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<debiandoc>
-<!--
- TODO:
- - bugs in upstream versions should be reported upstream!
- - add information on how to get accounts on different architectures
- - talk about CVS access, other ways to submit problems
- - add information on how you can contribute w/o being an official
- developer
- - "official port maintainer" ? (cf. glibc-pre2.1)
- -->
-
<book>
-
<title>Debian Developer's Reference
- <author>Adam Di Carlo, current maintainer <email>aph@debian.org</email>
- <author>Christian Schwarz <email>schwarz@debian.org</email>
- <author>Ian Jackson <email>ijackson@gnu.ai.mit.edu</email>
+
+ <author>Developer's Reference Team &email-devel-ref;
+ <author>Adam Di Carlo, editor
+ <author>Raphaël Hertzog
+ <author>Christian Schwarz
+ <author>Ian Jackson
<version>ver. &version;, &date-en;
<copyright>
<copyrightsummary>
-copyright ©1998—2002 Adam Di Carlo</copyrightsummary>
+copyright © 1998—2003 Adam Di Carlo</copyrightsummary>
+ <copyrightsummary>
+copyright © 2002—2003 Raphaël Hertzog</copyrightsummary>
<copyrightsummary>
-copyright ©1997, 1998 Christian Schwarz</copyrightsummary>
+copyright © 1997, 1998 Christian Schwarz</copyrightsummary>
<p>
This manual is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
<!-- FIXME: rewrites -->
<p>
The procedures discussed within include how to become a maintainer
-(<ref id="new-maintainer">); how to upload new packages (<ref
-id="upload">); how and when to do ports and interim releases of other
-maintainers' packages (<ref id="nmu">); how to move, remove, or orphan
-packages (<ref id="archive-manip">); and how to handle bug reports
-(<ref id="bug-handling">).
+(<ref id="new-maintainer">); how to create new packages
+(<ref id="newpackage">) and how to upload packages (<ref id="upload">);
+how to handle bug reports (<ref id="bug-handling">); how to move,
+remove, or orphan packages (<ref id="archive-manip">); how to port
+packages (<ref id="porting">); and how and when to do interim
+releases of other maintainers' packages (<ref id="nmu">).
<p>
The resources discussed in this reference include the mailing lists
(<ref id="mailing-lists">) and servers (<ref id="server-machines">); a
to work on something to avoid duplicated effort.
<p>
Another good list to subscribe to is &email-debian-mentors;. See <ref
-id="mentors"> for details. The IRC channel <tt>#debian</tt> on the
-Linux People IRC network (e.g., <tt>irc.debian.org</tt>) can also be
+id="mentors"> for details. The IRC channel <tt>#debian</tt> can also be
helpful.
<p>
<sect id="user-maint">Maintaining your Debian information
<p>
-There's a LDAP database containing information about all
-developers, you can access it at <url id="&url-debian-db;">. You can
-update your password (this password is propagated to most of the machines
-that are accessible to you), your address, your country, the latitude and
-longitude of the point where you live, phone and fax numbers, your
-preferred shell, your IRC nickname, your web page and the email that
-you're using as alias for your debian.org email. Most of the information
-is not accessible to the public, for more details about this
-database, please read its online documentation that you can find
-at <url id="&url-debian-db-doc;">.
+There's a LDAP database containing information about Debian developers at
+<url id="&url-debian-db;">. You should enter your information there and
+update it as it changes. Most notably, make sure that the address where your
+debian.org email gets forwarded to is always up to date, as well as the
+address where you get your debian-private subscription if you choose to
+subscribe there.
<p>
-You have to keep the information available there up-to-date.
+For more information about the database, please see <ref id="devel-db">.
+
+
<sect id="key-maint">Maintaining your public key
<p>
<sect id="voting">Voting
<p>
-Even if Debian is not always a real democracy, Debian has democratic
-tools and uses a democratic process to elect its leader or
-to approve a general resolution. Those processes are described in
-the <url id="&url-constitution;" name="Debian Constitution">.
+Even though Debian isn't really a democracy, we use a democratic
+process to elect our leaders and to approve general resolutions.
+These procedures are defined by the
+<url id="&url-constitution;" name="Debian Constitution">.
+ <p>
+Other than the yearly leader election, votes are not routinely held, and
+they are not undertaken lightly. Each proposal is first discussed on
+the &email-debian-vote; mailing list and it requires several endorsements
+before the project secretary starts the voting procedure.
<p>
-Democratic processes work well only if everybody take part in the
-vote, that's why you have to vote. To be able to vote you have to
-subscribe to &email-debian-devel-announce; since call for votes are sent
-there. If you want to follow the debate preceding a vote, you
-may want to subscribe to &email-debian-vote;.
+You don't have to track the pre-vote discussions, as the secretary will
+issue several calls for votes on &email-debian-devel-announce; (and all
+developers are expected to be subscribed to that list). Democracy doesn't
+work well if people don't take part in the vote, which is why we encourage
+all developers to vote. Voting is conducted via GPG-signed/encrypted emails
+messages.
<p>
The list of all the proposals (past and current) is available on the
-<url id="&url-vote;" name="Debian Voting Information"> page. You will find
-there additional information about how to make a vote proposal.
+<url id="&url-vote;" name="Debian Voting Information"> page, along with
+information on how to make, second and vote on proposals.
<sect id="inform-vacation">Going on vacation gracefully
<p>
-Most developers take vacations, and usually this means that they can't
-work for Debian and they can't be reached by email if any problem occurs.
-The other developers need to know that you're on vacation so that they'll
-do whatever is needed when such a problem occurs. Usually this means that
-other developers are allowed to NMU (see <ref id="nmu">) your package if a
-big problem (release critical bugs, security update, etc.) occurs while
-you're on vacation.
+It is common for developers to have periods of absence, whether those are
+planned vacations or simply being buried in other work. The important thing
+to notice is that the other developers need to know that you're on vacation
+so that they can do whatever is needed if a problem occurs with your
+packages or other duties in the project.
+ <p>
+Usually this means that other developers are allowed to NMU (see
+<ref id="nmu">) your package if a big problem (release critical bugs,
+security update, etc.) occurs while you're on vacation. Sometimes it's
+nothing as critical as that, but it's still appropriate to let the others
+know that you're unavailable.
<p>
In order to inform the other developers, there's two things that you should do.
-First send a mail to &email-debian-private; giving the period of time when
-you will be on vacation. You can also give some special instructions on what to
-do if any problem occurs. Be aware that some people don't care for vacation
-notices and don't want to read them; you should prepend "[VAC] " to the
-subject of your message so that it can be easily filtered.
+First send a mail to &email-debian-private; with "[VAC] " prepended to the
+subject of your message<footnote>This is so that the message can be easily
+filtered by people who don't want to read vacation notices.</footnote>
+and state the period of time when you will be on vacation. You can also give
+some special instructions on what to do if a problem occurs.
<p>
-Next you should update your information
-available in the Debian LDAP database and mark yourself as ``on vacation''
-(this information is only accessible to debian developers). Don't forget
-to remove the ``on vacation'' flag when you come back!
+The other thing to do is to mark yourself as "on vacation" in the
+<qref id="devel-db">Debian developers' LDAP database</qref> (this
+information is only accessible to Debian developers).
+Don't forget to remove the "on vacation" flag when you come back!
+
<sect id="upstream-coordination">Coordination with upstream developers
<p>
A big part of your job as Debian maintainer will be to stay in contact
with the upstream developers. Debian users will sometimes report bugs
-to the Bug Tracking System that are not specific to Debian. You
-must forward these bug reports to the upstream developers so that
-they can be fixed in a future release. It's not your job to fix
-non-Debian specific bugs. However, if you are able to do so, you are
-encouraged to contribute to upstream development of the package by
-providing a fix for the bug. Debian users and developers will often
-submit patches to fix upstream bugs, and you should evaluate and
-forward these patches upstream.
+that are not specific to Debian to our bug tracking system. You
+have to forward these bug reports to the upstream developers so that
+they can be fixed in a future upstream release.
+ <p>
+While it's not your job to fix non-Debian specific bugs, you may freely
+do so if you're able. When you make such fixes, be sure to pass them on
+to the upstream maintainers as well. Debian users and developers will
+sometimes submit patches to fix upstream bugs -- you should evaluate
+and forward these patches upstream.
<p>
If you need to modify the upstream sources in order to build a policy
compliant package, then you should propose a nice fix to the upstream
modify the sources of the next upstream version. Whatever changes you
need, always try not to fork from the upstream sources.
+
<sect id="rc-bugs">Managing release-critical bugs
<p>
-Release-critical bugs (RCB) are all bugs that have severity
-<em>critical</em>, <em>grave</em> or <em>serious</em>.
+Generally you should deal with bug reports on your packages as described in
+<ref id="bug-handling">. However, there's a special category of bugs that
+you need to take care of -- the so-called release-critical bugs (RC bugs).
+All bug reports that have severity <em>critical</em>, <em>grave</em> or
+<em>serious</em> are considered to have an impact on whether the package can
+be released in the next stable release of Debian.
Those bugs can delay the Debian release
and/or can justify the removal of a package at freeze time. That's why
-these bugs need to be corrected as quickly as possible. You must be
-aware that some developers who are part of the <url
-id="&url-debian-qa;" name="Debian Quality Assurance"> effort are
-following those bugs and try to help you whenever they are able. But if
-you can't fix such bugs within 2 weeks, you should either ask for help
+these bugs need to be corrected as quickly as possible.
+ <p>
+Developers who are part of the <url id="&url-debian-qa;"
+name="Quality Assurance"> group are following all such bugs, and trying
+to help whenever possible. If, for any reason, you aren't able fix an
+RC bug in a package of yours within 2 weeks, you should either ask for help
by sending a mail to the Quality Assurance (QA) group
&email-debian-qa;, or explain your difficulties and present a plan to fix
-them by sending a mail to the proper bug report. Otherwise, people
+them by sending a mail to the bug report. Otherwise, people
from the QA group may want to do a Non-Maintainer Upload (see
<ref id="nmu">) after trying to contact you (they might not wait as long as
usual before they do their NMU if they have seen no recent activity from you
<item>
Orphan all your packages, as described in <ref id="orphaning">.
<item>
-Send an email about how you are leaving the project to
+Send an email about why you are leaving the project to
&email-debian-private;.
<item>
Notify the Debian key ring maintainers that you are leaving by
<sect id="mailing-lists">Mailing lists
<p>
-The mailing list server is at <tt>&lists-host;</tt>.
+Much of the conversation between Debian developers (and users) is managed
+through a wide array of mailing lists we host at
+<tt><url id="http://&lists-host;/" name="&lists-host;"></tt>.
+To find out more on how to subscribe or unsubscribe, how to post and how not
+to post, where to find old posts and how to search them, how to contact the
+list maintainers and see various other information about the mailing lists,
+please read <url id="&url-debian-lists;">. This section will only cover
+aspects of mailing lists that are of particular interest to developers.
+
+ <sect1 id="mailing-lists-rules">Basic rules for use
+ <p>
+When replying to messages on the mailing list, please do not send a
+carbon copy (<tt>CC</tt>) to the original poster unless they explicitly
+request to be copied. Anyone who posts to a mailing list should read
+it to see the responses.
+ <p>
+Cross-posting (sending the same message to multiple lists) is discouraged.
+As ever on the net, please trim down the quoting of articles you're
+replying to. In general, please adhere to the usual conventions for
+posting messages.
<p>
-Online archives of mailing lists are available at <url
-id="&url-lists-archives;">.
+Please read the <url name="code of conduct" id="&url-debian-lists;#codeofconduct">
+for more information.
<sect1 id="core-devel-mailing-lists">Core development mailing lists
<p>
</item>
</list>
<p>
-There are
-other mailing lists available for a variety of special topics; see
-<url id="&url-debian-lists-subscribe;"> for a list.
-
- <sect1 id="mailing-lists-subunsub">Subscribing and unsubscribing
- <p>
-To subscribe to or unsubscribe from any of the Debian mailing lists, email
-<tt>debian-<var>foo</var>-REQUEST@&lists-host;</tt>, where
-<tt>debian-<var>foo</var></tt> is the name of the list, with the word
-<tt>subscribe</tt> in the <em>Subject</em> to subscribe to the list or
-<tt>unsubscribe</tt> to unsubscribe.
- <p>
-If you prefer to use a web page to subscribe to multiple mailing lists,
-there's one at <url id="&url-debian-lists-subscribe;">.
- <p>
-You can download the current list of mailing lists and basic usage
-instructions from <url id="&url-debian-lists-txt;">
-or install the <package>doc-debian</package> package and have it
-locally in &file-mail-lists;.
-
- <sect1 id="mailing-lists-rules">Basic rules for use
- <p>
-When replying to messages on the mailing list, please do not send a
-carbon copy (<tt>CC</tt>) to the original poster unless they explicitly
-request to be copied. Anyone who posts to a mailing list should read
-it to see the responses.
- <p>
-Cross-posting (sending the same message to multiple lists) is discouraged.
-As ever on the net, please trim down the quoting of articles you're
-replying to. In general, please adhere to the usual conventions for
-posting messages. Please read the <url name="code of conduct"
-id="&url-debian-lists;"> for more information.
+There are other mailing lists available for a variety of special topics;
+see <url id="http://&lists-host;/"> for a list.
<sect1 id="mailing-lists-special">Special lists
<p>
about licenses, bugs, etc. or discussing the project with others where it
might be useful to have the discussion archived somewhere.
- <sect id="irc-channels">IRC channels
+ <sect1 id="mailing-lists-new">Requesting new development-related lists
<p>
-Several IRC channels are dedicated to Debian's development. They are all
-hosted on the <url id="&url-openprojects;" name="OpenProjects"> network.
-The <tt>irc.debian.org</tt> DNS entry is just an alias to
-<tt>irc.openprojects.net</tt>.
+Before requesting a mailing list that relates to the development of a
+package (or a small group of related packages), please consider if using
+an alias (via a .forward-aliasname file on master.debian.org, which
+translates into a reasonably nice <var>you-aliasname@debian.org</var>
+address) or a self-managed mailing list on <qref id="alioth">Alioth</qref>
+is more appropriate.
+ <p>
+If you decide that a regular mailing list on lists.debian.org is really what
+you want, go ahead and fill in a request, following <url name="the HOWTO"
+id="&url-debian-lists-new;">.
+
+ <sect id="irc-channels">IRC channels
<p>
-The main channel <em>#debian-devel</em> is very active since more
-than 150 persons are always logged in. It's a channel for people who work
+Several IRC channels are dedicated to Debian's development. They are mainly
+hosted on the <url id="&url-openprojects;" name="freenode"> network
+(previously known as Open Projects Network).
+The <tt>irc.debian.org</tt> DNS entry is an alias to
+<tt>irc.freenode.net</tt>.
+ <p>
+The main channel for Debian in general is <em>#debian</em>. This is a large,
+general-purpose channel where users can find recent news in the topic and
+served by bots. <em>#debian</em> is for English speakers; there are also
+<em>#debian.de</em>, <em>#debian-fr</em>, <em>#debian-br</em> and other
+similarly named channels for speakers of other languages.
+ <p>
+The main channel for Debian development is <em>#debian-devel</em>.
+It is a very active channel since usually over 150 people are always
+logged in. It's a channel for people who work
on Debian, it's not a support channel (there's <em>#debian</em> for that).
It is however open to anyone who wants to lurk (and learn). Its topic is
-always full of interesting information. Since it's an open channel, you
+commonly full of interesting information for developers.
+ <p>
+Since <em>#debian-devel</em> it's an open channel, you
should not speak there of issues that are discussed in
-&email-debian-private;. There's a key protected channel
-<em>#debian-private</em> for that purpose. The key is available
-in the archives of debian-private in
+&email-debian-private;. There's another channel for this purpose,
+it's called <em>#debian-private</em> and it's protected by a key.
+This key is available in the archives of debian-private in
<file>master.debian.org:&file-debian-private-archive;</file>,
just <prgn>zgrep</prgn> for <em>#debian-private</em> in
all the files.
There are other additional channels dedicated to specific subjects.
<em>#debian-bugs</em> is used for coordinating bug squash parties.
<em>#debian-boot</em> is used to coordinate the work on the boot
-floppies (i.e. the installer). <em>#debian-doc</em> is
-occasionally used to work on documentation like the one you are
+floppies (i.e., the installer). <em>#debian-doc</em> is
+occasionally used to talk about documentation, like the document you are
reading. Other channels are dedicated to an architecture or a set of
-packages: <em>#debian-bsd</em>, <em>#debian-kde</em>,
+packages: <em>#debian-bsd</em>, <em>#debian-kde</em>, <em>#debian-jr</em>,
+<em>#debian-edu</em>,
<em>#debian-sf</em> (SourceForge package), <em>#debian-oo</em> (OpenOffice
package) ...
<p>
-Some non-English channels exist, for example <em>#debian-devel-fr</em> for
+Some non-English developers' channels exist as well, for example
+<em>#debian-devel-fr</em> for
French speaking people interested in Debian's development.
+ <p>
+Channels dedicated to Debian also exist on other IRC networks, notably on
+the <url name="Open and free technology community (OFTC)"
+id="http://www.oftc.net/"> IRC network.
<sect id="doc-rsrcs">Documentation
<sect1 id="servers-bugs">The bugs server
<p>
-<tt>bugs.debian.org</tt> is the canonical location for the Bug Tracking
+<tt>&bugs-host;</tt> is the canonical location for the Bug Tracking
System (BTS). If you plan on doing some statistical analysis or
processing of Debian bugs, this would be the place to do it. Please
describe your plans on &email-debian-devel; before implementing
anything, however, to reduce unnecessary duplication of effort or
wasted processing time.
<p>
-All Debian developers have accounts on <tt>bugs.debian.org</tt>.
+All Debian developers have accounts on <tt>&bugs-host;</tt>.
<sect1 id="servers-ftp-master">The ftp-master server
<p>
the lack of hyphen between "non" and "us" in the pseudo-package name
— that's for backwards compatibility). Remember to check whether or
not someone else has already reported the problem on the
-<url id="http://bugs.debian.org/nonus.debian.org" name="Bug Tracking System">.
+<url id="http://&bugs-host;/nonus.debian.org" name="Bug Tracking System">.
<sect1 id="servers-www">The www-master server
<p>
submit a bug against the pseudo-package,
<package>www.debian.org</package>. Remember to check whether or not someone
else has already reported the problem on the
-<url id="http://bugs.debian.org/www.debian.org" name="Bug Tracking System">.
+<url id="http://&bugs-host;/www.debian.org" name="Bug Tracking System">.
<sect1 id="servers-people">The people web server
<p>
<p>
The Developers Database, at <url id="&url-debian-db;">, is an LDAP
directory for managing Debian developer attributes. You can use this
-resource to search the list of Debian developers. For information on
-keeping your entry the developer database up-to-date, see <ref
-id="user-maint">. Part of this information is also available through
+resource to search the list of Debian developers.
+Part of this information is also available through
the finger service on Debian servers, try
<prgn>finger yourlogin@db.debian.org</prgn> to see what it reports.
<p>
-This database lets you register some other information like public SSH
-keys that will be automatically installed on the official debian machines
-or like *.debian.net DNS entry. Those features are documented
-at <url id="&url-debian-db-mail-gw;">.
-
- <sect id="servers-mirrors">Mirrors of Debian servers
- <p>
-The web and FTP servers have several mirrors available. Please do not
-put heavy load on the canonical FTP or web servers. Ideally, the
-canonical servers only mirror out to a first tier of mirrors, and all
-user access is to the mirrors. This allows Debian to better spread
-its bandwidth requirements over several servers and networks. Note
-that newer push mirroring techniques ensure that mirrors are as
-up-to-date as they can be.
+Developers can <url name="log into the database" id="&url-debian-db-login;">
+to change various information about themselves, such as:
+<list>
+ <item>forwarding address for your debian.org email
+ <item>subscription to debian-private
+ <item>whether you are on vacation
+ <item>personal information such as your address, country,
+ the latitude and longitude of the place where you live
+ for use in <url name="the world map of Debian developers"
+ id="&url-worldmap;">, phone and fax numbers, IRC nickname
+ and web page
+ <item>password and preferred shell on Debian Project machines
+</list>
<p>
-The main web page listing the available public FTP/HTTP
-servers can be found at <url id="&url-debian-mirrors;">. More
-information concerning Debian mirrors can be found at <url
-id="&url-debian-mirroring;">. This useful page includes information
-and tools which can be helpful if you are interested in setting up
-your own mirror, either for internal or public access.
+Most of the information is not accessible to the public, naturally.
+For more information please read the online documentation that you can find
+at <url id="&url-debian-db-doc;">.
<p>
-Note that mirrors are generally run by third-parties who are
-interested in helping Debian. As such, developers generally do not
-have accounts on these machines.
+One can also submit their SSH keys to be used for authorization on the
+official Debian machines, and even add new *.debian.net DNS entries.
+Those features are documented at <url id="&url-debian-db-mail-gw;">.
<sect id="archive">The Debian archive
package licenses of the packages in <em>non-free</em> and include as
many on the CD-ROMs as he's allowed to. (Since this varies greatly from
vendor to vendor, this job can't be done by the Debian developers.)
+ <p>
+Note also that the term "section" is also used to refer to categories
+which simplify the organization and browsing of available packages, e.g.
+<em>admin</em>, <em>net</em>, <em>utils</em> etc. Once upon a time, these
+sections (subsections, rather) existed in the form of subdirectories within
+the Debian archive. Nowadays, these exist only in the "Section" header
+fields of packages.
<sect1>Architectures
pages">.
-<!-- <sect1>Subsections
- <p>
-The sections <em>main</em>, <em>contrib</em>, and <em>non-free</em>
-are split into <em>subsections</em> to simplify the installation
-process and the maintenance of the archive. Subsections simply exist to
-simplify the organization and browsing of available packages. The
-<url id="&url-debian-policy;" name="Debian Policy Manual"> gives
-the authoritative list of subsections.
-
- <p>
-Note however that with the introduction of package pools (see the top-level
-<em>pool/</em> directory), the subsections in the form of subdirectories
-will eventually cease to exist. They will be kept in the packages' `Section'
-header fields, though. -->
<sect1>Packages
<p>
the package (maintainer, version, etc.).
- <sect1>Distribution directories
+ <sect1>Distributions
<p>
The directory system described in the previous chapter is itself
contained within <em>distribution directories</em>. Each
freeze period, since the <em>unstable</em> distribution remains in
place in parallel with <em>testing</em>.
- <sect2>Experimental
+ <sect2 id="testing">
+ <heading>More information about the testing distribution</heading>
+ <p>
+The scripts that update the <em>testing</em> distribution are run each
+day after the installation of the updated packages. They generate the
+<file>Packages</file> files for the <em>testing</em> distribution, but
+they do so in an intelligent manner trying to avoid any inconsistency
+and trying to use only non-buggy packages.
+ <p>
+The inclusion of a package from <em>unstable</em> is conditional on
+the following:
+<list>
+ <item>
+The package must have been available in <em>unstable</em> for several days;
+the precise number depends on the upload's urgency field. It
+is 10 days for low urgency, 5 days for medium urgency and 2 days for high
+urgency. Those delays may be doubled during a freeze;
+ <item>
+It must have less release-critical bugs than the version available
+in <em>testing</em>;
+ <item>
+It must be available on all architectures on which it has been
+previously built. <ref id="madison"> may be of interest to
+check that information;
+ <item>
+It must not break any dependency of a package that is already available
+in <em>testing</em>;
+ <item>
+The packages on which it depends must either be available in <em>testing</em>
+or they must be accepted into <em>testing</em> at the same time (and they will
+if they respect themselves all the criteria);
+</list>
+ <p>
+To find out whether a package is progressing into testing or not, see the
+testing script output on the <url name="web page of the testing distribution"
+id="&url-testing-maint;">, or use the program <prgn>grep-excuses</prgn>
+which is in the <package>devscripts</package> package. This utility can
+easily be used in a <manref name="crontab" section="5"> to keep one
+informed of the progression of their packages into <em>testing</em>.
+ <p>
+The <file>update_excuses</file> file does not always give the precise reason
+why the package is refused, one may have to find it on their own by looking
+what would break with the inclusion of the package. The <url
+id="&url-testing-maint;" name="testing web page"> gives some more information
+about the usual problems which may be causing such troubles.
+ <p>
+Sometimes, some packages never enter <em>testing</em> because the set of
+inter-relationship is too complicated and can not be sorted out
+by the scripts. In that case, the release manager must be
+contacted, and he will force the inclusion of the packages.
+ <p>
+In general, please refer to the <url name="testing web page"
+id="&url-testing-maint;"> for more information. It also includes
+answers to some of the frequently asked questions.
+
+
+ <sect2 id="experimental">Experimental
<p>
The <em>experimental</em> distribution is a special distribution.
It is not a full distribution in the same sense as `stable' and
warned. In short, all bets are off for the <em>experimental</em>
distribution.
<p>
+These are the <manref name="sources.list" section="5"> lines for
+<em>experimental</em>:
+<example>
+deb http://ftp.<var>xy</var>.debian.org/debian/ ../project/experimental main
+deb-src http://ftp.<var>xy</var>.debian.org/debian/ ../project/experimental main
+</example>
+ <p>
If there is a chance that the software could do grave damage to a system,
it is likely to be better to put it into <em>experimental</em>.
For instance, an experimental compressed file system should probably go
symbolic links for <em>stable</em>, <em>testing</em>, and
<em>unstable</em> point to the appropriate release directories.
+
+ <sect id="mirrors">Debian mirrors
+ <p>
+The various download archives and the web site have several mirrors
+available in order to relieve our canonical servers from heavy load.
+In fact, some of the canonical servers aren't public, and instead a
+first tier of mirrors balances the load. That way, users always access
+the mirrors and get used to using them, which allows Debian to better
+spread its bandwidth requirements over several servers and networks,
+and basically makes users avoid hammering on one primary location.
+Note that the first tier of mirrors is as up-to-date as it can be since
+they update when triggered from the internal sites (we call this
+"push mirroring").
+ <p>
+All the information on Debian mirrors, including a list of the available
+public FTP/HTTP servers, can be found at <url id="&url-debian-mirrors;">.
+This useful page also includes information and tools which can be helpful if
+you are interested in setting up your own mirror, either for internal or
+public access.
+ <p>
+Note that mirrors are generally run by third-parties who are
+interested in helping Debian. As such, developers generally do not
+have accounts on these machines.
+
+
<sect id="incoming-system">
<heading>The Incoming system
<p>
made, a special script is called to ask all the primary mirrors to update
themselves.
<p>
-All debian developers have write access to the <file>unchecked</file>
+The archive maintenance software will also send the OpenPGP/GnuPG signed
+<file>.changes</file> file that you uploaded to the appropriate mailing
+lists. If a package is released with the <tt>Distribution:</tt> set to
+`stable', the announcement is sent to &email-debian-changes;.
+If a package is released with <tt>Distribution:</tt> set to `unstable'
+or `experimental', the announcement will be posted to
+&email-debian-devel-changes; instead.
+ <p>
+All Debian developers have write access to the <file>unchecked</file>
directory in order to upload their packages, they also have that access
to the <file>reject</file> directory in order to remove their bad uploads
or to move some files back in the <file>unchecked</file> directory. But
why you can not remove an upload once it has been accepted.
<sect1 id="delayed-incoming">Delayed incoming
- <p>
+ <p>
The <file>unchecked</file> directory has a special <file>DELAYED</file>
subdirectory. It is itself subdivided in nine directories
called <file>1-day</file> to <file>9-day</file>. Packages which are uploaded in
easily upload a package in one of the delayed directories:
<example>DELAY=5 dupload --to delayed <changes-file></example>
- <sect id="testing">
- <heading>The "testing" distribution</heading>
- <p>
-The scripts that update the <em>testing</em> distribution are run each day
-after the installation of the
-updated packages. They generate the <file>Packages</file> files for
-the <em>testing</em> distribution, but they do so in an intelligent manner
-trying to avoid any inconsistency and trying to use only
-non-buggy packages.
- <p>The inclusion of a package from <em>unstable</em> is conditional on the following:
-<list>
- <item>
-The package must have been available in <em>unstable</em> for several days;
-the precise number depends on the upload's urgency field. It
-is 10 days for low urgency, 5 days for medium urgency and 2 days for high
-urgency. Those delays may be doubled during a freeze;
- <item>
-It must have less release-critical bugs than the version available
-in <em>testing</em>;
- <item>
-It must be available on all architectures on which it has been
-previously built. <ref id="madison"> may be of interest to
-check that information;
- <item>
-It must not break any dependency of a package that is already available
-in <em>testing</em>;
- <item>
-The packages on which it depends must either be available in <em>testing</em>
-or they must be accepted into <em>testing</em> at the same time (and they will
-if they respect themselves all the criteria);
-</list>
- <p>
-The scripts are generating some output files to explain why some packages
-are kept out of testing. They are available at <url
-id="&url-testing-maint;">. Alternatively, it is possible to use
-the <prgn>grep-excuses</prgn> program part of the
-<package>devscripts</package> package. It can be easily put in a crontab
-to keep someone informed of the progression of his packages in <em>testing</em>.
- <p>
-The <file>update_excuses</file> file does not always give the precise reason
-why the package is refused, one may have to find it on their own by looking
-what would break with the inclusion of the package. The <url
-id="&url-testing-faq;" name="testing FAQ"> gives some more information
-about the usual problems which may be causing such troubles.
- <p>
-Sometimes, some packages never enter <em>testing</em> because the set of
-inter-relationship is too complicated and can not be sorted out
-by the scripts. In that case, the release manager must be
-contacted, and he will force the inclusion of the packages.
+
<sect id="pkg-info">Package information
<p>
<sect id="pkg-tracking-system">The Package Tracking System
<p>
-The Package Tracking System (PTS) is basically a tool to track by mail
-the activity of a source package. You just have to subscribe
-to a source package to start getting the mails related to it.
-You get the same mails than the maintainer. Each mail
-sent through the PTS is classified and associated to one of
-the keyword listed below. This will let you select the mails that
+The Package Tracking System (PTS) is an email-based tool to track
+the activity of a source package. This really means that you can
+get the same emails that the package maintainer gets, simply by
+subscribing to the package in the PTS.
+ <p>
+Each email sent through the PTS is classified and associated to one of
+the keywords listed below. This will let you select the mails that
you want to receive.
<p>
By default you will get:
<tag><tt>bts-control</tt>
<item>
-The control mails notifying a status change in one of the bugs.
+The email notifications from <email>control@bugs.debian.org</email>
+about bug report status changes.
<tag><tt>upload-source</tt>
<item>
-The
confirmation mail from <prgn>katie</prgn> when an uploaded source
+The
email notification from <prgn>katie</prgn> when an uploaded source
package is accepted.
<tag><tt>katie-other</tt>
<item>
-Other warning and error mails from <prgn>katie</prgn> (like the
-override disparity for the section or priority field).
+Other warning and error emails from <prgn>katie</prgn> (such as an
+override disparity for the section and/or the priority field).
<tag><tt>default</tt>
<item>
-Any non-automatic mail sent to the PTS by people who wanted to
-contact the subscribers of the package.
+Any non-automatic email sent to the PTS by people who wanted to
+contact the subscribers of the package. This can be done by sending mail
+to <tt><var>sourcepackage</var>@&pts-host;</tt>. In order to prevent spam,
+all messages sent to these addresses must contain the <tt>X-PTS-Approved</tt>
+header with a non-empty value.
<tag><tt>summary</tt>
<item>
-In the future, you may receive regular summary mails to keep you
-informed of the package's status (bug statistics, porting overview,
-progression in <em>testing</em>, ...).
+(This is a planned expansion.)
+The regular summary emails about the package's status (bug statistics,
+porting overview, progression in <em>testing</em>, ...).
</taglist>
+
<p>
-You can also decide to receive some more information:
+You can also decide to receive additional information:
<taglist>
<tag><tt>upload-binary</tt>
<item>
-The confirmation mail from <prgn>katie</prgn> when an uploaded binary
-package is accepted (to check that your package is recompiled for all
-architectures).
+The email notification from <prgn>katie</prgn> when an uploaded binary
+package is accepted. In other words, whenever a build daemon or a porter
+uploads your package for another architecture, you can get an email to
+track how your package gets recompiled for all architectures.
<tag><tt>cvs</tt>
<item>
-CVS commits if the maintainer has setup a system to forward commit
-notification to the PTS.
+CVS commit notifications, if the package has a CVS repository and the
+maintainer has set up forwarding commit notifications to the PTS.
+
+ <tag><tt>ddtp</tt>
+ <item>
+Translations of descriptions or debconf templates
+submitted to the Debian Description Translation Project.
</taglist>
<sect1 id="pts-commands">The PTS email interface
<taglist>
-<tag><tt>subscribe <srcpackage> [<email>]</tt>
+<tag><tt>subscribe <sourcepackage> [<email>]</tt>
<item>
Subscribes <var>email</var> to communications related to the source package
- <var>srcpackage</var>. Sender address is used if the second argument is
- not present. If <var>srcpackage</var> is not a valid source package,
+ <var>sourcepackage</var>. Sender address is used if the second argument is
+ not present. If <var>sourcepackage</var> is not a valid source package,
you'll get a warning. However if it's a valid binary package, the PTS
will subscribe you to the corresponding source package.
-<tag><tt>unsubscribe <srcpackage> [<email>]</tt>
+<tag><tt>unsubscribe <sourcepackage> [<email>]</tt>
<item>
- Removes a previous subscription to the source package <var>srcpackage</var>
+ Removes a previous subscription to the source package <var>sourcepackage</var>
using the specified email address or the sender address if the second
argument is left out.
<tag><tt>keyword [<email>]</tt>
<item>
- Tells you the keywords that you are accepting. Each mail sent through
- the Package Tracking System is associated to a keyword and you receive
- only the mails associated to keywords that you are accepting. Here is
- the list of available keywords:
+ Tells you the keywords that you are accepting.
+ For an explanation of keywords, <qref id="pkg-tracking-system">see
+ above</qref>. Here's a quick summary:
<list>
<item><tt>bts</tt>: mails coming from the Debian Bug Tracking System
- <item><tt>bts-control</tt>: reply to mails sent to
- <email>control@bugs.debian.org</email>
+ <item><tt>bts-control</tt>: reply to mails sent to &email-bts-control;
<item><tt>summary</tt>: automatic summary mails about the state of a package
<item><tt>cvs</tt>: notification of CVS commits
+ <item><tt>ddtp</tt>: translations of descriptions and debconf templates
<item><tt>upload-source</tt>: announce of a new source upload that
has been accepted
<item><tt>upload-binary</tt>: announce of a new binary-only upload (porting)
<item><tt>default</tt>: all the other mails (those which aren't "automatic")
</list>
-<tag><tt>keyword <srcpackage> [<email>]</tt>
+<tag><tt>keyword <sourcepackage> [<email>]</tt>
<item>
- Same as previous item but for the given source package since
+ Same as the previous item but for the given source package, since
you may select a different set of keywords for each source package.
<tag><tt>keyword [<email>] {+|-|=} <list of keywords></tt>
Accept (+) or refuse (-) mails associated to the given keyword(s).
Define the list (=) of accepted keywords.
-<tag><tt>keyword <srcpackage> [<email>] {+|-|=} <list of keywords></tt>
+<tag><tt>keyword <sourcepackage> [<email>] {+|-|=} <list of keywords></tt>
<item>
Same as previous item but overrides the keywords list for the
indicated source package.
<sect1 id="pts-mail-filtering">Filtering PTS mails
<p>
Once you are subscribed to a package, you will get the mails sent to
-<tt><var>srcpackage</var>@packages.qa.debian.org</tt>. Those mails
+<tt><var>sourcepackage</var>@packages.qa.debian.org</tt>. Those mails
have special headers appended to let you filter them in a special
-mailbox with <prgn>procmail</prgn>. The added headers are
+mailbox (e.g. with <prgn>procmail</prgn>). The added headers are
<tt>X-Loop</tt>, <tt>X-PTS-Package</tt>, <tt>X-PTS-Keyword</tt> and
<tt>X-Unsubscribe</tt>.
<p>
<p>
If you use a publicly accessible CVS repository for maintaining
your Debian package you may want to forward the commit notification
-to the PTS so that the subscribers (possible co-maintainers) can
+to the PTS so that the subscribers (and possible co-maintainers) can
closely follow the package's evolution.
<p>
-It's very easy to setup. Once your CVS repository generates commit
-notifications, you just have to make sure it sends a copy of those mails
-to <tt><var>srcpackage</var>_cvs@&pts-host;</tt>. Only people who
-accepts the <em>cvs</em> keyword will receive the notifications.
+Once you set up the CVS repository to generate commit notifications,
+you just have to make sure it sends a copy of those mails
+to <tt><var>sourcepackage</var>_cvs@&pts-host;</tt>. Only the people
+who accept the <em>cvs</em> keyword will receive these notifications.
+
+ <sect1 id="pts-web">The PTS web interface
+ <p>
+The PTS has a web interface at <url id="http://&pts-host;/"> that puts
+together a lot of information about each source package. It features many useful
+links (BTS, QA stats, contact information, DDTP translation status,
+buildd logs) and gathers much more information from various places
+(30 latest changelog entries, testing status, ...). It's a very useful
+tool if you want to know what's going on with a specific source
+package. Furthermore there's a form that allows easy subscription to
+the PTS via email.
+ <p>
+You can jump directly to the web page concerning a specific source package
+with a URL like <tt>http://&pts-host;/<var>sourcepackage</var></tt>.
+ <p>
+This web interface has been designed like a portal for the development of
+packages: you can add custom content on your packages' pages. You can
+add "static information" (news items that are meant to stay available
+indefinitely) and news items in the "latest news" section.
+ <p>
+Static news items can be used to indicate:
+<list>
+<item>the availability of a project hosted on <qref id="alioth">Alioth</qref> for co-maintaining the package
+<item>a link to the upstream web site
+<item>a link to the upstream bug tracker
+<item>the existence of an IRC channel dedicated to the software
+<item>any other available resource that could be useful in the maintenance of the package
+</list>
+Usual news items may be used to announce that:
+<list>
+<item>beta packages are available for testing
+<item>final packages are expected for next week
+<item>the packaging is about to be redone from scratch
+<item>backports are available
+<item>the maintainer is on vacation (if they wish to publish this information)
+<item>a NMU is being worked on
+<item>something important will affect the package
+</list>
+ <p>
+Both kind of news are generated in a similar manner: you just have to send
+an email either to <email>pts-static-news@qa.debian.org</email> or to
+<email>pts-news@qa.debian.org</email>. The mail should indicate which
+package is concerned by having the name of the source package in a
+<tt>X-PTS-Package</tt> mail header or in a <tt>Package</tt> pseudo-header (like the
+BTS reports). If a URL is available in the <tt>X-PTS-Url</tt> mail header or in
+the <tt>Url</tt> pseudo-header, then the result is a link to that URL instead
+of a complete news item.
+ <p>
+Here are a few examples of valid mails used to generate news items in
+the PTS. The first one adds a link to the cvsweb interface of debian-cd
+in the "Static information" section:
+<example>
+From: Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
+To: pts-static-news@qa.debian.org
+Subject: Browse debian-cd CVS repository with cvsweb
+
+Package: debian-cd
+Url: http://cvs.debian.org/debian-cd/
+</example>
+ <p>
+The second one is an announcement sent to a mailing list which is also sent
+to the PTS so that it is published on the PTS web page of the package. Note the
+use of the BCC field to avoid answers sent to the PTS by mistake.
+<example>
+From: Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
+To: debian-gtk-gnome@lists.debian.org
+Bcc: pts-news@qa.debian.org
+Subject: Galeon 2.0 backported for woody
+X-PTS-Package: galeon
+
+Hello gnomers!
+
+I'm glad to announce that galeon has been backported for woody. You'll find
+everything here:
+...
+</example>
+ <p>
+Think twice before adding a news item to the PTS because you won't be able
+to remove it later and you wan't be able to edit it either. The only thing
+that you can do is send a second news item that will deprecate the
+information contained in the previous one.
<sect id="ddpo">Developer's packages overview
<p>
you don't forget any open bug, and so that you don't forget which
packages are under your responsibility.
+ <sect id="alioth">Debian *Forge: Alioth
+ <p>
+Alioth is a fairly new Debian service, based on a slightly modified version
+of the GForge software (which evolved from SourceForge). This software
+offers developers access to easy-to-use tools such as bug trackers, patch
+manager, project/task managers, file hosting services, mailing lists, CVS
+repositories etc. All these tools are managed via a web interface.
+ <p>
+It is intended to provide facilities to free software projects backed or led
+by Debian, facilitate contributions from external developers to projects
+started by Debian, and help projects whose goals are the promotion of Debian
+or its derivatives.
+ <p>
+For more information please visit <url id="&url-alioth;">.
+
<chapt id="pkgs">Managing Packages
<p>
This chapter contains information related to creating, uploading,
maintaining, and porting packages.
- <sect id="upload">Package uploads
- <sect1>New packages
+ <sect id="newpackage">New packages
<p>
If you want to create a new package for the Debian distribution, you
should first check the <url id="&url-wnpp;" name="Work-Needing and
better feel of what is going on, and what is new, in the project.
</list>
- <sect1 id="changelog-entries">
- <heading>Adding an entry to <file>debian/changelog</file></heading>
+
+ <sect id="changelog-entries">Recording changes in the package
<p>
Changes that you make to the package need to be recorded in the
<file>debian/changelog</file>. These changes should provide a concise
<p>
The <file>debian/changelog</file> file conforms to a certain structure,
with a number of different fields. One field of note, the
-<em>distribution</em>, is described in <ref id="upload-dist">. More
+<em>distribution</em>, is described in <ref id="distribution">. More
information about the structure of this file can be found in
the Debian Policy section titled "<file>debian/changelog</file>".
<p>
There are tools to help you create entries and finalize the
<file>changelog</file> for release — see <ref id="devscripts">
and <ref id="dpkg-dev-el">.
+ <p>
+See also <ref id="bpp-debian-changelog">.
-
- <sect1 id="upload-checking">Checking the package prior to upload
- <p>
+ <sect id="sanitycheck">Testing the package
+ <p>
Before you upload your package, you should do basic testing on it. At
a minimum, you should try the following activities (you'll need to
have an older version of the same Debian package around):
<p>
For more information on <prgn>lintian</prgn>, see <ref id="lintian">.
<item>
+Optionally run <ref id="debdiff"> to analyze changes from an older version,
+if one exists.
+ <item>
Downgrade the package to the previous version (if one exists) — this
tests the <file>postrm</file> and <file>prerm</file> scripts.
<item>
</list>
- <sect1>Generating the changes file
- <p>
-When a package is uploaded to the Debian FTP archive, it must be
-accompanied by a <file>.changes</file> file, which gives directions to the
-archive maintainers for its handling. This is usually generated by
-<prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> during the normal package build process.
- <p>
-The changes file is a control file with the following fields:
- <p>
-&control-file-fields;
- <p>
-All of these fields are mandatory for a Debian upload. See the list
-of control fields in the <url id="&url-debian-policy;" name="Debian
-Policy Manual"> for the contents of these fields. You can close bugs
-automatically using the <tt>Description</tt> field, see <ref
-id="upload-bugfix">.
-
-
- <sect2>The original source tarball
- <p>
+ <sect id="sourcelayout">Layout of the source package
+ <p>
+There are two types of Debian source packages:
+ <list>
+ <item>the so-called <em>native</em> packages, where there is no
+ distinction between the original sources and the patches
+ applied for Debian
+ <item>the (more common) packages where there's an original source
+ tarball file accompanied by another file that contains the
+ patches applied for Debian
+ </list>
+ <p>
+For the native packages, the source package includes a Debian source control
+file (<tt>.dsc</tt>) and the source tarball (<tt>.tar.gz</tt>). A source
+package of a non-native package includes a Debian source control file, the
+original source tarball (<tt>.orig.tar.gz</tt>) and the Debian patches
+(<tt>.diff.gz</tt>).
+ <p>
+Whether a package is native or not is determined when it is built by
+<manref name="dpkg-buildpackage" section="1">. The rest of this section
+relates only to non-native packages.
+ <p>
The first time a version is uploaded which corresponds to a particular
upstream version, the original source tar file should be uploaded and
included in the <file>.changes</file> file. Subsequently, this very same
tar file should be used to build the new diffs and <file>.dsc</file>
files, and will not need to be re-uploaded.
+ <p>
By default, <prgn>dpkg-genchanges</prgn> and
<prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn> will include the original source tar
file if and only if the Debian revision part of the source version
number is 0 or 1, indicating a new upstream version. This behavior
may be modified by using <tt>-sa</tt> to always include it or
<tt>-sd</tt> to always leave it out.
+ <p>
If no original source is included in the upload, the original
source tar-file used by <prgn>dpkg-source</prgn> when constructing the
<file>.dsc</file> file and diff to be uploaded <em>must</em> be
byte-for-byte identical with the one already in the archive.
- <sect2 id="upload-dist">Picking a distribution
- <p>
-The <tt>Distribution</tt> field, which originates from the first line of
-the <file>debian/changelog</file> file, indicates which distribution the
-package is intended for.
- <p>
+ <sect id="distribution">Picking a distribution
+ <p>
+Each upload needs to specify which distribution the package is intended
+for. The package build process extracts this information from the first
+line of the <file>debian/changelog</file> file and places it in the
+<tt>Distribution</tt> field of the <tt>.changes</tt> file.
+ <p>
There are several possible values for this field: `stable', `unstable',
-`testing-proposed-updates' and `experimental'. Normally, packages are uploaded into
-<em>unstable</em>. Actually, there are two other possible distributions:
-`stable-security' and `testing-security'. However they are used by the
-security team; do not upload there without their agreement.
- <p>
+`testing-proposed-updates' and `experimental'. Normally, packages are
+uploaded into <em>unstable</em>.
+ <p>
+Actually, there are two other possible distributions: `stable-security' and
+`testing-security', but read <ref id="bug-security"> for more information on
+those.
+ <p>
It is technically possible to upload a package into several distributions
at the same time but it usually doesn't make sense to use that feature
because the dependencies of the package may vary with the distribution.
In particular, it never makes sense to combine the <em>experimental</em>
-distribution with anything else.
+distribution with anything else (see <ref id="experimental">).
-
- <sect3 id="upload-stable">Uploading to <em>stable</em>
+ <sect1 id="upload-stable">
+ <heading>Special case: uploads to the <em>stable</em> distribution</heading>
+ <p>
Uploading to <em>stable</em> means that the package will be placed into the
<file>stable-proposed-updates</file> directory of the Debian archive for further
testing before it is actually included in <em>stable</em>.
+ <p>
Extra care should be taken when uploading to <em>stable</em>. Basically, a
package should only be uploaded to stable if one of the following happens:
<list>
- <item>a security problem (e.g. a Debian security advisory)
<item>a truly critical functionality problem
<item>the package becomes uninstallable
<item>a released architecture lacks the package
</list>
- <p>
+<p>
+In the past, uploads to <em>stable</em> were used to address security
+problems as well. However, this practice is deprecated, as uploads
+used for Debian security advisories are automatically copied to the
+appropriate <file>proposed-updates</file> archive when the advisory is
+released. See <ref id="bug-security"> for detailed information on
+handling security problems.
+ <p>
It is discouraged to change anything else in the package that isn't
-important, because even trivial fixes can cause bugs later on. Uploading
-new upstream versions to fix security problems is deprecated; applying the
-specific patch from the new upstream version to the old one ("back-porting"
-the patch) is the right thing to do in most cases.
- <p>
+important, because even trivial fixes can cause bugs later on.
+ <p>
Packages uploaded to <em>stable</em> need to be compiled on systems running
<em>stable</em>, so that their dependencies are limited to the libraries
(and other packages) available in <em>stable</em>; for example, a package
exists in unstable will be rejected. Making changes to dependencies of other
packages (by messing with <tt>Provides</tt> or shlibs files), possibly making
those other packages uninstallable, is strongly discouraged.
+ <p>
The Release Team (which can be reached at &email-debian-release;) will
regularly evaluate the uploads in <em>stable-proposed-updates</em> and decide if
your package can be included in <em>stable</em>. Please be clear (and
<em>stable</em>, because otherwise the package won't be considered for
inclusion.
- <sect3 id="upload-t-p-u">Uploading to <em>testing-proposed-updates</em>
- <p>
+ <sect1 id="upload-t-p-u">
+ <heading>Special case: uploads to <em>testing-proposed-updates</em></heading>
+ <p>
The testing distribution is fed with packages from unstable according to the rules
explained in <ref id="testing">. However, the release manager may stop the testing
scripts when he wants to freeze the distribution. In that case, you may want to
upload to <em>testing-proposed-updates</em> to provide fixed packages during the freeze.
+ <p>
Keep in mind that packages uploaded there are not automatically processed, they
have to go through the hands of the release manager. So you'd better have a good
reason to upload there. In order to know what a good reason is in the
release manager's eyes, you should read the instructions that he regularly
gives on &email-debian-devel-announce;.
+ <p>
You should not upload to <em>testing-proposed-updates</em> when you can update your
packages through <em>unstable</em>. If you can't (for example because you have a
newer development version in unstable), you may use it but it is recommended to ask
the authorization of the release manager before.
- <sect1 id="uploading">Uploading a package
- <sect2 id="upload-ftp-master">Uploading to <tt>ftp-master</tt>
+ <sect id="upload">Uploading a package
+
+ <sect1 id="upload-ftp-master">Uploading to <tt>ftp-master</tt>
<p>
To upload a package, you need a personal account on
<ftpsite>&ftp-master-host;</ftpsite>, which you should have as an
official maintainer. If you use <prgn>scp</prgn> or <prgn>rsync</prgn>
to transfer the files, place them into &us-upload-dir;;
if you use anonymous FTP to upload, place them into
-&upload-queue;. Please note that you should transfer
+&upload-queue;.
+ <p>
+If you want to use feature described in <ref id="delayed-incoming">,
+you'll have to upload to <tt>ftp-master</tt>. It is the only upload
+point that supports delayed incoming.
+ <p>
+Please note that you should transfer
the changes file last. Otherwise, your upload may be rejected because the
archive maintenance software will parse the changes file and see that not
all files have been uploaded. If you don't want to bother with transferring
<p>
After uploading your package, you can check how the archive
maintenance software will process it by running <prgn>dinstall</prgn>
-on your changes file: <example>dinstall -n foo.changes</example>.
+on your changes file:
+<example>dinstall -n foo.changes</example>
+ <p>
Note that <prgn>dput</prgn> can do this for you automatically.
- <sect2 id="upload-non-us">Uploading to <tt>non-US</tt>
+ <sect1 id="upload-non-us">Uploading to <tt>non-US</tt>
<p>
As discussed above, export controlled software should not be uploaded
to <tt>ftp-master</tt>. Instead, upload the package to
residents consult a lawyer before doing uploads to non-US.
- <sect2>Uploads via <tt>chiark</tt>
+ <sect1>Uploads via <tt>chiark</tt>
<p>
If you have a slow network connection to <tt>ftp-master</tt>, there are
alternatives. One is to upload files to <file>Incoming</file> via a
program for details.
- <sect2>Uploads via <tt>erlangen</tt>
+ <sect1>Uploads via <tt>erlangen</tt>
<p>
Another upload queue is available in Germany: just upload the files
via anonymous FTP to <url id="&url-upload-erlangen;">.
the program for details.
- <sect2>Other upload queues
+ <sect1>Other upload queues
<p>
Another upload queue is available which is based in the US, and is a
good backup when there are problems reaching <tt>ftp-master</tt>. You can
anonymous FTP to <url id="&url-upload-jp;">.
-
- <sect1 id="upload-announce">Announcing package uploads
- <p>
-When a package is uploaded, an announcement should be posted to one of
-the ``debian-changes'' lists. This is now done automatically by the archive
-maintenance software when it runs (usually once a day). You just need to use
-a recent <package>dpkg-dev</package> (>= 1.4.1.2). The mail generated by
-the archive maintenance software will contain the OpenPGP/GnuPG signed
-<file>.changes</file> files that you uploaded with your package.
-Previously, <prgn>dupload</prgn> used to send those announcements, so
-please make sure that you configured your <prgn>dupload</prgn> not to
-send those announcements (check its documentation and look for
-``dinstall_runs'').
- <p>
-If a package is released with the <tt>Distribution:</tt> set to
-`stable', the announcement is sent to &email-debian-changes;. If a
-package is released with <tt>Distribution:</tt> set to `unstable',
-or `experimental', the announcement will be
-posted to &email-debian-devel-changes; instead.
-
<sect1 id="upload-notification">
<heading>Notification that a new package has been installed</heading>
<p>
The installation notification also includes information on what
section the package was inserted into. If there is a disparity, you
will receive a separate email notifying you of that. Read on below.
+ <p>
+Note also that if you upload via queues, the queue daemon software will
+also send you a notification by email.
- <sect2 id="override-file">The override file
+ <sect id="override-file">Determining section and priority of a package
+ <p>
The <file>debian/control</file> file's <tt>Section</tt> and
<tt>Priority</tt> fields do not actually specify where the file will
be placed in the archive, nor its priority. In order to retain the
overall integrity of the archive, it is the archive maintainers who
have control over these fields. The values in the
<file>debian/control</file> file are actually just hints.
+ <p>
The archive maintainers keep track of the canonical sections and
priorities for packages in the <em>override file</em>. If there is a
disparity between the <em>override file</em> and the package's fields
archive. You can either correct your <file>debian/control</file> file
for your next upload, or else you may wish to make a change in the
<em>override file</em>.
+ <p>
To alter the actual section that a package is put in, you need to
first make sure that the <file>debian/control</file> in your package
is accurate. Next, send an email &email-override; or submit a bug
against <package>ftp.debian.org</package> requesting that the section
or priority for your package be changed from the old section or
priority to the new one. Be sure to explain your reasoning.
+ <p>
For more information about <em>override files</em>, see <manref
-name="dpkg-scanpackages" section="8">, &file-bts-mailing;, and
-&file-bts-info;.
+name="dpkg-scanpackages" section="8"> and
+<url id="&url-bts-devel;#maintincorrect">.
+ <p>
+Note also that the term "section" is used for the separation of packages
+according to their licensing, e.g. <em>main</em>, <em>contrib</em> and
+<em>non-free</em>. This is described in another section, <ref id="archive">.
+ <sect id="bug-handling">Handling bugs
+ <p>
+Every developer has to be able to work with the Debian <url name="bug
+tracking system" id="&url-bts;">. This includes knowing how to file bug
+reports properly (see <ref id="submit-bug">), how to update them and
+reorder them, and how to process and close them.
+ <p>
+The bug tracking system's features interesting to developers are described
+in the <url id="&url-bts-devel;" name="BTS documentation for developers">.
+This includes closing bugs, sending followup messages, assigning severities
+and tags, marking bugs as forwarded and other issues.
+ <p>
+Operations such as reassigning bugs to other packages, merging separate
+bug reports about the same issue, or reopening bugs when they are
+prematurely closed, are handled using the so-called control mail server.
+All of the commands available in this server are described in the
+<url id="&url-bts-control;" name="BTS control server documentation">.
- <sect id="nmu">Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMUs)
- <p>
-Under certain circumstances it is necessary for someone other than the
-official package maintainer to make a release of a package. This is
-called a non-maintainer upload, or NMU.
- <p>
-Debian porters, who compile packages for different architectures,
-occasionally do binary-only NMUs as part of their porting activity
-(see <ref id="porting">). Another reason why NMUs are done is when a
-Debian developers needs to fix another developers' packages in order to
-address serious security problems or crippling bugs, especially during
-the freeze, or when the package maintainer is unable to release a fix
-in a timely fashion.
- <p>
-This chapter contains information providing guidelines for when and
-how NMUs should be done. A fundamental distinction is made between
-source and binary-only NMUs, which is explained in the next section.
-
- <sect1 id="nmu-terms">Terminology
- <p>
-There are two new terms used throughout this section: ``binary-only NMU''
-and ``source NMU''. These terms are used with specific technical
-meaning throughout this document. Both binary-only and source NMUs are
-similar, since they involve an upload of a package by a developer who
-is not the official maintainer of that package. That is why it's a
-<em>non-maintainer</em> upload.
- <p>
-A source NMU is an upload of a package by a developer who is not the
-official maintainer, for the purposes of fixing a bug in the package.
-Source NMUs always involves changes to the source (even if it is just
-a change to <file>debian/changelog</file>). This can be either a
-change to the upstream source, or a change to the Debian bits of the
-source. Note, however, that source NMUs may also include
-architecture-dependent packages, as well as an updated Debian diff.
+ <sect1 id="bug-monitoring">Monitoring bugs
<p>
-A binary-only NMU is a recompilation and upload of a binary package
-for a given architecture. As such, it is usually part of a porting
-effort. A binary-only NMU is a non-maintainer uploaded binary version
-of a package, with no source changes required. There are many cases
-where porters must fix problems in the source in order to get them to
-compile for their target architecture; that would be considered a
-source NMU rather than a binary-only NMU. As you can see, we don't
-distinguish in terminology between porter NMUs and non-porter NMUs.
+If you want to be a good maintainer, you should periodically check the
+<url id="&url-bts;" name="Debian bug tracking system (BTS)"> for your
+packages. The BTS contains all the open bugs against your packages.
+You can check them by browsing this page:
+<tt>http://&bugs-host;/<var>yourlogin</var>@debian.org</tt>.
<p>
-Both classes of NMUs, source and binary-only, can be lumped by the
-term ``NMU''. However, this often leads to confusion, since most
-people think ``source NMU'' when they think ``NMU''. So it's best to
-be careful. In this chapter, if we use the unqualified term ``NMU'',
-we refer to any type of non-maintainer upload NMUs, whether source and
-binary, or binary-only.
-
-
- <sect1 id="nmu-who">Who can do an NMU
+Maintainers interact with the BTS via email addresses at
+<tt>&bugs-host;</tt>. Documentation on available commands can be
+found at <url id="&url-bts;">, or, if you have installed the
+<package>doc-debian</package> package, you can look at the local files
+&file-bts-docs;.
<p>
-Only official, registered Debian maintainers can do binary or source
-NMUs. An official maintainer is someone who has their key in the
-Debian key ring. Non-developers, however, are encouraged to download
-the source package and start hacking on it to fix problems; however,
-rather than doing an NMU, they should just submit worthwhile patches
-to the Bug Tracking System. Maintainers almost always appreciate
-quality patches and bug reports.
-
+Some find it useful to get periodic reports on open bugs. You can add
+a cron job such as the following if you want to get a weekly email
+outlining all the open bugs against your packages:
+<example>
+# ask for weekly reports of bugs in my packages
+&cron-bug-report;
+</example>
+Replace <var>address</var> with your official Debian
+maintainer address.
- <sect1 id="nmu-when">When to do a source NMU
- <p>
-Guidelines for when to do a source NMU depend on the target
-distribution, i.e., stable, unstable, or experimental. Porters have
-slightly different rules than non-porters, due to their unique
-circumstances (see <ref id="source-nmu-when-porter">).
+ <sect1 id="bug-answering">Responding to bugs
<p>
-When a security bug is detected, the security team may do an NMU.
-Please refer to <ref id="bug-security"> for more information.
+When responding to bugs, make sure that any discussion you have about
+bugs is sent both to the original submitter of the bug, and to the bug
+itself (e.g., <email>123@&bugs-host;</email>). If you're writing a new
+mail and you don't remember the submitter email address, you can
+use the <email>123-submitter@&bugs-host;</email> email to
+contact the submitter <em>and</em> to record your mail within the
+bug log (that means you don't need to send a copy of the mail to
+<email>123@&bugs-host;</email>).
<p>
-During the release cycle (see <ref id="sec-dists">), NMUs which fix
-serious or higher severity bugs are encouraged and accepted. Even
-during this window, however, you should endeavor to reach the current
-maintainer of the package; they might be just about to upload a fix
-for the problem. As with any source NMU, the guidelines found in <ref
-id="nmu-guidelines"> need to be followed. Special exceptions are made
-for <ref id="qa-bsp">.
+If you get a bug which mentions "FTBFS", that means "Fails to build
+from source". Porters frequently use this acronym.
<p>
-Uploading bug fixes to unstable by non-maintainers should only be done
-by following this protocol:
+Once you've dealt with a bug report (e.g. fixed it), mark it as
+<em>done</em> (close it) by sending an explanation message to
+<email>123-done@&bugs-host;</email>. If you're fixing a bug by
+changing and uploading the package, you can automate bug closing as
+described in <ref id="upload-bugfix">.
<p>
-<list>
- <item>
-Make sure that the package's bugs that the NMU is meant to address are all
-filed in the Debian Bug Tracking System (BTS).
-If they are not, submit them immediately.
- <item>
-Wait a few days the response from the maintainer. If you don't get
-any response, you may want to help him by sending the patch that fixes
-the bug. Don't forget to tag the bug with the "patch" keyword.
- <item>
-Wait a few more days. If you still haven't got an answer from the
-maintainer, send him a mail announcing your intent to NMU the package.
-Prepare an NMU as described in <ref id="nmu-guidelines">, test it
-carefully on your machine (cf. <ref id="upload-checking">).
-Double check that your patch doesn't have any unexpected side effects.
-Make sure your patch is as small and as non-disruptive as it can be.
- <item>
-Upload your package to incoming in <file>DELAYED/7-day</file> (cf.
-<ref id="delayed-incoming">), send the final patch to the maintainer via
-the BTS, and explain to them that they have 7 days to react if they want
-to cancel the NMU.
- <item>
-Follow what happens, you're responsible for any bug that you introduced
-with your NMU. You should probably use <ref id="pkg-tracking-system"> (PTS)
-to stay informed of the state of the package after your NMU.
-</list>
+You should <em>never</em> close bugs via the bug server <tt>close</tt>
+command sent to &email-bts-control;. If you do so, the original
+submitter will not receive any information about why the bug was
+closed.
+
+ <sect1 id="bug-housekeeping">Bug housekeeping
<p>
-At times, the release manager or an organized group of developers can
-announce a certain period of time in which the NMU rules are relaxed.
-This usually involves shortening the period during which one is to wait
-before uploading the fixes, and shortening the DELAYED period. It is
-important to notice that even in these so-called "bug squashing party"
-times, the NMU'er has to file bugs and contact the developer first,
-and act later.
+As a package maintainer, you will often find bugs in other packages or
+have bugs reported against your packages which are actually bugs in
+other packages. The bug tracking system's features interesting to developers
+are described in the <url id="&url-bts-devel;" name="BTS documentation for
+Debian developers">. Operations such as reassigning, merging, and tagging
+bug reports are described in the <url id="&url-bts-control;" name="BTS
+control server documentation">. This section contains
+some guidelines for managing your own bugs, based on the collective
+Debian developer experience.
+ <p>
+Filing bugs for problems that you find in other packages is one of
+the "civic obligations" of maintainership, see <ref id="submit-bug">
+for details. However, handling the bugs in your own packages is
+even more important.
+ <p>
+Here's a list of steps that you may follow to handle a bug report:
+<enumlist>
+ <item>
+Decide whether the report corresponds to a real bug or not. Sometimes
+users are just calling a program in the wrong way because they haven't
+read the documentation. If you diagnose this, just close the bug with
+enough information to let the user correct his problem (give pointers
+to the good documentation and so on). If the same report comes up
+again and again you may ask yourself if the documentation is good
+enough or if the program shouldn't detect its misuse in order to
+give an informative error message. This is an issue that may need
+to be brought to the upstream author.
+ <p>
+If the bug submitter disagree with your decision to close the bug,
+they may reopen it until you find an agreement on how to handle it.
+If you don't find any, you may want to tag the bug <tt>wontfix</tt>
+to let people know that the bug exists but that it won't be corrected.
+If this situation is unacceptable, you (or the submitter) may want to
+require a decision of the technical committee by reassigning the bug
+to <package>tech-ctte</package> (you may use the clone command of
+the BTS if you wish to keep it reported against your package). Before
+doing so, please read the <url id="&url-tech-ctte;" name="recommended procedure">.
+ <item>
+If the bug is real but it's caused by another package, just reassign
+the bug the right package. If you don't know which package it should
+be reassigned to, you may either ask for help on &email-debian-devel; or
+reassign it to <package>debian-policy</package> to let them decide which
+package is in fault.
+ <p>
+Sometimes you also have to adjust the severity of the bug so that it
+matches our definition of the severity. That's because people tend to
+inflate the severity of bugs to make sure their bugs are fixed quickly.
+Some bugs may even be dropped to wishlist severity when the requested
+change is just cosmetic.
+ <item>
+The bug submitter may have forgotten to provide some information, in that
+case you have to ask him the information required. You may use the
+<tt>moreinfo</tt> tag to mark the bug as such. Moreover if you can't
+reproduce the bug, you tag it <tt>unreproducible</tt>. Anyone who
+can reproduce the bug is then invited to provide more information
+on how to reproduce it. After a few months, if this information has not
+been sent by someone, the bug may be closed.
+ <item>
+If the bug is related to the packaging, you just fix it. If you are not
+able to fix it yourself, then tag the bug as <tt>help</tt>. You can
+also ask for help on &email-debian-devel; or &email-debian-qa;. If it's an
+upstream problem, you have to forward it to the upstream author.
+Forwarding a bug is not enough, you have to check at each release if
+the bug has been fixed or not. If it has, you just close it, otherwise
+you have to remind the author about it. If you have the required skills
+you can prepare a patch that fixes the bug and that you send at the
+same time to the author. Make sure to send the patch in the BTS and to
+tag the bug as <tt>patch</tt>.
+ <item>
+If you have fixed a bug in your local copy, or if a fix has been
+committed to the CVS repository, you may tag the bug as
+<tt>pending</tt> to let people know that the bug is corrected and that
+it will be closed with the next upload (add the <tt>closes:</tt> in
+the <file>changelog</file>). This is particularly useful if you
+are several developers working on the same package.
+ <item>
+Once a corrected package is available in the <em>unstable</em>
+distribution, you can close the bug. This can be done automatically,
+read <ref id="upload-bugfix">.
+</enumlist>
- <sect1 id="nmu-guidelines">How to do a source NMU
+ <sect1 id="upload-bugfix">When bugs are closed by new uploads
<p>
-The following applies to porters insofar as they are playing the dual
-role of being both package bug-fixers and package porters. If a
-porter has to change the Debian source archive, automatically their
-upload is a source NMU and is subject to its rules. If a porter is
-simply uploading a recompiled binary package, the rules are different;
-see <ref id="porter-guidelines">.
+As bugs and problems are fixed your packages, it is your
+responsibility as the package maintainer to close the bug. However,
+you should not close the bug until the package which fixes the bug has
+been accepted into the Debian archive. Therefore, once you get
+notification that your updated package has been installed into the
+archive, you can and should close the bug in the BTS.
<p>
-First and foremost, it is critical that NMU patches to source should
-be as non-disruptive as possible. Do not do housekeeping tasks, do
-not change the name of modules or files, do not move directories; in
-general, do not fix things which are not broken. Keep the patch as
-small as possible. If things bother you aesthetically, talk to the
-Debian maintainer, talk to the upstream maintainer, or submit a bug.
-However, aesthetic changes must <em>not</em> be made in a non-maintainer
-upload.
+However, it's possible to avoid having to manually close bugs after the
+upload — just list the fixed bugs in your <file>debian/changelog</file>
+file, following a certain syntax, and the archive maintenance software
+will close the bugs for you. For example:
+<example>
+acme-cannon (3.1415) unstable; urgency=low
- <sect2 id="nmu-version">Source NMU version numbering
- <p>
-Whenever you have made a change to a package, no matter how trivial,
-the version number needs to change. This enables our packing system
-to function.
- <p>
-If you are doing a non-maintainer upload (NMU), you should add a new
-minor version number to the <var>debian-revision</var> part of the
-version number (the portion after the last hyphen). This extra minor
-number will start at `1'. For example, consider the package `foo',
-which is at version 1.1-3. In the archive, the source package control
-file would be <file>foo_1.1-3.dsc</file>. The upstream version is
-`1.1' and the Debian revision is `3'. The next NMU would add a new
-minor number `.1' to the Debian revision; the new source control file
-would be <file>foo_1.1-3.1.dsc</file>.
- <p>
-The Debian revision minor number is needed to avoid stealing one of
-the package maintainer's version numbers, which might disrupt their
-work. It also has the benefit of making it visually clear that a
-package in the archive was not made by the official maintainer.
+ * Frobbed with options (closes: Bug#98339)
+ * Added safety to prevent operator dismemberment, closes: bug#98765,
+ bug#98713, #98714.
+ * Added man page. Closes: #98725.
+</example>
+
+Technically speaking, the following Perl regular expression describes
+how bug closing changelogs are identified:
+<example>
+ /closes:\s*(?:bug)?\#\s*\d+(?:,\s*(?:bug)?\#\s*\d+)*/ig
+</example>
+
+We prefer the <tt>closes: #<var>XXX</var></tt> syntax, as it is the
+most concise entry and the easiest to integrate with the text of the
+<file>changelog</file>.
+ <p>
+If you happen to mistype a bug number or forget a bug in the changelog
+entries, don't hesitate to undo any damage the error caused. To reopen
+wrongly closed bugs, send an <tt>reopen <var>XXX</var></tt> command to
+the bug tracking system's control address, &email-bts-control;. To
+close any remaining bugs that were fixed by your upload, email the
+<file>.changes</file> file to <email>XXX-done@&bugs-host;</email>,
+where <var>XXX</var> is your bug number.
+ <p>
+Bear in mind that it is not obligatory to close bugs using the
+changelog as described above. If you simply want to close bugs that
+don't have anything to do with an upload you made, do it by emailing
+an explanation to <email>XXX-done@&bugs-host;</email>. Do
+<strong>not</strong> close bugs in the changelog entry of a version if
+the changes in that version of the package doesn't have any bearing on
+the bug.
<p>
-If there is no <var>debian-revision</var> component in the version
-number then one should be created, starting at `0.1'. If it is
-absolutely necessary for someone other than the usual maintainer to
-make a release based on a new upstream version then the person making
-the release should start with the <var>debian-revision</var> value
-`0.1'. The usual maintainer of a package should start their
-<var>debian-revision</var> numbering at `1'.
+For general information on how to write your changelog entries, see
+<ref id="bpp-debian-changelog">.
- <sect2 id="nmu-changelog">
- <heading>Source NMUs must have a new changelog entry</heading>
- <p>
-A non-maintainer doing a source NMU must create a changelog entry,
-describing which bugs are fixed by the NMU, and generally why the NMU
-was required and what it fixed. The changelog entry will have the
-non-maintainer's email address in the log entry and the NMU version
-number in it.
- <p>
-By convention, source NMU changelog entries start with the line
-<example>
- * Non-maintainer upload
-</example>
+ <sect1 id="bug-security">Handling security-related bugs
+ <p>
+Due to their sensitive nature, security-related bugs must be handled
+carefully. The Debian Security Team exists to coordinate this
+activity, keeping track of outstanding security problems, helping
+maintainers with security problems or fix them themselves, sending
+security advisories, and maintaining security.debian.org.
+<!-- information about the security database goes here once it's ready -->
+<!-- (mdz) -->
- <sect2 id="nmu-patch">Source NMUs and the Bug Tracking System
- <p>
-Maintainers other than the official package maintainer should make as
-few changes to the package as possible, and they should always send a
-patch as a unified context diff (<tt>diff -u</tt>) detailing their
-changes to the Bug Tracking System.
- <p>
-What if you are simply recompiling the package? If you just need to
-recompile it for a single architecture, then you may do a binary-only
-NMU as described in <ref id="binary-only-nmu"> which doesn't require any
-patch to be sent. If you want the package to be recompiled for all
-architectures, then you do a source NMU as usual and you will have to
-send a patch.
- <p>
-If the source NMU (non-maintainer upload) fixes some existing bugs,
-these bugs should be tagged <em>fixed</em> in the Bug Tracking
-System rather than closed. By convention, only the official package
-maintainer or the original bug submitter are allowed to close bugs.
-Fortunately, Debian's archive system recognizes NMUs and thus marks
-the bugs fixed in the NMU appropriately if the person doing the NMU
-has listed all bugs in the changelog with the <tt>Closes:
-bug#<var>nnnnn</var></tt> syntax (see <ref id="upload-bugfix"> for
-more information describing how to close bugs via the changelog).
-Tagging the bugs <em>fixed</em> ensures that everyone knows that the
-bug was fixed in an NMU; however the bug is left open until the
-changes in the NMU are incorporated officially into the package by
-the official package maintainer.
- <p>
-Also, after doing an NMU, you have to open a new bug and include a
-patch showing all the changes you have made. Alternatively you can send
-that information to the existing bugs that are fixed by your NMU.
-The normal maintainer will either apply the patch or employ an alternate
-method of fixing the problem. Sometimes bugs are fixed independently
-upstream, which is another good reason to back out an NMU's patch.
-If the maintainer decides not to apply the NMU's patch but to release a
-new version, the maintainer needs to ensure that the new upstream version
-really fixes each problem that was fixed in the non-maintainer release.
- <p>
-In addition, the normal maintainer should <em>always</em> retain the
-entry in the changelog file documenting the non-maintainer upload.
+<p>
+When you become aware of a security-related bug in a Debian package,
+whether or not you are the maintainer, collect pertinent information
+about the problem, and promptly contact the security team at
+&email-security-team; as soon as possible. Useful information
+includes, for example:
+<list compact>
+ <item>What versions of the package are known to be affected by the
+ bug. Check each version that is present in a supported Debian
+ release, as well as testing and unstable.
- <sect2 id="nmu-build">Building source NMUs
- <p>
-Source NMU packages are built normally. Pick a distribution using the
-same rules as found in <ref id="upload-dist">. Just as described in
-<ref id="uploading">, a normal changes file, etc., will be built. In
-fact, all the prescriptions from <ref id="upload"> apply.
- <p>
-Make sure you do <em>not</em> change the value of the maintainer in
-the <file>debian/control</file> file. Your name as given in the NMU entry of
-the <file>debian/changelog</file> file will be used for signing the
-changes file.
+ <item>The nature of the fix, if any is available (patches are
+ especially helpful)
- <sect1 id="ack-nmu">Acknowledging an NMU
- <p>
-If one of your packages has been NMU'ed, you have to incorporate the
-changes in your copy of the sources. This is easy, you just have
-to apply the patch that has been sent to you. Once this is done, you
-have to close the bugs that have been tagged fixed by the NMU. You
-can either close them manually by sending the required mails to the
-BTS or by adding the required <tt>closes: #nnnn</tt> in the changelog
-entry of your next upload.
- <p>
-In any case, you should not be upset by the NMU. An NMU is not a
-personal attack against the maintainer. It is a proof that
-someone cares enough about the package and that they were willing to help
-you in your work, so you should be thankful. You may also want to
-ask them if they would be interested to help you on a more frequent
-basis as co-maintainer or backup maintainer
-(see <ref id="collaborative-maint">).
+ <item>Any fixed packages that you have prepared yourself (send only
+ the <tt>.diff.gz</tt> and <tt>.dsc</tt> files and read <ref
+ id="bug-security-building"> first)
+ <item>Any assistance you can provide to help with testing (exploits,
+ regression testing, etc.)
- <sect id="porting">Porting and Being Ported
- <p>
-Debian supports an ever-increasing number of architectures. Even if
-you are not a porter, and you don't use any architecture but one, it
-is part of your duty as a maintainer to be aware of issues of
-portability. Therefore, even if you are not a porter, you should read
-most of this chapter.
- <p>
-Porting is the act of building Debian packages for architectures that
-is different from the original architecture of the package
-maintainer's binary package. It is a unique and essential activity.
-In fact, porters do most of the actual compiling of Debian packages.
-For instance, for a single <em>i386</em> binary package, there must be
-a recompile for each architecture, which amounts to
-&number-of-arches; more builds.
+ <item>Any information needed for the advisory (see <ref
+ id="bug-security-advisories">)
+</list>
- <sect1 id="kind-to-porters">Being kind to porters
- <p>
-Porters have a difficult and unique task, since they are required to
-deal with a large volume of packages. Ideally, every source package
-should build right out of the box. Unfortunately, this is often not
-the case. This section contains a checklist of ``gotchas'' often
-committed by Debian maintainers — common problems which often stymie
-porters, and make their jobs unnecessarily difficult.
- <p>
-The first and most important watchword is to respond quickly to bug or
-issues raised by porters. Please treat porters with courtesy, as if
-they were in fact co-maintainers of your package (which in a way, they
-are). Please be tolerant of succinct or even unclear bug reports,
-doing your best to hunt down whatever the problem is.
- <p>
-By far, most of the problems encountered by porters are caused by
-<em>packaging bugs</em> in the source packages. Here is a checklist
-of things you should check or be aware of.
+ <sect2 id="bug-security-confidentiality">Confidentiality
+ <p>
+Unlike most other activities within Debian, information about security
+issues must sometimes be kept private for a time.
+This allows software distributors to coordinate their disclosure in
+order to minimize their users' exposure. Whether this is the
+case depends on the nature of the problem and corresponding fix, and
+whether it is already a matter of public knowledge.
-<enumlist>
- <item>
-Make sure that your <tt>Build-Depends</tt> and
-<tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt> settings in <file>debian/control</file>
-are set properly. The best way to validate this is to use the
-<package>debootstrap</package> package to create an unstable chroot
-environment. Within that chrooted environment, install the
-<package>build-essential</package> package and any package
-dependencies mentioned in <tt>Build-Depends</tt> and/or
-<tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>. Finally, try building your package
-within that chrooted environment. These steps can be automated
-by the use of the <prgn>pbuilder</prgn> program which is provided by
-the package of the same name.
- <p>
-See the <url id="&url-debian-policy;" name="Debian Policy
-Manual"> for instructions on setting build dependencies.
- <item>
-Don't set architecture to a value other than ``all'' or ``any'' unless
-you really mean it. In too many cases, maintainers don't follow the
-instructions in the <url id="&url-debian-policy;" name="Debian Policy
-Manual">. Setting your architecture to ``i386'' is usually incorrect.
- <item>
-Make sure your source package is correct. Do <tt>dpkg-source -x
-<var>package</var>.dsc</tt> to make sure your source package unpacks
-properly. Then, in there, try building your package from scratch with
-<prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn>.
- <item>
-Make sure you don't ship your source package with the
-<file>debian/files</file> or <file>debian/substvars</file> files.
-They should be removed by the `clean' target of
-<file>debian/rules</file>.
- <item>
-Make sure you don't rely on locally installed or hacked configurations
-or programs. For instance, you should never be calling programs in
-<file>/usr/local/bin</file> or the like. Try not to rely on programs
-be setup in a special way. Try building your package on another
-machine, even if it's the same architecture.
- <item>
-Don't depend on the package you're building already being installed (a
-sub-case of the above issue).
- <item>
-Don't rely on the compiler being a certain version, if possible. If
-not, then make sure your build dependencies reflect the restrictions,
-although you are probably asking for trouble, since different
-architectures sometimes standardize on different compilers.
- <item>
-Make sure your debian/rules contains separate ``binary-arch'' and
-``binary-indep'' targets, as the Debian Policy Manual requires.
-Make sure that both targets work independently, that is, that you can
-call the target without having called the other before. To test this,
-try to run <tt>dpkg-buildpackage -b</tt>.
- </enumlist>
+<p>
+There are a few ways a developer can learn of a security problem:
+<list compact>
+ <item>he notices it on a public forum (mailing list, web site, etc.)
+ <item>someone files a bug report
+ <item>someone informs him via private email
+</list>
- <sect1 id="porter-guidelines">Guidelines for porter uploads
- <p>
-If the package builds out of the box for the architecture to be ported
-to, you are in luck and your job is easy. This section applies to
-that case; it describes how to build and upload your binary package so
-that it is properly installed into the archive. If you do have to
-patch the package in order to get it to compile for the other
-architecture, you are actually doing a source NMU, so consult <ref
-id="nmu-guidelines"> instead.
- <p>
-For a porter upload, no changes are being made to the source. You do
-not need to touch any of the files in the source package. This
-includes <file>debian/changelog</file>.
- <p>
-The way to invoke <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn> is as
-<tt>dpkg-buildpackage -B -m<var>porter-email</var></tt>. Of course,
-set <var>porter-email</var> to your email address. This will do a
-binary-only build of only the architecture-dependent portions of the
-package, using the `binary-arch' target in <file>debian/rules</file>.
+ In the first two cases, the information is public and it is important
+ to have a fix as soon as possible. In the last case, however, it
+ might not be public information. In that case there are a few
+ possible options for dealing with the problem:
- <sect2 id="binary-only-nmu">
- <heading>Recompilation or binary-only NMU</heading>
- <p>
-Sometimes the initial porter upload is problematic because the environment
-in which the package was built was not good enough (outdated or obsolete
-library, bad compiler, ...). Then you may just need to recompile it in
-an updated environment. However, you have to bump the version number in
-this case, so that the old bad package can be replaced in the Debian archive
-(<prgn>katie</prgn> refuses to install new packages if they don't have a
-version number greater than the currently available one). Despite the
-required modification of the changelog, these are called binary-only NMUs
-— there is no need in this case to trigger all other architectures
-to consider themselves out of date or requiring recompilation.
- <p>
-Such recompilations require special ``magic'' version numbering, so that
-the archive maintenance tools recognize that, even though there is a
-new Debian version, there is no corresponding source update. If you
-get this wrong, the archive maintainers will reject your upload (due
-to lack of corresponding source code).
- <p>
-The ``magic'' for a recompilation-only NMU is triggered by using the
-third-level number on the Debian part of the version. For instance,
-if the latest version you are recompiling against was version
-``2.9-3'', your NMU should carry a version of ``2.9-3.0.1''. If the
-latest version was ``3.4-2.1'', your NMU should have a version number
-of ``3.4-2.1.1''.
+<list>
+ <item>If the security exposure is minor, there is sometimes no need
+ to keep the problem a secret and a fix should be made and released.
+ <item>If the problem is severe, it is preferable to share the
+ information with
+ other vendors and coordinate a release. The security team keeps
+ contacts with the various organizations and individuals and can take
+ care of that.
+</list>
- <sect2 id="source-nmu-when-porter">
- <heading>When to do a source NMU if you are a porter</heading>
- <p>
-Porters doing a source NMU generally follow the guidelines found in
-<ref id="nmu">, just like non-porters. However, it is expected that
-the wait cycle for a porter's source NMU is smaller than for a
-non-porter, since porters have to cope with a large quantity of
-packages.
-Again, the situation varies depending on the distribution they are
-uploading to.
+<p>
+ In all cases if the person who reports the problem asks that it not
+ be disclosed, such requests should be honored, with the obvious
+ exception of informing the security team in order that a fix may be
+ produced for a stable release of Debian. When sending confidential
+ information to the security team, be sure to mention this fact.
-<!--
-FIXME: commented out until I can work out how to upload to testing directly
+<p>
+Please note that if secrecy is needed you may not upload a fix to
+unstable (or anywhere else, such as a public CVS repository). It is
+not sufficient to obfuscate the details of the change, as the code
+itself is public, and can (and will) be examined by the general public.
- Crucial fixes (i.e., changes need to get a source
-package to compile for a released-targeted architecture) can be
-uploaded with <em>no</em> waiting period for the `frozen' distribution.
- -->
- <p>
-However, if you are a porter doing an NMU for `unstable', the above
-guidelines for porting should be followed, with two variations.
-Firstly, the acceptable waiting period — the time between when the
-bug is submitted to the BTS and when it is OK to do an NMU — is seven
-days for porters working on the unstable distribution. This period
-can be shortened if the problem is critical and imposes hardship on
-the porting effort, at the discretion of the porter group. (Remember,
-none of this is Policy, just mutually agreed upon guidelines.)
- <p>
-Secondly, porters doing source NMUs should make sure that the bug they
-submit to the BTS should be of severity `serious' or greater. This
-ensures that a single source package can be used to compile every
-supported Debian architecture by release time. It is very important
-that we have one version of the binary and source package for all
-architecture in order to comply with many licenses.
- <p>
-Porters should try to avoid patches which simply kludge around bugs in
-the current version of the compile environment, kernel, or libc.
-Sometimes such kludges can't be helped. If you have to kludge around
-compilers bugs and the like, make sure you <tt>#ifdef</tt> your work
-properly; also, document your kludge so that people know to remove it
-once the external problems have been fixed.
- <p>
-Porters may also have an unofficial location where they can put the
-results of their work during the waiting period. This helps others
-running the port have the benefit of the porter's work, even during
-the waiting period. Of course, such locations have no official
-blessing or status, so buyer, beware.
+<p>
+There are two reasons for releasing information even though secrecy is
+requested: the problem has been known for a while, or that the problem
+or exploit has become public.
+
+ <sect2 id="bug-security-advisories">Security Advisories
+ <p>
+Security advisories are only issued for the current, released stable
+distribution, and <em>not</em> for testing or unstable. When released,
+advisories
+are sent to the &email-debian-security-announce;
+mailing list and posted on <url
+id="&url-debian-security-advisories;" name="the security web page">.
+Security advisories are written and posted by the security
+team. However they certainly do not mind if a
+maintainer can supply some of the information for them, or write part
+of the text. Information that should be in an advisory includes:
- <sect1>Tools for porters
- <p>
-There are several tools available for the porting effort. This section
-contains a brief introduction to these tools; see the package
-documentation or references for full information.
+<list compact>
+ <item>A description of the problem and its scope, including:
+ <list>
+ <item>The type of problem (privilege escalation, denial of
+ service, etc.)
+ <item>What privileges may be gained, and by whom (if any)
+ <item>How it can be exploited
+ <item>Whether it is remotely or locally exploitable
+ <item>How the problem was fixed
+ </list>
+ This information allows users to assess the threat to their systems.
- <sect2 id="quinn-diff">
- <heading><package>quinn-diff</package>
- <p>
-<package>quinn-diff</package> is used to locate the differences from
-one architecture to another. For instance, it could tell you which
-packages need to be ported for architecture <var>Y</var>, based on
-architecture <var>X</var>.
+ <item>Version numbers of affected packages
+ <item>Version numbers of fixed packages
+ <item>Information on where to obtain the updated packages
+ (usually from the Debian security archive)
+ <item>References to upstream advisories, <url
+ id="http://cve.mitre.org" name="CVE"> identifiers, and any other
+ information useful in cross-referencing the vulnerability
+</list>
+ <sect2 id="bug-security-building">
+ <heading>Preparing packages to address security issues</heading>
+ <p>
+One way that you can assist the security team in their duties is to
+provide them with fixed packages suitable for a security advisory for
+the stable
+Debian release.
+ <p>
+ When an update is made to the stable release, care must be taken to
+ avoid changing system behavior or introducing new bugs. In order to
+ do this, make as few changes as possible to fix the bug. Users and
+ administrators rely on the exact behavior of a release once it is
+ made, so any change that is made might break someone's system. This
+ is especially true of libraries: make sure you never change the API or
+ ABI, no matter how small the change.
+<p>
+This means that moving to a new upstream version is not a good
+solution. Instead, the relevant changes should be back-ported to the
+version present in the current stable Debian release. Generally,
+upstream maintainers are willing to help if needed. If not, the
+Debian security team may be able to help.
+<p>
+In some cases, it is not possible to back-port a security fix, for
+example when large amounts of source code need to be modified or
+rewritten. If this happens, it may be necessary to move to a new
+upstream version. However, this is only done in extreme situations,
+and you must always coordinate that with the security team beforehand.
+<p>
+Related to this is another important guideline: always test your
+changes. If you have an exploit available, try it and see if it
+indeed succeeds on the unpatched package and fails on the fixed
+package. Test other, normal actions as well, as sometimes a security
+fix can break seemingly unrelated features in subtle ways.
+<p>
+Review and test your changes as much as possible. Check the
+differences from the previous version repeatedly
+(<prgn>interdiff</prgn> from the <package>patchutils</package> package
+and <prgn>debdiff</prgn> from <package>devscripts</package> are useful
+tools for this, see <ref id="debdiff">).
+<p>
+When packaging the fix, keep the following points in mind:
- <sect2 id="buildd">
- <heading><package>buildd</package>
- <p>
-The <package>buildd</package> system is used as a distributed,
-client-server build distribution system. It is usually used in
-conjunction with <em>auto-builders</em>, which are ``slave'' hosts
-which simply check out and attempt to auto-build packages which need
-to be ported. There is also an email interface to the system, which
-allows porters to ``check out'' a source package (usually one which
-cannot yet be auto-built) and work on it.
- <p>
-<package>buildd</package> is not yet available as a package; however,
-most porting efforts are either using it currently or planning to use
-it in the near future. It collects a number of as yet unpackaged
-components which are currently very useful and in use continually,
-such as <prgn>andrea</prgn>, <prgn>sbuild</prgn> and
-<prgn>wanna-build</prgn>.
- <p>
-Some of the data produced by <package>buildd</package> which is
-generally useful to porters is available on the web at <url
-id="&url-buildd;">. This data includes nightly updated information
-from <prgn>andrea</prgn> (source dependencies) and
-<package>quinn-diff</package> (packages needing recompilation).
- <p>
-We are very excited about this system, since it potentially has so
-many uses. Independent development groups can use the system for
-different sub-flavors of Debian, which may or may not really be of
-general interest (for instance, a flavor of Debian built with gcc
-bounds checking). It will also enable Debian to recompile entire
-distributions quickly.
+<list>
+ <item>Make sure you target the right distribution in your
+ <file>debian/changelog</file>. For stable this is <tt>stable-security</tt> and for
+ testing this is <tt>testing-security</tt>, and for the previous
+ stable release, this is <tt>oldstable-security</tt>. Do not target
+ <var>distribution</var>-proposed-updates!
+ <item>Make descriptive, meaningful changelog entries. Others will
+ rely on them to determine whether a particular bug was fixed.
+ Whenever possible, include an external reference, preferably a CVE
+ identifier, so that it can be cross-referenced.
- <sect2 id="dpkg-cross">
- <heading><package>dpkg-cross</package>
- <p>
-<package>dpkg-cross</package> is a tool for installing libraries and
-headers for cross-compiling in a way similar to
-<package>dpkg</package>. Furthermore, the functionality of
-<prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn> and <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> is
-enhanced to support cross-compiling.
+ <item>Make sure the version number is proper. It must be greater
+ than the current package, but less than package versions in later
+ distributions. If in doubt, test it with <tt>dpkg
+ --compare-versions</tt>. For <em>testing</em>, there must be
+ a higher version in <em>unstable</em>. If there is none yet (for example,
+ if <em>testing</em> and <em>unstable</em> have the same version) you must upload a
+ new version to unstable first.
+ <item>Do not make source-only uploads if your package has any
+ binary-all packages (do not use the <tt>-S</tt> option to
+ <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn>). The <prgn>buildd</prgn> infrastructure will
+ not build those. This point applies to normal package uploads as
+ well.
- <sect id="collaborative-maint">
- <heading>Collaborative maintenance</heading>
- <p>
-"Collaborative maintenance" is a term describing the sharing of Debian
-package maintenance duties by several people. This collaboration is
-almost a good idea, since it generally results in higher quality and
-faster bug fix turnaround time. It is strongly recommended that
-packages in which a priority of <tt>Standard</tt> or which are part of
-the base set have co-maintainers.</p>
- <p>
-Generally there is a primary maintainer and one or more
-co-maintainers. The primary maintainer is the whose name is listed in
-the <tt>Maintainer</tt> field of the <file>debian/control</file> file.
-Co-maintainers are all the other maintainers.</p>
- <p>
-In its most basic form, the process of adding a new co-maintainer is
-quite easy:<list>
- <item>
- <p>
-Setup the co-maintainer with access to the sources you build the
-package from. Generally this implies you are using a network-capable
-version control system, such as <prgn>CVS</prgn> or
-<prgn>Subversion</prgn>.</p>
- </item>
- <item>
- <p>
-Add the co-maintainer's correct maintainer name and address to the
-<tt>Uploaders</tt> field in the global part of the
-<file>debian/control</file> file.
-<example>
-Uploaders: John Buzz <jbuzz@debian.org>, Adam Rex <arex@debian.org>
-</example>
-</p>
- </item>
- <item>
- <p>
-Using the PTS (<ref id="pkg-tracking-system">), the co-maintainers
-should subscribe themselves to the appropriate source package.</p>
- </item>
- </list></p>
- </sect>
+ <item>If the upstream source has been uploaded to
+ security.debian.org before (by a previous security update), build
+ the upload without the upstream source (<tt>dpkg-buildpackage
+ -sd</tt>). Otherwise, build with full source
+ (<tt>dpkg-buildpackage -sa</tt>).
+
+ <item>Be sure to use the exact same <file>*.orig.tar.gz</file> as used in the
+ normal archive, otherwise it is not possible to move the security
+ fix into the main archives later.
+
+ <item>Be sure to build the package on a clean
+ system which only has packages installed from the distribution you
+ are building for. If you do not have such a system yourself, you
+ can use a debian.org machine (see <ref id="server-machines">)
+ or setup a chroot (see <ref id="pbuilder"> and
+ <ref id="debootstrap">).
+</list>
+
+ <sect2 id="bug-security-upload">Uploading the fixed package
+<p>
+Do <strong>NOT</strong> upload a package to the security upload queue
+(oldstable-security, stable-security, etc.) without
+prior authorization from the security team. If the package does not
+exactly meet the team's requirements, it will cause many problems and
+delays in dealing with the unwanted upload.
+<p>
+Do <strong>NOT</strong> upload your fix to proposed-updates without
+coordinating with the security team. Packages from
+security.debian.org will be copied into the proposed-updates directory
+automatically. If a package with the same or a higher version number
+is already installed into the archive, the security update will be
+rejected by the archive system. That way, the stable distribution
+will end up without a security update for this package instead.
+<p>
+Once you have created and tested the new package and it has been
+approved by the security team, it needs to be uploaded so that it can
+be installed in the archives. For security uploads, the place to
+upload to is
+<tt>ftp://security.debian.org/pub/SecurityUploadQueue/</tt> .
+
+<p>
+Once an upload to the security queue has been accepted, the package
+will automatically be rebuilt for all architectures and stored for
+verification by the security team.
+
+<p>
+Uploads which are waiting for acceptance or verification are only
+accessible by the security team. This is necessary since there might
+be fixes for security problems that cannot be disclosed yet.
+
+<p>
+If a member of the security team accepts a package, it will be
+installed on security.debian.org as well as the proper
+<var>distribution</var>-proposed-updates on ftp-master or in the non-US
+archive.
<sect id="archive-manip">
- <heading>Moving, Removing, Renaming, Adopting, and Orphaning
- Packages</heading>
+ <heading>Moving, removing, renaming, adopting, and orphaning
+ packages</heading>
<p>
Some archive manipulation operations are not automated in the Debian
upload process. These procedures should be manually followed by
It is not OK to simply take over a package that you feel is neglected
— that would be package hijacking. You can, of course, contact the
current maintainer and ask them if you may take over the package.
-However, without their assent, you may not take over the package.
-Even if they ignore you, that is still not grounds to take over a
-package. If you really feel that a maintainer has gone AWOL (absent
-without leave), post a query to &email-debian-private;. You may also
-inform the QA group (cf. <ref id="mia-qa">).
+If you have reason to believe a maintainer has gone AWOL
+(absent without leave), see <ref id="mia-qa">.
+ <p>
+Generally, you may not take over the package without the assent of the
+current maintainer. Even if they ignore you, that is still not grounds to
+take over a package. Complaints about maintainers should be brought up on
+the developers' mailing list. If the discussion doesn't end with a positive
+conclusion, and the issue is of a technical nature, consider bringing it to
+the attention of the technical committee (see the <url name="technical
+committee web page" id="&url-tech-ctte;"> for more information).
<p>
If you take over an old package, you probably want to be listed as the
package's official maintainer in the bug system. This will happen
they will continue to receive the bugs during that time.
- <sect id="bug-handling">Handling package bugs
- <p>
-Often as a package maintainer, you find bugs in other packages or else
-have bugs reported to your packages which need to be reassigned. The
-<url id="&url-bts-control;" name="BTS instructions"> can tell you how
-to do this. Some information on filing bugs can be found in <ref
-id="submit-bug">.
+ <sect id="porting">Porting and being ported
+ <p>
+Debian supports an ever-increasing number of architectures. Even if
+you are not a porter, and you don't use any architecture but one, it
+is part of your duty as a maintainer to be aware of issues of
+portability. Therefore, even if you are not a porter, you should read
+most of this chapter.
+ <p>
+Porting is the act of building Debian packages for architectures that
+is different from the original architecture of the package
+maintainer's binary package. It is a unique and essential activity.
+In fact, porters do most of the actual compiling of Debian packages.
+For instance, for a single <em>i386</em> binary package, there must be
+a recompile for each architecture, which amounts to
+&number-of-arches; more builds.
- <sect1>Monitoring bugs
- <p>
-If you want to be a good maintainer, you should periodically check the
-<url id="&url-bts;" name="Debian bug tracking system (BTS)"> for your
-packages. The BTS contains all the open bugs against your packages.
-You can check them by browsing this page:
-<tt>http://&bugs-host;/<var>yourlogin</var>@debian.org</tt>.
+
+ <sect1 id="kind-to-porters">Being kind to porters
<p>
-Maintainers interact with the BTS via email addresses at
-<tt>&bugs-host;</tt>. Documentation on available commands can be
-found at <url id="&url-bts;">, or, if you have installed the
-<package>doc-debian</package> package, you can look at the local files
-&file-bts-docs;.
+Porters have a difficult and unique task, since they are required to
+deal with a large volume of packages. Ideally, every source package
+should build right out of the box. Unfortunately, this is often not
+the case. This section contains a checklist of ``gotchas'' often
+committed by Debian maintainers — common problems which often stymie
+porters, and make their jobs unnecessarily difficult.
<p>
-Some find it useful to get periodic reports on open bugs. You can add
-a cron job such as the following if you want to get a weekly email
-outlining all the open bugs against your packages:
-<example>
-# ask for weekly reports of bugs in my packages
-&cron-bug-report;
-</example>
-Replace <var>address</var> with your official Debian
-maintainer address.
+The first and most important watchword is to respond quickly to bug or
+issues raised by porters. Please treat porters with courtesy, as if
+they were in fact co-maintainers of your package (which in a way, they
+are). Please be tolerant of succinct or even unclear bug reports,
+doing your best to hunt down whatever the problem is.
+ <p>
+By far, most of the problems encountered by porters are caused by
+<em>packaging bugs</em> in the source packages. Here is a checklist
+of things you should check or be aware of.
- <sect1 id="bug-answering">Responding to bugs
+<enumlist>
+ <item>
+Make sure that your <tt>Build-Depends</tt> and
+<tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt> settings in <file>debian/control</file>
+are set properly. The best way to validate this is to use the
+<package>debootstrap</package> package to create an unstable chroot
+environment (see <ref id="debootstrap">).
+Within that chrooted environment, install the
+<package>build-essential</package> package and any package
+dependencies mentioned in <tt>Build-Depends</tt> and/or
+<tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>. Finally, try building your package
+within that chrooted environment. These steps can be automated
+by the use of the <prgn>pbuilder</prgn> program which is provided by
+the package of the same name (see <ref id="pbuilder">).
+ <p>
+If you can't set up a proper chroot, <prgn>dpkg-depcheck</prgn> may be
+of assistance (see <ref id="dpkg-depcheck">).
+ <p>
+See the <url id="&url-debian-policy;" name="Debian Policy
+Manual"> for instructions on setting build dependencies.
+ <item>
+Don't set architecture to a value other than ``all'' or ``any'' unless
+you really mean it. In too many cases, maintainers don't follow the
+instructions in the <url id="&url-debian-policy;" name="Debian Policy
+Manual">. Setting your architecture to ``i386'' is usually incorrect.
+ <item>
+Make sure your source package is correct. Do <tt>dpkg-source -x
+<var>package</var>.dsc</tt> to make sure your source package unpacks
+properly. Then, in there, try building your package from scratch with
+<prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn>.
+ <item>
+Make sure you don't ship your source package with the
+<file>debian/files</file> or <file>debian/substvars</file> files.
+They should be removed by the `clean' target of
+<file>debian/rules</file>.
+ <item>
+Make sure you don't rely on locally installed or hacked configurations
+or programs. For instance, you should never be calling programs in
+<file>/usr/local/bin</file> or the like. Try not to rely on programs
+be setup in a special way. Try building your package on another
+machine, even if it's the same architecture.
+ <item>
+Don't depend on the package you're building already being installed (a
+sub-case of the above issue).
+ <item>
+Don't rely on the compiler being a certain version, if possible. If
+not, then make sure your build dependencies reflect the restrictions,
+although you are probably asking for trouble, since different
+architectures sometimes standardize on different compilers.
+ <item>
+Make sure your debian/rules contains separate ``binary-arch'' and
+``binary-indep'' targets, as the Debian Policy Manual requires.
+Make sure that both targets work independently, that is, that you can
+call the target without having called the other before. To test this,
+try to run <tt>dpkg-buildpackage -B</tt>.
+ </enumlist>
+
+
+ <sect1 id="porter-guidelines">Guidelines for porter uploads
<p>
-Make sure that any discussion you have about bugs are sent both to
-the original submitter of the bug, and the bug itself (e.g.,
-<email>123@bugs.debian.org</email>). If you're writing a new
-mail and you don't remember the submitter email address, you can
-use the <email>123-submitter@bugs.debian.org</email> email to
-contact the submitter <em>and</em> to record your mail within the
-bug log (that means you don't need to send a copy of the mail to
-<email>123@bugs.debian.org</email>).
+If the package builds out of the box for the architecture to be ported
+to, you are in luck and your job is easy. This section applies to
+that case; it describes how to build and upload your binary package so
+that it is properly installed into the archive. If you do have to
+patch the package in order to get it to compile for the other
+architecture, you are actually doing a source NMU, so consult <ref
+id="nmu-guidelines"> instead.
<p>
-You should <em>never</em> close bugs via the bug server <tt>close</tt>
-command sent to &email-bts-control;. If you do so, the original
-submitter will not receive any information about why the bug was
-closed.
+For a porter upload, no changes are being made to the source. You do
+not need to touch any of the files in the source package. This
+includes <file>debian/changelog</file>.
+ <p>
+The way to invoke <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn> is as
+<tt>dpkg-buildpackage -B -m<var>porter-email</var></tt>. Of course,
+set <var>porter-email</var> to your email address. This will do a
+binary-only build of only the architecture-dependent portions of the
+package, using the `binary-arch' target in <file>debian/rules</file>.
- <sect1 id="bug-housekeeping">Bug housekeeping
+ <sect2 id="binary-only-nmu">
+ <heading>Recompilation or binary-only NMU</heading>
<p>
-As a package maintainer, you will often find bugs in other packages or
-have bugs reported against your packages which are actually bugs in
-other packages. The <url id="&url-bts-control;" name="BTS
-instructions"> document the technical operations of the BTS, such as
-how to file, reassign, merge, and tag bugs. This section contains
-some guidelines for managing your own bugs, based on the collective
-Debian developer experience.
- <p>
-Filing bugs for problems that you find in other packages is one of
-the "civic obligations" of maintainership, see <ref id="submit-bug">
-for details. However handling the bugs on your own packages is
-even more important.
- <p>
-Here's a list of steps that you may follow to handle a bug report:
-<enumlist>
- <item>
-Decide whether the report corresponds to a real bug or not. Sometimes
-users are just calling a program in the wrong way because they haven't
-read the documentation. If you diagnose this, just close the bug with
-enough information to let the user correct his problem (give pointers
-to the good documentation and so on). If the same report comes up
-again and again you may ask yourself if the documentation is good
-enough or if the program shouldn't detect its misuse in order to
-give an informative error message. This is an issue that may need
-to be brought to the upstream author.
- <p>
-If the bug submitter disagree with your decision to close the bug,
-they may reopen it until you find an agreement on how to handle it.
-If you don't find any, you may want to tag the bug <tt>wontfix</tt>
-to let people know that the bug exists but that it won't be corrected.
-If this situation is unacceptable, you (or the submitter) may want to
-require a decision of the technical committee by reassigning the bug
-to <package>tech-ctte</package> (you may use the clone command of
-the BTS if you wish to keep it reported against your package). Before
-doing so, please read the <url id="&url-tech-ctte;" name="recommended procedure">.
- <item>
-If the bug is real but it's caused by another package, just reassign
-the bug the right package. If you don't know which package it should
-be reassigned to, you may either ask for help on &email-debian-devel; or
-reassign it to <package>debian-policy</package> to let them decide which
-package is in fault.
- <p>
-Sometimes you also have to adjust the severity of the bug so that it
-matches our definition of the severity. That's because people tend to
-inflate the severity of bugs to make sure their bugs are fixed quickly.
-Some bugs may even be dropped to wishlist severity when the requested
-change is just cosmetic.
- <item>
-The bug submitter may have forgotten to provide some information, in that
-case you have to ask him the information required. You may use the
-<tt>moreinfo</tt> tag to mark the bug as such. Moreover if you can't
-reproduce the bug, you tag it <tt>unreproducible</tt>. Anyone who
-can reproduce the bug is then invited to provide more information
-on how to reproduce it. After a few months, if this information has not
-been sent by someone, the bug may be closed.
- <item>
-If the bug is related to the packaging, you just fix it. If you are not
-able to fix it yourself, then tag the bug as <tt>help</tt>. You can
-also ask for help on &email-debian-devel; or &email-debian-qa;. If it's an
-upstream problem, you have to forward it to the upstream author.
-Forwarding a bug is not enough, you have to check at each release if
-the bug has been fixed or not. If it has, you just close it, otherwise
-you have to remind the author about it. If you have the required skills
-you can prepare a patch that fixes the bug and that you send at the
-same time to the author. Make sure to send the patch in the BTS and to
-tag the bug as <tt>patch</tt>.
- <item>
-If you have fixed a bug in your local copy, or if a fix has been
-committed to the CVS repository, you may tag the bug as
-<tt>pending</tt> to let people know that the bug is corrected and that
-it will be closed with the next upload (add the <tt>closes:</tt> in
-the <file>changelog</file>). This is particularly useful if you
-are several developers working on the same package.
- <item>
-Once a corrected package is available in the <em>unstable</em>
-distribution, you can close the bug. This can be done automatically,
-read <ref id="upload-bugfix">.
-</enumlist>
+Sometimes the initial porter upload is problematic because the environment
+in which the package was built was not good enough (outdated or obsolete
+library, bad compiler, ...). Then you may just need to recompile it in
+an updated environment. However, you have to bump the version number in
+this case, so that the old bad package can be replaced in the Debian archive
+(<prgn>katie</prgn> refuses to install new packages if they don't have a
+version number greater than the currently available one). Despite the
+required modification of the changelog, these are called binary-only NMUs
+— there is no need in this case to trigger all other architectures
+to consider themselves out of date or requiring recompilation.
+ <p>
+Such recompilations require special ``magic'' version numbering, so that
+the archive maintenance tools recognize that, even though there is a
+new Debian version, there is no corresponding source update. If you
+get this wrong, the archive maintainers will reject your upload (due
+to lack of corresponding source code).
+ <p>
+The ``magic'' for a recompilation-only NMU is triggered by using the
+third-level number on the Debian part of the version. For instance,
+if the latest version you are recompiling against was version
+``2.9-3'', your NMU should carry a version of ``2.9-3.0.1''. If the
+latest version was ``3.4-2.1'', your NMU should have a version number
+of ``3.4-2.1.1''.
+
+
+ <sect2 id="source-nmu-when-porter">
+ <heading>When to do a source NMU if you are a porter</heading>
+ <p>
+Porters doing a source NMU generally follow the guidelines found in
+<ref id="nmu">, just like non-porters. However, it is expected that
+the wait cycle for a porter's source NMU is smaller than for a
+non-porter, since porters have to cope with a large quantity of
+packages.
+Again, the situation varies depending on the distribution they are
+uploading to.
+
+<!--
+FIXME: commented out until I can work out how to upload to testing directly
+
+ Crucial fixes (i.e., changes need to get a source
+package to compile for a released-targeted architecture) can be
+uploaded with <em>no</em> waiting period for the `frozen' distribution.
+ -->
+ <p>
+However, if you are a porter doing an NMU for `unstable', the above
+guidelines for porting should be followed, with two variations.
+Firstly, the acceptable waiting period — the time between when the
+bug is submitted to the BTS and when it is OK to do an NMU — is seven
+days for porters working on the unstable distribution. This period
+can be shortened if the problem is critical and imposes hardship on
+the porting effort, at the discretion of the porter group. (Remember,
+none of this is Policy, just mutually agreed upon guidelines.)
+ <p>
+Secondly, porters doing source NMUs should make sure that the bug they
+submit to the BTS should be of severity `serious' or greater. This
+ensures that a single source package can be used to compile every
+supported Debian architecture by release time. It is very important
+that we have one version of the binary and source package for all
+architecture in order to comply with many licenses.
+ <p>
+Porters should try to avoid patches which simply kludge around bugs in
+the current version of the compile environment, kernel, or libc.
+Sometimes such kludges can't be helped. If you have to kludge around
+compilers bugs and the like, make sure you <tt>#ifdef</tt> your work
+properly; also, document your kludge so that people know to remove it
+once the external problems have been fixed.
+ <p>
+Porters may also have an unofficial location where they can put the
+results of their work during the waiting period. This helps others
+running the port have the benefit of the porter's work, even during
+the waiting period. Of course, such locations have no official
+blessing or status, so buyer, beware.
+
+
+ <sect1 id="porter-automation">
+ <heading>Porting infrastructure and automation</heading>
+ <p>
+There is infrastructure and several tools to help automate the package
+porting. This section contains a brief overview of this automation and
+porting to these tools; see the package documentation or references for
+full information.</p>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>Mailing lists and web pages</heading>
+ <p>
+Web pages containing the status of each port can be found at <url
+id="&url-debian-ports;">.
+ <p>
+Each port of Debian has a mailing list. The list of porting mailing
+lists can be found at <url id="&url-debian-port-lists;">. These lists
+are used to coordinate porters, and to connect the users of a given
+port with the porters.</p>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>Porter tools</heading>
+ <p>
+Descriptions of several porting tools can be found in <ref
+id="tools-porting">.</p>
+ </sect2>
+
+ <sect2 id="buildd">
+ <heading><package>buildd</package></heading>
+ <p>
+The <package>buildd</package> system is used as a distributed,
+client-server build distribution system. It is usually used in
+conjunction with <em>auto-builders</em>, which are ``slave'' hosts
+which simply check out and attempt to auto-build packages which need
+to be ported. There is also an email interface to the system, which
+allows porters to ``check out'' a source package (usually one which
+cannot yet be auto-built) and work on it.
+ <p>
+<package>buildd</package> is not yet available as a package; however,
+most porting efforts are either using it currently or planning to use
+it in the near future. The actual automated builder is packaged as
+<package>sbuild</package>, see its description in <ref id="sbuild">.
+The complete <package>buildd</package> system also collects a number of as yet unpackaged
+components which are currently very useful and in use continually,
+such as <prgn>andrea</prgn> and
+<prgn>wanna-build</prgn>.
+ <p>
+Some of the data produced by <package>buildd</package> which is
+generally useful to porters is available on the web at <url
+id="&url-buildd;">. This data includes nightly updated information
+from <prgn>andrea</prgn> (source dependencies) and
+<package>quinn-diff</package> (packages needing recompilation).
+ <p>
+We are quite proud of this system, since it has so
+many possible uses. Independent development groups can use the system for
+different sub-flavors of Debian, which may or may not really be of
+general interest (for instance, a flavor of Debian built with <prgn>gcc</prgn>
+bounds checking). It will also enable Debian to recompile entire
+distributions quickly.
+ </sect2>
+
+
+ <sect id="nmu">Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMUs)
+ <p>
+Under certain circumstances it is necessary for someone other than the
+official package maintainer to make a release of a package. This is
+called a non-maintainer upload, or NMU.
+ <p>
+Debian porters, who compile packages for different architectures,
+occasionally do binary-only NMUs as part of their porting activity
+(see <ref id="porting">). Another reason why NMUs are done is when a
+Debian developers needs to fix another developers' packages in order to
+address serious security problems or crippling bugs, especially during
+the freeze, or when the package maintainer is unable to release a fix
+in a timely fashion.
+ <p>
+This chapter contains information providing guidelines for when and
+how NMUs should be done. A fundamental distinction is made between
+source and binary-only NMUs, which is explained in the next section.
+
+ <sect1 id="nmu-terms">Terminology
+ <p>
+There are two new terms used throughout this section: ``binary-only NMU''
+and ``source NMU''. These terms are used with specific technical
+meaning throughout this document. Both binary-only and source NMUs are
+similar, since they involve an upload of a package by a developer who
+is not the official maintainer of that package. That is why it's a
+<em>non-maintainer</em> upload.
+ <p>
+A source NMU is an upload of a package by a developer who is not the
+official maintainer, for the purposes of fixing a bug in the package.
+Source NMUs always involves changes to the source (even if it is just
+a change to <file>debian/changelog</file>). This can be either a
+change to the upstream source, or a change to the Debian bits of the
+source. Note, however, that source NMUs may also include
+architecture-dependent packages, as well as an updated Debian diff.
+ <p>
+A binary-only NMU is a recompilation and upload of a binary package
+for a given architecture. As such, it is usually part of a porting
+effort. A binary-only NMU is a non-maintainer uploaded binary version
+of a package, with no source changes required. There are many cases
+where porters must fix problems in the source in order to get them to
+compile for their target architecture; that would be considered a
+source NMU rather than a binary-only NMU. As you can see, we don't
+distinguish in terminology between porter NMUs and non-porter NMUs.
+ <p>
+Both classes of NMUs, source and binary-only, can be lumped by the
+term ``NMU''. However, this often leads to confusion, since most
+people think ``source NMU'' when they think ``NMU''. So it's best to
+be careful. In this chapter, if we use the unqualified term ``NMU'',
+we refer to any type of non-maintainer upload NMUs, whether source and
+binary, or binary-only.
+
+
+ <sect1 id="nmu-who">Who can do an NMU
+ <p>
+Only official, registered Debian maintainers can do binary or source
+NMUs. An official maintainer is someone who has their key in the
+Debian key ring. Non-developers, however, are encouraged to download
+the source package and start hacking on it to fix problems; however,
+rather than doing an NMU, they should just submit worthwhile patches
+to the Bug Tracking System. Maintainers almost always appreciate
+quality patches and bug reports.
+
+
+ <sect1 id="nmu-when">When to do a source NMU
+ <p>
+Guidelines for when to do a source NMU depend on the target
+distribution, i.e., stable, unstable, or experimental. Porters have
+slightly different rules than non-porters, due to their unique
+circumstances (see <ref id="source-nmu-when-porter">).
+ <p>
+When a security bug is detected, the security team may do an NMU.
+Please refer to <ref id="bug-security"> for more information.
+ <p>
+During the release cycle (see <ref id="sec-dists">), NMUs which fix
+serious or higher severity bugs are encouraged and accepted. Even
+during this window, however, you should endeavor to reach the current
+maintainer of the package; they might be just about to upload a fix
+for the problem. As with any source NMU, the guidelines found in <ref
+id="nmu-guidelines"> need to be followed. Special exceptions are made
+for <ref id="qa-bsp">.
+ <p>
+Uploading bug fixes to unstable by non-maintainers should only be done
+by following this protocol:
+ <p>
+<list>
+ <item>
+Make sure that the package's bugs that the NMU is meant to address are all
+filed in the Debian Bug Tracking System (BTS).
+If they are not, submit them immediately.
+ <item>
+Wait a few days the response from the maintainer. If you don't get
+any response, you may want to help him by sending the patch that fixes
+the bug. Don't forget to tag the bug with the "patch" keyword.
+ <item>
+Wait a few more days. If you still haven't got an answer from the
+maintainer, send him a mail announcing your intent to NMU the package.
+Prepare an NMU as described in <ref id="nmu-guidelines">, test it
+carefully on your machine (cf. <ref id="sanitycheck">).
+Double check that your patch doesn't have any unexpected side effects.
+Make sure your patch is as small and as non-disruptive as it can be.
+ <item>
+Upload your package to incoming in <file>DELAYED/7-day</file> (cf.
+<ref id="delayed-incoming">), send the final patch to the maintainer via
+the BTS, and explain to them that they have 7 days to react if they want
+to cancel the NMU.
+ <item>
+Follow what happens, you're responsible for any bug that you introduced
+with your NMU. You should probably use <ref id="pkg-tracking-system"> (PTS)
+to stay informed of the state of the package after your NMU.
+</list>
+ <p>
+At times, the release manager or an organized group of developers can
+announce a certain period of time in which the NMU rules are relaxed.
+This usually involves shortening the period during which one is to wait
+before uploading the fixes, and shortening the DELAYED period. It is
+important to notice that even in these so-called "bug squashing party"
+times, the NMU'er has to file bugs and contact the developer first,
+and act later.
+
+ <sect1 id="nmu-guidelines">How to do a source NMU
+ <p>
+The following applies to porters insofar as they are playing the dual
+role of being both package bug-fixers and package porters. If a
+porter has to change the Debian source archive, automatically their
+upload is a source NMU and is subject to its rules. If a porter is
+simply uploading a recompiled binary package, the rules are different;
+see <ref id="porter-guidelines">.
+ <p>
+First and foremost, it is critical that NMU patches to source should
+be as non-disruptive as possible. Do not do housekeeping tasks, do
+not change the name of modules or files, do not move directories; in
+general, do not fix things which are not broken. Keep the patch as
+small as possible. If things bother you aesthetically, talk to the
+Debian maintainer, talk to the upstream maintainer, or submit a bug.
+However, aesthetic changes must <em>not</em> be made in a non-maintainer
+upload.
+
+
+ <sect2 id="nmu-version">Source NMU version numbering
+ <p>
+Whenever you have made a change to a package, no matter how trivial,
+the version number needs to change. This enables our packing system
+to function.
+ <p>
+If you are doing a non-maintainer upload (NMU), you should add a new
+minor version number to the <var>debian-revision</var> part of the
+version number (the portion after the last hyphen). This extra minor
+number will start at `1'. For example, consider the package `foo',
+which is at version 1.1-3. In the archive, the source package control
+file would be <file>foo_1.1-3.dsc</file>. The upstream version is
+`1.1' and the Debian revision is `3'. The next NMU would add a new
+minor number `.1' to the Debian revision; the new source control file
+would be <file>foo_1.1-3.1.dsc</file>.
+ <p>
+The Debian revision minor number is needed to avoid stealing one of
+the package maintainer's version numbers, which might disrupt their
+work. It also has the benefit of making it visually clear that a
+package in the archive was not made by the official maintainer.
+ <p>
+If there is no <var>debian-revision</var> component in the version
+number then one should be created, starting at `0.1'. If it is
+absolutely necessary for someone other than the usual maintainer to
+make a release based on a new upstream version then the person making
+the release should start with the <var>debian-revision</var> value
+`0.1'. The usual maintainer of a package should start their
+<var>debian-revision</var> numbering at `1'.
+
+
+ <sect2 id="nmu-changelog">
+ <heading>Source NMUs must have a new changelog entry</heading>
+ <p>
+A non-maintainer doing a source NMU must create a changelog entry,
+describing which bugs are fixed by the NMU, and generally why the NMU
+was required and what it fixed. The changelog entry will have the
+non-maintainer's email address in the log entry and the NMU version
+number in it.
+ <p>
+By convention, source NMU changelog entries start with the line
+<example>
+ * Non-maintainer upload
+</example>
+
+
+ <sect2 id="nmu-patch">Source NMUs and the Bug Tracking System
+ <p>
+Maintainers other than the official package maintainer should make as
+few changes to the package as possible, and they should always send a
+patch as a unified context diff (<tt>diff -u</tt>) detailing their
+changes to the Bug Tracking System.
+ <p>
+What if you are simply recompiling the package? If you just need to
+recompile it for a single architecture, then you may do a binary-only
+NMU as described in <ref id="binary-only-nmu"> which doesn't require any
+patch to be sent. If you want the package to be recompiled for all
+architectures, then you do a source NMU as usual and you will have to
+send a patch.
+ <p>
+If the source NMU (non-maintainer upload) fixes some existing bugs,
+these bugs should be tagged <em>fixed</em> in the Bug Tracking
+System rather than closed. By convention, only the official package
+maintainer or the original bug submitter are allowed to close bugs.
+Fortunately, Debian's archive system recognizes NMUs and thus marks
+the bugs fixed in the NMU appropriately if the person doing the NMU
+has listed all bugs in the changelog with the <tt>Closes:
+bug#<var>nnnnn</var></tt> syntax (see <ref id="upload-bugfix"> for
+more information describing how to close bugs via the changelog).
+Tagging the bugs <em>fixed</em> ensures that everyone knows that the
+bug was fixed in an NMU; however the bug is left open until the
+changes in the NMU are incorporated officially into the package by
+the official package maintainer.
+ <p>
+Also, after doing an NMU, you have to open a new bug and include a
+patch showing all the changes you have made. Alternatively you can send
+that information to the existing bugs that are fixed by your NMU.
+The normal maintainer will either apply the patch or employ an alternate
+method of fixing the problem. Sometimes bugs are fixed independently
+upstream, which is another good reason to back out an NMU's patch.
+If the maintainer decides not to apply the NMU's patch but to release a
+new version, the maintainer needs to ensure that the new upstream version
+really fixes each problem that was fixed in the non-maintainer release.
+ <p>
+In addition, the normal maintainer should <em>always</em> retain the
+entry in the changelog file documenting the non-maintainer upload.
- <sect1 id="bug-security">Handling security-related bugs
- <p>
-Due to their sensitive nature, security-related bugs must be handled
-carefully. The Debian Security Team exists to coordinate this
-activity, keeping track of outstanding security problems, helping
-maintainers with security problems or fix them themselves, sending
-security advisories, and maintaining security.debian.org.
-<!-- information about the security database goes here once it's ready -->
-<!-- (mdz) -->
+ <sect2 id="nmu-build">Building source NMUs
+ <p>
+Source NMU packages are built normally. Pick a distribution using the
+same rules as found in <ref id="distribution">, follow the other
+prescriptions in <ref id="upload">.
+ <p>
+Make sure you do <em>not</em> change the value of the maintainer in
+the <file>debian/control</file> file. Your name as given in the NMU entry of
+the <file>debian/changelog</file> file will be used for signing the
+changes file.
- <sect2 id="bug-security-you">What to do when you learn of a
- security problem
- <p>
-When you become aware of a security-related bug in a Debian package,
-whether or not you are the maintainer, collect pertinent information
-about the problem, and promptly contact the security team at
-&email-security-team;.
-Useful information includes, for example:
+ <sect1 id="ack-nmu">Acknowledging an NMU
+ <p>
+If one of your packages has been NMU'ed, you have to incorporate the
+changes in your copy of the sources. This is easy, you just have
+to apply the patch that has been sent to you. Once this is done, you
+have to close the bugs that have been tagged fixed by the NMU. You
+can either close them manually by sending the required mails to the
+BTS or by adding the required <tt>closes: #nnnn</tt> in the changelog
+entry of your next upload.
+ <p>
+In any case, you should not be upset by the NMU. An NMU is not a
+personal attack against the maintainer. It is a proof that
+someone cares enough about the package and that they were willing to help
+you in your work, so you should be thankful. You may also want to
+ask them if they would be interested to help you on a more frequent
+basis as co-maintainer or backup maintainer
+(see <ref id="collaborative-maint">).
-<list compact>
- <item>What versions of the package are known to be affected by the
- bug.
- <item>The nature of the exposure (root compromise, user compromise,
- remote/local attack)
+ <sect id="collaborative-maint">
+ <heading>Collaborative maintenance</heading>
+ <p>
+"Collaborative maintenance" is a term describing the sharing of Debian
+package maintenance duties by several people. This collaboration is
+almost always a good idea, since it generally results in higher quality and
+faster bug fix turnaround time. It is strongly recommended that
+packages in which a priority of <tt>Standard</tt> or which are part of
+the base set have co-maintainers.</p>
+ <p>
+Generally there is a primary maintainer and one or more
+co-maintainers. The primary maintainer is the whose name is listed in
+the <tt>Maintainer</tt> field of the <file>debian/control</file> file.
+Co-maintainers are all the other maintainers.</p>
+ <p>
+In its most basic form, the process of adding a new co-maintainer is
+quite easy:
+<list>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+Setup the co-maintainer with access to the sources you build the
+package from. Generally this implies you are using a network-capable
+version control system, such as <prgn>CVS</prgn> or
+<prgn>Subversion</prgn>.</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+Add the co-maintainer's correct maintainer name and address to the
+<tt>Uploaders</tt> field in the global part of the
+<file>debian/control</file> file.
+<example>
+Uploaders: John Buzz <jbuzz@debian.org>, Adam Rex <arex@debian.org>
+</example>
+</p>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <p>
+Using the PTS (<ref id="pkg-tracking-system">), the co-maintainers
+should subscribe themselves to the appropriate source package.</p>
+ </item>
+ </list></p>
+ <p>
+Collaborative maintenance can often be further eased with the use of
+tools on Alioth (see <ref id="alioth">).
+ </sect>
+
- <item>The nature of the fix, if any is available (patches are
- especially helpful)
-</list>
+ <chapt id="best-pkging-practices">
+ <heading>Best Packaging Practices</heading>
+ <p>
+Debian's quality is largely due to the <url id="&url-debian-policy;"
+name="Debian Policy">, which defines explicit baseline requirements
+which all Debian packages must fulfill. Yet there is also a shared
+history of experience which goes beyond the Debian Policy, an
+accumulation of years of experience in packaging. Many very
+talented people have created great tools, tools which help you, the
+Debian maintainer, create and maintain excellent packages.
+ <p>
+This chapter provides some best practices for Debian developers. All
+recommendations are merely that, and are not requirements or policy.
+These are just some subjective hints, advice and pointers collected
+from Debian developers. Feel free to pick and choose whatever works
+best for you.
+
+ <sect id="bpp-debian-rules">
+ <heading>Best practices for <file>debian/rules</file></heading>
+ <p>
+The following recommendations apply to the <file>debian/rules</file>
+file. Since <file>debian/rules</file> controls the build process and
+selects the files which go into the package (directly or indirectly),
+it's usually the file maintainers spend the most time on.
- <sect2 id="bug-security-confidentiality">Confidentiality
+ <sect1 id="helper-scripts">Helper scripts
+ <p>
+The rationale for using helper scripts in <file>debian/rules</file> is
+that lets maintainers use and share common logic among many packages.
+Take for instance the question of installing menu entries: you need to
+put the file into <file>/usr/lib/menu</file>, and add commands to the
+maintainer scripts to register and unregister the menu entries. Since
+this is a very common thing for packages to do, why should each
+maintainer rewrite all this on their own, sometimes with bugs? Also,
+supposing the menu directory changed, every package would have to be
+changed.
+ <p>
+Helper scripts take care of these issues. Assuming you comply with
+the conventions expected by the helper script, the helper takes care
+of all the details. Changes in policy can be made in the helper
+script, then packages just need to be rebuilt with the new version of
+the helper and no other changes.
+ <p>
+<ref id="tools"> contains a couple of different helpers. The most
+common and best (in our opinion) helper system is
+<package>debhelper</package>. Previous helper systems, such as
+<package>debmake</package>, were "monolithic": you couldn't pick and
+choose which part of the helper you found useful, but had to use the
+helper to do everything. <package>debhelper</package>, however, is a
+number of separate little <prgn>dh_*</prgn> programs. For instance,
+<prgn>dh_installman</prgn> installs and compresses man pages,
+<prgn>dh_installmenu</prgn> installs menu files, and so on. Thus, it
+offers enough flexibility to be able to use the little helper scripts,
+where useful, in conjunction with hand-crafted commands in
+<file>debian/rules</file>.
+ <p>
+You can get started with <package>debhelper</package> by reading
+<manref name="debhelper" section="1">, and looking at the examples
+that come with the package. <prgn>dh_make</prgn>, from the
+<package>dh-make</package> package (see <ref id="dh-make">), can be
+used to convert a "vanilla" source package to a
+<package>debhelper</package>ized package. This shortcut, though,
+should not convince you that you do not need to bother understanding
+the individual <prgn>dh_*</prgn> helpers. If you are going to use a
+helper, you do need to take the time to learn to use that helper, to
+learn its expectations and behavior.
+ <p>
+Some people feel that vanilla <file>debian/rules</file> files are
+better, since you don't have to learn the intricacies of any helper
+system. This decision is completely up to you. Use what works for
+you. Many examples of vanilla <file>debian/rules</file> files are
+available at <url id="&url-rules-files;">.
+
+
+ <sect1 id="multiple-patches">
+ <heading>Separating your patches into multiple files</heading>
<p>
-Unlike most other activities within Debian, information about security
-issues must sometimes be kept private for a time. Whether this is the
-case depends on the nature of the problem and corresponding fix, and
-whether it is already a matter of public knowledge.
-<p>
-There are a few ways a developer can learn of a security problem:
+Big, complex packages may have many bugs that you need to deal with.
+If you correct a number of bug directly in the source, if you're not
+careful, it can get hard to differentiate the various patches that you
+applied. It can get quite messy when you have to update the package
+to a new upstream version which integrates some of the fixes (but not
+all). You can't take the total set of diffs (e.g., from
+<file>.diff.gz</file>) and work out which patch sets to back out as a
+unit as bugs are fixed upstream.
+ <p>
+Unfortunately, the packaging system as such currently doesn't provide for
+separating the patches into several files. Nevertheless, there are ways to
+separate patches: the patch files are shipped within the Debian patch file
+(<file>.diff.gz</file>), usually within the <file>debian/</file> directory.
+The only difference is that they aren't applied immediately by dpkg-source,
+but by the <tt>build</tt> rule of <file>debian/rules</file>. Conversely,
+they are reverted in the <tt>clean</tt> rule.
+ <p>
+<prgn>dbs</prgn> is one of the more popular approaches to this. It does all
+of the above, and provides a facility for creating new and updating old
+patches. See the package <package>dbs</package> for more information and
+<package>hello-dbs</package> for an example.
+ <p>
+<prgn>dpatch</prgn> also provides these facilities, but it's intented to be
+even easier to use. See the package <package>dpatch</package> for
+documentation and examples (in <file>/usr/share/doc/dpatch</file>).
-<list compact>
- <item>he notices it on a public forum (mailing list, web site, etc.)
- <item>someone files a bug report
- <item>someone informs him via private email
-</list>
- In the first two cases, the information is public and it is important
- to have a fix as soon as possible. In the last case, however, it
- might not be public information. In that case there are a few
- possible options for dealing with the problem:
+ <sect1 id="multiple-binary">Multiple binary packages
+ <p>
+A single source package will often build several binary packages,
+either to provide several flavors of the same software (e.g.,
+the <package>vim</package> source package) or to make several small
+packages instead of a big one (e.g., if the user can install only the
+subset she needs, and thus save some disk space).
+ <p>
+The second case can be easily managed in <file>debian/rules</file>.
+You just need to move the appropriate files from the build directory
+into the package's temporary trees. You can do this using
+<prgn>install</prgn> or <prgn>dh_install</prgn>
+from <package>debhelper</package>. Be sure to check the different
+permutations of the various packages, ensuring that you have the
+inter-package dependencies set right in <file>debian/control</file>.
+ <p>
+The first case is a bit more difficult since it involves multiple
+recompiles of the same software but with different configuration
+options. The <package>vim</package> source package is an example of how to manage
+this using an hand-crafted <file>debian/rules</file> file.
+
+<!-- &FIXME; Find a good debhelper example with multiple configure/make
+ cycles -->
+ </sect1>
+ </sect>
-<list>
- <item>if it is a trivial problem (like insecure temporary files)
- there is no need to keep the problem a secret and a fix should be
- made and released.
- <item>if the problem is severe (remotely exploitable, possibility to
- gain root privileges) it is preferable to share the information with
- other vendors and coordinate a release. The security team keeps
- contacts with the various organizations and individuals and can take
- care of that.
-</list>
+ <sect id="bpp-debian-control">
+ <heading>Best practices for <file>debian/control</file></heading>
+ <p>
+The following practices are relevant to the
+<file>debian/control</file> file. They supplement the <url
+id="&url-debian-policy;ch-miscellaneous.html#s-descriptions"
+name="Policy on package descriptions">.
+ <p>
+The description of the package, as defined by the corresponding field
+in the <file>control</file> file, contains both the package synopsis
+and the long description for the package. <ref id="bpp-desc-basics">
+describes common guidelines for both parts of the package description.
+Following that, <ref id="bpp-pkg-synopsis"> provides guidelines
+specific to the synopsis, and <ref id="bpp-pkg-desc"> contains
+guidelines specific to the description.
+
+ <sect1 id="bpp-desc-basics">
+ <heading>General guidelines for package descriptions</heading>
+ <p>
+The package description should be written for the average likely user,
+the average person who will use and benefit from the package. For
+instance, development packages are for developers, and can be
+technical in their language. More general-purpose applications, such
+as editors, should be written for a less technical user.
+ <p>
+Our review of package descriptions lead us to conclude that most
+package descriptions are technical, that is, are not written to make
+sense for non-technical users. Unless your package really is only for
+technical users, this is a problem.
+ <p>
+How do you write for non-technical users? Avoid jargon. Avoid
+referring to other applications or frameworks that the user might not
+be familiar with — "GNOME" or "KDE" is fine, since users are
+probably familiar with these terms, but "GTK+" is
+probably not. Try not to assume any knowledge at all. If you must
+use technical terms, introduce them.
+ <p>
+Be objective. Package descriptions are not the place for advocating
+your package, no matter how much you love it. Remember that the
+reader may not care about the same things you care about.
+ <p>
+References to the names of any other software packages, protocol names,
+standards, or specifications should use their canonical forms, if one
+exists. For example, use "X Window System", "X11", or "X"; not "X
+Windows", "X-Windows", or "X Window". Use "GTK+", not "GTK" or "gtk".
+Use "GNOME", not "Gnome". Use "PostScript", not "Postscript" or
+"postscript".
+ <p>
+If you are having problems writing your description, you may wish to
+send it along to &email-debian-l10n-english; and request feedback.
+ </sect1>
-<p>
- In all cases if the person who reports the problem asks to not
- disclose the information that should be respected, with the obvious
- exception of informing the security team (make sure you tell the
- security team that the information can not be disclosed).
-<p>
-Please note that if secrecy is needed you can also not upload a fix to
-unstable (or anywhere else), since the changelog and diff information
-for unstable is public.
+ <sect1 id="bpp-pkg-synopsis">
+ <heading>The package synopsis, or short description</heading>
+ <p>
+The synopsis line (the short description) should be concise. It
+must not repeat the package's name (this is policy).
+ <p>
+It's a good idea to think of the synopsis as an appositive clause, not
+a full sentence. An appositive clause is defined in WordNet as a
+grammatical relation between a word and a noun phrase that follows,
+e.g., "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer". The appositive clause here is
+"red-nosed reindeer". Since the synopsis is a clause, rather than a
+full sentence, we recommend that it neither start with a capital nor
+end with a full stop (period). It should also not begin with an
+article, either definite ("the") or indefinite ("a" or "an").
+ <p>
+It might help to imagine that the synopsis is combined with the
+package name in the following way:
-<p>
-There are two reasons for releasing information even though secrecy is
-requested: the problem has been known for a while, or that the problem
-or exploit has become public.
+<example><var>package-name</var> is a <var>synopsis</var>.</example>
- <sect2 id="bug-security-advisories">Security Advisories
- <p>
-Security advisories are only issued for the current, released stable
-distribution, not for testing or unstable. When released, advisories
-are sent to the &email-debian-security-announce;
-mailing list and posted on <url
-id="&url-debian-security-advisories;" name="the security web page">.
-Security advisories are written and posted by the security
-team. However they certainly do not mind if a maintainer can supply
-some of the information for them, or write part of the
-text. Information that should be in an advisory includes:
+Alternatively, it might make sense to think of it as
-<list compact>
- <item>A description of the problem and its scope, including:
- <list>
- <item>The type of problem (privilege escalation, denial of
- service, etc.)
- <item>How it can be exploited
- <item>Whether it is remotely or locally exploitable
- <item>How the problem was fixed
- </list>
- <item>Version numbers of affected packages
- <item>Version numbers of fixed packages
- <item>Information on where to obtain the updated packages
-</list>
+<example><var>package-name</var> is <var>synopsis</var>.</example>
- <sect2 id="bug-security-building">
- <heading>Preparing packages to address security issues</heading>
- <p>
-One way that you can assist the security team in their duties is to
-provide fixed packages suitable for a security advisory for the stable
-Debian release.
- <p>
- When an update is made to the stable release, care must be taken to
- avoid changing system behavior or introducing new bugs. In order to
- do this, make as few changes as possible to fix the bug. Users and
- administrators rely on the exact behavior of a release once it is
- made, so any change that is made might break someone's system.
- This is especially true of libraries: make sure you never change the
- API or ABI, no matter how small the change.
-<p>
-This means that moving to a new upstream version is not a good
-solution. Instead, the relevant changes should be back-ported to the
-version present in the current stable Debian release. Generally,
-upstream maintainers are willing to help if needed. If not, the
-Debian security team may be able to help.
-<p>
-In some cases, it is not possible to back-port a security fix, for
-example when large amounts of source code need to be modified or
-rewritten. If this happens, it may be necessary to move to a new
-upstream version. However, you must always coordinate that with the
-security team beforehand.
-<p>
-Related to this is another important guideline: always test your
-changes. If you have an exploit available, try it and see if it
-indeed succeeds on the unpatched package and fails on the fixed
-package. Test other, normal actions as well, as sometimes a security
-fix can break seemingly unrelated features in subtle ways.
+or, if the package name itself is a plural (such as
+"developers-tools")
-When packaging the fix, keep the following points in mind:
+<example><var>package-name</var> are <var>synopsis</var>.</example>
-<list>
- <item>Make sure you target the right distribution in your
- <file>debian/changelog</file>. For stable this is <tt>stable-security</tt> and for
- testing this is <tt>testing-security</tt>. Do not target
- <var>distribution</var>-proposed-updates!
+This way of forming a sentence from the package name and synopsis
+should be considered as a heuristic and not a strict rule. There are
+some cases where it doesn't make sense to try to form a sentence.
+ </sect1>
- <item>Make sure the version number is proper. It must be greater
- than the current package, but less than package versions in later
- distributions. If in doubt, test it with <tt>dpkg
- --compare-versions</tt>. For <em>testing</em>, there must be
- a higher version in <em>unstable</em>. If there is none yet (for example,
- if <em>testing</em> and <em>unstable</em> have the same version) you must upload a
- new version to unstable first.
+ <sect1 id="bpp-pkg-desc">
+ <heading>The long description</heading>
+ <p>
+The long description is the primary information available to the user
+about a package before they install it. It should provide all the
+information needed to let the user decide whether to install the
+package. Assume that the user has already read the package synopsis.
+ <p>
+The long description should consist of full and complete sentences.
+ <p>
+The first paragraph of the long description should answer the
+following questions: what does the package do? what task does it help
+the user accomplish? It is important to describe this in a
+non-technical way, unless of course the audience for the package is
+necessarily technical.
+ <p>
+The following paragraphs should answer the following questions: Why do
+I as a user need this package? What other features does the package
+have? What outstanding features and deficiencies are there compared
+to other packages (e.g., "if you need X, use Y instead")? Is this
+package related to other packages in some way that is not handled by
+the package manager (e.g., "this is the client to the foo server")?
+ <p>
+Be careful to avoid spelling and grammar mistakes. Ensure that you
+spell-check it. <prgn>ispell</prgn> has a special <tt>-g</tt> option
+for <file>debian/control</file> files:
- <item>Do not make source-only uploads if your package has any
- binary-all packages (do not use the <tt>-S</tt> option to
- <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn>). The <prgn>buildd</prgn> infrastructure will
- not build those. This point applies to normal package uploads as
- well.
+<example>ispell -d american -g debian/control</example>
+ </sect1>
- <item>Always build with full source (use the <tt>-sa</tt> option
- for <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn>).
- <item>Be sure to use the exact same <file>*.orig.tar.gz</file> as used in the
- normal archive, otherwise it is not possible to move the security
- fix into the main archives later.
+ <sect1 id="bpp-upstream-info">
+ <heading>Upstream home page</heading>
+ <p>
+We recommend that you add the URL for the package's home page to the
+package description in <file>debian/control</file>. This information
+should be added at the
+end of description, using the following format:
- <item>Be sure, when compiling a package, to compile on a clean
- system which only has packages installed from the distribution you
- are building for. If you do not have such a system yourself, you
- can use a debian.org machine (see <ref id="server-machines">)
- or setup a chroot (see <ref id="pbuilder"> and
- <ref id="debootstrap">).
-</list>
+<example> .
+ Homepage: http://some-project.some-place.org/</example>
- <sect2 id="bug-security-upload">Uploading the fixed package
-<p>
-<em>DO NOT</em> upload a package to the security upload queue without
-prior authorization from the security team. If the package does not
-exactly meet the team's requirements, it will cause many problems and
-delays in dealing with the unwanted upload.
-<p>
-Once you have created and tested the new package and it has been
-approved by the security team, it needs to be uploaded so that it can
-be installed in the archives. For security uploads, the place to
-upload to is
-<tt>ftp://security.debian.org/pub/SecurityUploadQueue/</tt> .
+Note the spaces prepending the line, which serves to break the lines
+correctly. To see an example of how this displays, see <url
+id="&url-eg-desc-upstream-info;">.
+ <p>
+If there is no home page for the software, this should naturally be
+left out.
+ <p>
+Note that we expect this field will eventually be replaced by a proper
+<file>debian/control</file> field understood by <prgn>dpkg</prgn> and
+<tt>&packages-host;</tt>. If you don't want to bother migrating the
+home page from the description to this field, you should probably wait
+until that is available.</p>
+ </sect1>
+ </sect>
-<p>
-Once an upload to the security queue has been accepted, the package
-will automatically be rebuilt for all architectures and stored for
-verification by the security team.
-<p>
-Uploads which are waiting for acceptance or verification are only
-accessible by the security team. This is necessary since there might
-be fixes for security problems that cannot be disclosed yet.
+ <sect id="bpp-debian-changelog">
+ <heading>Best practices for <file>debian/changelog</file></heading>
+ <p>
+The following practices supplement the <url name="Policy on changelog
+files" id="&url-debian-policy;ch-docs.html#s-changelogs">.</p>
-<p>
-If a member of the security team accepts a package, it will be
-installed on security.debian.org as well as the proper
-<var>distribution</var>-proposed-updates on ftp-master or in the non-US
-archive.
+ <sect1 id="bpp-changelog-do">
+ <heading>Writing useful changelog entries</heading>
+ <p>
+The changelog entry for a package revision documents changes in that
+revision, and only them. Concentrate on describing significant and
+user-visible changes that were made since the last version.
+ <p>
+Focus on <em>what</em> was changed — who, how and when are
+usually less important. Having said that, remember to politely
+attribute people who have provided notable help in making the package
+(e.g., those who have sent in patches).
+ <p>
+There's no need to elaborate the trivial and obvious changes. You can
+also aggregate several changes in one entry. On the other hand, don't
+be overly terse if you have undertaken a major change. Be especially
+clear if there are changes that affect the behaviour of the program.
+For further explanations, use the <file>README.Debian</file> file.
+ <p>
+Use common English so that the majority of readers can comprehend it.
+Avoid abbreviations, "tech-speak" and jargon when explaining changes
+that close bugs, especially for bugs filed by users that did not
+strike you as particularly technically savvy. Be polite, don't swear.
+ <p>
+It is sometimes desirable to prefix changelog entries with the names
+of the files that were changed. However, there's no need to
+explicitly list each and every last one of the changed files,
+especially if the change was small or repetitive. You may use
+wildcards.
+ <p>
+When referring to bugs, don't assume anything. Say what the problem
+was, how it was fixed, and append the "closes: #nnnnn" string. See
+<ref id="upload-bugfix"> for more information.
- <sect1 id="upload-bugfix">When bugs are closed by new uploads
- <p>
-If you fix a bug in your packages, it is your responsibility as the
-package maintainer to close the bug when it has been fixed. However,
-you should not close the bug until the package which fixes the bug has
-been accepted into the Debian archive. Therefore, once you get
-notification that your updated package has been installed into the
-archive, you can and should close the bug in the BTS.
- <p>
-If you are using a new version of <package>dpkg-dev</package> and you do
-your changelog entry properly, the archive maintenance software will close
-the bugs automatically. All you have to do is follow a certain syntax in
-your <file>debian/changelog</file> file:
-<example>
-acme-cannon (3.1415) unstable; urgency=low
- * Frobbed with options (closes: Bug#98339)
- * Added safety to prevent operator dismemberment, closes: bug#98765,
- bug#98713, #98714.
- * Added man page. Closes: #98725.
+ <sect1 id="bpp-changelog-misconceptions">
+ <heading>Common misconceptions about changelog entries</heading>
+ <p>
+The changelog entries should <strong>not</strong> document generic
+packaging issues ("Hey, if you're looking for foo.conf, it's in
+/etc/blah/."), since administrators and users are supposed to be at
+least remotely acquainted with how such things are generally arranged
+on Debian systems. Do, however, mention if you change the location of
+a configuration file.
+ <p>
+The only bugs closed with a changelog entry should be those that are
+actually fixed in the same package revision. Closing unrelated bugs
+in the changelog is bad practice. See <ref id="upload-bugfix">.
+ <p>
+The changelog entries should <strong>not</strong> be used for random
+discussion with bug reporters ("I don't see segfaults when starting
+foo with option bar; send in more info"), general statements on life,
+the universe and everything ("sorry this upload took me so long, but I
+caught the flu"), or pleas for help ("the bug list on this package is
+huge, please lend me a hand"). Such things usually won't be noticed
+by their target audience, but may annoy people who wish to read
+information about actual changes in the package. See <ref
+id="bug-answering"> for more information on how to use the bug
+tracking system.
+ <p>
+It is an old tradition to acknowledge bugs fixed in non-maintainer
+uploads in the first changelog entry of the proper maintainer upload,
+for instance, in a changelog entry like this:
+<example>
+ * Maintainer upload, closes: #42345, #44484, #42444.
</example>
+This will close the NMU bugs tagged "fixed" when the package makes
+it into the archive. The bug for the fact that an NMU was done can be
+closed the same way. Of course, it's also perfectly acceptable to
+close NMU-fixed bugs by other means; see <ref id="bug-answering">.
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="bpp-changelog-errors">
+ <heading>Common errors in changelog entries</heading>
+ <p>
+The following examples demonstrate some common errors or example of
+bad style in changelog entries.
-Technically speaking, the following Perl regular expression is what is
-used:
+ <p>
<example>
- /closes:\s*(?:bug)?\#\s*\d+(?:,\s*(?:bug)?\#\s*\d+)*/ig
+ * Fixed all outstanding bugs.
</example>
+This doesn't tell readers anything too useful, obviously.
-The author prefers the <tt>closes: #<var>XXX</var></tt> syntax, as
-one of the most concise and easiest to integrate with the text of the
-<file>changelog</file>.
- <p>
-If you want to close bugs the old fashioned, manual way, it is usually
-sufficient to mail the <file>.changes</file> file to
-<email>XXX-done@bugs.debian.org</email>, where <var>XXX</var> is your
-bug number.
-
-
- <sect1 id="lintian-reports">Lintian reports
- <p>
-You should periodically get the new <package>lintian</package> from
-`unstable' and check over all your packages. Alternatively you can
-check for your maintainer email address at the <url id="&url-lintian;"
-name="online lintian report">. That report, which is updated
-automatically, contains <prgn>lintian</prgn> reports against the
-latest version of the distribution (usually from 'unstable') using the
-latest <package>lintian</package>.
+ <p>
+<example>
+ * Applied patch from Jane Random.
+</example>
+What was the patch about?
+ <p>
+<example>
+ * Late night install target overhaul.
+</example>
+Overhaul which accomplished what? Is the mention of late night
+supposed to remind us that we shouldn't trust that code?
- <chapt id="best-pkging-practices">
- <heading>Best Packaging Practices</heading>
- <p>
-Debian's quality is largely due to its Policy that all packages
-follow. But it's also because we accumulated years of experience
-in packaging; very talented people created great tools to make
-good packages without much troubles.
- <p>
-This chapter provides the best known solutions to common problems
-faced during packaging. It also lists various advice collected on
-several mailing lists. By following them, you will make Debian's quality
-even better.
+ <p>
+<example>
+ * Fix vsync FU w/ ancient CRTs.
+</example>
+Too many acronyms, and it's not overly clear what the, uh, fsckup (oops,
+a curse word!) was actually about, or how it was fixed.
- <sect id="packaging-tools">
- <heading>Packaging tools and common cases</heading>
+ <p>
+<example>
+ * This is not a bug, closes: #nnnnnn.
+</example>
+First of all, there's absolutely no need to upload the package to
+convey this information; instead, use the bug tracking system.
+Secondly, there's no explanation as to why the report is not a bug.
- <sect1 id="helper-scripts">Helper scripts
- <p>
-To help you in your packaging effort, you can use helper scripts.
-The best scripts available are provided by <package>debhelper</package>.
-With <prgn>dh_make</prgn> (package <package>dh-make</package>), you can
-generate in a few seconds a package that is mostly ready. However that
-apparent simplicity is hiding many things done by the helper scripts.
-You have to know what is done by them, that's why you are strongly
-encouraged to read the corresponding manual pages, starting with
-<tt>debhelper(1)</tt>. That's required because you'll have to
-understand what is going on to be able to use them wisely and to
-fix bugs in a pretty way.
- <p>
-debhelper is very useful because it lets you follow the latest Debian policy
-without doing many modifications since the changes that can be automated are
-almost always automatically done by a debhelper script. Furthermore it
-offers enough flexibility to be able to use it in conjunction with
-some hand crafted shell invocations within the <file>rules</file> file.
- <p>
-You can however decide to not use any helper script and still write
-excellent <file>rules</file> file. Many examples are available
-at <url id="&url-rules-files;">.
+ <p>
+<example>
+ * Has been fixed for ages, but I forgot to close; closes: #54321.
+</example>
+If for some reason you didn't mention the bug number in a previous changelog
+entry, there's no problem, just close the bug normally in the BTS. There's
+no need to touch the changelog file, presuming the description of the fix is
+already in (this applies to the fixes by the upstream authors/maintainers as
+well, you don't have to track bugs that they fixed ages ago in your
+changelog).
+
+ <p>
+<example>
+ * Closes: #12345, #12346, #15432
+</example>
+Where's the description? If you can't think of a descriptive message,
+start by inserting the title of each different bug.
+ </sect1>
+ </sect>
<!--
<sect1 id="pkg-mgmt-cvs">Managing a package with CVS
<p>
&FIXME; presentation of cvs-buildpackage, updating sources
via CVS (debian/rules refresh).
+ <url id="http://www.debian.org/devel/cvs_packages">
-->
- <sect1 id="multiple-patches">Package with multiple patches
- <p>
-Big packages tend to have many upstream bugs that you want to fix within
-the Debian package. If you just correct the bug in the source, all the
-fixes are directly integrated in the <file>.diff.gz</file> file and you
-can't easily differentiate the various patches that you applied. It gets
-very messy when you have to update the package to a new upstream version
-which integrates some of the fixes (but not all).
- <p>
-The good solution is to keep separate patches within the
-<file>debian/patches</file> directory and to apply them on the fly at
-build time. The package <package>dbs</package> provides an
-implementation of such a system, you just have to build-depend on dbs to
-be able to use its functionalities. The package
-<package>hello-dbs</package> is a simple example that demonstrates how to
-use <package>dbs</package>.
- <p>
-Additionally, dbs provides facilities to create the patches and to keep
-track of what they are for.
- <sect1 id="multiple-binary">Multiple binary packages
- <p>
-A single source package will often build several binary packages, either
-to provide several flavors of the same software (examples are the
-vim-* packages) or to make several small packages instead of a big one
-(it's interesting if the user doesn't need all the packages and can thus
-save some disk space).
- <p>
-The second case can be easily managed by <prgn>dh_install</prgn> (from
-<package>debhelper</package>) to move files from the build directory to
-the package's temporary trees.
- <p>
-The first case is a bit more difficult since it involves multiple recompiles
-of the same software but with different configure options. The
-<package>vim</package> is an example of how to manage this with an
-hand crafted rules file.
-<!-- &FIXME; Find a good debhelper example with multile configure/make
- cycles -->
+ <sect id="bpp-debian-maint-scripts">
+ <heading>Best practices for maintainer scripts</heading>
+ <p>
+Maintainer scripts include the files <file>debian/postinst</file>,
+<file>debian/preinst</file>, <file>debian/prerm</file> and
+<file>debian/postrm</file>. These scripts take care of any package
+installation or deinstallation setup which isn't handled merely by the
+creation or removal of files and directories. The following
+instructions supplement the <url id="&url-debian-policy;" name="Debian
+Policy">.
+ <p>
+Maintainer scripts must be idempotent. That means that you need to
+make sure nothing bad will happen if the script is called twice where
+it would usually be called once.
+ <p>
+Standard input and output may be redirected (e.g. into pipes) for
+logging purposes, so don't rely on them being a tty.
+ <p>
+All prompting or interactive configuration should be kept to a
+minimum. When it is necessary, you should use the
+<package>debconf</package> package for the interface. Remember that
+prompting in any case can only be in the <tt>configure</tt> stage of
+the <file>postinst</file> script.
+ <p>
+Keep the maintainer scripts as simple as possible. We suggest you use
+pure POSIX shell scripts. Remember, if you do need any bash features,
+the maintainer script must have a bash sh-bang line. POSIX shell or
+Bash are preferred to Perl, since they enable
+<package>debhelper</package> to easily add bits to the scripts.
+ <p>
+If you change your maintainer scripts, be sure to test package
+removal, double installation, and purging. Be sure that a purged
+package is completely gone, that is, it must remove any files created,
+directly or indirectly, in any maintainer script.
+ <p>
+If you need to check for the existence of a command, you should use
+something like
+<example>if [ -x /usr/sbin/install-docs ]; then ...</example>
+
+If you don't wish to hard-code the path of the command in your
+maintainer script, the following POSIX-compliant shell function may
+help:
+
+&example-pathfind;
+
+You can use this function to search <tt>$PATH</tt> for a command name,
+passed as an argument. It returns true (zero) if the command was
+found, and false if not. This is really the most portable way, since
+<tt>command -v</tt>, <prgn>type</prgn>, and <prgn>which</prgn> are not
+POSIX.
+ <p>
+While <prgn>which</prgn> is an acceptable alternative, since
+it is from the required <package>debianutils</package> package, it's
+not on the root partition. That is, it's in <file>/usr/bin</file> rather
+than <file>/bin</file>, so one can't use it in scripts which are run
+before the <file>/usr</file> partition is mounted. Most scripts won't have
+this problem, though.
+ </sect>
- <sect1 id="handling-debconf-translations">Handling debconf translations
- <p>
-Like porters, translators have a difficult task. Since they work on many
-packages, they cannot keep track of every change in packages in order to
-be informed when a translated string is outdated. Fortunately
-<package>debconf</package> can automatically report outdated translations,
-if package maintainers follow some basic guidelines described below.
- <p>
-Translators can use <prgn>debconf-getlang</prgn> (package
-<package>debconf-utils</package>) to write a <file>templates.xx</file>
-file containing both English and localized fields (where <em>xx</em> is
-the language code, may be followed by a country code). This file can be
-put into the <file>debian</file> subdirectory without any change.
- <p>
-When building a binary package, <file>debian/templates.xx</file> files are
-merged along with <file>debian/templates</file> to generate the
-<file>templates</file> file contained in the binary package. This is
-automatically done by <prgn>dh_installdebconf</prgn> (package
-<package>debhelper</package>). If you do not use debhelper, you can
-do the same with <prgn>debconf-mergetemplate</prgn>
-(package <package>debconf-utils</package>).
+
+ <sect id="bpp-config-mgmt">
+ <heading>Configuration management with <package>debconf</package></heading>
<p>
-When the package maintainer needs to update the templates file, they only
-change <file>debian/templates</file>. When English strings in this file
-and in <file>debian/templates.xx</file> differ, translators do know that
-their translation is outdated.
+<package>Debconf</package> is a configuration management system which
+can be used by all the various packaging scripts
+(<file>postinst</file> mainly) to request feedback from the user
+concerning how to configure the package. Direct user interactions must
+now be avoided in favor of <package>debconf</package>
+interaction. This will enable non-interactive installations in the
+future.
<p>
-Please see the page about
-<url id="&url-debconf-l10n-help;" name="localizing debconf templates files">
-at the Debian web site, it contains more detailed instructions, including a
-full example.
+Debconf is a great tool but it is often poorly used. Many common mistakes
+are listed in the <manref name="debconf-devel" section="7"> man page.
+It is something that you must read if you decide to use debconf.
+ </sect>
+
+ <sect id="bpp-i18n">
+ <heading>Internationalization</heading>
+
+ <sect1 id="bpp-i18n-debconf">
+ <heading>Handling debconf translations</heading>
+ <p>
+Like porters, translators have a difficult task. They work on many
+packages and must collaborate with many different
+maintainers. Moreover, most of the time, they are not native English
+speakers, so you may need to be particularly patient with them.
+ <p>
+The goal of <package>debconf</package> was to make packages
+configuration easier for maintainers and for users. Originally,
+translation of debconf templates was handled with
+<prgn>debconf-mergetemplate</prgn>. However, that technique is now
+deprecated; the best way to accomplish <package>debconf</package>
+internationalization is by using the <package>po-debconf</package>
+package. This method is easier both for maintainer and translators;
+transition scripts are provided.
+ <p>
+Using <package>po-debconf</package>, the translation is stored in
+<file>po</file> files (drawing from <prgn>gettext</prgn> translation
+techniques). Special template files contain the original messages and
+mark which fields are translatable. When you change the value of a
+translatable field, by calling <prgn>debconf-updatepo</prgn>, the
+translation is marked as needing attention from the translators. Then,
+at build time, the <prgn>dh_installdebconf</prgn> program takes care
+of all the needed magic to add the template along with the up-to-date
+translations into the binary packages. Refer to the <manref
+name="po-debconf" section="7"> manual page for details.
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="bpp-i18n-docs">
+ <heading>Internationalized documentation</heading>
+ <p>
+Internationalizing documentation is crucial for users, but a lot of
+labor. There's no way to eliminate all that work, but you can make things
+easier for translators.
+ <p>
+If you maintain documentation of any size, its easier for translators
+if they have access to a source control system. That lets translators
+see the differences between two versions of the documentation, so, for
+instance, they can see what needs to be retranslated. It is
+recommended that the translated documentation maintain a note about
+what source control revision the translation is based on. An
+interesting system is provided by <url id="&url-i18n-doc-check;"
+name="doc-check"> in the <package>boot-floppies</package> package,
+which shows an overview of the translation status for any given
+language, using structured comments for the current revision of the
+file to be translated and, for a translated file, the revision of the
+original file the translation is based on. You might wish to adapt
+and provide that in your CVS area.
+ <p>
+If you maintain XML or SGML documentation, we suggest that you isolate
+any language-independent information and define those as entities in a
+separate file which is included by all the different
+translations. This makes it much easier, for instance, to keep URLs
+up-to-date across multiple files.
+ </sect1>
+ </sect>
- <sect id="specific-practices">
- <heading>Specific packaging practices</heading>
+ <sect id="bpp-common-situations">
+ <heading>Common packaging situations</heading>
<!--
<sect1 id="bpp-kernel">Kernel modules/patches
<sect1 id="bpp-autotools">
<heading>Packages using
<prgn>autoconf</prgn>/<prgn>automake</prgn></heading>
- <p>
-Some very good packaging practices for packages using
-<prgn>autoconf</prgn> and/or <prgn>automake</prgn> have been
-synthesized in &file-bpp-autotools;. You're strongly encouraged to
-read this file and to follow the given recommendations.
+ <p>
+Keeping <prgn>autoconf</prgn>'s <file>config.sub</file> and
+<file>config.guess</file> files up-to-date is critical for porters,
+especially on more volatile architectures. Some very good packaging
+practices for any package using <prgn>autoconf</prgn> and/or
+<prgn>automake</prgn> have been synthesized in
+&file-bpp-autotools; from the <package>autotools-dev</package>
+package. You're strongly encouraged to read this file and
+to follow the given recommendations.
<sect1 id="bpp-libraries">Libraries
Good practices for library packaging have been grouped in
<url id="&url-libpkg-guide;" name="the library packaging guide">.
- <sect1 id="bpp-other-specific-practices">Other specific packages
+
+ <sect1 id="bpp-docs">Documentation
+ <p>
+Be sure to follow the <url id="&url-debian-policy;ch-docs.html"
+ name="Policy on documentation">.</p>
+ <p>
+If your package contains documentation built from XML or SGML, we
+recommend you not ship the XML or SGML source in the binary
+package(s). If users want the source of the documentation, they
+should retrieve the source package.</p>
+ <p>
+Policy specifies that documentation should be shipped in HTML format.
+We also recommend shipping documentation in PDF and plain text format if
+convenient and quality output is possible. However, it is generally
+not appropriate to ship plain text versions of documentation whose source
+format is HTML.</p>
+ <p>
+Major shipped manuals should register themselves with
+<package>doc-base</package> on installation. See the
+<package>doc-base</package> package documentation for more
+information.</p>
+
+
+ <sect1 id="bpp-other">Specific types of packages
<p>
-Several subsets of packages have special sub-policies and corresponding
-packaging rules and practices:
+Several specific types of packages have special sub-policies and
+corresponding packaging rules and practices:
<list>
<item>
-Perl related packages have a <url name="Perl policy" id="&url-perl-policy;">,
-some examples of packages following that policy are
-<package>libdbd-pg-perl</package> (binary perl module) or
+Perl related packages have a <url name="Perl policy"
+id="&url-perl-policy;">, some examples of packages following that
+policy are <package>libdbd-pg-perl</package> (binary perl module) or
<package>libmldbm-perl</package> (arch independent perl module).
<item>
-Python related packages have their python policy:
-&file-python-policy; (in the python package).
+Python related packages have their python policy; see
+&file-python-policy; in the <package>python</package> package.
<item>
Emacs related packages have the <url id="&url-emacs-policy;"
name="emacs policy">.
Java related packages have their <url id="&url-java-policy;"
name="java policy">.
<item>
-Ocaml related packages have their Ocaml policy: &file-ocaml-policy; (in
-the <package>ocaml</package> package). A good example is the <package>camlzip</package>
-source package.
+Ocaml related packages have their own policy, found in
+&file-ocaml-policy; from the <package>ocaml</package> package. A good
+example is the <package>camlzip</package> source package.
+ <item>
+Packages providing XML or SGML DTDs should conform to the
+recommendations found in the <package>sgml-base-doc</package>
+package.
+ <item>
+Lisp packages should register themselves with
+<package>common-lisp-controller</package>, about which see
+&file-lisp-controller;.
</list>
-
- <sect id="config-mgmt">
- <heading>Configuration management</heading>
-
- <sect1 id="config-wise-debconf">The wise use of debconf
- <p>
-Debconf is a configuration management system, it is used by all the
-various packaging scripts (<file>postinst</file> mainly) to request feedback from the
-user concerning how to configure the package. Direct user interactions
-must now be avoided in favor of debconf interaction. This will enable
-non-interactive installations in the future.
- <p>
-Debconf is a great tool but it is often badly used ... many common mistakes
-are listed in the <manref name="debconf-devel" section="8"> man page.
-It is something that you must read if you decide to use debconf.
+ </sect1>
<!--
<sect1 id="custom-config-files">Custom configuration files
sympa may be an example package
-->
- <sect id="misc-advice">
- <heading>Miscellaneous advice</heading>
-
- <sect1 id="writing-desc">
- <heading>Writing useful descriptions</heading>
- <p>
-The description of the package (as defined by the corresponding field
-in the <file>control</file> file) is usually the first information
-available to the user before they install it. As such, it should
-provide all the required information to let him decide whether
-to install the package.
- <p>
-For example, apart from the usual description that you adapt from the
-upstream <file>README</file>, you should include the URL of the
-web site if there's any. If the package is not yet considered stable
-by the author, you may also want to warn the user that the
-package is not ready for production use.
- <p>
-For consistency and for an aesthetic concern, you should capitalize the
-first letter of the description.
- <p>
-Last but not least, since the first user impression is based on
-that description, you should be careful to avoid English
-mistakes. Ensure that you spell check it.
-<prgn>ispell</prgn> has a special option (<tt>-g</tt>) for that:
-<example>ispell -d american -g debian/control</example>.
-If you want someone to proofread the description that you
-intend to use you may ask on &email-debian-l10n-english;.
+ <sect1 id="bpp-archindepdata">
+ <heading>Architecture-independent data</heading>
+ <p>
+It is not uncommon to have a large amount of architecture-independent
+data packaged with a program. For example, audio files, a collection
+of icons, wallpaper patterns, or other graphic files. If the size of
+this data is negligible compared to the size of the rest of the
+package, it's probably best to keep it all in a single package.
+ <p>
+However, if the size of the data is considerable, consider splitting
+it out into a separate, architecture-independent package ("_all.deb").
+By doing this, you avoid needless duplication of the same data into
+eleven or more .debs, one per each architecture. While this
+adds some extra overhead into the <file>Packages</file> files, it
+saves a lot of disk space on Debian mirrors. Separating out
+architecture-independent data also reduces processing time of
+<prgn>lintian</prgn> or <prgn>linda</prgn> (see <ref id="tools-lint">)
+when run over the entire Debian archive.
+ </sect1>
+ </sect>
+ </chapt>
<chapt id="beyond-pkging">
the most critical thing to spend their time on.
<sect id="submit-bug">
- <heading>Bug Reporting</heading>
+ <heading>Bug reporting</heading>
<p>
We encourage you to file bugs as you find them in Debian packages. In
fact, Debian developers are often the first line testers. Finding and
-reporting bugs in other developer's packages improves the quality of
+reporting bugs in other developers' packages improves the quality of
Debian.
<p>
+Read the <url name="instructions for reporting bugs"
+id="&url-bts-report;"> in the Debian <url name="bug tracking system"
+id="&url-bts;">.
+ <p>
Try to submit the bug from a normal user account at which you are
-likely to receive mail. Do not submit bugs as root.
+likely to receive mail, so that people can reach you if they need
+further information about the bug. Do not submit bugs as root.
+ <p>
+You can use a tool like <manref name="reportbug" section="1"> to
+submit bugs. It can automate and generally ease the process.
+ <p>
+Make sure the bug is not already filed against a package.
+Each package has a bug list easily reachable at
+<tt>http://&bugs-host;/<var>packagename</var></tt>
+Utilities like <manref name="querybts" section="1"> can also
+provide you with this information (and <prgn>reportbug</prgn>
+will usually invoke <prgn>querybts</prgn> before sending, too).
+ <p>
+Try to direct your bugs to the proper location. When for example
+your bug is about a package that overwrites files from another package,
+check the bug lists for <em>both</em> of those packages in order to
+avoid filing duplicate bug reports.
<p>
-Make sure the bug is not already filed against a package. Try to do a
-good job reporting a bug and redirecting it to the proper location.
For extra credit, you can go through other packages, merging bugs
-which are reported more than once, or setting bug severities to
-`fixed' when they have already been fixed. Note that when you are
+which are reported more than once, or tagging bugs `fixed'
+when they have already been fixed. Note that when you are
neither the bug submitter nor the package maintainer, you should
not actually close the bug (unless you secure permission from the
maintainer).
with the bug reports that you submitted. Take this opportunity to
close those that you can't reproduce anymore. To find
out all the bugs you submitted, you just have to visit
-<tt>http://&bugs-host;/from:<your-email-addr></tt>.
+<tt>http://&bugs-host;/from:<var><your-email-addr></var></tt>.
<sect1 id="submit-many-bugs">Reporting lots of bugs at once
<p>
filing the same bug report simultaneously.
<p>
Note that when sending lots of bugs on the same subject, you should
-send the bug report to <email>maintonly@bugs.debian.org</email> so
+send the bug report to <email>maintonly@&bugs-host;</email> so
that the bug report is not forwarded to the bug distribution mailing
list.
Even though there is a dedicated group of people for Quality
Assurance, QA duties are not reserved solely for them. You can
participate in this effort by keeping your packages as bug-free as
-possible, and as lintian-clean (see <ref id="lintian-reports">) as
+possible, and as lintian-clean (see <ref id="lintian">) as
possible. If you do not find that possible, then you should consider
orphaning some of your packages (see <ref
id="orphaning">). Alternatively, you may ask the help of other people
for help on &email-debian-qa; or &email-debian-devel;). At the same
time, you can look for co-maintainers (see <ref id="collaborative-maint">).
- <sect1 id="qa-bsp">Bug Squashing Parties
+ <sect1 id="qa-bsp">Bug squashing parties
<p>
From time to time the QA group organizes bug squashing parties to get rid of
as many problems as possible. They are announced on &email-debian-devel-announce;
If someone doesn't feel confident with an NMU, he should just send a patch
to the BTS. It's far better than a broken NMU.
- <sect id="mia-qa">Dealing with unreachable maintainers
- <p>
-If you notice that a package is lacking maintenance, you should
-make sure the maintainer is active and will continue to work on
-his packages. Try contacting him yourself.
- <p>
-If you do not get a reply after a few weeks you should collect all
-useful information about this maintainer. Start by logging into
-the <url id="&url-debian-db;" name="Debian Developer's Database">
-and doing a full search to check whether the maintainer is on vacation
-and when they were last seen. Collect any important package names
-they maintain and any Release Critical bugs filed against them.
- <p>
-Send all this information to &email-debian-qa;, in order to let the
-QA people do whatever is needed.
<sect id="contacting-maintainers">Contacting other maintainers
<p>
email address.
+ <sect id="mia-qa">Dealing with inactive and/or unreachable maintainers
+ <p>
+If you notice that a package is lacking maintenance, you should
+make sure that the maintainer is active and will continue to work on
+their packages. It is possible that they are not active any more, but
+haven't registered out of the system, so to speak. On the other hand,
+it is also possible that they just need a reminder.
+ <p>
+The first step is to politely contact the maintainer, and wait for a
+response, for a reasonable time. It is quite hard to define "reasonable
+time", but it is important to take into account that real life is sometimes
+very hectic. One way to handle this would be send a reminder after two
+weeks.
+ <p>
+If the maintainer doesn't reply within four weeks (a month), one can
+assume that a response will probably not happen. If that happens, you
+should investigate further, and try to gather as much useful information
+about the maintainer in question as possible. This includes:
+ <p>
+ <list>
+ <item>The "echelon" information available through the
+ <url id="&url-debian-db;" name="developers' LDAP database">,
+ which indicates when's the last time a developer has posted to
+ a Debian mailing list. (This includes uploads via
+ debian-*-changes lists.) Also, remember to check whether the
+ maintainer is marked as "on vacation" in the database.
+
+ <item>The number of packages this maintainer is responsible for,
+ and the condition of those packages. In particular, are there
+ any RC bugs that have been open for ages? Furthermore, how
+ many bugs are there in general? Another important piece of
+ information is whether the packages have been NMUed, and if
+ so, by whom?
+
+ <item>Is there any activity of the maintainer outside of Debian?
+ For example, they might have posted something recently to
+ non-Debian mailing lists or news groups.
+ </list>
+ <p>
+One big problem are packages which were sponsored -- the maintainer is not
+an official Debian developer. The echelon information is not available for
+sponsored people, for example, so you need to find and contact the Debian
+developer who has actually uploaded the package. Given that they signed the
+package, they're responsible for the upload anyhow, and should know what
+happened to the person they sponsored.
+ <p>
+It is also allowed to post a query to &email-debian-devel;, asking if anyone
+is aware of the whereabouts of the missing maintainer.
+ <p>
+Once you have gathered all of this, you can contact &email-debian-qa;.
+People on this alias will use the information you provided in order to
+decide how to proceed. For example, they might orphan one or all of the
+packages of the maintainer. If a packages has been NMUed, they might prefer
+to contact the NMUer before orphaning the package -- perhaps the person who
+has done the NMU is interested in the package.
+ <p>
+One last word: please remember to be polite. We are all volunteers and
+cannot dedicate all of our time to Debian. Also, you are not aware of the
+circumstances of the person who is involved. Perhaps they might be
+seriously ill or might even had died -- you do not know who may be on the
+receiving side -- imagine how a relative will feel if they read the e-mail
+of the deceased and find a very impolite, angry and accusing message!)
+ <p>
+On the other hand, although we are volunteers, we do have a responsibility.
+So you can stress the importance of the greater good -- if a maintainer does
+not have the time or interest anymore, they should "let go" and give the
+package to someone with more time.
+
+
<sect id="newmaint">
<heading>Interacting with prospective Debian developers</heading>
<p>
must build and test the package on your own system before uploading.
<p>
You can not simply upload a binary <file>.deb</file> from the sponsoree. In
-theory, you should only ask only for the diff file and the location of the
+theory, you should only ask for the diff file and the location of the
original source tarball, and then you should download the source and apply
the diff yourself. In practice, you may want to use the source package
built by your sponsoree. In that case, you have to check that they haven't
email before the package is in acceptable shape. Being a sponsor
means being a mentor.
<p>
-Once the package meets Debian standards, build the package with
-<example>dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc</example> and sign it
-with <example>debsign -m <your-email-addr> <changes-file></example>
+Once the package meets Debian standards, build and sign it with
+<example>dpkg-buildpackage -k<var>KEY-ID</var></example>
before uploading it to the incoming directory.
<p>
The Maintainer field of the <file>control</file> file and the
-<file>changelog</file> should list the person who did the packaging, i.e. the
+<file>changelog</file> should list the person who did the packaging, i.e., the
sponsoree. The sponsoree will therefore get all the BTS mail about the
package.
<p>
Most of the descriptions of these packages come from the actual
package descriptions themselves. Further information can be found in
the package documentation itself. You can also see more info with the
-command <tt>apt-cache show <package-name></tt>.
+command <tt>apt-cache show <package-name></tt>.</p>
+ <sect id="tools-core">
+ <heading>Core tools</heading>
+ <p>
+The following tools are pretty much required for any maintainer.</p>
- <sect id="dpkg-dev">
+ <sect1 id="dpkg-dev">
<heading><package>dpkg-dev</package>
<p>
<package>dpkg-dev</package> contains the tools (including
functionality required to create and manipulated packages; as such,
they are required for any Debian maintainer.
-
- <sect id="lintian">
- <heading><package>lintian</package>
- <p>
-<package>Lintian</package> dissects Debian packages and reports bugs
-and policy violations. It contains automated checks for many aspects
-of Debian policy as well as some checks for common errors. The use of
-<package>lintian</package> has already been discussed in <ref
-id="upload-checking"> and <ref id="lintian-reports">.
-
-
- <sect id="debconf">
+ <sect1 id="debconf">
<heading><package>debconf</package></heading>
<p>
<package>debconf</package> provides a consistent interface to
<package>debconf-doc</package> package.
<p>
Many feel that this system should be used for all packages requiring
-interactive configuration. <package>debconf</package> is not
-currently required by Debian Policy, however, that may change in the
-future.
+interactive configuration; see <ref id="bpp-config-mgmt">.
+<package>debconf</package> is not currently required by Debian Policy,
+but that may change in the future.
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="fakeroot">
+ <heading><package>fakeroot</package>
+ <p>
+<package>fakeroot</package> simulates root privileges. This enables
+you to build packages without being root (packages usually want to
+install files with root ownership). If you have
+<package>fakeroot</package> installed, you can build packages as a
+user: <tt>dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot</tt>.
+ </sect1>
+ </sect>
+
+ <sect id="tools-lint">
+ <heading>Package lint tools</heading>
<p>
+According to the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (FOLDOC), `lint'
+is "a Unix C language processor which carries out more thorough checks
+on the code than is usual with C compilers." Package lint tools help
+package maintainers by automatically finding common problems and
+policy violations with their packages.</p>
+
+ <sect1 id="lintian">
+ <heading><package>lintian</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<package>lintian</package> dissects Debian packages and emits
+information on bugs
+and policy violations. It contains automated checks for many aspects
+of Debian policy as well as some checks for common errors.
+ <p>
+You should periodically get the newest <package>lintian</package> from
+`unstable' and check over all your packages. Notice that the <tt>-i</tt>
+option provides detailed explanations of what each error or warning means,
+what is its basis in Policy, and commonly how you can fix the problem.
+ <p>
+Refer to <ref id="sanitycheck"> for more information on how and when
+to use Lintian.
+ <p>
+You can also see a summary of all problems reported by Lintian on your
+packages at <url id="&url-lintian;">. Those reports contain the latest
+<prgn>lintian</prgn> output on the whole development distribution
+("unstable").
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="linda">
+ <heading><package>linda</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<package>linda</package> is another package linter. It is similar to
+<package>lintian</package> but has a different set of checks. Its
+written in Python rather than Perl.</p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="debdiff">
+ <heading><package>debdiff</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<prgn>debdiff</prgn> (from the <package>devscripts</package> package, <ref id="devscripts">)
+compares file lists and control files of two packages. It is a simple
+regression test, as it will help you notice if the number of binary
+packages has changed since the last upload, or if something's changed
+in the control file. Of course, some of the changes it reports will be
+all right, but it can help you prevent various accidents.
+ <p>
+You can run it over a pair of binary packages:
+<example>
+debdiff package_1-1_arch.deb package_2-1_arch.deb
+</example>
+ <p>
+Or even a pair of changes files:
+<example>
+debdiff package_1-1_arch.changes package_2-1_arch.changes
+</example>
+ <p>
+For more information please see <manref name="debdiff" section="1">.
+ </sect1>
+
+ </sect>
- <sect id="debhelper">
- <heading><package>debhelper</package>
+ <sect id="tools-helpers">
+ <heading>Helpers for <file>debian/rules</file></heading>
+ <p>
+Package building tools make the process of writing
+<file>debian/rules</file> files easier. See <ref id="helper-scripts">
+for more information on why these might or might not be desired.
+
+ <sect1 id="debhelper">
+ <heading><package>debhelper</package></heading>
<p>
<package>debhelper</package> is a collection of programs that can be
used in <file>debian/rules</file> to automate common tasks related to
There are a number of little <package>debhelper</package> add-on
packages, too transient to document. You can see the list of most of
them by doing <tt>apt-cache search ^dh-</tt>.
+ </sect1>
-
- <sect id="debmake">
- <heading><package>debmake</package>
+ <sect1 id="debmake">
+ <heading><package>debmake</package>
<p>
<package>debmake</package>, a pre-cursor to
<package>debhelper</package>, is a less granular
The consensus is that <package>debmake</package> is now deprecated in
favor of <package>debhelper</package>. However, it's not a bug to use
<package>debmake</package>.
+ </sect1>
+ <sect1 id="dh-make">
+ <heading><package>dh-make</package>
+ <p>
+The <package/dh-make/ package contains <prgn/dh_make/, a program that
+creates a skeleton of files necessary to build a Debian package out of
+a source tree. As the name suggests, <prgn/dh_make/ is a rewrite of
+<package/debmake/ and its template files use dh_* programs from
+<package/debhelper/.
+ <p>
+While the rules files generated by <prgn/dh_make/ are in general a
+sufficient basis for a working package, they are still just the groundwork:
+the burden still lies on the maintainer to finely tune the generated files
+and make the package entirely functional and Policy-compliant.
+ </sect1>
- <sect id="yada">
- <heading><package>yada</package>
+ <sect1 id="yada">
+
<heading><package>yada</package>
<p>
<package>yada</package> is another packaging helper tool. It uses a
<file>debian/packages</file> file to auto-generate
Note that <package>yada</package> is called "essentially unmaintained"
by it's own maintainer, Charles Briscoe-Smith. As such, it can be
considered deprecated.
+ </sect1>
-
- <sect id="equivs">
- <heading><package>equivs</package>
+ <sect1 id="equivs">
+ <heading><package>equivs</package>
<p>
<package>equivs</package> is another package for making packages. It
is often suggested for local use if you need to make a package simply
to fulfill dependencies. It is also sometimes used when making
``meta-packages'', which are packages whose only purpose is to depend
-on other packages.
+on other packages.</p>
+ </sect1>
+ </sect>
+
- <sect id="cvs-buildpackage">
- <heading><package>cvs-buildpackage</package>
+ <sect id="tools-builders">
+ <heading>Package builders</heading>
+ <p>
+The following packages help with the package building process, general
+driving <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn> as well as handling supporting
+tasks.</p>
+
+ <sect1 id="cvs-buildpackage">
+ <heading><package>cvs-buildpackage</package>
<p>
<package>cvs-buildpackage</package> provides the capability to inject
or import Debian source packages into a CVS repository, build a Debian
of a package for <em>stable</em>, <em>unstable</em> and possibly
<em>experimental</em> distributions, along with the other benefits of
a version control system.
+ </sect1>
-
- <sect id="dupload">
- <heading><package>dupload</package>
+ <sect1 id="debootstrap">
+ <heading><package>debootstrap</package></heading>
+ <p>
+The <package>debootstrap</package> package and script allows you to
+"bootstrap" a Debian base system into any part of your file-system.
+By "base system", we mean the bare minimum of packages required to
+operate and install the rest of the system.
<p>
+Having a system like this can be useful in many ways. For instance,
+you can <prgn>chroot</prgn> into it if you want to test your build
+depends. Or, you can test how your package behaves when installed
+into a bare base system. Chroot builders use this package, see below.
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="pbuilder">
+ <heading><package>pbuilder</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<package>pbuilder</package> constructs a chrooted system, and builds a
+package inside the chroot. It is very useful to check that a package's
+build-dependencies are correct, and to be sure that unnecessary and
+wrong build dependencies will not exist in the resulting package.</p>
+ <p>
+A related package is <package>pbuilder-uml</package>, which goes even
+further build doing the build within User-mode-linux.</p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="sbuild">
+ <heading><package>sbuild</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<package>sbuild</package> is another automated builder. It can use
+chrooted environments as well. It can be used stand-alone, or as part
+of a networked, distributed build environment. As the latter, it is
+part of the system used by porters to build binary packages for all
+the available architectures. See <ref id="buildd"> for more
+information, and <url id="&url-buildd;"> to see the system in
+action.</p>
+ </sect1>
+ </sect>
+
+ <sect id="uploaders">
+ <heading>Package uploaders</heading>
+ <p>
+The following packages help automate or simplify the process of
+uploading packages into the official archive.</p>
+
+ <sect1 id="dupload">
+ <heading><package>dupload</package></heading>
+ <p>
<package>dupload</package> is a package and a script to automatically
upload Debian packages to the Debian archive, to log the upload, and
to send mail about the upload of a package. You can configure it for
new upload locations or methods.
+ </sect1>
-
- <sect id="dput">
- <heading><package>dput</package>
- <p>
+ <sect1 id="dput">
+ <heading><package>dput</package></heading>
+ <p>
The <package>dput</package> package and script does much the same
thing as <package>dupload</package>, but in a different way. It has
some features over <package>dupload</package>, such as the ability to
check the GnuPG signature and checksums before uploading, and the
possibility of running <prgn>dinstall</prgn> in dry-run mode after the
upload.
+ </sect1>
+ </sect>
-
- <sect id="fakeroot">
- <heading><package>fakeroot</package>
- <p>
-<package>fakeroot</package> simulates root privileges. This enables
-you to build packages without being root (packages usually want to
-install files with root ownership). If you have
-<package>fakeroot</package> installed, you can build packages as a
-user: <tt>dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot</tt>.
-
-
- <sect id="debootstrap">
- <heading><package>debootstrap</package>
- <p>
-The <package>debootstrap</package> package and script allows you to
-"bootstrap" a Debian base system into any part of your file-system.
-By "base system", we mean the bare minimum of packages required to
-operate and install the rest of the system.
- <p>
-Having a system like this can be useful in many ways. For instance,
-you can <prgn>chroot</prgn> into it if you want to test your build
-depends. Or, you can test how your package behaves when installed
-into a bare base system.
-
-
- <sect id="pbuilder">
- <heading><package>pbuilder</package>
+ <sect id="tools-maint-automate">
+ <heading>Maintenance automation</heading>
<p>
-<package>pbuilder</package> constructs a chrooted system, and builds
-a package inside the chroot. It is very useful to check that
-a package's build-dependencies are correct, and to be sure that
-unnecessary and wrong build dependencies will not exist in the
-resulting package.
+The following tools help automate different maintenance tasks, from
+adding changelog entries or signature lines, looking up bugs in Emacs,
+to making use of the newest and official use of
+<file>config.sub</file>.</p>
-
- <sect id="devscripts">
- <heading><package>devscripts</package>
- <p>
-<package>devscripts</package> is a package containing a few wrappers
+ <sect1 id="devscripts">
+ <heading><package>devscripts</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<package>devscripts</package> is a package containing wrappers
and tools which are very helpful for maintaining your Debian
packages. Example scripts include <prgn>debchange</prgn> and
<prgn>dch</prgn>, which manipulate your <file>debian/changelog</file>
file from the command-line, and <prgn>debuild</prgn>, which is a
wrapper around <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn>. The <prgn>bts</prgn>
utility is also very helpful to update the state of bug reports on the
-command line, as is <prgn>uscan</prgn> to watch for new upstream
-versions of your packages. Check the <tt>devscripts(1)</tt> manual
-page for a complete list of available scripts.
+command line. <prgn>uscan</prgn> can be used to watch for new upstream
+versions of your packages. The <prgn>debrsign</prgn> can be used to
+remotely sign a package prior to upload, which is nice when the
+machine you build the package on is different from where your GPG keys
+are.</p>
+ <p>
+See the <manref name="devscripts" section="1"> manual page for a
+complete list of available scripts.</p>
+ </sect1>
+ <sect1 id="autotools-dev">
+ <heading><package>autotools-dev</package></heading>
+ <p>
+Contains best practices for people maintaining packages that use
+<prgn>autoconf</prgn> and/or <prgn>automake</prgn>. Also contains
+canonical <file>config.sub</file> and <file>config.guess</file> files
+which are known to work on all Debian ports.</p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="dpkg-repack">
+ <heading><package>dpkg-repack</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<prgn>dpkg-repack</prgn> creates Debian package file out of a package
+that has already been installed. If any changes have been made to the
+package while it was unpacked (e.g., files in <file>/etc</file> were
+modified), the new package will inherit the changes.</p>
+ <p>
+This utility can make it easy to copy packages from one computer to
+another, or to recreate packages that are installed on your system
+but no longer available elsewhere, or to store the current state of a
+package before you upgrade it.</p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="alien">
+ <heading><package>alien</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<prgn>alien</prgn> converts binary packages between various packaging
+formats, including Debian, RPM (RedHat), LSB (Linux Standard Base),
+Solaris and Slackware packages.</p>
+ </sect1>
- <sect id="dpkg-dev-el">
- <heading><package>dpkg-dev-el</package>
- <p>
+ <sect1 id="debsums">
+ <heading><package>debsums</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<prgn>debsums</prgn> checks installed packages against their MD5 sums.
+Note that not all packages have MD5 sums, since they aren't required
+by Policy.</p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="dpkg-dev-el">
+ <heading><package>dpkg-dev-el</package></heading>
+ <p>
<package>dpkg-dev-el</package> is an Emacs lisp package which provides
assistance when editing some of the files in the <file>debian</file>
directory of your package. For instance, when editing
<file>debian/changelog</file>, there are handy functions for
-finalizing a version and listing the package's current bugs.
+finalizing a version and listing the package's current bugs.</p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="dpkg-depcheck">
+ <heading><package>dpkg-depcheck</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<prgn>dpkg-depcheck</prgn> (from the <package>devscripts</package>
+package, <ref id="devscripts">)
+runs a command under <prgn>strace</prgn> to determine all the packages that
+were used by the said command.
+ <p>
+For Debian packages, this is useful when you have to compose a
+<tt>Build-Depends</tt> line for your new package: running the build
+process through <prgn>dpkg-depcheck</prgn> will provide you with a
+good first approximation of the build-dependencies. For example:
+<example>
+dpkg-depcheck -b debian/rules build
+</example>
+ <p>
+<prgn>dpkg-depcheck</prgn> can also be used to check for run-time
+dependencies, especially if your package uses exec(2) to run other
+programs.
+ <p>
+For more information please see <manref name="dpkg-depcheck" section="1">.
+ </sect1>
+
+ </sect>
- <sect id="debget">
- <heading><package>debget</package>
- <p>
-<package>debget</package> is a package containing a convenient script
-which can be helpful in downloading files from the Debian archive.
-You can use it to download source packages, for instance (although
-<tt>apt-get source <package-name></tt> does pretty much the same
-thing).
+ <sect id="tools-porting">
+ <heading>Porting tools</heading>
+ <p>
+The following tools are helpful for porters and for
+cross-compilation.</p>
+
+ <sect1 id="quinn-diff">
+ <heading><package>quinn-diff</package>
+ <p>
+<package>quinn-diff</package> is used to locate the differences from
+one architecture to another. For instance, it could tell you which
+packages need to be ported for architecture <var>Y</var>, based on
+architecture <var>X</var>.
+
+ <sect1 id="dpkg-cross">
+ <heading><package>dpkg-cross</package>
+ <p>
+<package>dpkg-cross</package> is a tool for installing libraries and
+headers for cross-compiling in a way similar to
+<package>dpkg</package>. Furthermore, the functionality of
+<prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn> and <prgn>dpkg-shlibdeps</prgn> is
+enhanced to support cross-compiling.
+ </sect1>
+
+
+ <sect id="tools-doc">
+ <heading>Documentation and information</heading>
+ <p>
+The following packages provide information for maintainers or help
+with building documentation.
+
+ <sect1 id="debiandoc-sgml">
+ <heading><package>debiandoc-sgml</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<package>debiandoc-sgml</package> provides the DebianDoc SGML DTD,
+which is commonly used for Debian documentation. This manual, for
+instance, is written in DebianDoc. It also provides scripts for
+building and styling the source to various output formats.</p>
+ <p>
+Documentation for the DTD can be found in the
+<package>debiandoc-sgml-doc</package> package.</p>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="debian-keyring">
+ <heading><package>debian-keyring</package></heading>
+ <p>
+Contains the public GPG and PGP keys of Debian developers. See <ref
+id="key-maint"> and the package documentation for more
+information.</p>
+ </sect1>
+ <sect1 id="debview">
+ <heading><package>debview</package></heading>
+ <p>
+<package>debview</package> provides an Emacs mode for viewing Debian
+binary packages. This lets you examine a package without unpacking
+it.</p>
+ </sect1>
+ </sect>
<!-- FIXME: add the following
+
+questionable:
+ dbs (referred to above)
+ dpatch (referred to above)
+ debarchiver
+ ucf
dpkg-awk
- alien
- dpkg-repack
grep-dctrl
+ d-shlibs
+ wajig
+ magpie
+ apt-dpkg-ref
+ apt-show-source
+ apt-show-versions
+ pdbv
+ epm
+ apt-src
+ apt-build
+
+rejected:
+ debaux: too new, unmaintained?
+ dh-make-perl: too new, unmaintained?
-->
-
+ </appendix>
</book>
</debiandoc>
~ianmdlvl / developers-reference.git / blobdiff