wiki:AnatomyOfAPackage

Version 11 (modified by jdreed, 11 years ago) (diff)

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This page duplicates (and plagiarizes) the information at http://debathena.mit.edu/packaging/. However, this page is aimed more at working within the Athena repository.

Components

Within a package source, you'll find the debian/ directory, which must contain the following files:

  • debian/changelog: The Debian changelog for the package. The changelog is the authoritative source for the Debian version number of the package. It is typically installed to /usr/share/doc/package/changelog.Debian.gz. Although it is a plain text file, it should be edited using Debian-specific tools such as dch or the Emacs mode change-log-mode. See Changelog for more information, including how version numbers are calculated in the Debathena repository.
  • debian/compat: The debhelper compatability level of the package. See CompatLevels for the correct value.
  • debian/control: The Debian packaging system’s metadata for the package. See Control. Note that while this can be auto-updated with CDBS from control.in, it is essential that it exists.
  • debian/control.in: CDBS packages will often have a file called debian/control.in that looks exactly like debian/control except that it has @cdbs@ as a build dependency. This is replaced with various build dependencies that CDBS knows about (like debhelper and cdbs) at build time to generate debian/control.
  • debian/copyright: A human-readable description of the copyright status of the package. See Copyright for what to use in the Athena repository.
  • debian/rules: The executable makefile used to build the binary package. See Rules.

N.B. The control file can be generated from the control.in file with the following invocation, from within the package's root directory:

`DEB_AUTO_UPDATE_DEBIAN_CONTROL=yes debian/rules debian/control`

While that looks complicated, all it does is set a variable to 'yes', and then run debian/rules (remember, it's executable) with the argument: debian/control.

Other special files in debian/

  • debian/package.install: Pairs, one per line, of files and directories to install them to. Understands “*” and copies directories recursively.
  • debian/package.links: Pairs, one per line, of a target and the name of the symlink to create.
  • debian/package.init: The package’s init script. Code to run update-rc.d and run the init script at package installation and removal is automatically added to maintainer scripts.
  • debian/package.cron.d: cron job to be automatically installed into /etc/cron.d.
  • debian/package.docs: List documentation files/directories to be automatically installed into /usr/share/doc/package.
  • debian/package.dirs: List directories to be automatically created.
  • debian/package.postinst, debian/package.preinst, debian/package.postrm, debian/package.prerm: The package's maintainer scripts. See MaintainerScripts for more information.

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