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<!DOCTYPE html> <html class="writer-html5" lang="en" data-content_root="./"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" /> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" /> <title>5. Managing Packages – developers-reference 13.15 documentation</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="_static/pygments.css?v=80d5e7a1" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="_static/css/theme.css?v=f5127f15" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="_static/debian.css?v=bf0c9607" /> <script src="_static/jquery.js?v=8dae8fb0"></script> <script src="_static/_sphinx_javascript_frameworks_compat.js?v=2cd50e6c"></script> <script src="_static/documentation_options.js?v=d53eb9b6"></script> <script src="_static/doctools.js?v=9a2dae69"></script> <script src="_static/sphinx_highlight.js?v=dc90522c"></script> <script src="_static/switchers.js?v=7f2d979b"></script> <script src="_static/js/theme.js"></script> <link rel="index" title="Index" href="index.en.html" /> <link rel="search" title="Search" href="search.en.html" /> <link rel="next" title="6. Best Packaging Practices" href="best-pkging-practices.en.html" /> <link rel="prev" title="4. Resources for Debian Members" href="resources.en.html" /> </head> <body class="wy-body-for-nav"> <div class="wy-grid-for-nav"> <nav data-toggle="wy-nav-shift" class="wy-nav-side"> <div class="wy-side-scroll"> <div class="wy-side-nav-search" > <a href="index.en.html" class="icon icon-home"> developers-reference </a> <li>en</li> <div role="search"> <form id="rtd-search-form" class="wy-form" action="search.html" method="get"> <input type="text" name="q" placeholder="Search docs" aria-label="Search docs" /> <input type="hidden" name="check_keywords" value="yes" /> <input type="hidden" name="area" value="default" /> </form> </div> </div><div class="wy-menu wy-menu-vertical" data-spy="affix" role="navigation" aria-label="Navigation menu"> <ul class="current"> <li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="scope.en.html">1. Scope of This Document</a></li> <li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="new-maintainer.en.html">2. Applying to Become a Member</a></li> <li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="developer-duties.en.html">3. Debian Developer's Duties</a></li> <li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html">4. Resources for Debian Members</a></li> <li class="toctree-l1 current"><a class="current reference internal" href="#">5. Managing Packages</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#new-packages">5.1. New packages</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#recording-changes-in-the-package">5.2. Recording changes in the package</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#testing-the-package">5.3. Testing the package</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#layout-of-the-source-package">5.4. Layout of the source package</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#picking-a-distribution">5.5. Picking a distribution</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#special-case-uploads-to-the-stable-and-oldstable-distributions">5.5.1. Special case: uploads to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">oldstable</code> distributions</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#special-case-the-stable-updates-suite">5.5.2. Special case: the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-updates</code> suite</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#special-case-uploads-to-testing-testing-proposed-updates">5.5.3. Special case: uploads to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing/testing-proposed-updates</code></a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#uploading-a-package">5.6. Uploading a package</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#source-and-binary-uploads">5.6.1. Source and binary uploads</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#uploading-to-ftp-master">5.6.2. Uploading to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp-master</code></a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#delayed-uploads">5.6.3. Delayed uploads</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#security-uploads">5.6.4. Security uploads</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#other-upload-queues">5.6.5. Other upload queues</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#notifications">5.6.6. Notifications</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#specifying-the-package-section-subsection-and-priority">5.7. Specifying the package section, subsection and priority</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#handling-bugs">5.8. Handling bugs</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#monitoring-bugs">5.8.1. Monitoring bugs</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#responding-to-bugs">5.8.2. Responding to bugs</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#bug-housekeeping">5.8.3. Bug housekeeping</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#when-bugs-are-closed-by-new-uploads">5.8.4. When bugs are closed by new uploads</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#handling-security-related-bugs">5.8.5. Handling security-related bugs</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#debian-security-tracker">5.8.5.1. Debian Security Tracker</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#confidentiality">5.8.5.2. Confidentiality</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#security-advisories">5.8.5.3. Security Advisories</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#preparing-packages-to-address-security-issues">5.8.5.4. Preparing packages to address security issues</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#uploading-the-fixed-package">5.8.5.5. Uploading the fixed package</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#moving-removing-renaming-orphaning-adopting-and-reintroducing-packages">5.9. Moving, removing, renaming, orphaning, adopting, and reintroducing packages</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#moving-packages">5.9.1. Moving packages</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#removing-packages">5.9.2. Removing packages</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#removing-packages-from-incoming">5.9.2.1. Removing packages from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Incoming</code></a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#replacing-or-renaming-packages">5.9.3. Replacing or renaming packages</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#orphaning-a-package">5.9.4. Orphaning a package</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#adopting-a-package">5.9.5. Adopting a package</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#reintroducing-packages">5.9.6. Reintroducing packages</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#porting-and-being-ported">5.10. Porting and being ported</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#being-kind-to-porters">5.10.1. Being kind to porters</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#guidelines-for-porter-uploads">5.10.2. Guidelines for porter uploads</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#recompilation-or-binary-only-nmu">5.10.2.1. Recompilation or binary-only NMU</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#when-to-do-a-source-nmu-if-you-are-a-porter">5.10.2.2. When to do a source NMU if you are a porter</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#porting-infrastructure-and-automation">5.10.3. Porting infrastructure and automation</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#mailing-lists-and-web-pages">5.10.3.1. Mailing lists and web pages</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#porter-tools">5.10.3.2. Porter tools</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#wanna-build">5.10.3.3. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wanna-build</code></a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#when-your-package-is-not-portable">5.10.4. When your package is not portable</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#marking-non-free-packages-as-auto-buildable">5.10.5. Marking non-free packages as auto-buildable</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#non-maintainer-uploads-nmus">5.11. Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMUs)</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#when-and-how-to-do-an-nmu">5.11.1. When and how to do an NMU</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#nmus-and-debian-changelog">5.11.2. NMUs and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code></a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#using-the-delayed-queue">5.11.3. Using the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED/</code> queue</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#nmus-from-the-maintainer-s-point-of-view">5.11.4. NMUs from the maintainer's point of view</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#source-nmus-vs-binary-only-nmus-binnmus">5.11.5. Source NMUs vs Binary-only NMUs (binNMUs)</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#nmus-vs-qa-uploads">5.11.6. NMUs vs QA uploads</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#nmus-vs-team-uploads">5.11.7. NMUs vs team uploads</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#package-salvaging">5.12. Package Salvaging</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#when-a-package-is-eligible-for-package-salvaging">5.12.1. When a package is eligible for package salvaging</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#how-to-salvage-a-package">5.12.2. How to salvage a package</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#collaborative-maintenance">5.13. Collaborative maintenance</a></li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-testing-distribution">5.14. The testing distribution</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#basics">5.14.1. Basics</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#updates-from-unstable">5.14.2. Updates from unstable</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#out-of-date">5.14.2.1. Out-of-date</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#removals-from-testing">5.14.2.2. Removals from testing</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#circular-dependencies">5.14.2.3. Circular dependencies</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#influence-of-package-in-testing">5.14.2.4. Influence of package in testing</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#details">5.14.2.5. Details</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#direct-updates-to-testing">5.14.3. Direct updates to testing</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#frequently-asked-questions">5.14.4. Frequently asked questions</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#what-are-release-critical-bugs-and-how-do-they-get-counted">5.14.4.1. What are release-critical bugs, and how do they get counted?</a></li> <li class="toctree-l4"><a class="reference internal" href="#how-could-installing-a-package-into-testing-possibly-break-other-packages">5.14.4.2. How could installing a package into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> possibly break other packages?</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l2"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-stable-backports-archive">5.15. The Stable backports archive</a><ul> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#backports-rules">5.15.1. Basics</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#exception-to-the-testing-first-rule">5.15.2. Exception to the testing-first rule</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#who-can-maintain-packages-in-the-stable-backports-archive">5.15.3. Who can maintain packages in the stable-backports archive?</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#when-can-one-start-uploading-to-stable-backports">5.15.4. When can one start uploading to stable-backports?</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#how-long-must-a-package-be-maintained-when-uploaded-to-stable-backports">5.15.5. How long must a package be maintained when uploaded to stable-backports?</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#how-often-shall-one-upload-to-stable-backports">5.15.6. How often shall one upload to stable-backports?</a></li> <li class="toctree-l3"><a class="reference internal" href="#how-can-one-learn-more-about-backporting">5.15.7. How can one learn more about backporting?</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="best-pkging-practices.en.html">6. Best Packaging Practices</a></li> <li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="beyond-pkging.en.html">7. Beyond Packaging</a></li> <li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="l10n.en.html">8. Internationalization and Translations</a></li> </ul> Appendix <ul> <li class="toctree-l1"><a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html">1. Overview of Debian Maintainer Tools</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </nav> <section data-toggle="wy-nav-shift" class="wy-nav-content-wrap"><nav class="wy-nav-top" aria-label="Mobile navigation menu" > <a href="index.en.html">developers-reference</a> </nav> <div class="wy-nav-content"> <div class="rst-content"> <div role="navigation" aria-label="Page navigation"> <ul class="wy-breadcrumbs"> <li><a href="index.en.html" class="icon icon-home" aria-label="Home"></a></li> <li class="breadcrumb-item active">5. Managing Packages</li> <li class="wy-breadcrumbs-aside"> <a href="_sources/pkgs.rst.txt" rel="nofollow"> View page source</a> </li> </ul><div class="rst-breadcrumbs-buttons" role="navigation" aria-label="Sequential page navigation"> <a href="resources.en.html" class="btn btn-neutral float-left" title="4. Resources for Debian Members" accesskey="p"> Previous</a> <a href="best-pkging-practices.en.html" class="btn btn-neutral float-right" title="6. Best Packaging Practices" accesskey="n">Next </a> </div> <hr/> </div> <div role="main" class="document" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/Article"> <div itemprop="articleBody"> <section id="managing-packages"> <h1>5. Managing Packages<a class="headerlink" href="#managing-packages" title="Link to this heading"></a></h1> This chapter contains information related to creating, uploading, maintaining, and porting packages. <section id="new-packages"> <h2>5.1. New packages<a class="headerlink" href="#new-packages" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> If you want to create a new package for the Debian distribution, you should first check the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/">Work-Needing and Prospective Packages (WNPP)</a> list. Checking the WNPP list ensures that no one is already working on packaging that software, and that effort is not duplicated. Read the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/">WNPP web pages</a> for more information. Assuming no one else is already working on your prospective package, you must then submit a bug report (<a class="reference internal" href="beyond-pkging.en.html#submit-bug">Bug reporting</a>) against the pseudo-package <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wnpp</code> describing your plan to create a new package, including, but not limiting yourself to, the description of the package (so that others can review it), the license of the prospective package, and the current URL where it can be downloaded from. You should set the subject of the bug to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ITP:</code> foo <code class="docutils literal notranslate">--</code> short description, substituting the name of the new package for foo. The severity of the bug report must be set to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wishlist</code>. Please send a copy to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-devel@lists.debian.org</code> by using the X-Debbugs-CC header (don't use CC:, because that way the message's subject won't indicate the bug number). If you are packaging so many new packages (>10) that notifying the mailing list in separate messages is too disruptive, send a summary after filing the bugs to the debian-devel list instead. This will inform the other developers about upcoming packages and will allow a review of your description and package name. Please include a <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Closes: #</code>nnnnn entry in the changelog of the new package in order for the bug report to be automatically closed once the new package is installed in the archive (see <a class="reference internal" href="#upload-bugfix">When bugs are closed by new uploads</a>). If you think your package needs some explanations for the administrators of the NEW package queue, include them in your changelog, send to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftpmaster@debian.org</code> a reply to the email you receive as a maintainer after your upload, or reply to the rejection email in case you are already re-uploading. When closing security bugs include CVE numbers as well as the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Closes: #</code>nnnnn. This is useful for the security team to track vulnerabilities. If an upload is made to fix the bug before the advisory ID is known, it is encouraged to modify the historical changelog entry with the next upload. Even in this case, please include all available pointers to background information in the original changelog entry. There are a number of reasons why we ask maintainers to announce their intentions: <ul class="simple"> <li>It helps the (potentially new) maintainer to tap into the experience of people on the list, and lets them know if anyone else is working on it already.</li> <li>It lets other people thinking about working on the package know that there already is a volunteer, so efforts may be shared.</li> <li>It lets the rest of the maintainers know more about the package than the one line description and the usual changelog entry <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Initial release</code> that gets posted to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-devel-changes@lists.debian.org</code>.</li> <li>It is helpful to the people who live off <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> (and form our first line of testers). We should encourage these people.</li> <li>The announcements give maintainers and other interested parties a better feel of what is going on, and what is new, in the project.</li> </ul> Please see <a class="reference external" href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html">https://ftp-master.debian.org/REJECT-FAQ.html</a> for common rejection reasons for a new package. </section> <section id="recording-changes-in-the-package"> <h2>5.2. Recording changes in the package<a class="headerlink" href="#recording-changes-in-the-package" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> Changes that you make to the package need to be recorded in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code> file, for human users to read and comprehend. These changes should provide a concise description of what was changed, why (if it's in doubt), and note if any bugs were closed. They also record when the packaging was completed. This file will be installed in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">/usr/share/doc/</code>package<code class="docutils literal notranslate">/changelog.Debian.gz</code>, or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">/usr/share/doc/</code>package<code class="docutils literal notranslate">/changelog.gz</code> for native packages. The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code> file conforms to a certain structure, with a number of different fields. One field of note, the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">distribution</code>, is described in <a class="reference internal" href="#distribution">Picking a distribution</a>. More information about the structure of this file can be found in the Debian Policy section titled <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code>. Changelog entries can be used to automatically close Debian bugs when the package is installed into the archive. See <a class="reference internal" href="#upload-bugfix">When bugs are closed by new uploads</a>. It is conventional that the changelog entry of a package that contains a new upstream version of the software looks like this: <div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>* New upstream release. </pre></div> </div> There are tools to help you create entries and finalize the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">changelog</code> for release — see <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#devscripts">devscripts</a> and <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#dpkg-dev-el">dpkg-dev-el</a>. See also <a class="reference internal" href="best-pkging-practices.en.html#bpp-debian-changelog">Best practices for debian/changelog</a>. </section> <section id="testing-the-package"> <h2>5.3. Testing the package<a class="headerlink" href="#testing-the-package" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> 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): <ul> <li>Run <code class="docutils literal notranslate">lintian</code> over the package. You can run <code class="docutils literal notranslate">lintian</code> as follows: <code class="docutils literal notranslate">lintian -v</code> package-version<code class="docutils literal notranslate">.changes</code>. This will check the source package as well as the binary package. If you don't understand the output that <code class="docutils literal notranslate">lintian</code> generates, try adding the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">-i</code> switch, which will cause <code class="docutils literal notranslate">lintian</code> to output a very verbose description of the problem. Normally, a package should not be uploaded if it causes <code class="docutils literal notranslate">lintian</code> to emit errors (they will start with <code class="docutils literal notranslate">E</code>). For more information on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">lintian</code>, see <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#lintian">lintian</a>. </li> <li>Optionally run <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debdiff</code> (see <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#debdiff">debdiff</a>) to analyze changes from an older version, if one exists.</li> <li>Install the package and make sure the software works in an up-to-date <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> system.</li> <li>Upgrade the package from an older version to your new version.</li> <li>Remove the package, then reinstall it.</li> <li>Installing, upgrading and removal of packages can either be tested manually or by using the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">piuparts</code> tool.</li> <li>Copy the source package in a different directory and try unpacking it and rebuilding it. This tests if the package relies on existing files outside of it, or if it relies on permissions being preserved on the files shipped inside the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.diff.gz</code> file.</li> </ul> </section> <section id="layout-of-the-source-package"> <h2>5.4. Layout of the source package<a class="headerlink" href="#layout-of-the-source-package" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> There are two types of Debian source packages: <ul class="simple"> <li>the so-called <code class="docutils literal notranslate">native</code> packages, where there is no distinction between the original sources and the patches applied for Debian</li> <li>the (more common) packages where there's an original source tarball file accompanied by another file that contains the changes made by Debian</li> </ul> For the native packages, the source package includes a Debian source control file (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">.dsc</code>) and the source tarball (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">.tar.{gz,bz2,xz}</code>). A source package of a non-native package includes a Debian source control file, the original source tarball (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">.orig.tar.{gz,bz2,xz}</code>) and the Debian changes (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">.diff.gz</code> for the source format “1.0” or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.debian.tar.{gz,bz2,xz}</code> for the source format “3.0 (quilt)”). With source format “1.0”, whether a package is native or not was determined by <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-source</code> at build time. Nowadays it is recommended to be explicit about the desired source format by putting either “3.0 (quilt)” or “3.0 (native)” in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/source/format</code>. The rest of this section relates only to non-native packages. The first time a version is uploaded that corresponds to a particular upstream version, the original source tar file must be uploaded and included in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.changes</code> file. Subsequently, this very same tar file should be used to build the new diffs and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.dsc</code> files, and will not need to be re-uploaded. By default, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-genchanges</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-buildpackage</code> will include the original source tar file if and only if the current changelog entry has a different upstream version from the preceding entry. This behavior may be modified by using <code class="docutils literal notranslate">-sa</code> to always include it or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">-sd</code> to always leave it out. If no original source is included in the upload, the original source tar-file used by <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-source</code> when constructing the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.dsc</code> file and diff to be uploaded must be byte-for-byte identical with the one already in the archive. Please notice that, in non-native packages, permissions on files that are not present in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">*.orig.tar.{gz,bz2,xz}</code> will not be preserved, as diff does not store file permissions in the patch. However, when using source format “3.0 (quilt)”, permissions of files inside the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian</code> directory are preserved since they are stored in a tar archive. </section> <section id="picking-a-distribution"> <h2>5.5. Picking a distribution<a class="headerlink" href="#picking-a-distribution" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> 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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code> file and places it in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Distribution</code> field of the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.changes</code> file. Packages are normally uploaded into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>. Uploads to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">experimental</code> should use these suite names in the changelog entry; uploads for other supported suites should use the suite codenames, as they avoid any ambiguity. Actually, there are other possible distributions: codename<code class="docutils literal notranslate">-security</code>, but read <a class="reference internal" href="#bug-security">Handling security-related bugs</a> for more information on those. It is not possible to upload a package into several distributions at the same time. <section id="special-case-uploads-to-the-stable-and-oldstable-distributions"> <h3>5.5.1. Special case: uploads to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">oldstable</code> distributions<a class="headerlink" href="#special-case-uploads-to-the-stable-and-oldstable-distributions" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Uploading to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> means that the package will be transferred to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">proposed-updates-new</code> queue for review by the stable release managers, and if approved will be installed in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-proposed-updates</code> directory of the Debian archive. From there, it will be included in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> with the next point release. Uploads to a supported <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> release should target their suite name in the changelog, i.e. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">bookworm</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">bullseye</code>. You should normally use <code class="docutils literal notranslate">reportbug</code> and the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">release.debian.org</code> pseudo-package to send a source <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debdiff</code>, rationale and associated bug numbers to the stable release managers, and await a request to upload or further information. If you are confident that the upload will be accepted without changes, please feel free to upload at the same time as filing the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">release.debian.org</code> bug. However if you are new to the process, we would recommend getting approval before uploading so you get a chance to see if your expectations align with ours. Either way, there must be an accompanying bug for tracking, and your upload must comply with these acceptance criteria defined by the the stable release managers. These criteria are designed to help the process be as smooth and frustration-free as possible. <ul class="simple"> <li>The bug you want to fix in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> must be fixed in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> already (and not waiting in NEW or the delayed queue).</li> <li>The bug should be of severity "important" or higher.</li> <li>Bug meta-data - particularly affected versions - must be up to date.</li> <li>Fixes must be minimal and relevant and include a sufficiently detailed changelog entry.</li> <li>A source debdiff of the proposed change must be included in your request (not just the raw patches or "a debdiff can be found at $URL").</li> <li>The proposed package must have a correct version number (e.g. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">...+deb12u1</code> for <code class="docutils literal notranslate">bookworm</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">+deb11u1</code> for <code class="docutils literal notranslate">bullseye</code>) and you should be able to explain what testing it has had. See the Debian Policy for the version number: <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#special-version-conventions">https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#special-version-conventions</a></li> <li>The update must be built in an <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> environment or chroot (or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">oldstable</code> if you target that).</li> <li>Fixes for security issues should be co-ordinated with the security team, unless they have explicitly stated that they will not issue an <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DSA</code> for the bug (e.g. via a "no-dsa" marker in the <a class="reference internal" href="#bug-security-tracker">Debian Security Tracker</a>).</li> <li>Do not close <code class="docutils literal notranslate">release.debian.org</code> bugs in debian/changelog. They will be closed by the release team once the package has reached the respective point release.</li> </ul> It is recommended to use <code class="docutils literal notranslate">reportbug</code> as it eases the creation of bugs with correct meta-data. The release team makes extensive use of usertags to sort and manage requests and incorrectly tagged reports may take longer to be noticed and processed. Uploads to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">oldstable</code> distributions are possible as long as it hasn't been archived. The same rules as for <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> apply. In the past, uploads to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> were used to address security problems as well. However, this practice is deprecated, as uploads used for Debian security advisories (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">DSA</code>) are automatically copied to the appropriate <code class="docutils literal notranslate">proposed-updates</code> archive when the advisory is released. See <a class="reference internal" href="#bug-security">Handling security-related bugs</a> for detailed information on handling security problems. If the security team deems the problem to be too benign to be fixed through a <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DSA</code>, the stable release managers are usually willing to include your fix nonetheless in a regular upload to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code>. </section> <section id="special-case-the-stable-updates-suite"> <h3>5.5.2. Special case: the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-updates</code> suite<a class="headerlink" href="#special-case-the-stable-updates-suite" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Sometimes the stable release managers will decide that an update to stable should be made available to users sooner than the next scheduled point release. In such cases, they can copy the update to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-updates</code> suite, use of which is enabled by the installer by default. Initially, the process described in <a class="reference internal" href="#upload-stable">Special case: uploads to the stable and oldstable distributions</a>. should be followed as usual. If you think that the upload should be released via <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-updates</code>, mention this in your request. Examples of circumstances in which the upload may qualify for such treatment are: <ul class="simple"> <li>The update is urgent and not of a security nature. Security updates will continue to be pushed through the security archive. Examples include packages broken by the flow of time (c.f. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">spamassassin</code> and the year 2010 problem) and fixes for bugs introduced by point releases.</li> <li>The package in question is a data package and the data must be updated in a timely manner (e.g. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">tzdata</code>).</li> <li>Fixes to leaf packages that were broken by external changes (e.g. video downloading tools and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">tor</code>).</li> <li>Packages that need to be current to be useful (e.g. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">clamav</code>).</li> <li>Uploads to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-updates</code> should target their suite name in the changelog as usual, e.g. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">bookworm</code>.</li> </ul> Once the upload has been accepted to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">proposed-updates</code> and is ready for release, the stable release managers will then copy it to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-updates</code> suite and issue a Stable Update Announcement (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">SUA</code>) via the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-stable-announce</code> mailing list. Any updates released via <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-updates</code> will be included in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> with the next point release as usual. </section> <section id="special-case-uploads-to-testing-testing-proposed-updates"> <h3>5.5.3. Special case: uploads to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing/testing-proposed-updates</code><a class="headerlink" href="#special-case-uploads-to-testing-testing-proposed-updates" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Please see the information in the <a class="reference internal" href="#t-p-u">Direct updates to testing</a> for details. </section> </section> <section id="uploading-a-package"> <h2>5.6. Uploading a package<a class="headerlink" href="#uploading-a-package" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> <section id="source-and-binary-uploads"> <h3>5.6.1. Source and binary uploads<a class="headerlink" href="#source-and-binary-uploads" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Each upload to Debian consists of a signed <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.changes</code> file describing the requested change to the archive, plus the source and binary package files that are referenced by the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.changes</code> file. If possible, the version of a package that is uploaded should be a source-only changes file. These are typically named <code class="docutils literal notranslate">*_source.changes</code>, and reference the source package, but no binary <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.deb</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.udeb</code> packages. All of the corresponding architecture-dependent and architecture-independent binary packages, for all architectures, will be built automatically by the build daemons in a controlled and predictable environment (see <a class="reference internal" href="#wanna-build">wanna-build</a> for more details). However, there are several situations where this is not possible. The first upload of a new source package (see <a class="reference internal" href="#newpackage">New packages</a>) must include binary packages, so that they can be reviewed by the archive administrators before they are added to Debian. If new binary packages are added to an existing source package, then the first upload that lists the new binary packages in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code> must include binary packages, again so that they can be reviewed by the archive administrators before they are added to Debian. It is preferred for these uploads to be done via the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">experimental</code> suite. Uploads that will be held for review in other queues, such as packages being added to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">*-backports</code> suites, might also require inclusion of binary packages. The build daemons will automatically attempt to build any <code class="docutils literal notranslate">main</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">contrib</code> package for which the build-dependencies are available. Packages in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free-firmware</code> will not be built by the build daemons unless the package has been marked as suitable for auto-building (see <a class="reference internal" href="#non-free-buildd">Marking non-free packages as auto-buildable</a>). The build daemons only install build-dependencies from the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">main</code> archive area. This means that if a source package has build-dependencies that are in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">contrib</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free-firmware</code> archive areas, then uploads of that package need to include prebuilt binary packages for every architecture that will be supported. By definition this can only be the case for source packages that are themselves in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">contrib</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free-firmware</code> archive areas. Bootstrapping a new architecture, or a new version of a package with circular dependencies (such as a self-hosting compiler), will sometimes also require an upload that includes binary packages. Binary packages in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">main</code> archive area that were not built by Debian's official build daemons will not usually be allowed to migrate from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>, so an upload that contains binary packages built by the package's maintainer must usually be followed by a source-only upload after the binary upload has been accepted. This restriction does not apply to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">contrib</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free-firmware</code> packages. </section> <section id="uploading-to-ftp-master"> <h3>5.6.2. Uploading to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp-master</code><a class="headerlink" href="#uploading-to-ftp-master" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> To upload a package, you should upload the files (including the signed changes and dsc file) with anonymous ftp to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp.upload.debian.org</code> in the directory <a class="reference external" href="ftp://ftp.upload.debian.org/pub/UploadQueue/">/pub/UploadQueue/</a>. To get the files processed there, they need to be signed with a key in the Debian Developers keyring or the Debian Maintainers keyring (see <a class="reference external" href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMaintainer">https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMaintainer</a>). 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. You may also find the Debian packages <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#dupload">dupload</a> or <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#dput">dput</a> useful when uploading packages.These handy programs help automate the process of uploading packages into Debian. For removing packages or cancelling an upload, please see <a class="reference external" href="ftp://ftp.upload.debian.org/pub/UploadQueue/README">ftp://ftp.upload.debian.org/pub/UploadQueue/README</a> and the Debian package <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#dcut">dcut</a>. Finally, you should think about the status of your package with relation to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> before uploading to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>. If you have a version in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> waiting to migrate then it is generally a good idea to let it migrate before uploading another new version. You should also check the <a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html#pkg-tracker">The Debian Package Tracker</a> for transition warnings to avoid making uploads that disrupt ongoing transitions. </section> <section id="delayed-uploads"> <h3>5.6.3. Delayed uploads<a class="headerlink" href="#delayed-uploads" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> It is sometimes useful to upload a package immediately, but to want this package to arrive in the archive only a few days later. For example, when preparing a <a class="reference internal" href="#nmu">Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMUs)</a>, you might want to give the maintainer a few days to react. An upload to the delayed directory keeps the package in <a class="reference external" href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/deferred.html">the deferred uploads queue</a>. When the specified waiting time is over, the package is moved into the regular incoming directory for processing. This is done through automatic uploading to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp.upload.debian.org</code> in upload-directory <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED/</code>X<code class="docutils literal notranslate">-day</code> (X between 0 and 15). 0-day is uploaded multiple times per day to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp.upload.debian.org</code>. With dput, you can use the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">--delayed</code> DELAY parameter to put the package into one of the queues. </section> <section id="security-uploads"> <h3>5.6.4. Security uploads<a class="headerlink" href="#security-uploads" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Do NOT upload a package to the security upload queue (on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">*.security.upload.debian.org</code>) 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. For details, please see <a class="reference internal" href="#bug-security">Handling security-related bugs</a>. </section> <section id="other-upload-queues"> <h3>5.6.5. Other upload queues<a class="headerlink" href="#other-upload-queues" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> There is an alternative upload queue in Europe at <a class="reference external" href="ftp://ftp.eu.upload.debian.org/pub/UploadQueue/">ftp://ftp.eu.upload.debian.org/pub/UploadQueue/</a>. It operates in the same way as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp.upload.debian.org</code>, but should be faster for European developers. Packages can also be uploaded via ssh to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ssh.upload.debian.org</code>; files should be put <code class="docutils literal notranslate">/srv/upload.debian.org/UploadQueue</code>. This queue does not support <a class="reference internal" href="#delayed-incoming">Delayed uploads</a>. </section> <section id="notifications"> <h3>5.6.6. Notifications<a class="headerlink" href="#notifications" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> The Debian archive maintainers are responsible for handling package uploads. For the most part, uploads are automatically handled on a daily basis by the archive maintenance tools, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dak process-upload</code>. Specifically, updates to existing packages to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> distribution are handled automatically. In other cases, notably new packages, placing the uploaded package into the distribution is handled manually. When uploads are handled manually, the change to the archive may take some time to occur. Please be patient. In any case, you will receive an email notification indicating that the package has been added to the archive, which also indicates which bugs will be closed by the upload. Please examine this notification carefully, checking if any bugs you meant to close didn't get triggered. 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. Note that if you upload via queues, the queue daemon software will also send you a notification by email. Also note that new uploads are announced on the <a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html#irc-channels">IRC channels</a> channel <code class="docutils literal notranslate">#debian-devel-changes</code>. If your upload fails silently, it could be that your package is improperly signed, in which case you can find more explanations on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ssh.upload.debian.org:/srv/upload.debian.org/queued/run/log</code>. </section> </section> <section id="specifying-the-package-section-subsection-and-priority"> <h2>5.7. Specifying the package section, subsection and priority<a class="headerlink" href="#specifying-the-package-section-subsection-and-priority" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code> file's <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Section</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Priority</code> 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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code> file are actually just hints. The archive maintainers keep track of the canonical sections and priorities for packages in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">override file</code>. If there is a disparity between the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">override file</code> and the package's fields as indicated in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code>, then you will receive an email noting the divergence when the package is installed into the archive. You can either correct your <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code> file for your next upload, or else you may wish to make a change in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">override file</code>. To alter the actual section that a package is put in, you need to first make sure that the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code> file in your package is accurate. Next, submit a bug against <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp.debian.org</code> requesting that the section or priority for your package be changed from the old section or priority to the new one. Use a Subject like <code class="docutils literal notranslate">override: PACKAGE1:section/priority, [...], PACKAGEX:section/priority</code>, and include the justification for the change in the body of the bug report. For more information about <code class="docutils literal notranslate">override files</code>, see dpkg-scanpackages 1 and <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#maintincorrect">https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer#maintincorrect</a>. Note that the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Section</code> field describes both the section as well as the subsection, which are described in <a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html#archive-sections">Sections</a>. If the section is main, it should be omitted. The list of allowable subsections can be found in <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s-subsections">https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s-subsections</a>. </section> <section id="handling-bugs"> <h2>5.8. Handling bugs<a class="headerlink" href="#handling-bugs" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> Every developer has to be able to work with the Debian <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/Bugs/">bug tracking system</a>. This includes knowing how to file bug reports properly (see <a class="reference internal" href="beyond-pkging.en.html#submit-bug">Bug reporting</a>), how to update them and reorder them, and how to process and close them. The bug tracking system's features are described in the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer">BTS documentation for developers</a>. This includes closing bugs, sending followup messages, assigning severities and tags, marking bugs as forwarded, and other issues. 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 on this server are described in the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/Bugs/server-control">BTS control server documentation</a>. <section id="monitoring-bugs"> <h3>5.8.1. Monitoring bugs<a class="headerlink" href="#monitoring-bugs" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> If you want to be a good maintainer, you should periodically check the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/Bugs/">Debian bug tracking system (BTS)</a> for your packages. The BTS contains all the open bugs against your packages. You can check them by browsing this page: <code class="docutils literal notranslate">https://bugs.debian.org/</code>yourlogin<code class="docutils literal notranslate">@debian.org</code>. Maintainers interact with the BTS via email addresses at <code class="docutils literal notranslate">bugs.debian.org</code>. Documentation on available commands can be found at <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/Bugs/">https://www.debian.org/Bugs/</a>, or, if you have installed the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">doc-debian</code> package, you can look at the local files <code class="docutils literal notranslate">/usr/share/doc/debian/bug-*</code>. 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: <div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre># ask for weekly reports of bugs in my packages 0 17 * * fri echo "index maint address" | mail request@bugs.debian.org </pre></div> </div> Replace address with your official Debian maintainer address. </section> <section id="responding-to-bugs"> <h3>5.8.2. Responding to bugs<a class="headerlink" href="#responding-to-bugs" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> When responding to bugs, make sure that any discussion you have about bugs is sent to the original submitter of the bug, the bug itself and (if you are not the maintainer of the package) the maintainer. Sending an email to 123<code class="docutils literal notranslate">@bugs.debian.org</code> will send the mail to the maintainer of the package and record your email with the bug log. If you don't remember the submitter email address, you can use 123<code class="docutils literal notranslate">-submitter@bugs.debian.org</code> to also contact the submitter of the bug. The latter address also records the email with the bug log, so if you are the maintainer of the package in question, it is enough to send the reply to 123<code class="docutils literal notranslate">-submitter@bugs.debian.org</code>. Otherwise you should include 123<code class="docutils literal notranslate">@bugs.debian.org</code> so that you also reach the package maintainer. If you get a bug which mentions FTBFS, this means Fails to build from source. Porters frequently use this acronym. Once you've dealt with a bug report (e.g. fixed it), mark it as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">done</code> (close it) by sending an explanation message to 123<code class="docutils literal notranslate">-done@bugs.debian.org</code>. If you're fixing a bug by changing and uploading the package, you can automate bug closing as described in <a class="reference internal" href="#upload-bugfix">When bugs are closed by new uploads</a>. You should never close bugs via the bug server <code class="docutils literal notranslate">close</code> command sent to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">control@bugs.debian.org</code>. If you do so, the original submitter will not receive any information about why the bug was closed. </section> <section id="bug-housekeeping"> <h3>5.8.3. Bug housekeeping<a class="headerlink" href="#bug-housekeeping" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> 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 are described in the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Developer">BTS documentation for Debian developers</a>. Operations such as reassigning, merging, and tagging bug reports are described in the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/Bugs/server-control">BTS control server documentation</a>. This section contains some guidelines for managing your own bugs, based on the collective Debian developer experience. Filing bugs for problems that you find in other packages is one of the civic obligations of maintainership, see <a class="reference internal" href="beyond-pkging.en.html#submit-bug">Bug reporting</a> for details. However, handling the bugs in your own packages is even more important. Here's a list of steps that you may follow to handle a bug report: <ol class="arabic"> <li>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 their 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 up with the upstream author. If the bug submitter disagrees 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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wontfix</code> to let people know that the bug exists but that it won't be corrected. Please make sure that the bug submitter understands the reasons for your decision by adding an explanation to the message that adds the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wontfix</code> tag. If this situation is unacceptable, you (or the submitter) may want to require a decision of the technical committee by filing a new bug against the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">tech-ctte</code> pseudo-package with a summary of the situation. Before doing so, please read the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/devel/tech-ctte">recommended procedure</a>. </li> <li>If the bug is real but it's caused by another package, just reassign the bug to the right package. If you don't know which package it should be reassigned to, you should ask for help on <a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html#irc-channels">IRC channels</a> or on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-devel@lists.debian.org</code>. Please inform the maintainer(s) of the package you reassign the bug to, for example by Cc:ing the message that does the reassign to packagename<code class="docutils literal notranslate">@packages.debian.org</code> and explaining your reasons in that mail. Please note that a simple reassignment is not e-mailed to the maintainers of the package being reassigned to, so they won't know about it until they look at a bug overview for their packages. If the bug affects the operation of your package, please consider cloning the bug and reassigning the clone to the package that really causes the behavior. Otherwise, the bug will not be shown in your package's bug list, possibly causing users to report the same bug over and over again. You should block "your" bug with the reassigned, cloned bug to document the relationship. </li> <li>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.</li> <li>If the bug is real but the same problem has already been reported by someone else, then the two relevant bug reports should be merged into one using the merge command of the BTS. In this way, when the bug is fixed, all of the submitters will be informed of this. (Note, however, that emails sent to one bug report's submitter won't automatically be sent to the other report's submitter.) For more details on the technicalities of the merge command and its relative, the unmerge command, see the BTS control server documentation.</li> <li>The bug submitter may have forgotten to provide some information, in which case you have to ask them for the required information. You may use the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">moreinfo</code> tag to mark the bug as such. Moreover if you can't reproduce the bug, you tag it <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unreproducible</code>. 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.</li> <li>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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">help</code>. You can also ask for help on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-devel@lists.debian.org</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-qa@lists.debian.org</code>. 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 send it to the author at the same time. Make sure to send the patch to the BTS and to tag the bug as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">patch</code>.</li> <li>If you have fixed a bug in your local copy, or if a fix has been committed to the VCS repository, you may tag the bug as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">pending</code> to let people know that the bug is corrected and that it will be closed with the next upload (add the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">closes:</code> in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">changelog</code>). This is particularly useful if you are several developers working on the same package.</li> <li>Once a corrected package is available in the archive, the bug should be closed indicating the version in which it was fixed. This can be done automatically; read <a class="reference internal" href="#upload-bugfix">When bugs are closed by new uploads</a>.</li> </ol> </section> <section id="when-bugs-are-closed-by-new-uploads"> <h3>5.8.4. When bugs are closed by new uploads<a class="headerlink" href="#when-bugs-are-closed-by-new-uploads" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> As bugs and problems are fixed in your packages, it is your responsibility as the package maintainer to close these bugs. However, you should not close a 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. Also, the bug should be closed with the correct version. However, it's possible to avoid having to manually close bugs after the upload — just list the fixed bugs in your <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code> file, following a certain syntax, and the archive maintenance software will close the bugs for you. For example: <div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>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. </pre></div> </div> Technically speaking, the following Perl regular expression describes how bug closing changelogs are identified: <div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>/closes:\s*(?:bug)?\#?\s?\d+(?:,\s*(?:bug)?\#?\s?\d+)*/ig </pre></div> </div> We prefer the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">closes: #</code>XXX syntax, as it is the most concise entry and the easiest to integrate with the text of the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">changelog</code>. Unless specified differently by the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">-v</code>-switch to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-buildpackage</code>, only the bugs closed in the most recent changelog entry are closed (basically, exactly the bugs mentioned in the changelog-part in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.changes</code> file are closed). Historically, uploads identified as <a class="reference internal" href="#nmu">Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMUs)</a> were tagged <code class="docutils literal notranslate">fixed</code> instead of being closed, but that practice was ceased with the advent of version-tracking. The same applied to the tag <code class="docutils literal notranslate">fixed-in-experimental</code>. 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 a <code class="docutils literal notranslate">reopen</code> XXX command to the bug tracking system's control address, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">control@bugs.debian.org</code>. To close any remaining bugs that were fixed by your upload, email the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.changes</code> file to XXX<code class="docutils literal notranslate">-done@bugs.debian.org</code>, where XXX is the bug number, and put Version: YYY and an empty line as the first two lines of the body of the email, where YYY is the first version where the bug has been fixed. 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 XXX<code class="docutils literal notranslate">-done@bugs.debian.org</code>. Do not close bugs in the changelog entry of a version if the changes in that version of the package don't have any bearing on the bug. For general information on how to write your changelog entries, see <a class="reference internal" href="best-pkging-practices.en.html#bpp-debian-changelog">Best practices for debian/changelog</a>. </section> <section id="handling-security-related-bugs"> <h3>5.8.5. Handling security-related bugs<a class="headerlink" href="#handling-security-related-bugs" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> 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 fixing them themselves, sending security advisories, and maintaining <code class="docutils literal notranslate">security.debian.org</code>. 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 by emailing <code class="docutils literal notranslate">team@security.debian.org</code>. If desired, email can be encrypted with the Debian Security Contact key, see <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/security/faq#contact">https://www.debian.org/security/faq#contact</a> for details. DO NOT UPLOAD any packages for <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> without contacting the team. Useful information includes, for example: <ul class="simple"> <li>Whether or not the bug is already public.</li> <li>Which 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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>.</li> <li>The nature of the fix, if any is available (patches are especially helpful)</li> <li>Any fixed packages that you have prepared yourself (send the resulting debdiff or alternatively only the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.diff.gz</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.dsc</code> files and read <a class="reference internal" href="#bug-security-building">Preparing packages to address security issues</a> first)</li> <li>Any assistance you can provide to help with testing (exploits, regression testing, etc.)</li> <li>Any information needed for the advisory (see <a class="reference internal" href="#bug-security-advisories">Security Advisories</a>)</li> </ul> As the maintainer of the package, you have the responsibility to maintain it, even in the stable release. You are in the best position to evaluate patches and test updated packages, so please see the sections below on how to prepare packages for the Security Team to handle. <section id="debian-security-tracker"> <h4>5.8.5.1. Debian Security Tracker<a class="headerlink" href="#debian-security-tracker" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> The security team maintains a central database, the <a class="reference external" href="https://security-tracker.debian.org/">Debian Security Tracker</a>. This contains all public information that is known about security issues: which packages and versions are affected or fixed, and thus whether stable, testing and/or unstable are vulnerable. Information that is still confidential is not added to the tracker. You can search it for a specific issue, but also on package name. Look for your package to see which issues are still open. If you can, please provide more information about those issues, or help to address them in your package. Instructions are on the tracker web pages. </section> <section id="confidentiality"> <h4>5.8.5.2. Confidentiality<a class="headerlink" href="#confidentiality" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> 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. There are several ways developers can learn of a security problem: <ul class="simple"> <li>they notice it on a public forum (mailing list, web site, etc.)</li> <li>someone files a bug report</li> <li>someone informs them via private email</li> </ul> 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: <ul class="simple"> <li>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.</li> <li>If the problem is severe, it is preferable to share the information with other vendors and coordinate a release. The security team keeps in contact with the various organizations and individuals and can take care of that.</li> </ul> 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. Please note that if secrecy is needed you may not upload a fix to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> (or anywhere else, such as a public VCS 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. There are two reasons for releasing information even though secrecy is requested: the problem has been known for a while, or the problem or exploit has become public. The Security Team has a PGP-key to enable encrypted communication about sensitive issues. See the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/security/faq#contact">Security Team FAQ</a> for details. </section> <section id="security-advisories"> <h4>5.8.5.3. Security Advisories<a class="headerlink" href="#security-advisories" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> Security advisories are only issued for the current, released stable distribution, and not for <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>. When released, advisories are sent to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-security-announce@lists.debian.org</code> mailing list and posted on <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/security/">the security web page</a>. 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: <ul> <li>A description of the problem and its scope, including: <ul class="simple"> <li>The type of problem (privilege escalation, denial of service, etc.)</li> <li>What privileges may be gained, and by whom (if any)</li> <li>How it can be exploited</li> <li>Whether it is remotely or locally exploitable</li> <li>How the problem was fixed</li> </ul> This information allows users to assess the threat to their systems. </li> <li>Version numbers of affected packages</li> <li>Version numbers of fixed packages</li> <li>Information on where to obtain the updated packages (usually from the Debian security archive)</li> <li>References to upstream advisories, <a class="reference external" href="https://cve.mitre.org">CVE</a> identifiers, and any other information useful in cross-referencing the vulnerability</li> </ul> </section> <section id="preparing-packages-to-address-security-issues"> <h4>5.8.5.4. Preparing packages to address security issues<a class="headerlink" href="#preparing-packages-to-address-security-issues" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> 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. 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 (Application Program Interface) or ABI (Application Binary Interface), no matter how small the change. 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. 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. 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. Do NOT include any changes in your package which are not directly related to fixing the vulnerability. These will only need to be reverted, and this wastes time. If there are other bugs in your package that you would like to fix, make an upload to proposed-updates in the usual way, after the security advisory is issued. The security update mechanism is not a means for introducing changes to your package which would otherwise be rejected from the stable release, so please do not attempt to do this. Review and test your changes as much as possible. Check the differences from the previous version repeatedly (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">interdiff</code> from the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">patchutils</code> package and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debdiff</code> from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">devscripts</code> are useful tools for this, see <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#debdiff">debdiff</a>). Be sure to verify the following items: <ul class="simple"> <li>Target the right distribution in your <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code>: codename<code class="docutils literal notranslate">-security</code> (e.g. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">bookworm-security</code>). Do not target distribution<code class="docutils literal notranslate">-proposed-updates</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code>!</li> <li>Make descriptive, meaningful changelog entries. Others will rely on them to determine whether a particular bug was fixed. Add <code class="docutils literal notranslate">closes:</code> statements for any Debian bugs filed. Always include an external reference, preferably a CVE identifier, so that it can be cross-referenced. However, if a CVE identifier has not yet been assigned, do not wait for it but continue the process. The identifier can be cross-referenced later.</li> <li>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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg --compare-versions</code>. Be careful not to re-use a version number that you have already used for a previous upload, or one that conflicts with a binNMU. The convention is to append <code class="docutils literal notranslate">+deb</code>X<code class="docutils literal notranslate">u1</code> (where X is the major release number), e.g. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1:2.4.3-4+deb12u1</code>, of course increasing 1 for any subsequent uploads.</li> <li>Unless the upstream source has been uploaded to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">security.debian.org</code> before (by a previous security update), build the upload with full upstream source (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-buildpackage -sa</code>). If there has been a previous upload to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">security.debian.org</code> with the same upstream version, you may upload without upstream source (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-buildpackage -sd</code>).</li> <li>Be sure to use the exact same ``*.orig.tar.{gz,bz2,xz}`` as used in the normal archive, otherwise it is not possible to move the security fix into the main archives later.</li> <li>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 <a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html#server-machines">Debian machines</a>) or setup a chroot (see <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#pbuilder">pbuilder</a> and <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#debootstrap">debootstrap</a>).</li> </ul> </section> <section id="uploading-the-fixed-package"> <h4>5.8.5.5. Uploading the fixed package<a class="headerlink" href="#uploading-the-fixed-package" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> Do NOT upload a package to the security upload queue (on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">*.security.upload.debian.org</code>) 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. Do NOT upload your fix to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">proposed-updates</code> without coordinating with the security team. Packages from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">security.debian.org</code> will be copied into the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">proposed-updates</code> 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. 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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp://ftp.security.upload.debian.org/pub/SecurityUploadQueue/</code>. Once an upload to the security queue has been accepted, the package will automatically be built for all architectures and stored for verification by the security team. Uploads that 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. If a member of the security team accepts a package, it will be installed on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">security.debian.org</code> as well as proposed for the proper distribution<code class="docutils literal notranslate">-proposed-updates</code> on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp-master.debian.org</code>. </section> </section> </section> <section id="moving-removing-renaming-orphaning-adopting-and-reintroducing-packages"> <h2>5.9. Moving, removing, renaming, orphaning, adopting, and reintroducing packages<a class="headerlink" href="#moving-removing-renaming-orphaning-adopting-and-reintroducing-packages" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> Some archive manipulation operations are not automated in the Debian upload process. These procedures should be manually followed by maintainers. This chapter gives guidelines on what to do in these cases. <section id="moving-packages"> <h3>5.9.1. Moving packages<a class="headerlink" href="#moving-packages" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Sometimes a package will change its section. For instance, a package from the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free</code> section might be GPL'd in a later version, in which case the package should be moved to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">main</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">contrib</code>. <a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="#id7" id="id1" role="doc-noteref">[1]</a> If you need to change the section for one of your packages, change the package control information to place the package in the desired section, and re-upload the package (see the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/">Debian Policy Manual</a> for details). You must ensure that you include the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.orig.tar.{gz,bz2,xz}</code> in your upload (even if you are not uploading a new upstream version), or it will not appear in the new section together with the rest of the package. If your new section is valid, it will be moved automatically. If it does not, then contact the ftpmasters in order to understand what happened. If, on the other hand, you need to change the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">subsection</code> of one of your packages (e.g., <code class="docutils literal notranslate">devel</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">admin</code>), the procedure is slightly different. Correct the subsection as found in the control file of the package, and re-upload that. Also, you'll need to get the override file updated, as described in <a class="reference internal" href="#override-file">Specifying the package section, subsection and priority</a>. </section> <section id="removing-packages"> <h3>5.9.2. Removing packages<a class="headerlink" href="#removing-packages" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> If for some reason you want to completely remove a package (say, if it is an old compatibility library which is no longer required), you need to file a bug against <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp.debian.org</code> asking that the package be removed; as with all bugs, this bug should normally have normal severity. The bug title should be in the form <code class="docutils literal notranslate">RM:</code> package [architecture list] <code class="docutils literal notranslate">--</code> reason, where package is the package to be removed and reason is a short summary of the reason for the removal request. [architecture list] is optional and only needed if the removal request only applies to some architectures, not all. Note that the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">reportbug</code> will create a title conforming to these rules when you use it to report a bug against the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp.debian.org</code> pseudo-package. If you want to remove a package you maintain, you should note this in the bug title by prepending <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ROM</code> (Request Of Maintainer). There are several other standard acronyms used in the reasoning for a package removal; see <a class="reference external" href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.html">https://ftp-master.debian.org/removals.html</a> for a complete list. That page also provides a convenient overview of pending removal requests. Note that removals can only be done for the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">experimental</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> distributions. Packages are not removed from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> directly. Rather, they will be removed automatically after the package has been removed from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> and no package in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> depends on it. (Removals from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> are possible though by filing a removal bug report against the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">release.debian.org</code> pseudo-package. See <a class="reference internal" href="#removals">Removals from testing</a>.) There is one exception when an explicit removal request is not necessary: If a (source or binary) package is no longer built from source, it will be removed semi-automatically. For a binary-package, this means if there is no longer any source package producing this binary package; if the binary package is just no longer produced on some architectures, a removal request is still necessary. For a source-package, this means that all binary packages it refers to have been taken over by another source package. In your removal request, you have to detail the reasons justifying the request. This is to avoid unwanted removals and to keep a trace of why a package has been removed. For example, you can provide the name of the package that supersedes the one to be removed. Usually you only ask for the removal of a package maintained by yourself. If you want to remove another package, you have to get the approval of its maintainer. Should the package be orphaned and thus have no maintainer, you should first discuss the removal request on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-qa@lists.debian.org</code>. If there is a consensus that the package should be removed, you should reassign and retitle the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">O:</code> bug filed against the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wnpp</code> package instead of filing a new bug as removal request. Further information relating to these and other package removal related topics may be found at <a class="reference external" href="https://wiki.debian.org/ftpmaster_Removals">https://wiki.debian.org/ftpmaster_Removals</a>and <a class="reference external" href="https://qa.debian.org/howto-remove.html">https://qa.debian.org/howto-remove.html</a>. If in doubt concerning whether a package is disposable, email <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-devel@lists.debian.org</code> asking for opinions. Also of interest is the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">apt-cache</code> program from the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">apt</code> package. When invoked as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">apt-cache showpkg</code> package, the program will show details for package, including reverse depends. Other useful programs include <code class="docutils literal notranslate">apt-cache rdepends</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">apt-rdepends</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">build-rdeps</code> (in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">devscripts</code> package) and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">grep-dctrl</code>. Removal of orphaned packages is discussed on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-qa@lists.debian.org</code>. Once the package has been removed, the package's bugs should be handled. They should either be reassigned to another package in the case where the actual code has evolved into another package (e.g. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">libfoo12</code> was removed because <code class="docutils literal notranslate">libfoo13</code> supersedes it) or closed if the software is simply no longer part of Debian. When closing the bugs, to avoid marking the bugs as fixed in versions of the packages in previous Debian releases, they should be marked as fixed in the version <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><most-recent-version-ever-in-Debian>+rm</code>. <section id="removing-packages-from-incoming"> <h4>5.9.2.1. Removing packages from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Incoming</code><a class="headerlink" href="#removing-packages-from-incoming" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> In the past, it was possible to remove packages from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">incoming</code>. However, with the introduction of the new incoming system, this is no longer possible. <a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="#id10" id="id2" role="doc-noteref">[4]</a> Instead, you have to upload a new revision of your package with a higher version than the package you want to replace. Both versions will be installed in the archive but only the higher version will actually be available in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> since the previous version will immediately be replaced by the higher. However, if you do proper testing of your packages, the need to replace a package should not occur too often anyway. </section> </section> <section id="replacing-or-renaming-packages"> <h3>5.9.3. Replacing or renaming packages<a class="headerlink" href="#replacing-or-renaming-packages" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> When the upstream maintainers for one of your packages chose to rename their software (or you made a mistake naming your package), you should follow a two-step process to rename it. In the first step, change the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code> file to reflect the new name and to replace, provide and conflict with the obsolete package name (see the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/">Debian Policy Manual</a> for details). Please note that you should only add a <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Provides</code> relation if all packages depending on the obsolete package name continue to work after the renaming. Once you've uploaded the package and the package has moved into the archive, file a bug against <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp.debian.org</code> asking to remove the package with the obsolete name (see <a class="reference internal" href="#removing-pkgs">Removing packages</a>). Do not forget to properly reassign the package's bugs at the same time. At other times, you may make a mistake in constructing your package and wish to replace it. The only way to do this is to increase the version number and upload a new version. The old version will be expired in the usual manner. Note that this applies to each part of your package, including the sources: if you wish to replace the upstream source tarball of your package, you will need to upload it with a different version. An easy possibility is to replace <code class="docutils literal notranslate">foo_1.00.orig.tar.gz</code> with <code class="docutils literal notranslate">foo_1.00+0.orig.tar.gz</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">foo_1.00.orig.tar.bz2</code>. This restriction gives each file on the ftp site a unique name, which helps to ensure consistency across the mirror network. </section> <section id="orphaning-a-package"> <h3>5.9.4. Orphaning a package<a class="headerlink" href="#orphaning-a-package" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> If you can no longer maintain a package, you need to inform others, and see that the package is marked as orphaned. You should set the package maintainer to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Debian QA Group <packages@qa.debian.org></code> and submit a bug report against the pseudo package <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wnpp</code>. The bug report should be titled <code class="docutils literal notranslate">O:</code> package <code class="docutils literal notranslate">--</code> short description indicating that the package is now orphaned. The severity of the bug should be set to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">normal</code>; if the package has a priority of standard or higher, it should be set to important. If you feel it's necessary, send a copy to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-devel@lists.debian.org</code> by putting the address in the X-Debbugs-CC: header of the message (no, don't use CC:, because that way the message's subject won't indicate the bug number). If you just intend to give the package away, but you can keep maintainership for the moment, then you should instead submit a bug against <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wnpp</code> and title it <code class="docutils literal notranslate">RFA:</code> package <code class="docutils literal notranslate">--</code> short description. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">RFA</code> stands for <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Request For Adoption</code>. More information is on the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/">WNPP web pages</a>. </section> <section id="adopting-a-package"> <h3>5.9.5. Adopting a package<a class="headerlink" href="#adopting-a-package" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> A list of packages in need of a new maintainer is available in the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/">Work-Needing and Prospective Packages list (WNPP)</a>. If you wish to take over maintenance of any of the packages listed in the WNPP, please take a look at the aforementioned page for information and procedures. It is not OK to simply take over a package without assent of the current maintainer — that would be package hijacking. You can, of course, contact the current maintainer and ask them for permission to take over the package. However, when a package has been neglected by the maintainer, you might be able to take over package maintainership by following the package salvaging process as described in <a class="reference internal" href="#package-salvaging">Package Salvaging</a>. If you have reason to believe a maintainer is no longer active at all, see <a class="reference internal" href="beyond-pkging.en.html#mia-qa">Dealing with inactive and/or unreachable maintainers</a>. 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 <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/devel/tech-ctte">technical committee web page</a> for more information). 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 automatically once you upload a new version with an updated <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Maintainer</code> field, although it can take a few hours after the upload is done. If you do not expect to upload a new version for a while, you can use <a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html#pkg-tracker">The Debian Package Tracker</a> to get the bug reports. However, make sure that the old maintainer has no problem with the fact that they will continue to receive the bugs during that time. </section> <section id="reintroducing-packages"> <h3>5.9.6. Reintroducing packages<a class="headerlink" href="#reintroducing-packages" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Packages are often removed due to release-critical bugs, absent maintainers, too few users or poor quality in general. While the process of reintroduction is similar to the initial packaging process, you can avoid some pitfalls by doing some historical research first. You should check why the package was removed in the first place. This information can be found in the removal item in the news section of the PTS page for the package or by browsing the log of <a class="reference external" href="https://ftp-master.debian.org/#removed">removals</a>. The removal bug will tell you why the package was removed and will give some indication of what you will need to work on in order to reintroduce the package. It may indicate that the best way forward is to switch to some other piece of software instead of reintroducing the package. It may be appropriate to contact the former maintainers to find out if they are working on reintroducing the package, interested in co-maintaining the package or interested in sponsoring the package if needed. You should do all the things required before introducing new packages (<a class="reference internal" href="#newpackage">New packages</a>). You should base your work on the latest packaging available that is suitable. That might be the latest version from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>, which will still be present in the <a class="reference external" href="https://snapshot.debian.org/">snapshot archive</a>. The version control system used by the previous maintainer might contain useful changes, so it might be a good idea to have a look there. Check if the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">control</code> file of the previous package contained any headers linking to the version control system for the package and if it still exists. Package removals from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> (not <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">oldstable</code>) trigger the closing of all bugs related to the package. You should look through all the closed bugs (including archived bugs) and unarchive and reopen any that were closed in a version ending in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">+rm</code> and still apply. Any that no longer apply should be marked as fixed in the correct version if that is known. Package removals from unstable also trigger marking the package as removed in the <a class="reference internal" href="#bug-security-tracker">Debian Security Tracker</a>. Debian members should <a class="reference external" href="https://security-team.debian.org/security_tracker.html#removed-packages">mark removed issues as unfixed</a> in the security tracker repository and all others should contact the security team to <a class="reference external" href="https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/data/report">report reintroduced packages</a>. </section> </section> <section id="porting-and-being-ported"> <h2>5.10. Porting and being ported<a class="headerlink" href="#porting-and-being-ported" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> 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. Porting is the act of building Debian packages for architectures that are 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, when a maintainer uploads a (portable) source package with binaries for the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">i386</code> architecture, it will be built for each of the other architectures, amounting to 10 more builds. <section id="being-kind-to-porters"> <h3>5.10.1. Being kind to porters<a class="headerlink" href="#being-kind-to-porters" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> 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. The first and most important thing is to respond quickly to bugs 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; do your best to hunt down whatever the problem is. By far, most of the problems encountered by porters are caused by packaging bugs in the source packages. Here is a checklist of things you should check or be aware of. <ol class="arabic"> <li>Make sure that your <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Build-Depends</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Build-Depends-Indep</code> settings in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code> are set properly. The best way to validate this is to use the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debootstrap</code> package to create an <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> chroot environment (see <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#debootstrap">debootstrap</a>). Within that chrooted environment, install the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">build-essential</code> package and any package dependencies mentioned in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Build-Depends</code> and/or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Build-Depends-Indep</code>. Finally, try building your package within that chrooted environment. These steps can be automated by the use of the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">pbuilder</code> program, which is provided by the package of the same name (see <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#pbuilder">pbuilder</a>). If you can't set up a proper chroot, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-depcheck</code> may be of assistance (see <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#dpkg-depcheck">dpkg-depcheck</a>). See the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/">Debian Policy Manual</a> for instructions on setting build dependencies. </li> <li>Don't set architecture to a value other than <code class="docutils literal notranslate">all</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">any</code> unless you really mean it. In too many cases, maintainers don't follow the instructions in the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/">Debian Policy Manual</a>. Setting your architecture to only one architecture (such as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">i386</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">amd64</code>) is usually incorrect.</li> <li>Make sure your source package is correct. Do <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-source -x</code> package<code class="docutils literal notranslate">.dsc</code> to make sure your source package unpacks properly. Then, in there, try building your package from scratch with <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-buildpackage</code>.</li> <li>Make sure you don't ship your source package with the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/files</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/substvars</code> files. They should be removed by the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">clean</code> target of <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/rules</code>.</li> <li>Make sure you don't rely on locally installed or hacked configurations or programs. For instance, you should never be calling programs in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">/usr/local/bin</code> or the like. Try not to rely on programs being set up in a special way. Try building your package on another machine, even if it's the same architecture.</li> <li>Don't depend on the package you're building being installed already (a sub-case of the above issue). There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, but be aware that any case like this needs manual bootstrapping and cannot be done by automated package builders.</li> <li>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.</li> <li>Make sure your <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/rules</code> contains separate <code class="docutils literal notranslate">binary-arch</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">binary-indep</code> 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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-buildpackage -B</code>.</li> <li>When you can't support your package on a particular architecture, you shouldn't use the Architecture field to reflect that (it's also a pain to maintain correctly). If the package fails to build from source, you can just let it be and interested people can take a look at the build logs. If the package would actually build, the trick is to add a <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Build-Depends</code> on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unsupported-architecture [!the-not-supported-arch]</code>. The buildds will not build the package as the build dependencies are not fullfiled on that arch. To prevent building on 32-bits architectures, the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">architecture-is-64bit</code> build dependency can be used, as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">architecture-is-little-endian</code> can be used to prevent building on big endian systems.</li> </ol> </section> <section id="guidelines-for-porter-uploads"> <h3>5.10.2. Guidelines for porter uploads<a class="headerlink" href="#guidelines-for-porter-uploads" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> 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 <a class="reference internal" href="#nmu-guidelines">When and how to do an NMU</a> instead. 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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code>. The way to invoke <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-buildpackage</code> is as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-buildpackage -B -m</code> porter-email. Of course, set porter-email to your email address. This will do a binary-only build of only the architecture-dependent portions of the package, using the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">binary-arch</code> target in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/rules</code>. If you are working on a Debian machine for your porting efforts and you need to sign your upload locally for its acceptance in the archive, you can run <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debsign</code> on your <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.changes</code> file to have it signed conveniently, or use the remote signing mode of <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-sig</code>. <section id="recompilation-or-binary-only-nmu"> <h4>5.10.2.1. Recompilation or binary-only NMU<a class="headerlink" href="#recompilation-or-binary-only-nmu" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> 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, etc.). 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 (<code class="docutils literal notranslate">dak</code> refuses to install new packages if they don't have a version number greater than the currently available one). You have to make sure that your binary-only NMU doesn't render the package uninstallable. This could happen when a source package generates arch-dependent and arch-independent packages that have inter-dependencies generated using dpkg's substitution variable <code class="docutils literal notranslate">$(Source-Version)</code>. 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. 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). The magic for a recompilation-only NMU is triggered by using a suffix appended to the package version number, following the form <code class="docutils literal notranslate">b</code>number. For instance, if the latest version you are recompiling against was version <code class="docutils literal notranslate">2.9-3</code>, your binary-only NMU should carry a version of <code class="docutils literal notranslate">2.9-3+b1</code>. If the latest version was <code class="docutils literal notranslate">3.4+b1</code> (i.e, a native package with a previous recompilation NMU), your binary-only NMU should have a version number of <code class="docutils literal notranslate">3.4+b2</code>. <a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="#id8" id="id3" role="doc-noteref">[2]</a> Similar to initial porter uploads, the correct way of invoking <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-buildpackage</code> is <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dpkg-buildpackage -B</code> to only build the architecture-dependent parts of the package. </section> <section id="when-to-do-a-source-nmu-if-you-are-a-porter"> <h4>5.10.2.2. When to do a source NMU if you are a porter<a class="headerlink" href="#when-to-do-a-source-nmu-if-you-are-a-porter" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> Porters doing a source NMU generally follow the guidelines found in <a class="reference internal" href="#nmu">Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMUs)</a>, 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. It also varies whether the architecture is a candidate for inclusion into the next stable release; the release managers decide and announce which architectures are candidates. If you are a porter doing an NMU for <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>, 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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> 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.) For uploads to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>, please coordinate with the appropriate release team first. Secondly, porters doing source NMUs should make sure that the bug they submit to the BTS should be of severity <code class="docutils literal notranslate">serious</code> 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 architectures in order to comply with many licenses. 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 compiler bugs and the like, make sure you <code class="docutils literal notranslate">#ifdef</code> your work properly; also, document your kludge so that people know to remove it once the external problems have been fixed. 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. </section> </section> <section id="porting-infrastructure-and-automation"> <h3>5.10.3. Porting infrastructure and automation<a class="headerlink" href="#porting-infrastructure-and-automation" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> There is infrastructure and several tools to help automate 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. <section id="mailing-lists-and-web-pages"> <h4>5.10.3.1. Mailing lists and web pages<a class="headerlink" href="#mailing-lists-and-web-pages" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> Web pages containing the status of each port can be found at <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/ports/">https://www.debian.org/ports/</a>. Each port of Debian has a mailing list. The list of porting mailing lists can be found at <a class="reference external" href="https://lists.debian.org/ports.html">https://lists.debian.org/ports.html</a>. These lists are used to coordinate porters, and to connect the users of a given port with the porters. </section> <section id="porter-tools"> <h4>5.10.3.2. Porter tools<a class="headerlink" href="#porter-tools" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> Descriptions of several porting tools can be found in <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#tools-porting">Porting tools</a>. </section> <section id="wanna-build"> <h4>5.10.3.3. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wanna-build</code><a class="headerlink" href="#wanna-build" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wanna-build</code> system is used as a distributed, client-server build distribution system. It is usually used in conjunction with build daemons running the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">buildd</code> program. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Build daemons</code> are <code class="docutils literal notranslate">slave</code> hosts, which contact the central <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wanna-build</code> system to receive a list of packages that need to be built. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wanna-build</code> is not yet available as a package; however, all Debian porting efforts are using it for automated package building. The tool used to do the actual package builds, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">sbuild</code>, is available as a package; see its description in <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#sbuild">sbuild</a>. Please note that the packaged version is not the same as the one used on build daemons, but it is close enough to reproduce problems. Most of the data produced by <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wanna-build</code> that is generally useful to porters is available on the web at <a class="reference external" href="https://buildd.debian.org/">https://buildd.debian.org/</a>. This data includes nightly updated statistics, queueing information and logs for build attempts. 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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">gcc</code> bounds checking). It will also enable Debian to recompile entire distributions quickly. The wanna-build team, in charge of the buildds, can be reached at <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-wb-team@lists.debian.org</code>. To determine who (wanna-build team, release team) and how (mail, BTS) to contact, refer to <a class="reference external" href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2009/03/msg00096.html">https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2009/03/msg00096.html</a>. When requesting binNMUs or give-backs (retries after a failed build), please use the format described at <a class="reference external" href="https://release.debian.org/wanna-build.txt">https://release.debian.org/wanna-build.txt</a>. </section> </section> <section id="when-your-package-is-not-portable"> <h3>5.10.4. When your package is not portable<a class="headerlink" href="#when-your-package-is-not-portable" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Some packages still have issues with building and/or working on some of the architectures supported by Debian, and cannot be ported at all, or not within a reasonable amount of time. An example is a package that is SVGA-specific (only available for <code class="docutils literal notranslate">i386</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">amd64</code>), or uses other hardware-specific features not supported on all architectures. In order to prevent broken packages from being uploaded to the archive, and wasting buildd time, you need to do a few things: <ul> <li>First, make sure your package does fail to build on architectures that it cannot support. There are a few ways to achieve this. The preferred way is to have a small testsuite during build time that will test the functionality, and fail if it doesn't work. This is a good idea anyway, as this will prevent (some) broken uploads on all architectures, and also will allow the package to build as soon as the required functionality is available. Additionally, if you believe the list of supported architectures is pretty constant, you should change <code class="docutils literal notranslate">any</code> to a list of supported architectures in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code>. This way, the build will fail also, and indicate this to a human reader without actually trying. </li> <li>In order to prevent autobuilders from needlessly trying to build your package, it must be included in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Packages-arch-specific</code>, a list used by the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">wanna-build</code> script. The current version is available as <a class="reference external" href="https://wiki.debian.org/PackagesArchSpecific">https://wiki.debian.org/PackagesArchSpecific</a>; please see the top of the file for whom to contact for changes.</li> </ul> Please note that it is insufficient to only add your package to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Packages-arch-specific</code> without making it fail to build on unsupported architectures: A porter or any other person trying to build your package might accidentally upload it without noticing it doesn't work. If in the past some binary packages were uploaded on unsupported architectures, request their removal by filing a bug against <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ftp.debian.org</code>. </section> <section id="marking-non-free-packages-as-auto-buildable"> <h3>5.10.5. Marking non-free packages as auto-buildable<a class="headerlink" href="#marking-non-free-packages-as-auto-buildable" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> By default packages from the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free-firmware</code> sections are not built by the autobuilder network (mostly because the license of the packages could disapprove). To enable a package to be built, you need to perform the following steps: <ol class="arabic simple"> <li>Check whether it is legally allowed and technically possible to auto-build the package;</li> <li>Add <code class="docutils literal notranslate">XS-Autobuild: yes</code> into the header part of <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code>;</li> <li>Send an email to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">non-free@buildd.debian.org</code> and explain why the package can legitimately and technically be auto-built.</li> </ol> </section> </section> <section id="non-maintainer-uploads-nmus"> <h2>5.11. Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMUs)<a class="headerlink" href="#non-maintainer-uploads-nmus" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> Every package has one or more maintainers. Normally, these are the people who work on and upload new versions of the package. In some situations, it is useful that other developers can upload a new version as well, for example if they want to fix a bug in a package they don't maintain, when the maintainer needs help to respond to issues. Such uploads are called Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMU). <section id="when-and-how-to-do-an-nmu"> <h3>5.11.1. When and how to do an NMU<a class="headerlink" href="#when-and-how-to-do-an-nmu" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Before doing an NMU, consider the following questions: <ul class="simple"> <li>Have you geared the NMU towards helping the maintainer? As there might be disagreement on the notion of whether the maintainer actually needs help on not, the DELAYED queue exists to give time to the maintainer to react and has the beneficial side-effect of allowing for independent reviews of the NMU diff.</li> <li>Does your NMU really fix bugs? ("Bugs" means any kind of bugs, e.g. wishlist bugs for packaging a new upstream version, but care should be taken to minimize the impact to the maintainer.) Fixing cosmetic issues or changing the packaging style in NMUs is discouraged.</li> <li>Did you give enough time to the maintainer? When was the bug reported to the BTS? Being busy for a week or two isn't unusual. Is the bug so severe that it needs to be fixed right now, or can it wait a few more days?</li> <li>How confident are you about your changes? Please remember the Hippocratic Oath: "Above all, do no harm." It is better to leave a package with an open grave bug than applying a non-functional patch, or one that hides the bug instead of resolving it. If you are not 100% sure of what you did, it might be a good idea to seek advice from others. Remember that if you break something in your NMU, many people will be very unhappy about it.</li> <li>Have you clearly expressed your intention to NMU, at least in the BTS? If that didn't generate any feedback, it might also be a good idea to try to contact the maintainer by other means (email to the maintainer addresses or private email, IRC).</li> <li>If the maintainer is usually active and responsive, have you tried to contact them? In general it should be considered preferable that maintainers take care of an issue themselves and that they are given the chance to review and correct your patch, because they can be expected to be more aware of potential issues which an NMUer might miss. It is often a better use of everyone's time if the maintainer is given an opportunity to upload a fix on their own.</li> </ul> When doing an NMU, you must first make sure that your intention to NMU is clear. Then, you must send a patch with the differences between the current package and your proposed NMU to the BTS. The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">nmudiff</code> script in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">devscripts</code> package might be helpful. While preparing the patch, you had better be aware of any package-specific practices that the maintainer might be using. Taking them into account reduces the burden of integrating your changes into the normal package workflow and thus increases the chances that integration will happen. A good place to look for possible package-specific practices is <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-source.html#s-readmesource"><code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/README.source</code></a>. Unless you have an excellent reason not to do so, you must then give some time to the maintainer to react (for example, by uploading to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED</code> queue). Here are some recommended values to use for delays: <ul class="simple"> <li>Upload fixing only release-critical bugs older than 7 days, with no maintainer activity on the bug for 7 days and no indication that a fix is in progress: 0 days</li> <li>Upload fixing only release-critical bugs older than 7 days: 2 days</li> <li>Upload fixing only release-critical and important bugs: 5 days</li> <li>Other NMUs: 10 days</li> </ul> Those delays are only examples. In some cases, such as uploads fixing security issues, or fixes for trivial bugs that block a transition, it is desirable that the fixed package reaches <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> sooner. Sometimes, release managers decide to encourage NMUs with shorter delays for a subset of bugs (e.g release-critical bugs older than 7 days). Also, some maintainers list themselves in the <a class="reference external" href="https://wiki.debian.org/LowThresholdNmu">Low Threshold NMU list</a>, and accept that NMUs are uploaded without delay. But even in those cases, it's still a good idea to give the maintainer a few days to react before you upload, especially if the patch wasn't available in the BTS before, or if you know that the maintainer is generally active. After you upload an NMU, you are responsible for the possible problems that you might have introduced. You must keep an eye on the package (subscribing to the package on the PTS is a good way to achieve this). This is not a license to perform NMUs thoughtlessly. If you NMU when it is clear that the maintainers are active and would have acknowledged a patch in a timely manner, or if you ignore the recommendations of this document, your upload might be a cause of conflict with the maintainer. You should always be prepared to defend the wisdom of any NMU you perform on its own merits. </section> <section id="nmus-and-debian-changelog"> <h3>5.11.2. NMUs and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code><a class="headerlink" href="#nmus-and-debian-changelog" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Just like any other (source) upload, NMUs must add an entry to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code>, telling what has changed with this upload. The first line of this entry must explicitly mention that this upload is an NMU, e.g.: <div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>* Non-maintainer upload. </pre></div> </div> The way to version NMUs differs for native and non-native packages. If the package is a native package (without a Debian revision in the version number), the version must be the version of the last maintainer upload, plus <code class="docutils literal notranslate">+nmu</code>X, where X is a counter starting at <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1</code>. If the last upload was also an NMU, the counter should be increased. For example, if the current version is <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1.5</code>, then an NMU would get version <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1.5+nmu1</code>. If the package is not a native package, you should add a minor version number to the Debian revision part of the version number (the portion after the last hyphen). This extra number must start at <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1</code>. For example, if the current version is <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1.5-2</code>, then an NMU would get version <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1.5-2.1</code>. If a new upstream version is packaged in the NMU, the Debian revision is set to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">0</code>, for example <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1.6-0.1</code>. In both cases, if the last upload was also an NMU, the counter should be increased. For example, if the current version is <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1.5+nmu3</code> (a native package which has already been NMUed), the NMU would get version <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1.5+nmu4</code>. A special versioning scheme is needed to avoid disrupting the maintainer's work, since using an integer for the Debian revision will potentially conflict with a maintainer upload already in preparation at the time of an NMU, or even one sitting in the ftp NEW queue. It also has the benefit of making it visually clear that a package in the archive was not made by the official maintainer. If you upload a package to testing or stable, you sometimes need to "fork" the version number tree. This is the case for security uploads, for example. For this, a version of the form <code class="docutils literal notranslate">+deb</code>X<code class="docutils literal notranslate">u</code>Y should be used, where X is the major release number, and Y is a counter starting at <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1</code>. For example, while <code class="docutils literal notranslate">bookworm</code> (Debian 12) is stable, a security NMU to stable for a package at version <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1.5-3</code> would have version <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1.5-3+deb12u1</code>, whereas a security upload to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">trixie</code> would get version <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1.5-3+deb13u1</code>. </section> <section id="using-the-delayed-queue"> <h3>5.11.3. Using the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED/</code> queue<a class="headerlink" href="#using-the-delayed-queue" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Having to wait for a response after you request permission to NMU is inefficient, because it costs the NMUer a context switch to come back to the issue. The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED</code> queue (see <a class="reference internal" href="#delayed-incoming">Delayed uploads</a>) allows the developer doing the NMU to perform all the necessary tasks at the same time. For instance, instead of telling the maintainer that you will upload the updated package in 7 days, you should upload the package to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED/7</code> and tell the maintainer that they have 7 days to react. During this time, the maintainer can ask you to delay the upload some more, or cancel your upload. You can cancel your upload using <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#dcut">dcut</a>. In case you uploaded <code class="docutils literal notranslate">foo_1.2-1.1_all.changes</code> to a <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED</code> queue, you can run <code class="docutils literal notranslate">dcut cancel foo_1.2-1.1_all.changes</code> to cancel your upload. The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.changes</code> file does not need to be present locally as you instruct <a class="reference internal" href="tools.en.html#dcut">dcut</a> to upload a command file removing a remote filename. The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">.changes</code> file name is the same that you used when uploading. The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED</code> queue should not be used to put additional pressure on the maintainer. In particular, it's important that you are available to cancel or delay the upload before the delay expires since the maintainer cannot cancel the upload themselves. If you make an NMU to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED</code> and the maintainer updates the package before the delay expires, your upload will be rejected because a newer version is already available in the archive. Ideally, the maintainer will take care to include your proposed changes (or at least a solution for the problems they address) in that upload. </section> <section id="nmus-from-the-maintainer-s-point-of-view"> <h3>5.11.4. NMUs from the maintainer's point of view<a class="headerlink" href="#nmus-from-the-maintainer-s-point-of-view" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> When someone NMUs your package, this means they want to help you to keep it in good shape. This gives users fixed packages faster. You can consider asking the NMUer to become a co-maintainer of the package. Receiving an NMU on a package is not a bad thing; it just means that the package is interesting enough for other people to work on it. To acknowledge an NMU, include its changes and changelog entry in your next maintainer upload. If you do not acknowledge the NMU by including the NMU changelog entry in your changelog, the bugs will remain closed in the BTS but will be listed as affecting your maintainer version of the package. Note that if you ever need to revert a NMU that packages a new upstream version, it is recommended to use a fake upstream version like CURRENT<code class="docutils literal notranslate">+really</code>FORMER until one can upload the latest version again. More information can be found in <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#epochs-should-be-used-sparingly">https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#epochs-should-be-used-sparingly</a>. </section> <section id="source-nmus-vs-binary-only-nmus-binnmus"> <h3>5.11.5. Source NMUs vs Binary-only NMUs (binNMUs)<a class="headerlink" href="#source-nmus-vs-binary-only-nmus-binnmus" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> The full name of an NMU is source NMU. There is also another type, namely the binary-only NMU, or binNMU. A binNMU is also a package upload by someone other than the package's maintainer. However, it is a binary-only upload. When a library (or other dependency) is updated, the packages using it may need to be rebuilt. Since no changes to the source are needed, the same source package is used. BinNMUs are usually triggered on the buildds by wanna-build. An entry is added to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code>, explaining why the upload was needed and increasing the version number as described in <a class="reference internal" href="#binary-only-nmu">Recompilation or binary-only NMU</a>. This entry should not be included in the next upload. Buildds upload packages for their architecture to the archive as binary-only uploads. Strictly speaking, these are binNMUs. However, they are not normally called NMU, and they don't add an entry to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/changelog</code>. </section> <section id="nmus-vs-qa-uploads"> <h3>5.11.6. NMUs vs QA uploads<a class="headerlink" href="#nmus-vs-qa-uploads" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> NMUs are uploads of packages by somebody other than their assigned maintainer. There is another type of upload where the uploaded package is not yours: QA uploads. QA uploads are uploads of orphaned packages. QA uploads are very much like normal maintainer uploads: they may fix anything, even minor issues; the version numbering is normal, and there is no need to use a delayed upload. The difference is that you are not listed as the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Maintainer</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploader</code> for the package. Also, the changelog entry of a QA upload has a special first line: <div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>* QA upload. </pre></div> </div> If you want to do an NMU, and it seems that the maintainer is not active, it is wise to check if the package is orphaned (this information is displayed on the package's Package Tracking System page). When doing the first QA upload to an orphaned package, the maintainer should be set to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Debian QA Group <packages@qa.debian.org></code>. Orphaned packages which did not yet have a QA upload still have their old maintainer set. There is a list of them at <a class="reference external" href="https://qa.debian.org/orphaned.html">https://qa.debian.org/orphaned.html</a>. Instead of doing a QA upload, you can also consider adopting the package by making yourself the maintainer. You don't need permission from anybody to adopt an orphaned package; you can just set yourself as maintainer and upload the new version (see <a class="reference internal" href="#adopting">Adopting a package</a>). </section> <section id="nmus-vs-team-uploads"> <h3>5.11.7. NMUs vs team uploads<a class="headerlink" href="#nmus-vs-team-uploads" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Sometimes you are fixing and/or updating a package because you are member of a packaging team (which uses a mailing list as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Maintainer</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploader</code>; see <a class="reference internal" href="#collaborative-maint">Collaborative maintenance</a>) but you don't want to add yourself to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploaders</code> because you do not plan to contribute regularly to this specific package. If it conforms with your team's policy, you can perform a normal upload without being listed directly as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Maintainer</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploader</code>. In that case, you should start your changelog entry with the following line: <div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>* Team upload. </pre></div> </div> </section> </section> <section id="package-salvaging"> <h2>5.12. Package Salvaging<a class="headerlink" href="#package-salvaging" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> Package salvaging is the process by which one attempts to save a package that, while not officially orphaned, appears poorly maintained or completely unmaintained. This is a weaker and faster procedure than orphaning a package officially through the powers of the MIA team. Salvaging a package is not meant to replace MIA handling, and differs in that it does not imply anything about the overall activity of a maintainer. Instead, it handles a package maintainership transition for a single package only, leaving any other package or Debian membership or upload rights (when applicable) untouched. Note that the process is only intended for actively taking over maintainership. Do not start a package salvaging process when you do not intend to maintain the package for a prolonged time. If you only want to fix certain things, but not take over the package, you must use the NMU process, even if the package would be eligible for salvaging. The NMU process is explained in <a class="reference internal" href="#nmu">Non-Maintainer Uploads (NMUs)</a>. Another important thing to remember: It is not acceptable to hijack others' packages. If followed, this salvaging process will help you to ensure that your endeavour is not a hijack but a (legal) salvaging procedure, and you can counter any allegations of hijacking with a reference to this process. Thanks to this process, new contributors should no longer be afraid to take over packages that have been neglected or entirely forgotten. The process is split into two phases: In the first phase you determine whether the package in question is eligible for the salvaging process. Only when the eligibility has been determined you may enter the second phase, the actual package salvaging. For additional information, rationales and FAQs on package salvaging, please visit the <a class="reference external" href="https://wiki.debian.org/PackageSalvaging">Salvaging Packages</a> page on the Debian wiki. <section id="when-a-package-is-eligible-for-package-salvaging"> <h3>5.12.1. When a package is eligible for package salvaging<a class="headerlink" href="#when-a-package-is-eligible-for-package-salvaging" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> A package becomes eligible for salvaging when it has been neglected by the current maintainer. To determine that a package has really been neglected by the maintainer, the following indicators give a rough idea what to look for: <ul class="simple"> <li>NMUs, especially if there has been more than one NMU in a row.</li> <li>Bugs filed against the package do not have answers from the maintainer.</li> <li>Upstream has released several versions, but despite there being a bug entry asking for it, it has not been packaged.</li> <li>There are QA issues with the package.</li> </ul> You will have to use your judgement as to whether a given combination factors constitutes neglect; in case the maintainer disagrees they have only to say so (see below). If you're not sure about your judgement or simply want to be on the safe side, there is a more precise (and conservative) set of conditions in the <a class="reference external" href="https://wiki.debian.org/PackageSalvaging">Package Salvaging</a> wiki page. These conditions represent a current Debian consensus on salvaging criteria. In any case you should explain your reasons for thinking the package is neglected when you file an Intent to Salvage bug later. </section> <section id="how-to-salvage-a-package"> <h3>5.12.2. How to salvage a package<a class="headerlink" href="#how-to-salvage-a-package" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> If and only if a package has been determined to be eligible for package salvaging, any prospective maintainer may start the following package salvaging procedure. <ol class="arabic"> <li>Open a bug with the severity "important" against the package in question, expressing the intent to take over maintainership of the package. For this, the title of the bug should start with <code class="docutils literal notranslate">ITS: package-name</code> <a class="footnote-reference brackets" href="#id9" id="id6" role="doc-noteref">[3]</a>. You may alternatively offer to only take co-maintenance of the package. When you file the bug, you must inform all maintainers, uploaders and if applicable the packaging team explicitly by adding them to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">X-Debbugs-CC</code>. Additionally, if the maintainer(s) seem(s) to be generally inactive, please inform the MIA team by adding <code class="docutils literal notranslate">mia@qa.debian.org</code> to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">X-Debbugs-CC</code> as well. As well as the explicit expression of the intent to salvage, please also take the time to document your assessment of the eligibility in the bug report, for example by listing the criteria you've applied and adding some data to make it easier for others to assess the situation.</li> <li>In this step you need to wait in case any objections to the salvaging are raised; the maintainer, any current uploader or any member of the associated packaging team of the package in question may object publicly in response to the bug you've filed within <code class="docutils literal notranslate">21 days</code>, and this terminates the salvaging process. The current maintainers may also agree to your intent to salvage by filing a (signed) public response to the the bug. They might propose that you become a co-maintainer instead of the sole maintainer. On team maintained packages, a member of the associated team can accept your salvaging proposal by sending out a signed agreement notice to the ITS bug, alternatively inviting you to become a new co-maintainer of the package. The team may require you to keep the package under the team's umbrella, but then may ask or invite you to join the team. In any of these cases where you have received the OK to proceed, you can upload the new package immediately as the new (co-)maintainer, without the need to utilise the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED</code> queue as described in the next step. </li> <li>After the 21 days delay, if no answer has been sent to the bug from the maintainer, one of the uploaders or team, you may upload the new release of the package into the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED</code> queue with a minimum delay of <code class="docutils literal notranslate">seven days</code>. You should close the salvage bug in the changelog and you must also send an nmudiff to the bug ensuring that copies are sent to the maintainer and any uploaders (including teams) of the package by <code class="docutils literal notranslate">CC'ing</code> them in the mail to the BTS. During the waiting time of the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">DELAYED</code> queue, the maintainer can accept the salvaging, do an upload themselves or (ask to) cancel the upload. The latter two of these will also stop the salvaging process, but the maintainer must reply to the salvaging bug with more information about their action. </li> </ol> </section> </section> <section id="collaborative-maintenance"> <h2>5.13. Collaborative maintenance<a class="headerlink" href="#collaborative-maintenance" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> 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 times. It is strongly recommended that packages with a priority of <code class="docutils literal notranslate">standard</code> or which are part of the base set have co-maintainers. Generally there is a primary maintainer and one or more co-maintainers. The primary maintainer is the person whose name is listed in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Maintainer</code> field of the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code> file. Co-maintainers are all the other maintainers, usually listed in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploaders</code> field of the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code> file. In its most basic form, the process of adding a new co-maintainer is quite easy: <ul> <li>Set up 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 <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Git</code>. Salsa (see <a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html#salsa-debian-org">salsa.debian.org: Git repositories and collaborative development platform</a>) provides Git repositories, amongst other collaborative tools.</li> <li>Add the co-maintainer's correct maintainer name and address to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploaders</code> field in the first paragraph of the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian/control</code> file. <div class="highlight-default notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre>Uploaders: John Buzz <jbuzz@debian.org>, Adam Rex <arex@debian.org> </pre></div> </div> </li> <li>Using the PTS (<a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html#pkg-tracker">The Debian Package Tracker</a>), the co-maintainers should subscribe themselves to the appropriate source package.</li> </ul> Another form of collaborative maintenance is team maintenance, which is recommended if you maintain several packages with the same group of developers. In that case, the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Maintainer</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploaders</code> field of each package must be managed with care. It is recommended to choose between one of the two following schemes: <ol class="arabic simple"> <li>Put the team member mainly responsible for the package in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Maintainer</code> field. In the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploaders</code>, put the mailing list address, and the team members who care for the package.</li> <li>Put the mailing list address in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Maintainer</code> field. In the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploaders</code> field, put the team members who care for the package. In this case, you must make sure the mailing list accepts bug reports without any human interaction (like moderation for non-subscribers).</li> </ol> In any case, it is a bad idea to automatically put all team members in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploaders</code> field. It clutters the Developer's Package Overview listing (see <a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html#ddpo">Developer's packages overview</a>) with packages one doesn't really care for, and creates a false sense of good maintenance. For the same reason, team members do not need to add themselves to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploaders</code> field just because they are uploading the package once, they can do a “Team upload” (see <a class="reference internal" href="#nmu-team-upload">NMUs vs team uploads</a>). Conversely, it is a bad idea to keep a package with only the mailing list address as a <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Maintainer</code> and no <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Uploaders</code>. </section> <section id="the-testing-distribution"> <h2>5.14. The testing distribution<a class="headerlink" href="#the-testing-distribution" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> <section id="basics"> <h3>5.14.1. Basics<a class="headerlink" href="#basics" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Packages are usually installed into the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> distribution after they have undergone some degree of testing in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>. They must be in sync on all architectures and mustn't have dependencies that make them uninstallable; they also have to have generally no known release-critical bugs at the time they're installed into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>. This way, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> should always be close to being a release candidate. Please see below for details. </section> <section id="updates-from-unstable"> <h3>5.14.2. Updates from unstable<a class="headerlink" href="#updates-from-unstable" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> The scripts that update the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> distribution are run twice each day, right after the installation of the updated packages; these scripts are called <code class="docutils literal notranslate">britney</code>. They generate the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">Packages</code> files for the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> distribution, but they do so in an intelligent manner; they try to avoid any inconsistency and to use only non-buggy packages. The inclusion of a package from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> is conditional on the following: <ul class="simple"> <li>The package must have been available in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> for a certain number of days, see <a class="reference internal" href="best-pkging-practices.en.html#bpp-changelog-urgency">Selecting the upload urgency</a>. Please note that the urgency is sticky, meaning that the highest urgency uploaded since the previous <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> transition is taken into account;</li> <li>It must not have new release-critical bugs (RC bugs affecting the version available in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>, but not affecting the version in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>);</li> <li>It must be available on all architectures on which it has previously been built in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>. <a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html#dak-ls">The dak ls utility</a> may be of interest to check that information;</li> <li>It must not break any dependency of a package which is already available in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>;</li> <li>The packages on which it depends must either be available in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> or they must be accepted into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> at the same time (and they will be if they fulfill all the necessary criteria);</li> <li>The phase of the project. I.e. automatic transitions are turned off during the freeze of the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> distribution.</li> </ul> To find out whether a package is progressing into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> or not, see the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> script output on the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/devel/testing">web page of the testing distribution</a>, or use the program <code class="docutils literal notranslate">grep-excuses</code> which is in the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">devscripts</code> package. This utility can easily be used in a crontab 5 to keep yourself informed of the progression of your packages into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>. The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">update_excuses</code> file does not always give the precise reason why the package is refused; you may have to find it on your own by looking for what would break with the inclusion of the package. The <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/devel/testing">testing web page</a> gives some more information about the usual problems which may be causing such troubles. Sometimes, some packages never enter <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> because the set of interrelationship is too complicated and cannot be sorted out by the scripts. See below for details. Some further dependency analysis is shown on <a class="reference external" href="https://release.debian.org/migration/">https://release.debian.org/migration/</a> — but be warned: this page also shows build dependencies that are not considered by britney. <section id="out-of-date"> <h4>5.14.2.1. Out-of-date<a class="headerlink" href="#out-of-date" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> For the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> migration script, outdated means: There are different versions in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> for the release architectures (except for the architectures in outofsync_arches; outofsync_arches is a list of architectures that don't keep up (in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">britney.py</code>), but currently, it's empty). Outdated has nothing whatsoever to do with the architectures this package has in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>. Consider this example: <table class="docutils align-default"> <thead> <tr class="row-odd"><th class="head"></th> <th class="head">alpha</th> <th class="head">arm</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr class="row-even"><td>testing</td> <td>1</td> <td>-</td> </tr> <tr class="row-odd"><td>unstable</td> <td>1</td> <td>2</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> The package is out of date on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">alpha</code> in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>, and will not go to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>. Removing the package would not help at all; the package is still out of date on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">alpha</code>, and will not propagate to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>. However, if ftp-master removes a package in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> (here on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">arm</code>): <table class="docutils align-default"> <thead> <tr class="row-odd"><th class="head"></th> <th class="head">alpha</th> <th class="head">arm</th> <th class="head">hurd-i386</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr class="row-even"><td>testing</td> <td>1</td> <td>1</td> <td>-</td> </tr> <tr class="row-odd"><td>unstable</td> <td>2</td> <td>-</td> <td>1</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> In this case, the package is up to date on all release architectures in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> (and the extra <code class="docutils literal notranslate">hurd-i386</code> doesn't matter, as it's not a release architecture). Sometimes, the question is raised if it is possible to allow packages in that are not yet built on all architectures: No. Just plainly no. (Except if you maintain glibc or so.) </section> <section id="removals-from-testing"> <h4>5.14.2.2. Removals from testing<a class="headerlink" href="#removals-from-testing" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> Sometimes, a package is removed to allow another package in: This happens only to allow another package to go in if it's ready in every other sense. Suppose e.g. that <code class="docutils literal notranslate">a</code> cannot be installed with the new version of <code class="docutils literal notranslate">b</code>; then <code class="docutils literal notranslate">a</code> may be removed to allow <code class="docutils literal notranslate">b</code> in. Of course, there is another reason to remove a package from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>: it's just too buggy (and having a single RC-bug is enough to be in this state). Furthermore, if a package has been removed from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>, and no package in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> depends on it any more, then it will automatically be removed. </section> <section id="circular-dependencies"> <h4>5.14.2.3. Circular dependencies<a class="headerlink" href="#circular-dependencies" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> A situation which is not handled very well by britney is if package <code class="docutils literal notranslate">a</code> depends on the new version of package <code class="docutils literal notranslate">b</code>, and vice versa. An example of this is: <table class="docutils align-default"> <thead> <tr class="row-odd"><th class="head"></th> <th class="head">testing</th> <th class="head">unstable</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr class="row-even"><td>a</td> <td>1; depends: b=1</td> <td>2; depends: b=2</td> </tr> <tr class="row-odd"><td>b</td> <td>1; depends: a=1</td> <td>2; depends: a=2</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Neither package <code class="docutils literal notranslate">a</code> nor package <code class="docutils literal notranslate">b</code> is considered for update. Currently, this requires some manual hinting from the release team. Please contact them by sending mail to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-release@lists.debian.org</code> if this happens to one of your packages. </section> <section id="influence-of-package-in-testing"> <h4>5.14.2.4. Influence of package in testing<a class="headerlink" href="#influence-of-package-in-testing" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> Generally, there is nothing that the status of a package in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> means for transition of the next version from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>, with two exceptions: If the RC-bugginess of the package goes down, it may go in even if it is still RC-buggy. The second exception is if the version of the package in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> is out of sync on the different arches: Then any arch might just upgrade to the version of the source package; however, this can happen only if the package was previously forced through, the arch is in outofsync_arches, or there was no binary package of that arch present in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> at all during the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> migration. In summary this means: The only influence that a package being in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> has on a new version of the same package is that the new version might go in easier. </section> <section id="details"> <h4>5.14.2.5. Details<a class="headerlink" href="#details" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> If you are interested in details, this is how britney works: The packages are looked at to determine whether they are valid candidates. This gives the update excuses. The most common reasons why a package is not considered are too young, RC-bugginess, and out of date on some arches. For this part of britney, the release managers have hammers of various sizes, called hints (see below), to force britney to consider a package. Now, the more complex part happens: Britney tries to update <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> with the valid candidates. For that, britney tries to add each valid candidate to the testing distribution. If the number of uninstallable packages in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> doesn't increase, the package is accepted. From that point on, the accepted package is considered to be part of <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>, such that all subsequent installability tests include this package. Hints from the release team are processed before or after this main run, depending on the exact type. If you want to see more details, you can look it up on <a class="reference external" href="https://release.debian.org/britney/update_output/">https://release.debian.org/britney/update_output/</a>. The hints are available via <a class="reference external" href="https://release.debian.org/britney/hints/">https://release.debian.org/britney/hints/</a>, where you can find the <a class="reference external" href="https://release.debian.org/doc/britney/hints.html">description</a> as well. With the hints, the Debian Release team can block or unblock packages, ease or force packages into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>, remove packages from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>, approve uploads to <a class="reference internal" href="#t-p-u">Direct updates to testing</a> or override the urgency. </section> </section> <section id="direct-updates-to-testing"> <h3>5.14.3. Direct updates to testing<a class="headerlink" href="#direct-updates-to-testing" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> distribution is fed with packages from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> according to the rules explained above. However, in some cases, it is necessary to upload packages built only for <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>. For that, you may want to upload to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing-proposed-updates</code>. 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 managers' eyes, you should read the instructions that they regularly give on <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-devel-announce@lists.debian.org</code>. You should not upload to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing-proposed-updates</code> when you can update your packages through <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>. If you can't (for example because you have a newer development version in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>), you may use this facility. Even if a package is frozen, updates through <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> are possible, if the upload via <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> does not pull in any new dependencies. Version numbers are usually selected by appending <code class="docutils literal notranslate">+deb</code>X<code class="docutils literal notranslate">uY</code>, where X is the major release number of Debian and Y is a counter starting at <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1</code>. e.g. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">1:2.4.3-4+deb12u1</code>. Please make sure you didn't miss any of these items in your upload: <ul class="simple"> <li>Make sure that your package really needs to go through <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing-proposed-updates</code>, and can't go through <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>;</li> <li>Make sure that you included only the minimal amount of changes;</li> <li>Make sure that you included an appropriate explanation in the changelog;</li> <li>Make sure that you've written the testing <a class="reference internal" href="resources.en.html#codenames">Release code names</a> (e.g. <code class="docutils literal notranslate">trixie</code>) into your target distribution;</li> <li>Make sure that you've built and tested your package in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>, not in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>;</li> <li>Make sure that your version number is higher than the version in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing-proposed-updates</code>, and lower than in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code>;</li> <li>Ask for authorization for uploading from the release managers.</li> <li>After uploading and successful build on all platforms, contact the release team at <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-release@lists.debian.org</code> and ask them to approve your upload.</li> </ul> </section> <section id="frequently-asked-questions"> <h3>5.14.4. Frequently asked questions<a class="headerlink" href="#frequently-asked-questions" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> <section id="what-are-release-critical-bugs-and-how-do-they-get-counted"> <h4>5.14.4.1. What are release-critical bugs, and how do they get counted?<a class="headerlink" href="#what-are-release-critical-bugs-and-how-do-they-get-counted" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> All bugs of some higher severities are by default considered release-critical; currently, these are <code class="docutils literal notranslate">critical</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">grave</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">serious</code> bugs. Such bugs are presumed to have an impact on the chances that the package will be released with the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> release of Debian: in general, if a package has open release-critical bugs filed on it, it won't get into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>, and consequently won't be released in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code>. The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> bug count comprises all release-critical bugs that are marked to apply to package/version combinations available in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> for a release architecture. The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> bug count is defined analogously. </section> <section id="how-could-installing-a-package-into-testing-possibly-break-other-packages"> <h4>5.14.4.2. How could installing a package into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> possibly break other packages?<a class="headerlink" href="#how-could-installing-a-package-into-testing-possibly-break-other-packages" title="Link to this heading"></a></h4> The structure of the distribution archives is such that they can only contain one version of a package; a package is defined by its name. So when the source package <code class="docutils literal notranslate">acmefoo</code> is installed into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>, along with its binary packages <code class="docutils literal notranslate">acme-foo-bin</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">acme-bar-bin</code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate">libacme-foo1</code> and <code class="docutils literal notranslate">libacme-foo-dev</code>, the old version is removed. However, the old version may have provided a binary package with an old soname of a library, such as <code class="docutils literal notranslate">libacme-foo0</code>. Removing the old <code class="docutils literal notranslate">acmefoo</code> will remove <code class="docutils literal notranslate">libacme-foo0</code>, which will break any packages that depend on it. Evidently, this mainly affects packages that provide changing sets of binary packages in different versions (in turn, mainly libraries). However, it will also affect packages upon which versioned dependencies have been declared of the ==, <=, or << varieties. When the set of binary packages provided by a source package changes in this way, all the packages that depended on the old binaries will have to be updated to depend on the new binaries instead. Because installing such a source package into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> breaks all the packages that depended on it in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code>, some care has to be taken now: all the depending packages must be updated and ready to be installed themselves so that they won't be broken, and, once everything is ready, manual intervention by the release manager or an assistant is normally required. If you are having problems with complicated groups of packages like this, contact <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-devel@lists.debian.org</code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate">debian-release@lists.debian.org</code> for help. <aside class="footnote-list brackets"> <aside class="footnote brackets" id="id7" role="doc-footnote"> [<a role="doc-backlink" href="#id1">1</a>] See the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/">Debian Policy Manual</a> for guidelines on what section a package belongs in. </aside> <aside class="footnote brackets" id="id8" role="doc-footnote"> [<a role="doc-backlink" href="#id3">2</a>] In the past, such NMUs used the third-level number on the Debian part of the revision to denote their recompilation-only status; however, this syntax was ambiguous with native packages and did not allow proper ordering of recompile-only NMUs, source NMUs, and security NMUs on the same package, and has therefore been abandoned in favor of this new syntax. </aside> <aside class="footnote brackets" id="id9" role="doc-footnote"> [<a role="doc-backlink" href="#id6">3</a>] ITS is shorthand for "Intend to Salvage" </aside> <aside class="footnote brackets" id="id10" role="doc-footnote"> [<a role="doc-backlink" href="#id2">4</a>] Though, if a package still is in the upload queue and hasn't been moved to Incoming yet, it can be removed. (see <a class="reference internal" href="#upload-ftp-master">Uploading to ftp-master</a>) </aside> </aside> </section> </section> </section> <section id="the-stable-backports-archive"> <h2>5.15. The Stable backports archive<a class="headerlink" href="#the-stable-backports-archive" title="Link to this heading"></a></h2> <section id="backports-rules"> <h3>5.15.1. Basics<a class="headerlink" href="#backports-rules" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> Once a package reaches the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> distribution, it is possible for anyone with upload rights in Debian (see below about this) to build and upload a backport of that package to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code>, to allow easy installation of the version from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> onto a system that is tracking the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> distribution. One should not upload a version of a package to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code> until the matching version has already reached the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> archive. </section> <section id="exception-to-the-testing-first-rule"> <h3>5.15.2. Exception to the testing-first rule<a class="headerlink" href="#exception-to-the-testing-first-rule" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> The only exception to the above rule, is when there's an important security fix that deserves a quick upload: in such a case, there is no need to delay an upload of the security fix to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code> archive. However, it is strongly advised that the package is first fixed in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">unstable</code> before uploading a fix to the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code> archive. </section> <section id="who-can-maintain-packages-in-the-stable-backports-archive"> <h3>5.15.3. Who can maintain packages in the stable-backports archive?<a class="headerlink" href="#who-can-maintain-packages-in-the-stable-backports-archive" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> It is not necessarily up to the original package maintainer to maintain the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code> version of the package. Anyone can do it, and one doesn't even need approval from the original maintainer to do so. It is however good practice to first get in touch with the original maintainer of the package before attempting to start the maintenance of a package in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code>. The maintainer can, if they wish, decide to maintain the backport themselves, or help you doing so. It is not uncommon, for example, to apply a patch to the unstable version of a package, to facilitate its backporting. </section> <section id="when-can-one-start-uploading-to-stable-backports"> <h3>5.15.4. When can one start uploading to stable-backports?<a class="headerlink" href="#when-can-one-start-uploading-to-stable-backports" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> The new <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code> is created before the freeze of the next <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> suite. However, it is not allowed to upload there until the very end of the freeze cycle. The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code> archive is usually opened a few weeks before the final release of the next <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> suite, but it doesn't make sense to upload until the release has actually happened. </section> <section id="how-long-must-a-package-be-maintained-when-uploaded-to-stable-backports"> <h3>5.15.5. How long must a package be maintained when uploaded to stable-backports?<a class="headerlink" href="#how-long-must-a-package-be-maintained-when-uploaded-to-stable-backports" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code> archive is maintained for bugs and security issues during the whole life-cycle of the Debian <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> suite. Therefore, an upload to <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code>, implies a willingness to maintain the backported package for the duration of the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> suite, which can be expected to be about 3 years from its initial release. The person uploading to backports is also supposed to maintain the backported packages for security during the lifetime of <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code>. It is to be noted that the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code> isn't part of the LTS or ELTS effort. The <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code> FTP masters will close the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code> repositories for uploads once <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> reaches end-of-life (ie: when <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> becomes maintained by the LTS team only). Therefore there won't be any maintenance of packages from <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code> after the official end of life of the <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> suite, as uploads will not be accepted. </section> <section id="how-often-shall-one-upload-to-stable-backports"> <h3>5.15.6. How often shall one upload to stable-backports?<a class="headerlink" href="#how-often-shall-one-upload-to-stable-backports" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> The packages in backports are supposed to follow the developments that are happening in Testing. Therefore, it is expected that any significant update in <code class="docutils literal notranslate">testing</code> should trigger an upload into <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable-backports</code>, until the new <code class="docutils literal notranslate">stable</code> is released. However, please do not backport minor version changes without user visible changes or bugfixes. </section> <section id="how-can-one-learn-more-about-backporting"> <h3>5.15.7. How can one learn more about backporting?<a class="headerlink" href="#how-can-one-learn-more-about-backporting" title="Link to this heading"></a></h3> You can learn more about <a class="reference external" href="https://backports.debian.org/Contribute/">how to contribute</a> directly on the backport web site. It is also recommended to read the <a class="reference external" href="https://backports.debian.org/FAQ/">Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)</a>. </section> </section> </section> </div> </div> <footer><div class="rst-footer-buttons" role="navigation" aria-label="Footer"> <a href="resources.en.html" class="btn btn-neutral float-left" title="4. Resources for Debian Members" accesskey="p" rel="prev"> Previous</a> <a href="best-pkging-practices.en.html" class="btn btn-neutral float-right" title="6. 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