAN_CONTROL:=yes t

o automatically changedebian/control. It can cause serious problems, and Debian considers it a reason to reject a package from entering the archives. See http://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECTFAQ.html for more information. For more information on CDBS, see Marc Dequnes' guide at https://perso.duckcorp.org/duck/cdbsdoc/cdbs-doc.xhtml. See also this tutorial. Advanced Packaging

Creating More Than One Binary Package


Often you will want to split a source package into more than one binary package. For single binary packages files are installed to debian/<packagename> and packaged from there. For multiple packages they are installed todebian/tmp and split up by using multiple <packagename>.install files For example, suppose you want to build 2 packages pkg1 and pkg2 from one source package, then first in debian/control you need to fill in two Package sections for both pkg1 and pkg2, then create debian/pkg1.install and debian/pkg2.install specifying the pattern of files needed by the packages respectively. * pkg1.install usr/bin/somefile usr/share/somedir/prefix* * pkg2.install usr/doc/foobar/*

Packaging Shared Libraries This document explains what shared libraries are, focusing on exported symbols, and explains some of the details of how to package them. It is a work in progress, based on a MOTU/School session. To see the log of that session please see MOTU/School/LibraryPackaging

Shared Libraries
Shared libraries are object files containing compiled code that can be linked in to an executable. This is usually done for one of two reasons:

1. To provide a dynamically loaded plugin mechanism using dlopen.


2. To share code between multiple applications. This guide will mainly concern itself with the second application. The structure of an (ELF) shared library is an object file containing "symbols" split in to "sections". Usually the details of the sections used are not important when packaging, merely the list of symbols, and as such we will focus on those.

Shared Libraries
Shared libraries are object files containing compiled code that can be linked in to an executable. This is usually done for one of two reasons:

1. To provide a dynamically loaded plugin mechanism using dlopen.


2. To share code between multiple applications. This guide will mainly concern itself with the second application. The structure of an (ELF) shared library is an object file containing "symbols" split in to "sections". Usually the details of the sections used are not important when packaging, merely the list of symbols, and as such we will focus on those. A symbol is an item that is exported from the shared object. This means that it is accessible from an executable that loads the shared library. A symbol can be a variable, or a function, or something else like a struct. If it is a variable then the executable can read and write the value of the variable, and if it is a function then the executable can call the function. The important thing to note is that if an executable contains code to call a function do_foo that it expects to find in libfoo.so, and libfoo.sodoes not export a function with that name, then the program will not run. There are more complications that arise if the program and the library differ in what they think the definition of a symbol are, and so we must strive to make sure that this never happens.
Where a symbol comes from

Symbols are created by the compiler from certain constructs in the source code. Consider the following code: #include <stdio.h> static int static_global = 42; int extern_global; const int const_extern_global = 42; static void local_function(int n) { int local_var = 3; static int static_local_var = 23; if (n > 3) { local_var = n; static_local_var = 2 * n; } if (local_var > 4) { fprintf(stderr, "static_var=%d\n", static_global); } else { fprintf(stderr, "static_local_var=%d\n", static_local_var); }

} void global_function(int n) { fprintf(stderr, "extern_global=%d\n", extern_global); } int main(int argc, char **argv) { local_function(argc); global_function(argc); return 0; } When this code is compiled the compiler will decide whether each of the variables, functions etc. used in the code should be exported as a symbol. If we compile this code we will be able to see what becomes a symbol. Save the code to a file named example.c and then run the following command to compile it: $ gcc -c example.c -o example.o This doesn't create a shared library yet, just an object file, but we are able to see some of the symbol information. Use nm to see the symbol list: $ nm example.o 00000000 R const_extern_global 00000004 C extern_global U fprintf 0000006b 00000000 00000092 00000000 00000004 T global_function t local_function T main d static_global d static_local_var.1781 U stderr

In the rightmost column you can see the name of each of the symbols. There is one created for most of the variables and functions used in the file. However, local_var is not there, as this is a local variable to a function, and as such is allocated on the stack. The other interesting feature is the number that is included in the name of static_local_var. This is to avoid name clashes if you were to have a static variable named static_local_var in another function in the file. (However, as we will see, this symbol will not make it in to the shared object, so this point is not too important.) In the middle column of the output there are letters that correspond to the type of symbol. You can find the definitions in man nm. The ones listed above are

R - The symbol is in the read only data section. C - Common symbol, i.e. uninitialized data. U - The symbol is defined somewhere other than this file. T - The symbol is in the text section, i.e. it is code. t - The symbol is in the text section. d - The symbol is in the initialized data section.
You may notice that the local symbols are given a lowercase letter, and the global symbols an uppercase letter. This means that only symbols with an uppercase letter will make it in to the shared object. The interesting symbols are the ones given the symbol U, which indicates that they refer to the symbol, but do not define it, which means that it must be defined elsewhere. In this case stderr and fprintf fall in to that category, as they are defined in libc. The symbols will be matched up by the linker later. Common Mistakes

dh_make Example Files


When you use dh_make to create the initial "debianisation", example files for various tasks are created in the debian/ directory. The templates have a .ex extension. If you want to use one, rename it to remove the extension. If you do not need it, remove it to keep the debian/ directory clean.

Abusing dh_installdirs .dirs Files


Many packages wrongly use dh_installdirs and .dirs files to create directories. 99% of those cases are not necessary, since dh_installand .install files will automatically take care of creating directories. You only need to use dh_installdirs if your package needs to ship empty nonstandard directories, e. g. /etc/mypackage/plugins.d/.

Changing the Original Tarball


There are two types of source packages, native and non-native. A native package is one that is specific to Ubuntu/Debian. It has the debian/ directory containing the packaging information and any changes to the source included in the tarball (usually <packagename>_<version>.tar.gz). Non-native packages are more common. A non-native package splits the source package into a <packagename>_<version>.orig.tar.gztarball that is identical (hopefully md5sum identical) to the source tarball downloaded from the project's homepage and a .diff.gz file that contains all the differences (debian/ directory and patches) from the original source tarball. The following deals primarily with non-native packages. There is a newer format for non-native packages: Source format 3.0 (quilt). These packages have a .debian.tar.gz file instead of a .diff.gz, containing the debian/ directory and patches against files outside debian/, using the quilt patch system (described later). This format is selected by writing "3.0 (quilt)" into debian/source/format. 3.0 (quilt) packages can be compressed with gz, bz2, lzma or xz.

Here is a list of potential problems that can occur if you change the original tarball:

1. Reproducibility: If you take just the .diff.gz and .dsc, you or someone else has no means to
reproduce the changes in the original tarball.

2. Upgradeability: It is much easier to upgrade to a new upstream (from the author) version if
the .orig.tar.gz is preserved and there is a clear separation between the upstream source and the changes made to produce the Ubuntu source package.

3. Debian to Ubuntu Synchronization: Changing original tarballs makes it hard to automatically


sync from Debian to Ubuntu. Normally, only the .diff.gz and .dsc files change within the same upstream version, since the .orig.tar.gz file is shared by all the Debian orUbuntu revisions. It is much more difficult to sync if the md5sums of the .orig.tar.gz files are not the same.

4. Usage of Revision Control for Debian package: If you use svn (and svn-buildpackage) or
similar tools to handle your Debian package, you usually don't store the original tarball inside. If someone else does a checkout, he'll need to get the original tarball separately. Other revision control systems can be used to track only the packaging files (debian/, etc.) and not the whole source. However, if the .orig.tar.gz is not the same, then obviously problems can occur.

5. Security tracking: Consider a situation where someone wants to introduce a backdoor, rootkit
or other malicious item. If the original tarball is intact, it can be scanned easily through the .diff.gz to see if the person who modified the package attempted something evil. If the tarball has changed, however, you also need to check the differences between the tarball and the original source.

6. The .diff.gz: The option to use the .diff.gz to reflect changes to the original tarball already
exists, so it is easy to make changes without touching the original tarball. It is acceptable to change the original tarball if one or more of the following hold true: It contains non-free parts that cannot be redistributed. Remove those parts, and note it in the packaging. Often such packages use "+dfsg" (which stands for Debian Free Software Guidelines) in the package name and/or versioning to indicate that non-free parts have been removed. The authors only provide bzip2ed source. However you should consider just using source format 3.0 (quilt) which supports bzip2.

Just bunzip2 the .tar.bz2 and gzip -9 the resulting tar. The md5sums of the .tar you provide and the original .tar must match! Eventually provide a get-orig-source rule in debian/rules that does this conversion
automatically. Directly imported from SVN / Bzr / Git / Hg / etc. Provide get-orig-source in debian/rules.

The following are not reasons to change the original tarball:

Wrong directory layout Files need to be removed to keep the .diff.gz small (e.g., files created by autotools). Everything that needs to be deleted should be removed in the clean rule. Since the .diff.gz is created with diff -u, you will not see removed files in the .diff.gz.

Files need to be modified. Files that need to be modified should be changed in the .diff.gz,
that is its purpose!

Wrong permissions on files. You can use debian/rules to do this.


Solutions A get-orig-source rule in debian/rules should obtain the source, mangle it if necessary, and pack it, leaving it in the current directory. SeeDebian Policy No-change repacking (i.e. for zip files), with uscan: get-orig-source: # Uscan will read debian/watch, grab the correct version, repack, and leave it in the # current directory uscan --noconf --force-download --rename --repack --download-current-version --destdir=. Repacking manually: # Grab the version from the changelog, up to the first DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION=$(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -rne 's,^Version: ([^-]+).*,\1,p') get-orig-source: # Uscan can grab upstream source zip uscan --noconf --force-download --download-current-version --destdir=. # Just to be safe rm -rf somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION) # Unpack unzip somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).zip rm somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).zip # Repacked source should have a top-level directory ending in .orig # as a reminder to other developers mv somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION) somesoftware-$ (DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).orig GZIP=--best tar -cz --owner root --group root --mode a+rX \ -f somesoftware_$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).orig.tar.gz \ somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).orig rm -r somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).orig Removing non-DFSG files: # Grab the version before +dfsg DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION=$(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -rne 's,^Version: ([^+] +).*,\1,p') get-orig-source: uscan --noconf --force-download --rename --download-current-version --destdir=. rm -rf somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION) tar -xf somesoftware_$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).orig.tar.gz rm somesoftware_$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).orig.tar.gz rm somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION)/unredistributable.file mv somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION) somesoftware-$ (DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).orig

GZIP=--best tar -cz --owner root --group root --mode a+rX \ -f somesoftware_$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION)+dfsg.orig.tar.gz \ somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).orig rm -r somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).orig Recompressing tarballs (not necessary with source format 3.0 (quilt)): DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION=$(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -rne 's,^Version: ([^-]+).*,\1,p') get-orig-source: wget http://somesite.org/stuff/somesoftware-$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).tar.bz2 -O- \ | bzcat | gzip -9fn -c - > somesoftware_$(DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION).orig.tar.gz From a bzr branch: REV=$(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -rne 's,^Version: .*[+~]bzr([0-9]+).*,\1,p') VER=$(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -rne 's,^Version: ([^-]+).*,\1,p') get-orig-source: bzr export -r $(REV) --root=somesoftware-$(VER).orig \ somesoftware_$(VER).orig.tar.gz lp:somesoftware From an svn repo: REV=$(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -rne 's,^Version: .*[+~]svn([0-9]+).*,\1,p') VER=$(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -rne 's,^Version: ([^-]+).*,\1,p') get-orig-source: rm -rf somesoftware-$(VER).orig svn -q export -r $(REV) http://somesite.org/stuff/somesoftware/trunk \ somesoftware-$(VER).orig GZIP=--best tar -cz --owner root --group root --mode a+rX \ -f somesoftware_$(VER).orig.tar.gz \ somesoftware-$(VER).orig rm -r somesoftware-$(VER).orig From an hg repo: REV=$(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -rne 's,^Version: .*[+~]hg([0-9]+).*,\1,p') VER=$(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -rne 's,^Version: ([^-]+).*,\1,p') get-orig-source: rm -rf somesoftware-$(VER).orig hg clone http://somesite.orgstuff/somesoftware somesoftware-$(VER).orig cd somesoftware-$(VER).orig && hg up -r $(REV) rm -r somesoftware-$(VER).orig/.hg somesoftware-$(VER).orig/.hgignore GZIP=--best tar -cz --owner root --group root --mode a+rX \ -f somesoftware_$(VER).orig.tar.gz \ somesoftware-$(VER).orig rm -r somesoftware-$(VER).orig Tips

Always remember to reference get-orig-source: in debian/rules when you need to repack


the orig.tar.gz. Explain why you repacked it and how others can verify your work.

It is always a good idea to contact upstream regarding issues with autoconf or directory
layout (or old Free Software Foundation addresses in a COPYRIGHT file), etc. so that you can avoid having to patch the .diff.gz at a later date.

Older packages (from Debian Policy 3.3.8 or earlier) keep the information on repacking
in debian/README.Debian-source. When updating an older package, it is acceptable to leave it here, but when upgrading or packaging new software debian/copyright is much preferred.

If a package already contains a debian/ directory, do not repackage it. Source format 3.0
(quilt) will remove an existing debian/ directory. Alternatively, ask the author(s) to delete debian/ and provide a diff.gz instead. This makes it easier to review their work, and it separates packaging from program source. Copyright Information When dealing with copyright information of packages, the following points are critical, since they determine whether we are allowed at all to redistribute the package. Packages must not be accepted if any of these points is not fulfilled: For all files it must be clear under which license they fall. Source code files should usually have a short comment at the top which points out the license. Files shipped under the GPL must be in the 'preferred form of modification' format. This applies to some other free licenses like the MPL, too (but e. g. not to BSD). Negative examples are Flash animations (*.swf), most PostScript/PDF files, and automatically generated source code. The suspicious-source script in the ubuntu-dev-tools package helps to spot such files. to /usr/share/common-licenses/ licenses included there), and declare which licenses apply to which parts of the package. Since there are now multiple versions of the GPL and LGPL, the copyright headers and files must be clear about which version(s) apply.

debian/copyright must list the primary copyright holders and all licenses (use pointers

Common errors:

Shipping PDFs and other files without source like a LaTeX or OpenOffice document Documentation is actually under GFDL, but debian/copyright does not mention it. As of gutsy,
the GFDL is in /usr/share/common-licenses/, so a pointer there is sufficient for debian/copyright.

debian/copyright only mentions a license, but no copyright The source files and/or debian/copyright are not clear about which files fall under which
license

Source is shipped under "GPL 2 only", while debian/copyright says "GPL 2 or later"

GPLed packages link against OpenSSL (directly or indirectly) Different copyright holders and different licenses not mentioned in debian/copyright. Please grep -ir copyright * your packages' directories to make sure you got them all. In the case of large numbers of trivial copyright holders, not all need be mentioned (ask on IRC if you are in doubt), but all licenses must be listed.

The rule of thumb is: look at copyright definitions in the source code and accompanying COPYING/AUTHORS file, as well as all involved licenses. There is no such thing as a general rule of thumb to get it right because different licenses have different requirements for redistribution. While a public domain license may even state that you can do everything with the source code (which would mean that you need not put anything intodebian/copyright and are even free to include your own may-be-distributed-in-CD-form-only-on-rainy-Saturdays license), other licenses may impose certain restrictions, such as having to include the copyright statement, credit the original authors or make clear if the source code is altered from its original form. Sometimes the involved licenses even conflict with each other (e.g. GPL and OpenSSL License), which means that the resulting binary package cannot be distributed. There are six interesting things that are kept in Debian copyright, as follows: 1. Who created the package, and on which date s/he did that. This isn't a legal requirement, but helps identify a person who may have a relation with upstream. 2. The location from which the updated source can be downloaded, although a watch file and a get-orig-source target in debian/rules are recommended where possible. 3. Any licensing for the packaging. Ideally, this should be the same as for the package, unless the packaging was copied from another package with a more restrictive license. 4. The names of any upstream authors. This is mostly to give credit where it is due. 5. Identification of the copyright holder(s). These are the people ultimately responsible for the licensing of the work, although they may have granted the right to sublicense to other parties. 6. Description of the license under which the work is being distributed. This is typically the full text of the license, but may be a shorter form for some common licenses (e.g. GPL, LGPL, BSD, Artistic License etc.). In such a case you can refer to the corresponding file in the/usr/share/common-licenses/ directory. Note that items 5 and 6 are legal requirements. Example 1: GPL The GPL requires that its complete text be distributed along with GPL-licensed software (you can refer to /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2(or GPL-3 in case it applies, it is discouraged to point to the GPL symlink itself), which always exists on Debian/Ubuntu systems), in addition to information about the author(s) and a short disclaimer of warranty (which you should include in debian/copyright). For example: License: GPL-2 <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.> Copyright (C) <year> <name of author> . This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. . This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. .

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA X-Comment: On Debian GNU/Linux systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in the /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2 file. Please note that we use the new machine-readable copyright format here. Also, please note that upstream can choose to restrict a license to one specific version of the GPL, in which case you will need to modify the above text. Typically, such a restriction would be written in the source code files of a package, and you could simply copy it into debian/copyright. Always ensure you are using the correct version of the license, be it GPL 2 or 3, or LGPL 2.0, 2.1 or 3. Use licensecheck to verify that the licenses of all files are consistent. Also, make sure that full copies of the licenses have been included by upstream, as it is not uncommon for the texts of LGPL and FDL to be missing. Example 2: GPL with different GPL derived files from a different author It is not uncommon for copyright notices to be written incorrectly, so always grep the word "copyright" to try and gather nonobvious information about a given project's authorship. Then, be sure document the information in debian/copyright, as this file must include a list of all contributing authors and the files they modified. The typical format is as follows: Files: src/foo.c: Copyright: 2004-2005 by Cracky Coder. License: GPL-2 Files: src/bar.c: Copyright: Based on foobar 2001 by Harry Hacker. License: GPL-2 For more details, see the documentation for the proposed machine-readable copyright format. General Advice Combining the GPL with another license will always make the combined work either GPL or, if the licenses conflict, undistributable. A list of combinable licenses is available at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html. Usually you will need to list the different relevant licenses in debian/copyright. A good way to do this is to list files with a different license together with the license in question. Whether you actually need to list a given license depends on the stipulations of the licenses involved. What you don't need to mention are licenses from libraries the package links against. They are accompanied by their own copyright file, and the package in question can never be installed without the linked library. Of course, there are exceptions that impose different restrictions, such as the OpenSSL License, which requires a disclaimer to be present in debian/copyright if one of its works is used (as in linked against) in a project. Such additional restrictions imply that the utilized library is incompatible with the GPL. While most projects don't typically encounter legal issues, it's very simple to introduce these via inaccurate copyright files. There is a rule of thumb: better safe than sorry, so be verbose and include any item in doubt in debian/copyright.

Reference Packages
Simple installation of files ubuntu-artwork example-content PHP gallery2 roundcube Python Python central jokosher scribes pyenchant pyparallel debconf wvdial Maintainer scripts (postinst, postrm, prerm, preinst) Java packages Patch Systems Quite often it turns out that the upstream source needs to be patched, either to adjust the program to work with Ubuntu or to fix bugs in the source before they are fixed upstream. But how should we represent these changes? We could simply make the changes in the unpacked source package, in which case the patch would be expressed in the .diff.gz file. However, this is not ideal. If there is more than one patch you lose the ability to separate the patches as you just see one big diff that also contains the packaging files (in debian/). This can make it more difficult when you want to send the patches upstream. It is also very convenient to separate the author's source from the changes made for Ubuntu. The best place to put this information is in the debian/ that is already used for the packaging files. For the rest of this chapter we will be looking at the various ways to set up patches in this way. General Tips There will almost always be the need to apply patches before building a package. Here are a few patching tips taken fromhttp://wiki.debian.org/Games/ToolsDiscuss. Some tips on how to use patches efficiently (Thanks Linas virblis): Provide descriptive file names for your patches: 'fix-loading-libfoo-on-architecture-bar.patch' is a good name, '001.patch' is not; Make your patches stand-alone. Each patch should apply cleanly without depending on any other patch being applied; Avoid modifying the same file in multiple patches; Python support linda bittornado aptoncd rhythmbox

python-imaging exaile

If you absolutely need to create patches that depend on each other, specify that in the filenames: '00patchfoo-do-this.patch', '01patchfoo-do-that.patch' or similar; Do not include multiple unrelated modifications into a single patch; Patch your packages at build time. There is no need to ship a patch plus an already patched source. This only increases the size of the diff. Make sure patch is applied before anything else happens with your package. Make configure rule depend on the patch rule; Clean first, unpatch afterwards. Some files could have been modified during the build so unpatching may fail, unless you restore them. If simply makecleaning the sources does not restore their state, it may be a good idea to make backup copies, for example, in patch rule. using a patch system (cf. [WWW]http://lists.debian.org/ce/2008/06/msg00001.html). The page README.sourceHowTo attempts to collect sample README.source file for each packaging systems.

Debian policy 3.8.0 imposes that packages specify explicit how to apply their patches when

To find out which patch system is used, use what-patch from the ubuntu-dev-tools package
(also requires CDBS to be installed): daniel@lovegood:~/jokosher-0.9$ what-patch cdbs daniel@lovegood:~/jokosher-0.9$ or daniel@lovegood:~/seahorse-2.22.2$ what-patch quilt daniel@lovegood:~/seahorse-2.22.2$ In an ideal world the perfect workflow to get a patch included would be:

1. get it accepted Upstream (if applicable) 2. get it accepted in Debian (if applicable, the easiest way to get it submitted is to
use submittodebian (from the ubuntu-dev-toolspackage)) 3. get it accepted in Ubuntu To not waste the time of Debian or upstream maintainers figuring out if a specific problem you forward to them is REALLY their problem, it's advisable to do a bit of research before and to point out in the bug report which kind of research you did beforehand. A good way to check if a problem was probably introduced in Ubuntu only is to check debian/changelog and see if there's any Ubuntu revisions in there that describe a similar change. There's also a number of changes where Ubuntu decided to deviate from Debian and upstream for specific reasons. Here's some more decision making help:

When to Send to Debian


Here's a few examples:

Missing icons, desktop files (Applications menu entries), man pages or documentation files Errors in default configuration files or init scripts Errors when installing, upgrading or removing a package can often be present in Debian too Packages failing to build correctly (FTBFS) can often be sent to Debian as the same issue may affect their package. However, you should first attempt to check that the Debian package fails to build before sending it up.

As a rule of thumb, any patches that only affect files in the debian directory should be sent to the Debian bug tracking system (it's rare for these files to ever need to go all the way upstream to the original developers). Most bugs tagged with the "packaging" tag are also prime candidates to be sent up to Debian. You can ask the Debian Derivatives Front Desk for assistance if you have problems getting your patch integrated into Debian (e.g. the package maintainer does not respond). The Front Desk can be contacted via <derivatives AT debian.org>. More information is available at Debian DerivativesFrontDesk

When to Send Upstream


Crashes, lock-ups, hangs, failures to start Incorrect/unexpected outputs Memory leaks, excessive CPU usage Patches which do not touch the /debian directory should normally be sent to the original developers

Essentially everything not listed in the Debian section above should be forwarded to the original upstream authors. If the upstream is not available, for instance if the project is no longer active, it can still be maintained in Debian, so all patches for such projects should be forwarded there.

Other Cases
However, there are often reasons why you might want to skip one or two upstreams:

Don't forward any patches to Debian if the package does not exist in Debian (Check
using http://packages.debian.org)

Don't wait for Upstream or Debian approval (but forward anyway), if it fixes an important
(importance set at Critical or High) bug and we're late in the ReleaseSchedule.

In case you are working on StableReleaseUpdates or we're late in the ReleaseSchedule, you
might need to fix the bug in a different way than Debian or Upstream. It's important to use a minimally intrusive fix in those cases, even if this means a temporary deviation.

More release schedule specific decision making help.


Not every patch can get easily included in Ubuntu. Here's a list of what technically needs to happen to get a certain change into Ubuntu.

If the source package can be imported straight from Debian (Ubuntu package
unchanged): SyncRequestProcess

If the change needs to be merged from Debian: UbuntuDevelopment/Merging Getting a patch uploaded by a sponsor: SponsorshipProcess

If it's sufficiently urgent to get the patch into Ubuntu directly, subscribe the ubuntusponsors team to the bug report. We have good guidelines that explain what makes a good patch. A good rule of thumb is: the better understood the problem is, the better documented the patch is and the more buy-in the patch has from the original software authors, the more likely it is to be included. The easiest way

Authoring a patch
If you want to author a patch that changes parts of the source code of the package, edit-patch takes away a lot of the complexity. The easiest way to patch packages is using edit-patch (from the ubuntu-dev-tools package). It basically is a wrapper around every other patch system you can imagine. Example: First get the source code for the package: daniel@bert:~$ LC_ALL=C apt-get source jokosher Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done NOTICE: 'jokosher' packaging is maintained in the 'Svn' version control system at: svn://svn.debian.org/python-apps/packages/jokosher/trunk/ Need to get 1275kB of source archives. Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/universe jokosher 0.11.5-1ubuntu1 (dsc) [1442B] Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/universe jokosher 0.11.5-1ubuntu1 (tar) [1266kB] Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/universe jokosher 0.11.5-1ubuntu1 (diff) [7907B] Fetched 1275kB in 11s (111kB/s) gpgv: Signature made Sun Apr 25 04:05:41 2010 CEST using DSA key ID DCFC3FD0 gpgv: Can't check signature: public key not found dpkg-source: warning: failed to verify signature on ./jokosher_0.11.5-1ubuntu1.dsc dpkg-source: info: extracting jokosher in jokosher-0.11.5 dpkg-source: info: unpacking jokosher_0.11.5.orig.tar.gz dpkg-source: info: unpacking jokosher_0.11.5-1ubuntu1.debian.tar.gz dpkg-source: info: applying update_mime_database.patch dpkg-source: info: applying desktop_file.patch dpkg-source: info: applying load_extensions_from_unpacked_eggs.patch dpkg-source: info: applying hard-code-omf-location.patch dpkg-source: info: applying cairo_fix.patch daniel@bert:~$

Next use edit-patch:


daniel@bert:~$ cd jokosher-0.11.5

daniel@bert:~/jokosher-0.11.5$ edit-patch 12-make-things-work-again Normalizing patch name to 12-make-things-work-again.patch Applying patch update_mime_database.patch patching file setup.py Applying patch desktop_file.patch patching file bin/jokosher.desktop Applying patch load_extensions_from_unpacked_eggs.patch patching file Jokosher/ExtensionManager.py Applying patch hard-code-omf-location.patch patching file help/jokosher/jokosher-C.omf Applying patch cairo_fix.patch patching file Jokosher/VUWidget.py Applying patch 10-make-things-work-again.patch patching file README Now at patch 10-make-things-work-again.patch Patch 12-make-things-work-again.patch is now on top daniel@bert:/tmp/quilt-2oLXmw$ ls AUTHORS COPYING COPYING-DOCS Instruments Jokosher PKG-INFO README bin debian extensions help images locale setup.py daniel@bert:/tmp/quilt-2oLXmw$ vi README

Aftering making the necessary changes, you just hit Ctrl-D or type exit to leave the subshell.
daniel@bert:/tmp/quilt-2oLXmw$ exit exit File ./README added to patch 12-make-things-work-again.patch Refreshed patch 12-make-things-work-again.patch Removing patch 12-make-things-work-again.patch Restoring README Removing patch 10-make-things-work-again.patch Restoring README Removing patch cairo_fix.patch Restoring Jokosher/VUWidget.py Removing patch hard-code-omf-location.patch Restoring help/jokosher/jokosher-C.omf Removing patch load_extensions_from_unpacked_eggs.patch Restoring Jokosher/ExtensionManager.py

Removing patch desktop_file.patch Restoring bin/jokosher.desktop Removing patch update_mime_database.patch Restoring setup.py No patches applied Remember to add debian/patches/12-make-things-work-again.patch debian/patches/series to a VCS if you use one daniel@bert:~/jokosher-0.11.5$

Then the dch dialogue will pop up to ask you to add a changelog entry for your patch.
Done.

Applying a patch You might run into cases where you downloaded a patch and want to know if it's "ready for consumption" already or if it needs to be fed to a patch-system, etc. Let's consider the case below: daniel@miyazaki:~$ wget -q http://launchpadlibrarian.net/45359440/0001-Don-t-limit-users-list-swidth-request.patch daniel@miyazaki:~$ lsdiff 0001-Don-t-limit-users-list-s-width-request.patch a/interfaces/users.ui daniel@miyazaki:~$ As you can see the patch just changes one file and it's not in any kind of debian/ directory. This means that the patch should be applied to the source of the package as part of whatever patch system is or is not used. The easiest way to do this is to use edit-patch (version 0.100 and above) from the ubuntu-devtools package. daniel@miyazaki:~/gnome-system-tools-2.30.0$ edit-patch ~/0001-Don-t-limit-users-list-s-widthrequest.patch Normalizing patch path to 0001-Don-t-limit-users-list-s-width-request.patch Normalizing patch name to 0001-Don-t-limit-users-list-s-width-request.patch Copying and applying new patch. You can now edit the patch or exit the subshell to save. ... Applying patch 0001-Don-t-limit-users-list-s-width-request.patch patching file interfaces/users.ui Now at patch 0001-Don-t-limit-users-list-s-width-request.patch daniel@miyazaki:/tmp/quilt-4HbhTg$ Now you need do type exit or hit Ctrl-d and edit-patch will fire up a editor, where you can describe the effects of the patch in a changelog entry.

If the lsdiff output mentions a debian/changelog change, you can easily just apply the patch by running hacker@machine:~/source-tree-1.0$ patch -p1 < ~/complete.patch You might need to modify the argument to -p. Patching Without a Patch System As we mentioned above, you can patch the original source by simply applying changes to the unpacked source directory. A real-life example of this is cron. If you grab cron's source package and look at the .diff.gz, you will see that several of the original source's files were changed: apt-get source cron zgrep +++ cron*.diff.gz But again, this is not really the best way to represent patches. A better way is to create individual patch files, put them in debian/patches/ and then apply those patches (using patch) in debian/rules. This is what is done for udev. If you are using Intrepid or earlier, download the source with: apt-get source udev udev was altered in Jaunty in a way that makes it no longer suitable for this example, so if you're using Jaunty or later, you can get the Intrepid version of udev with: dget -x -u https://edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/intrepid/+source/udev/124-8/+files/udev_124-8.dsc Once you've gotten the udev source into your folder of choice using one of the above two methods, you can proceed with the following: zgrep +++ udev*.diff.gz ls udev*/debian/patches/ less udev*/debian/rules The rules file contains the following prescriptions for applying and unapplying patches: # Apply patches to the package patch: patch-stamp patch-stamp: dh_testdir @patches=debian/patches/*.patch; for patch in $$patches; do \ test -f $$patch || continue; \ echo "Applying $$patch"; \ patch -stuN -p1 < $$patch || exit 1; \ done touch $@ # Remove patches from the package unpatch: dh_testdir @if test -f patch-stamp; then \

patches=debian/patches/*.patch; \ for patch in $$patches; do \ reversepatches="$$patch $$reversepatches"; \ done; \ for patch in $$reversepatches; do \ test -f $$patch || continue; \ echo "Reversing $$patch"; \ patch -suRf -p1 < $$patch || exit 1; \ done; \ rm -f patch-stamp; \ fi That is all well and good, but how do we create new patches for udev using this scheme? The general approach is as follows: 1. Copy the clean source tree to a temporary directory. 2. Apply all patches up to the one you want to edit, or if you want to create a new patch, apply all existing ones (this is necessary since in general patches depend on previous patches). If you want, you can use debian/rules for this; just remove the patches that come afterthe one you want to edit and call debian/rules patch. The actual name for the patch target varies, and may appear as any of the following (or something else): patch, setup, applypatches, unpack and patch-stamp. You have to check in debian/rules to see what it is called.

3. Copy the whole source tree again: cp -a /tmp/old /tmp/new. 4. Go to /tmp/new and make your modifications. 5. Go back to the original source tree and generate the patch with diff Nurp /tmp/old /tmp/new > mypatchname.patch. Example 1. Let us make a new patch for udev called 90_penguins.patch which replaces Linux with Penguin in the udev README file: cd udev*/ cp -a . /tmp/old pushd /tmp/old debian/rules patch cp -a . /tmp/new; cd ../new sed -i 's/Linux/Penguin/g' README cd .. diff -Nurp old new > 90_penguins.patch popd mv /tmp/90_penguins.patch debian/patches rm -rf /tmp/old /tmp/new Example 2. Note: This example may not work in later versions of udev where 10-selinux-include-udev-h.patch does not exist.

What happens if we want to edit an existing patch? We can use a procedure similar to the one in Example 1, but we must apply the patch to be edited first: cp -a . /tmp/old pushd /tmp/old cp -a . /tmp/new cd ../new; patch -p1 < debian/patches/10-selinux-include-udev-h.patch sed -i '1 s/$/***** HELLO WORLD ****/' udev_selinux.c cd .. diff -Nurp old new > 10-selinux-include-udev-h.patch popd mv /tmp/10-selinux-include-udev-h.patch debian/patches rm -rf /tmp/old /tmp/new So this way of patching the source, while technically fine, can become very complicated and unmanageable. To make patching easier and more straightforward, patch systems were developed. We will take a look at couple of the most popular ones.

CDBS with Simple Patchsys (Example Package: pmount)


The CDBS build-helper system (see Packaging with CDBS) has a very simple patch system built in. You just need to add an include for simple-patchsys.mk in debian/rules. An example is the package pmount, whose entire rules file consists of the following: include /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/debhelper.mk include /usr/share/cdbs/1/class/autotools.mk include /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/simple-patchsys.mk common-post-build-arch:: # Generate a POT file cd po; intltool-update -p --verbose The module simple-patchsys.mk has that name for a reason: it comes with absolutely no bells or whistles whatsoever. Nevertheless, it has won popularity because it's sufficiently complex for most tasks, and because long ago Martin Pitt wrote the script cdbs-edit-patch, which has made people's lives a lot easier. This script is provided with the cdbs package by default; the way it works, you simply supply the name of a patch to the script, and depending on whether or not that name is already present, cdbs-edit-patch will either create a new patch or edit the existing one with that name. (That is to say, the commands to create and edit patches using cdbs-edit-patch are identical.) Execution of the script opens a new shell, where you make your changes to the patch; once you've finished, Ctrl+D closes the embedded shell and saves your changes todebian/patches/. Example with pmount: cd /wherever/you/unpacked/the/source/pmount-0.9.11 cdbs-edit-patch 03-simple-readme.patch echo 'This should document pmount' > README <Press Ctrl+D to end your editing session>

Since the Ubuntu Edgy version of cdbs, cdbs-edit-patch also works for packages using tarball.mk, and it can edit patches which produce rejections.

dpatch
A popular patch system is dpatch. It has a dpatch-edit-patch script like cdbs has but stores the patches a little differently. It uses a file named debian/patches/00list to find the name and order of patches to apply. This means you can order your patches in whichever way you want and can disable a patch without removing it altogether. However, it also means you need to update 00list if you add a patch. If dpatch-edit-patch is called with two arguments it will edit/create the patch named by the first argument relative to the patch named by the second argument. In other words: dpatch-edit-patch new.dpatch old.dpatch will apply patches up to old.dpatch and then create new.dpatch. Note that dpatch patches usually have a .dpatch suffix. This is becausedpatch stores the patches in a slightly different format than a normal patch that adds a special header. quilt (Example Package: xterm) quilt is the other non-dumb standard patch system. Like dpatch, it has a list of patches to apply in debian/patches/series. This link should be helpful: Quilt for Debian maintainers Helpful step-by-step walkthrough with explanations of Quilt: Quilt, A Patch Management System: How to Survive With Many Patches TODO: the below should be updated, at the moment the link above is much nicer However, quilt is non-trivial to set up and has a lot of advanced commands which make it very flexible, but not all that easy to use. We will only look at a small example here. First, set yourself up to use quilt: cd /wherever/you/unpacked/the/source/ mkdir debian/patches export QUILT_PATCHES=debian/patches touch debian/patches/series Note that once QUILT_PATCHES is set, you cannot use cd to move around the source tree and expect quilt to operate sanely. You need to stay in the top-level source directory for any quilt operations. For convenience (especially if you only use Quilt for packaging), you can add QUILT_PATCHES=debian/patches to ~/.quiltrc Now, let's edit the already existing patch 901_xterm_manpage.diff: quilt push 901_xterm_manpage.diff sed -i 's/Copyright/Copyleft/' xterm.man quilt refresh 901_xterm_manpage.diff quilt pop -a Unlike the other patch systems, quilt works with patched inline sources, but it keeps track of modifications.

Finally, let's add a new patch to the top of the stack: quilt push -a quilt new muhaha.diff quilt add README # you have to do that for all files you modify sed -i '1 s/^/MUHAHA/' README quilt refresh quilt pop -a For a full introduction to quilt, this pdf is quite useful. Patching Other People's Packages The most important thing to keep in mind when patching packages maintained by other people is to keep the patch system (or lack thereof) that the maintainer has set up. This will ensure consistency and make the package maintainer more likely to accept your patch. It is also a good idea to separate patches logically rather than creating one giant patch. If the upstream authors apply one of your changes but not another it is much easier to just drop a patch than edit a monolithic patch to update it.

KDE
While Basic Packaging is a guide for packaging in general, this section deals with the KDE-specific points. If you haven't already done so, all the software listed in the Debian New Maintainer's Guide and Debian Developer's Reference must be installed to package software for KDE. Also recommended:

The kdesdk package, which provides many useful applications and scripts docbook2x, which it is useful for converting DocBook format into man pages. (Debian policy
requires that every single application have a man page!) Essential Packaging Bits KDE 3 applications typically use the GNU autoconf/automake build system. There is a CDBS include file designed for KDE: include /usr/share/cdbs/1/class/kde.mk You will need to build-dep on kdelibs4-dev and, if the package builds kcontrol modules, kdebase-dev. If you patch any Makefile.am or configure.in files, you will need to re-run auto-tools, which can be done using the following line: make -f debian/rules buildprep Note that this step is necessary if upstream has not packaged a configure file.

KDE 4 applications use a new build system, CMake. The way we build KDE 4 packages is still changing so there is no file included in CDBS yet. You can get a suitable kde.mk by downloading the source for kde4libs and copying debian/cdbs. include debian/cdbs/kde.mk You will need to build-depend on kdelibs5-dev and sometimes also libphonon-dev and kdepimlibs5dev. If there is already a KDE 3 application with the same name in the archives, rename the package <appname>-kde4. KDE Manpages The template for a KDE manpage can be found here. This file is a standard file for a basic KDE application. Customize it for your application and check that every important command line option is described in detail. If you don't want to edit the file by hand, install the manedit package and type manedit [manpage name or file] Add a build-depend on docbook2x in debian/control. After that just add this line to the debian/rules file (assuming the name of the binary package is myapp): build/myapp:: docbook2x-man debian/myapp.1.docbook cleanbuilddir/myapp:: rm -f myapp.1 DEB_INSTALL_MANPAGES_myapp = myapp.1 Of course, you have to replace myapp.1.docbook with your manual source file. You also have to add a docbook2x build dependency to thedebian/control file. If you have more than one manpage to install (e.g. if your .deb installs a program and its daemon) simply separate their names with a space: DEB_INSTALL_MANPAGES_myapp = myapp.1 myappdaemon.8 As an alternative you can use the kdemangen.pl script to generate a man page based on the command line help of the program.

Supplementary Files

.desktop Files
In order to ensure that the menus are properly populated, and that software is easily installable from the Add/Remove... software, each package should contain a .desktop file. As a matter of policy, .desktop files should only be present for GUI interfaces: software intended to be used from the command line should not provide such an interface.

.desktop files may be included in packages in two ways, either as part of the upstream distribution, or as part of the distribution packaging. Including the .desktop file in the upstream distribution is vastly preferred, as this allows for appropriate translation of the .desktop file. If it cannot be included upstream, the .desktop file should be stored in the debian/ directory. Criteria for the inclusion of .desktop files: 1. The package must provide a binary with a GUI interface 2. The binary must be typically executed with constant arguments 3. Users would expect to launch the program from the menu Packages typically not needing a .desktop file are: Window Managers, programs that do not have sensible defaults, programs that only act on files (rather than having a standard interface), programs that have no GUI, programs that start up invisible. Some packaging notes:

In debian/control, if cdbs is not used, build-depend on debhelper (>= 4.2.21). ensure that .desktop files are installed or moved to /usr/share/applications/<binary>.desktop ensure that icon files are installed or moved to /usr/share/pixmaps/
Some ideas about icons: Provide a 32x32-pixel XPM icon for use by the Debian menus Optionally provide a 48x48-pixel PNG icon for use by freedesktop.org menus (the Debian icon will be used if this is unavailable) If neither format is available, many formats can be converted as follows:

Get a base icon (clip of package graphic, .ico file, from scratch, etc.)
Crop or resize to 32x32 pixels If convert generated multiple images, select one (and name correctly)

Run convert editedicon.ico <package>.xpm (requires imagemagick)


About .desktop files generally:

Check the specifications Avoid absolute pathnames in .desktop files Do not include a file-type extension in Icon= Ensure that Categories= includes at least one Registered Category
Add any other applicable Additional Categories

Check with desktop-file-validate to ensure everything is correct


The Workflow:

Find a package without a .desktop file Verify there is no .desktop file in the latest development version If no .desktop file is needed, add the package to the list below If a .desktop is needed: Check to see if there is a .desktop in the upstream or Debian bug tracker

Create the necessary .desktop file/icon if necessary Open a wishlist bug in the package reporting the missing .desktop file Attach the .desktop file and icon to the bug (optionally a patch for both)
Link the bug to the Debian BTS (create a BTS bug if required)

Tag the bug with "desktop-file"


Simple creation techniques: In GNOME: use Nautilus' "Create Launcher" to create a template file Scripted: Some of this can be automated. Please check the results of the automation prior to submission. Most importantly, please ensure that any useful additional categories are included.

Shell snippets that might prove useful: Using an absolute path for an icon: grep -E "^Icon=\/usr\/" /usr/share/applications/*.desktop | cut -d: -f1 | xargs dlocate Using an absolute path for a binary: grep -E "^Exec=\/usr\/" /usr/share/applications/*.desktop | cut -d: -f1 | xargs dlocate

.desktop file fails validation:


for i in /usr/share/applications; do desktop-file-validate $i >> /dev/null || echo $i; done | xargs dlocate A minimal desktop file for a program to appear in the application menu looks like this: [Desktop Entry] Type=Application Name=foo Name[xx]=foo GenericName=Bar description Exec=kfoo Icon=kfoo Terminal=false Categories=Qt;KDE;Utility; You should ensure that the icon pointed to by Icon= exists in the hicolor namespace and not in the crystalsvg or oxygen themes, this is so it can be found by GNOME and other desktops. Some notes about KDE .desktop files: KDE also uses .desktop files to describe many resources such as libraries to be loaded or kcontrol modules. .desktop files for applications should be in /usr/share/applications/kde for KDE 3 or /usr/share/applications/kde4 for KDE 4. Sometimes packages install the .desktop file in the old directory (/usr/share/applnk). You may want to copy the furnished .desktop file to the new location (/usr/share/applications/kde). Add these lines to debian/rules:

install/myapp:: #other stuff dh_install desktop_file usr/share/applications/kde

Man Pages

Using POD
POD is a very simple but also elegant format for writing manual pages. It is much easier to learn than writing it directly in groff or using other alternatives like DocBook.

Basic template
Below is a sample manpage template in POD format. Customize it for your application and check that every important command line option is described in detail. You can also see a real example. =head1 NAME Command - Short one-line description. =head1 SYNOPSIS command [options...] =head1 DESCRIPTION Command is a foo that does bar. =head1 OPTIONS =over 8 =item B<--key=I<value>> Uses the given value as key. =item B<--moo> Shows an easter egg (don't explain this in real man pages ;)). =item B<--stupid-example> Doesn't do anything. =item B<--version> Displays information about the currently installed version and exists. =head1 BUGS

This command has absolutely no bugs, as I have written it. Also, as it has no bugs, there is no need for a bug tracker. =head1 AUTHORS B<command> was written by Joe Hacker <joe.hacker@example.com> and John Dough <guy1268@example.net>. This manual page was written by Cool Packager <myself@example.com>. Both are released under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later. =cut

Some formatting options


B<...text...> - "...text..." will be shown in bold. I<...text...> - "...text..." will be shown in italics. Usually, the command name is always written in bold (except in the NAME and SYNOPSIS sections), and variables that the user should replace in italics (as in --key=I<value>).

Necessary packaging changes - Add a build dependency on perl in debian/control.


- After that just add this line to the debian/rules file (assuming the name of the binary package is myapp and that it is using cdbs): build/myapp:: pod2man --section=1 --release=$(VERSION) --center "" debian/myapp.pod > myapp.1 cleanbuilddir/myapp:: rm -f myapp.1 DEB_INSTALL_MANPAGES_myapp = myapp.1 Of course you have to replace myapp.pod with the name of your manpage source file, and the section number with that one corresponding to what you are documenting (see man man for a list of all sections). If you have more than one manpage to install (e.g. if your .deb installs a program and its daemon) simply separate their names with a space: DEB_INSTALL_MANPAGES_myapp = myapp.1 myappdaemon.8

Recipes Note: PackagingGuide/Recipes may offer some recipes not included below.

Updating an Ubuntu Package


In this recipe, we will update the package brasero from version 0.5.2-0ubuntu1 to version 0.6.1-0ubuntu1. This will serve as an introduction to the common practice of updating a package to a new upstream version. Ingredients

1. To sign the package once it's finished, you'll need a GPG key. See the GnuPrivacyGuardHowto for a guide. 2. The debian packaging tools use some environment variables to put your name and e-mail
address in the changelog and to find your GPG key ID. To set these up, edit ~/.bashrc and add your name and mail address (the ones you used for the GPG key), example: export DEBFULLNAME='Daniel Holbach' export DEBEMAIL='daniel.holbach@ubuntu.com' to make these changes take affect, start a new terminal or type source ~/.bashrc in the terminal.

3. pbuilder is a very handy command used to test-build packages. See the PbuilderHowto for a
guide to setting it up for the active development release. 4. Install some necessary tools: sudo apt-get install devscripts build-essential wget cdbs fakeroot liburi-perl debhelper pbuilder dpatch quilt gnome-pkg-tools Method

1. Get the source for the old brasero package. Usually you would run apt-get source brasero, but since this
is just an example, do instead: dget -xu http://people.ubuntu.com/~dholbach/motu/brasero_0.5.2-0ubuntu1.dsc

2. Get the new source. Usually you would look up where the old version was downloaded from
(check debian/copyright) or usedebian/watch. But again, since this is a prepared example: wget http://people.ubuntu.com/~dholbach/motu/brasero-0.6.1.tar.gz 3. Unpack and rename the new source tarball: tar xfz brasero-0.6.1.tar.gz mv brasero-0.6.1.tar.gz brasero_0.6.1.orig.tar.gz Note: If you use the <package name>_<version>.orig.tar.gz scheme, a .diff.gz file containing all of your changes to the upstream tarball will be generated automatically during one of the next steps. 4. Copy the packaging from the old source tree into the new one: cp -r brasero-0.5.2/debian brasero-0.6.1/

5. Add a debian/changelog entry:


cd brasero-0.6.1

dch -i Here you enter something like "New upstream version" and make sure the version number is 0.6.1-0ubuntu1. 6. Build the source package: debuild -S -sa

7. Build the binary with pbuilder:


cd .. sudo pbuilder build brasero_0.6.1-0ubuntu1.dsc The results will be stored in /var/cache/pbuilder/result/. 8. And you are done! Note: This package may not build in pbuilder on Intrepid and later releases of Ubuntu. It appears that the oled brasero package uses an older version of GCC. You should not have this problem building other packages. For Bonus Points...

1. Check the file configure.in for changes which need to be reflected in the packaging:
diff -u brasero-0.{5.2,6.1}/configure.in In some cases, this file may be called configure.ac. Most software programmed in C or C++ includes this file; it generates checks during the configure run of the build. Looking closely at the diff, you will notice that most changes are reformatting and the only one that might be relevant is -LIBBURN_REQUIRED=0.2.3 +LIBBURN_REQUIRED=0.3.4 Since a look at debian/control reveals that libburn goes unused here, we are done.

2. Read the NEWS file:


less brasero-0.6.1/NEWS This file, if included by upstream, contains valuable information about the package update. While maintaining a package, it is important not to neglect the NEWS file. 3. Compare the contents of the old package and the new package: wget http://people.ubuntu.com/~dholbach/motu/brasero_0.5.2-0ubuntu1_i386.deb debdiff brasero_0.5.2-0ubuntu1_i386.deb /var/cache/pbuilder/result/brasero_0.6.10ubuntu1*.deb The output will show you that some icons have been replaced and some translations added. Everything looks good here! Just remember that, in order to download the old package, you would normally have to run a command such as the following:

aptitude download brasero

4. Check debian/watch or create if it doesn't exist 5. Now, get to work fixing some upgrade bugs!
Creating a Debdiff

Use Ubuntu Merge Proposals


To make use of Ubuntu merge proposals, follow these easy steps:

set up the tools get the source work on the package seek sponsorship
In short: 1. Get set up: $ sudo apt-get install bzr bzr-builddeb $ bzr whoami "James Westby <james.westby@ubuntu.com>" $ bzr launchpad-login james-w 2. Get the source: $ bzr branch lp:ubuntu/seccure seccure or for a particular release: $ bzr branch lp:ubuntu/hardy-proposed/seccure hardy-proposed 3. Create branch for specific bug fix: $ bzr branch seccure seccure.fix-12345 4. Make changes. 5. Make sure you mention the bug you worked on in debian/changelog (ie: (LP: #494704)) 6. Run $ debcommit 7. Push change to Launchpad: $ bzr push lp:~james-w/ubuntu/karmic/seccure/seccure-fix-12345 8. Open branch in browser: $ bzr lp-open 9. Click on "Propose for merging into another branch".

Consult the Release Schedule Which work can be integrated into Ubuntu relies heavily on where in the release cycle we are. Before reading on, consult the current release schedule and find out.

The beginning of the release cycle is usually the best time to get intrusive changes applied. After FeatureFreeze, you will need to get a freeze exception.

If you want to get a change into a stable release, you need a SRU exception. More decision making help.
Traditional Process In this recipe, we will fix a simple bug and create a corresponding debdiff, which could be sent to others or attached to bug reports to apply a bug fix. This recipe will not do all of the work that edit-patch does to make a tidy patch for submission, with correct patch name and changelog file. Most developers should use edit-patch when submitting debdiff patches, this procedure is for more advanced users who will be manually changing the patch names and changelog. Ingredients 1. The debian packaging tools use some environment variables to put your name and e-mail address in the changelog and to find your GPG key ID. To set these up, edit ~/.bashrc and add your name and mail address (the ones you used for the GPG key), example: export DEBFULLNAME='Daniel Holbach' export DEBEMAIL='daniel.holbach@ubuntu.com' to make these changes take effect, start a new terminal or type source ~/.bashrc in the terminal.

2. pbuilder is a very handy command used to test-build packages. See the PbuilderHowto for a
guide to setting it up for the active development release. 3. Install some necessary tools: sudo apt-get install devscripts build-essential wget fakeroot cdbs patchutils debhelper

4. To sign the package once it's finished, you'll need a GPG key. See
the GnuPrivacyGuardHowto for a guide. Note that this is only important if you plan to upload the result to a access-restricted archive directly : most of the time it is not important when creating a debdiff. Method 1. Let's pretend we got a bug report saying that colour in the description of xicc should be color and we want to fix it. (This is just a bad joke and a bad example.) First verify if that's true: $ apt-cache show xicc Package: xicc Priority: optional Section: universe/x11 Installed-Size: 72 Maintainer: Ross Burton <ross@debian.org>

Architecture: amd64 Version: 0.2-2 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3.4-1), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.8.0), libice6, libsm6, libx11-6 Filename: pool/universe/x/xicc/xicc_0.2-2_amd64.deb Size: 8224 MD5sum: a266d60cd721ef91fcb1d3d47ecd6a40 SHA1: b8da21b8dfba7ed9c7ac6fa5c9c3e70b438d7124 SHA256: 635c287a1c43df31670a20194e774561479d70d981bf24c143c3711799bd839a Description: set the ICC colour profile for an X display This utility lets you set an ICC colour profile for an X display, so that applications can use it to display colour calibrated images. Applications have to specifically look for this atom but several applications such as Gimp and Eye Of Gnome already do. Bugs: mailto:ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com Origin: Ubuntu 2. Time to act on it... get the source of the package: dget -xu http://people.ubuntu.com/~dholbach/motu/xicc_0.2-2.dsc (We would typically do this with "apt-get source xicc" or "pull-lp-source xicc" (which is included in ubuntu-dev-tools) ; dget is used in this example to grab this specific file)

3. Edit debian/control and fix colour:


cd xicc-0.2 sed -i 's/colour/color/g' debian/control Of course patching is not always that easy and you might have to patch bigger parts of the package. Please refer to our Patch guidelines.

4. Adhere to DebianMaintainerField: Edit debian/control and replace


Maintainer: Ross Burton <ross@debian.org> with Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com> XSBC-Original-Maintainer: Ross Burton <ross@debian.org> You can use the update-maintainer tool (in the ubuntu-dev-tools package) for that.

5. Update debian/changelog:
dch -i and describe the changes you did. 6. Generate a new source package: debuild -S or if you're creating an unsigned package:

debuild -S -us -uc 7. Look at the debdiff: cd .. debdiff xicc_0.2-2.dsc xicc_0.2-2ubuntu1.dsc | less 8. To create a patch file that you can send to others, run debdiff xicc_0.2-2.dsc xicc_0.2-2ubuntu1.dsc > xicc_0.2.2ubuntu1.debdiff

9. And we're done. You can now attach the debdiff to a bug report or send it to the relevant
person. SponsorshipProcess explains how to get a package uploaded to Ubuntu. Creating and Using a debian/watch File This recipe demonstrates how it can be useful to include a debian/watch file in your package and how to upload a new upstream version for a package. In this case, we will be updating package medit from version 0.8.5-1 to version 0.9.40ubuntu1 using tools uscan and uupdate. Ingredients

1. To sign the package once it is ready, you will need a GPG key. See GnuPrivacyGuardHowto for a guide. 2. Debian packaging tools use some environment variables to put your name and e-mail address
in the changelog and to find your GPG key ID. To set these up, edit ~/.bashrc and add your name and mail address (the ones you used for the GPG key), example: export DEBFULLNAME='Arthur Loiret' export DEBEMAIL='arthur.loiret@gmail.com' to make these changes take effect, start a new terminal or type source ~/.bashrc in the terminal.

3. pbuilder is a very handy command used to test-build packages. See the PbuilderHowto for a
guide on how to set it up for the current development release. 4. Install some necessary tools: sudo apt-get install devscripts build-essential wget fakeroot Method

1. Enter the following to download the source for the medit package:
dget -xu http://people.ubuntu.com/~dholbach/motu/medit_0.8.5-1.dsc

2. Now, instead of looking for new upstream versions manually, we are going to add
a debian/watch file to the package. This will allow us to check automatically for new upstream versions using the tool uscan. The first line of the watch file must be the format version (3, at the time of this writing), while the following lines contain any URLs to parse. For example: version=3

http://sf.net/mooedit/medit-(\d.*)\.tar\.bz2 As you can see from the above, the syntax for SourceForge projects ishttp://sf.net/<project_name>/<tarball_name_with_regex>. This means that if the project were in a tar.gz file, you would have to change the bz2 to gz in the URL. See the uscan man page for more information.

3. Next, we run uscan from the source directory to ensure that the debian/watch file is working:
uscan --verbose -- Scanning for watchfiles in . -- Found watchfile in ./debian -- In debian/watch, processing watchfile line: http://sf.net/mooedit/medit-(\d.*).tar.bz2 -- Found the following matching hrefs: medit-0.6.98.tar.bz2 medit-0.6.99.tar.bz2 medit-0.7.0.tar.bz2 medit-0.7.1.tar.bz2 medit-0.7.9.tar.bz2 medit-0.7.95.tar.bz2 medit-0.7.96.tar.bz2 medit-0.7.97.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.0.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.1.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.10.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.11.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.2.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.3-b20060223.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.3.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.4.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.5.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.6.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.7.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.8.tar.bz2 medit-0.8.9.tar.bz2 medit-0.9.0.tar.bz2 medit-0.9.1.tar.bz2 medit-0.9.2.tar.bz2 medit-0.9.3.tar.bz2 medit-0.9.4.tar.bz2 Newest version on remote site is 0.9.4, local version is 0.8.5 => Newer version available from http://qa.debian.org/watch/sf.php/mooedit/medit-0.9.4.tar.bz2 -- Downloading updated package medit-0.9.4.tar.bz2 -- Successfully downloaded updated package medit-0.9.4.tar.bz2 and symlinked medit_0.9.4.orig.tar.bz2 to it -- Scan finished

And now we have the new upstream version!

4. Note the tarball's file extension using the ls command:


ls .. medit-0.8.5/ medit_0.8.5-1.diff.gz medit_0.8.5-1.dsc medit_0.8.5.orig.tar.gz medit_0.9.4.orig.tar.bz2 medit-0.9.4.tar.bz2 Though you were probably expecting to find a .orig.tar.gz file extension, you can see that the tarball is actually calledmedit_0.9.4.orig.tar.bz2. You do not have to worry about the particular archive type, as uupdate supports the .tar.gz, .tar.bz2,.tar.Z, .tgz, .tar and .zip formats. However, if you are still concerned and wish to have a .orig.tar.gz file instead, be sure to readChangingOrigTarball before making any changes to the original tarball.

5. Now, run uupdate on the new original tarball:


uupdate ../medit_0.9.4.orig.tar.bz2 New Release will be `0.9.4-0ubuntu1`. -- Untarring the new sourcecode archive ../medit_0.9.4.orig.tar.bz2 8 out of 11 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file config.sub.rej 4 out of 6 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file config.guess.rej uupdate: the diffs from version 0.8.5-1 did not apply cleanly! Rejected diffs are in ./config.sub.rej ./config.guess.rej Remember: Your current directory is the OLD sourcearchive! Do a "cd ../medit-0.9.4" to see the new package (Did you see the warnings above?) (Do not worry about the failure on config.sub as it is typical.) You have to update the changelog file and be sure that it builds correctly. The easiest and the cleanest way to do this is to run dch -e, which should produce the following results: medit (0.9.4-0ubuntu1) intrepid; urgency=low * New upstream release * Add debian watch -- Your Name <your.name@url.com> Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:32:22 -0500 Your package is almost ready now! 6. Finally, let us test the new upstream release: debuild -S -sa sudo pbuilder build ../medit_0.9.4-0ubuntu1.dsc Note: The above method is exactly the same for an Ubuntu package, except that the version field in the changelog file needs to be updated to reflect the package's revision number.

Notes Steps 3 and 5 (of the howto) can be combined by using additional parameters in the URL line of the watch file version=3 http://sf.net/medit/mooedit-(.*).tar.bz2 debian uupdate You may want to continue at MOTU/Contributing#headb205c74e27fe15e79e10c9e7f14d3cdfb359d81d to create an interdiff for sponsorship.

Appendix
Additional Resources
Debian Resources

Debian New Maintainers Guide - Good resource for learning to package. Debian Policy - The essential Policy manual for Debian and Debian-based distros. Debian Developer's Reference - Specific information for Debian Developers but has some
items of interest for packagers.

Library Packaging Guide - Guide for packaging libraries. Debian Women Packaging Tutorial - Another good introduction to Debian packaging. Debian Mentors FAQ debian-mentors mailing list - new maintainers can ask questions and find a Debian sponsor
here

Generating multiple binaries from a single source Debian New Python Policy Debian CLI Policy Debian Packaging Handbook packaging from upstream SVN repository Debian Type of Sections
Wiki Resources

MOTU/GettingStarted PackagingGuide UbuntuDevelopment PbuilderHowto DebootstrapChroot UbuntuDevelopment/NewPackages

Other Resources

IBM Packaging Tutorial Duckcorp CDBS Documentation Ubuntu CDBS Documentation. Managing packages with Subversion and pbuilder Creating .desktop files (Categories) Debian Library Packaging Guide Make Manual (debian/rules is a Makefile)
Example files

Readme.Debian is used to document changes that you have made to the original upstream source that other people
might need to know or information specific to Debian or Ubuntu.

conffiles.ex: If the package installs a configuration file, when the package is


upgraded dpkg can prompt a user whether to keep his or her version if modified or install the new version. Such configuration files should be listed in conffiles (one per line). Do not list configuration files that are only modified by the package or have to be set up by the user to work.

cron.d.ex: If your package requires regularly scheduled tasks to operate properly, you can use
this file to configure it. If you use this file, rename it to cron.d.

dirs specifies the directories that are needed but the normal installation procedure
(make installapplication) somehow doesn't create.

docs specifies the filenames of documentation files that dh_installdocs will install into the
temporary directory.

emacsen-*.ex specifies Emacs files that will be bytecompiled at install time. They are installed
into the temporary directory bydh_installemacsen.

init.d.ex: If your package is a daemon that needs to be run at system startup rename this file
to init.d and adjust it to your needs.

manpage.1.ex and manpage.sgml.ex are templates for man pages if the package does not
already have one.

menu.ex is used to add your package to the Debian menu. Ubuntu uses
the freedesktop.org standard .desktop files but remember that packages in Universe/Multiverse are widely used in other (desktop-less) environments. Beside, we strongly want to give-back to Debian (where menu files are required by policy), therefore you are encouraged to include them in your Ubuntu package too.

watch.ex: The package maintainer can use the uscan program and a watch file to check for a
new upstream source tarball. (PackagingGuide/Recipes/DebianWatch)

ex.package.doc-base is used to register your package's documentation (other


than man and info pages) with doc-base.

postinst.ex, preinst.ex, postrm.ex, and prerm.ex: These maintainer scripts are run
by dpkg when the package is installed, upgraded, or removed. For more details refer to the Debian New Maintainer's Guide. List of Debhelper Tools

dh_builddeb - build debian packages dh_clean - clean up package build directories dh_clideps - calculates CLI (.NET) dependencies dh_compress - compress files and fix symlinks in package build directories dh_desktop - Register .desktop files dh_fixperms - fix permissions of files in package build directories dh_gconf - generate GConf schema registration scripts dh_gencontrol - generate and install control file dh_install - install files into package build directories dh_installcatalogs - install and register SGML Catalogs dh_installchangelogs - install changelogs into package build directories dh_installcligac - register assemblies to be late installed into a GAC dh_installcron - install cron scripts into etc/cron.* dh_installdeb - install files into the DEBIAN directory dh_installdebconf - install files used by debconf in package build directories dh_installdefoma - install a defoma related scripts dh_installdirs - create subdirectories in package build directories dh_installdocs - install documentation into package build directories dh_installemacsen - register an emacs add on package dh_installexamples - install example files into package build directories dh_installinfo - install and register info files dh_installinit - install init scripts into package build directories dh_installlogcheck - install logcheck rulefiles into etc/logcheck/ dh_installlogrotate - install logrotate config files dh_installman - install man pages into package build directories dh_installmanpages - old-style man page installer dh_installmenu - install debian menu files into package build directories dh_installmime - install mime files into package build directories

dh_installmodules - register modules with modutils dh_installpam - install pam support files dh_installppp - install ppp ip-up and ip-down files dh_installtex - register Type 1 fonts, languages, or formats with TeX dh_installudev - install udev rules files dh_installwm - register a window manager dh_installxfonts - register X fonts dh_installxmlcatalogs - install and register XML catalog files dh_link - create symlinks in package build directories dh_listpackages - list binary packages debhelper will act on dh_make - Debianize a regular source archive dh_makeclilibs - automatically create clilibs file dh_makeshlibs - automatically create shlibs file dh_md5sums - generate DEBIAN/md5sums file dh_movefiles - move files out of debian/tmp into subpackages dh_perl - calculates perl dependencies dh_pycentral - use the python-central framework to handle Python modules and extensions dh_pysupport - use the python-support framework to handle Python modules dh_python - calculates python dependencies and adds postinst and prerm python scripts dh_scrollkeeper - generate ScrollKeeper registration scripts dh_shlibdeps - calculate shared library dependencies dh_strip - strip executables, shared libraries, and some static libraries dh_suidregister - obsolete suid registration program dh_testdir - test directory before building debian package dh_testroot - ensure that a package is built as root dh_testversion - ensure that the correct version of debhelper is installed dh_undocumented - obsolete undocumented.7 symlink program dh_usrlocal - migrate usr/local directories to maintainer scripts

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