1debhelper(7) Debhelper debhelper(7)
2
6 debhelper - the debhelper tool suite
7
9 dh_* [-v] [-a] [-i] [--no-act] [-ppackage] [-Npackage] [-Ptmpdir]
10
12 Debhelper is used to help you build a Debian package. The philosophy
13 behind debhelper is to provide a collection of small, simple, and
14 easily understood tools that are used in debian/rules to automate
15 various common aspects of building a package. This means less work for
16 you, the packager. It also, to some degree means that these tools can
17 be changed if Debian policy changes, and packages that use them will
18 require only a rebuild to comply with the new policy.
19 A typical debian/rules file that uses debhelper will call several
21 debhelper commands in sequence, or use dh(1) to automate this process.
22 Examples of rules files that use debhelper are in
23 /usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/
24 To create a new Debian package using debhelper, you can just copy one
26 of the sample rules files and edit it by hand. Or you can try the dh-
27 make package, which contains a dh_make command that partially automates
28 the process. For a more gentle introduction, the maint-guide Debian
29 package contains a tutorial about making your first package using
30 debhelper.
31 Except where the tool explicitly denotes otherwise, all of the
33 debhelper tools assume that they run from the root directory of an
34 unpacked source package. This is so they can locate find files like
35 debian/control when needed.
36
38 Here is the list of debhelper commands you can use. See their man pages
39 for additional documentation.
40 dh_auto_build(1)
42 automatically builds a package
43 dh_auto_clean(1)
45 automatically cleans up after a build
46 dh_auto_configure(1)
48 automatically configure a package prior to building
49 dh_auto_install(1)
51 automatically runs make install or similar
52 dh_auto_test(1)
54 automatically runs a package's test suites
55 dh_bugfiles(1)
57 install bug reporting customization files into package build
58 directories
59 dh_builddeb(1)
61 build Debian binary packages
62 dh_clean(1)
64 clean up package build directories
65 dh_compress(1)
67 compress files and fix symlinks in package build directories
68 dh_dwz(1)
70 optimize DWARF debug information in ELF binaries via dwz
71 dh_fixperms(1)
73 fix permissions of files in package build directories
74 dh_gencontrol(1)
76 generate and install control file
77 dh_icons(1)
79 Update caches of Freedesktop icons
80 dh_install(1)
82 install files into package build directories
83 dh_installalternatives(1)
85 install declarative alternative rules
86 dh_installcatalogs(1)
88 install and register SGML Catalogs
89 dh_installchangelogs(1)
91 install changelogs into package build directories
92 dh_installcron(1)
94 install cron scripts into etc/cron.*
95 dh_installdeb(1)
97 install files into the DEBIAN directory
98 dh_installdebconf(1)
100 install files used by debconf in package build directories
101 dh_installdirs(1)
103 create subdirectories in package build directories
104 dh_installdocs(1)
106 install documentation into package build directories
107 dh_installemacsen(1)
109 register an Emacs add on package
110 dh_installexamples(1)
112 install example files into package build directories
113 dh_installgsettings(1)
115 install GSettings overrides and set dependencies
116 dh_installifupdown(1)
118 install if-up and if-down hooks
119 dh_installinfo(1)
121 install info files
122 dh_installinit(1)
124 install service init files into package build directories
125 dh_installinitramfs(1)
127 install initramfs hooks and setup maintscripts
128 dh_installlogcheck(1)
130 install logcheck rulefiles into etc/logcheck/
131 dh_installlogrotate(1)
133 install logrotate config files
134 dh_installman(1)
136 install man pages into package build directories
137 dh_installmenu(1)
139 install Debian menu files into package build directories
140 dh_installmime(1)
142 install mime files into package build directories
143 dh_installmodules(1)
145 register kernel modules
146 dh_installpam(1)
148 install pam support files
149 dh_installppp(1)
151 install ppp ip-up and ip-down files
152 dh_installsystemd(1)
154 install systemd unit files
155 dh_installsystemduser(1)
157 install systemd unit files
158 dh_installsysusers(1)
160 install and integrates systemd sysusers files
161 dh_installtmpfiles(1)
163 install tmpfiles.d configuration files
164 dh_installudev(1)
166 install udev rules files
167 dh_installwm(1)
169 register a window manager
170 dh_installxfonts(1)
172 register X fonts
173 dh_link(1)
175 create symlinks in package build directories
176 dh_lintian(1)
178 install lintian override files into package build directories
179 dh_listpackages(1)
181 list binary packages debhelper will act on
182 dh_makeshlibs(1)
184 automatically create shlibs file and call dpkg-gensymbols
185 dh_md5sums(1)
187 generate DEBIAN/md5sums file
188 dh_missing(1)
190 check for missing files
191 dh_movefiles(1)
193 move files out of debian/tmp into subpackages
194 dh_perl(1)
196 calculates Perl dependencies and cleans up after MakeMaker
197 dh_prep(1)
199 perform cleanups in preparation for building a binary package
200 dh_shlibdeps(1)
202 calculate shared library dependencies
203 dh_strip(1)
205 strip executables, shared libraries, and some static libraries
206 dh_systemd_enable(1)
208 enable/disable systemd unit files
209 dh_systemd_start(1)
211 start/stop/restart systemd unit files
212 dh_testdir(1)
214 test directory before building Debian package
215 dh_testroot(1)
217 ensure that a package is built with necessary level of root
218 permissions
219 dh_ucf(1)
221 register configuration files with ucf
222 dh_update_autotools_config(1)
224 Update autotools config files
225 dh_usrlocal(1)
227 migrate usr/local directories to maintainer scripts
228 Deprecated Commands
230 A few debhelper commands are deprecated and should not be used.
231 dh_gconf(1)
233 install GConf defaults files and register schemas (deprecated)
234 dh_installmanpages(1)
236 old-style man page installer (deprecated)
237 Other Commands
239 If a program's name starts with dh_, and the program is not on the
240 above lists, then it is not part of the debhelper package, but it
241 should still work like the other programs described on this page.
242
244 Many debhelper commands make use of files in debian/ to control what
245 they do. Besides the common debian/changelog and debian/control, which
246 are in all packages, not just those using debhelper, some additional
247 files can be used to configure the behavior of specific debhelper
248 commands. These files are typically named debian/package.foo (where
249 package of course, is replaced with the package that is being acted
250 on).
251 For example, dh_installdocs uses files named debian/package.docs to
253 list the documentation files it will install. See the man pages of
254 individual commands for details about the names and formats of the
255 files they use. Generally, these files will list files to act on, one
256 file per line. Some programs in debhelper use pairs of files and
257 destinations or slightly more complicated formats.
258 Note for the first (or only) binary package listed in debian/control,
260 debhelper will use debian/foo when there's no debian/package.foo file.
261 However, it is often a good idea to keep the package. prefix as it is
262 more explicit. The primary exception to this are files that debhelper
263 by default installs in every binary package when it does not have a
264 package prefix (such as debian/copyright or debian/changelog).
265 In some rare cases, you may want to have different versions of these
267 files for different architectures or OSes. If files named
268 debian/package.foo.ARCH or debian/package.foo.OS exist, where ARCH and
269 OS are the same as the output of "dpkg-architecture -qDEB_HOST_ARCH" /
270 "dpkg-architecture -qDEB_HOST_ARCH_OS", then they will be used in
271 preference to other, more general files.
272 Mostly, these config files are used to specify lists of various types
274 of files. Documentation or example files to install, files to move, and
275 so on. When appropriate, in cases like these, you can use standard
276 shell wildcard characters (? and * and [..] character classes) in the
277 files. You can also put comments in these files; lines beginning with
278 # are ignored.
279 The syntax of these files is intentionally kept very simple to make
281 them easy to read, understand, and modify.
282 Substitutions in debhelper config files
284 In compatibility level 13 and later, it is possible to use simple
285 substitutions in debhelper config files for the following tools:
286 • dh_clean
288 • dh_install
290 • dh_installcatalogs
292 • dh_installdeb
294 • dh_installdirs
296 • dh_installdocs
298 • dh_installexamples
300 • dh_installinfo
302 • dh_installman
304 • dh_installwm
306 • dh_link
308 • dh_missing
310 • dh_ucf
312 All substitution variables are of the form ${foo} and the braces are
314 mandatory. Variable names are case-sensitive and consist of
315 alphanumerics (a-zA-Z0-9), hyphens (-), underscores (_), and colons
316 (:). The first character must be an alphanumeric.
317 If you need a literal dollar sign that cannot trigger a substitution,
319 you can either use the ${Dollar} substitution or the sequence ${}.
320 The following expansions are available:
322 DEB_HOST_*, DEB_BUILD_*, DEB_TARGET_*
324 Expands to the relevant dpkg-architecture(1) value (similar to
325 dpkg-architecture -qVARIABLE_HERE).
326 When in doubt, the DEB_HOST_* variant is the one that will work
328 both for native and cross builds.
329 For performance reasons, debhelper will attempt to resolve these
331 names from the environment first before consulting
332 dpkg-architecture(1). This is mostly mentioned for completeness as
333 it will not matter for most cases.
334 Dollar
336 Expands to a single literal $-symbol. This symbol will never be
337 considered part of a substitution variable. That is:
338 # Triggers an error
340 ${NO_SUCH_TOKEN}
341 # Expands to the literal value "${NO_SUCH_TOKEN}"
342 ${Dollar}{NO_SUCH_TOKEN}
343 This variable equivalent to the sequence ${} and the two can be
345 used interchangeably.
346 Newline, Space, Tab
348 Expands to a single ASCII newline, space and tab respectively.
349 This can be useful if you need to include a literal whitespace
351 character (e.g. space) where it would otherwise be stripped or used
352 as a separator.
353 env:NAME
355 Expands to the environment variable NAME. The environment variable
356 must be set (but can be set to the empty string).
357 Note that all variables must expand to a defined value. As an example,
359 if debhelper sees ${env:FOO}, then it will insist that the environment
360 variable FOO is set (it can be set to the empty string).
361 Substitution limits
363 To avoid infinite loops and resource exhaustion, debhelper will stop
365 with an error if the text contains many substitution variables (50) or
366 they expand beyond a certain size (4096 characters or 3x length of the
367 original input - whichever is bigger).
368 Executable debhelper config files
370 If you need additional flexibility, many of the debhelper tools (e.g.
371 dh_install(1)) support executing a config file as a script.
372 To use this feature, simply mark the config file as executable (e.g.
374 chmod +x debian/package.install) and the tool will attempt to execute
375 it and use the output of the script. In many cases, you can use
376 dh-exec(1) as interpreter of the config file to retain most of the
377 original syntax while getting the additional flexibility you need.
378 When using executable debhelper config files, please be aware of the
380 following:
381 • The executable config file must exit with success (i.e. its return
383 code should indicate success).
384 • In compatibility level 13+, the output will be subject to
386 substitutions (see "Substitutions in debhelper config files") where
387 the tool support these. Remember to be careful if your generator
388 also provides substitutions as this can cause unnecessary
389 confusion.
390 Otherwise, the output will be used exactly as-is. Notably,
392 debhelper will not expand wildcards or strip comments or strip
393 whitespace in the output.
394 If you need the package to build on a file system where you cannot
396 disable the executable bit, then you can use dh-exec(1) and its strip-
397 output script.
398
400 The following command line options are supported by all debhelper
401 programs.
402 -v, --verbose
404 Verbose mode: show all commands that modify the package build
405 directory.
406 --no-act
408 Do not really do anything. If used with -v, the result is that the
409 command will output what it would have done.
410 -a, --arch
412 Act on architecture dependent packages that should be built for the
413 DEB_HOST_ARCH architecture.
414 -i, --indep
416 Act on all architecture independent packages.
417 -ppackage, --package=package
419 Act on the package named package. This option may be specified
420 multiple times to make debhelper operate on a given set of
421 packages.
422 -s, --same-arch
424 Deprecated alias of -a.
425 This option is removed in compat 12.
427 -Npackage, --no-package=package
429 Do not act on the specified package even if an -a, -i, or -p option
430 lists the package as one that should be acted on.
431 --remaining-packages
433 Do not act on the packages which have already been acted on by this
434 debhelper command earlier (i.e. if the command is present in the
435 package debhelper log). For example, if you need to call the
436 command with special options only for a couple of binary packages,
437 pass this option to the last call of the command to process the
438 rest of packages with default settings.
439 -Ptmpdir, --tmpdir=tmpdir
441 Use tmpdir for package build directory. The default is
442 debian/package
443 --mainpackage=package
445 This little-used option changes the package which debhelper
446 considers the "main package", that is, the first one listed in
447 debian/control, and the one for which debian/foo files can be used
448 instead of the usual debian/package.foo files.
449 -O=option|bundle
451 This is used by dh(1) when passing user-specified options to all
452 the commands it runs. If the command supports the specified option
453 or option bundle, it will take effect. If the command does not
454 support the option (or any part of an option bundle), it will be
455 ignored.
456
458 The following command line options are supported by some debhelper
459 programs. See the man page of each program for a complete explanation
460 of what each option does.
461 -n Do not modify postinst, postrm, etc. scripts.
463 -Xitem, --exclude=item
465 Exclude an item from processing. This option may be used multiple
466 times, to exclude more than one thing. The item is typically part
467 of a filename, and any file containing the specified text will be
468 excluded.
469 -A, --all
471 Makes files or other items that are specified on the command line
472 take effect in ALL packages acted on, not just the first.
473
475 The following command line options are supported by all of the
476 dh_auto_* debhelper programs. These programs support a variety of build
477 systems, and normally heuristically determine which to use, and how to
478 use them. You can use these command line options to override the
479 default behavior. Typically these are passed to dh(1), which then
480 passes them to all the dh_auto_* programs.
481 -Sbuildsystem, --buildsystem=buildsystem
483 Force use of the specified buildsystem, instead of trying to auto-
484 select one which might be applicable for the package.
485 Pass none as buildsystem to disable auto-selection.
487 -Ddirectory, --sourcedir=directory, --sourcedirectory=directory
489 Assume that the original package source tree is at the specified
490 directory rather than the top level directory of the Debian source
491 package tree.
492 Warning: The --sourcedir variant matches a similar named option in
494 dh_install and dh_missing (etc.) for historical reasons. While
495 they have a similar name, they have very distinct purposes and in
496 some cases it can cause errors when this variant is passed to dh
497 (when then passes it on to all tools).
498 -B[directory], --builddir[=directory], --builddirectory[=directory]
500 Enable out of source building and use the specified directory as
501 the build directory. If directory parameter is omitted, a default
502 build directory will be chosen.
503 If this option is not specified, building will be done in source by
505 default unless the build system requires or prefers out of source
506 tree building. In such a case, the default build directory will be
507 used even if --builddirectory is not specified.
508 If the build system prefers out of source tree building but still
510 allows in source building, the latter can be re-enabled by passing
511 a build directory path that is the same as the source directory
512 path.
513 --parallel, --no-parallel
515 Control whether parallel builds should be used if underlying build
516 system supports them. The number of parallel jobs is controlled by
517 the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS environment variable ("Debian Policy, section
518 4.9.1") at build time. It might also be subject to a build system
519 specific limit.
520 If neither option is specified, debhelper currently defaults to
522 --parallel in compat 10 (or later) and --no-parallel otherwise.
523 As an optimization, dh will try to avoid passing these options to
525 subprocesses, if they are unnecessary and the only options passed.
526 Notably this happens when DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS does not have a
527 parallel parameter (or its value is 1).
528 --max-parallel=maximum
530 This option implies --parallel and allows further limiting the
531 number of jobs that can be used in a parallel build. If the package
532 build is known to only work with certain levels of concurrency, you
533 can set this to the maximum level that is known to work, or that
534 you wish to support.
535 Notably, setting the maximum to 1 is effectively the same as using
537 --no-parallel.
538 --reload-all-buildenv-variables
540 By default, dh(1) will compute several environment (e.g. by using
541 dpkg-buildflags(1)) and cache them to avoid having all dh_auto_*
542 tool recompute them.
543 When passing this option, the concrete dh_auto_* tool will ignore
545 the cache from dh(1) and retrigger a rebuild of these variables.
546 This is useful in the very rare case where the package need to do
547 multiple builds but with different ...FLAGS options. A concrete
548 example would be needing to change the -O parameter in CFLAGS in
549 the second build:
550 export DEB_CFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND=-O3
552 %:
554 dh $@
555 override_dh_auto_configure:
557 dh_auto_configure -Bbuild-deb ...
558 DEB_CFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND=-Os dh_auto_configure \
559 --reload-all-buildenv-variables -Bbuild-udeb ...
560 Without --reload-all-buildenv-variables in the second call to
562 dh_auto_configure(1), the change in DEB_CFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND would
563 be ignored as dh_auto_configure(1) would use the cached value of
564 CFLAGS set by dh(1).
565 This option is only available with debhelper (>= 12.7~) when the
567 package uses compatibility level 9 or later.
568 --list, -l
570 List all build systems supported by debhelper on this system. The
571 list includes both default and third party build systems (marked as
572 such). Also shows which build system would be automatically
573 selected, or which one is manually specified with the --buildsystem
574 option.
575
577 From time to time, major non-backwards-compatible changes need to be
578 made to debhelper, to keep it clean and well-designed as needs change
579 and its author gains more experience. To prevent such major changes
580 from breaking existing packages, the concept of debhelper compatibility
581 levels was introduced. You must tell debhelper which compatibility
582 level it should use, and it modifies its behavior in various ways.
583 In current debhelper, you can specify the compatibility level in
585 debian/control by adding a Build-Depends on the debhelper-compat
586 package. For example, to use v13 mode, ensure debian/control has:
587 Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 13)
589 This also serves as an appropriate versioned build dependency on a
591 sufficient version of the debhelper package, so you do not need to
592 specify a separate versioned build dependency on the debhelper package
593 unless you need a specific point release of debhelper (such as for the
594 introduction of a new feature or bugfix within a compatibility level).
595 Note that debhelper does not provide debhelper-compat for experimental
597 or beta compatibility levels; packages experimenting with those
598 compatibility levels should use debian/compat or DH_COMPAT.
599 Prior versions of debhelper required specifying the compatibility level
601 in the file debian/compat, and current debhelper still supports this
602 for backward compatibility, though a package may not specify a
603 compatibility level via multiple methods at once. To use this method,
604 debian/compat should contain the compatibility level as a single
605 number, and no other content. If you specify the compatibility level by
606 this method, your package will also need a versioned build dependency
607 on a version of the debhelper package equal to (or greater than) the
608 compatibility level your package uses. So, if you specify compatibility
609 level 13 in debian/compat, ensure debian/control has:
610 Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 13~)
612 Unless otherwise indicated, all debhelper documentation assumes that
614 you are using the most recent compatibility level, and in most cases
615 does not indicate if the behavior is different in an earlier
616 compatibility level, so if you are not using the most recent
617 compatibility level, you're advised to read below for notes about what
618 is different in earlier compatibility levels.
619 Supported compatibility levels
621 These are the available compatibility levels:
622 v5 This is the lowest supported compatibility level.
624 If you are upgrading from an earlier compatibility level, please
626 review debhelper-obsolete-compat(7).
627 This mode is deprecated.
629 v6 Changes from v5 are:
631 - Commands that generate maintainer script fragments will
633 order the fragments in reverse order for the prerm and
634 postrm scripts.
635 - dh_installwm will install a slave manpage link for
637 x-window-manager.1.gz, if it sees the man page in
638 usr/share/man/man1 in the package build directory.
639 - dh_builddeb did not previously delete everything matching
641 DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE, if it was set to a list of things to
642 exclude, such as CVS:.svn:.git. Now it does.
643 - dh_installman allows overwriting existing man pages in the
645 package build directory. In previous compatibility levels
646 it silently refuses to do this.
647 This mode is deprecated.
649 v7 Changes from v6 are:
651 - dh_install, will fall back to looking for files in
653 debian/tmp if it doesn't find them in the current directory
654 (or wherever you tell it look using --sourcedir). This
655 allows dh_install to interoperate with dh_auto_install,
656 which installs to debian/tmp, without needing any special
657 parameters.
658 - dh_clean will read debian/clean and delete files listed
660 there.
661 - dh_clean will delete toplevel *-stamp files.
663 - dh_installchangelogs will guess at what file is the
665 upstream changelog if none is specified.
666 This mode is deprecated.
668 v8 Changes from v7 are:
670 - Commands will fail rather than warning when they are passed
672 unknown options.
673 - dh_makeshlibs will run dpkg-gensymbols on all shared
675 libraries that it generates shlibs files for. So -X can be
676 used to exclude libraries. Also, libraries in unusual
677 locations that dpkg-gensymbols would not have processed
678 before will be passed to it, a behavior change that can
679 cause some packages to fail to build.
680 - dh requires the sequence to run be specified as the first
682 parameter, and any switches come after it. Ie, use "dh $@
683 --foo", not "dh --foo $@".
684 - dh_auto_* prefer to use Perl's Module::Build in preference
686 to Makefile.PL.
687 This mode is deprecated.
689 v9 Changes from v8 are:
691 - Multiarch support. In particular, dh_auto_configure passes
693 multiarch directories to autoconf in --libdir and
694 --libexecdir.
695 - dh is aware of the usual dependencies between targets in
697 debian/rules. So, "dh binary" will run any build, build-
698 arch, build-indep, install, etc targets that exist in the
699 rules file. There's no need to define an explicit binary
700 target with explicit dependencies on the other targets.
701 - dh_strip compresses debugging symbol files to reduce the
703 installed size of -dbg packages.
704 - dh_auto_configure does not include the source package name
706 in --libexecdir when using autoconf.
707 - dh does not default to enabling --with=python-support
709 (Obsolete: As the dh_pysupport tool was removed from Debian
711 stretch. Since debhelper/10.3, dh no longer enables this
712 sequence add-on regardless of compat level)
713 - All of the dh_auto_* debhelper programs and dh set
715 environment variables listed by dpkg-buildflags, unless
716 they are already set.
717 - dh_auto_configure passes dpkg-buildflags CFLAGS, CPPFLAGS,
719 and LDFLAGS to perl Makefile.PL and Build.PL
720 - dh_strip puts separated debug symbols in a location based
722 on their build-id.
723 - Executable debhelper config files are run and their output
725 used as the configuration.
726 This mode is deprecated.
728 v10 Changes from v9 are:
730 - dh_installinit will no longer install a file named
732 debian/package as an init script.
733 - dh_installdocs will error out if it detects links created
735 with --link-doc between packages of architecture "all" and
736 non-"all" as it breaks binNMUs.
737 - dh_installdeb no longer installs a maintainer-provided
739 debian/package.shlibs file. This is now done by
740 dh_makeshlibs instead.
741 - dh_installwm refuses to create a broken package if no man
743 page can be found (required to register for the x-window-
744 manager alternative).
745 - Debhelper will default to --parallel for all buildsystems
747 that support parallel building. This can be disabled by
748 using either --no-parallel or passing --max-parallel with a
749 value of 1.
750 - The dh command will not accept any of the deprecated
752 "manual sequence control" parameters (--before, --after,
753 etc.). Please use override targets instead.
754 Retroactively applied to earlier compat levels: dh no
756 longer accepts any of these since debhelper/12.4.
757 - The dh command will no longer use log files to track which
759 commands have been run. The dh command still keeps track
760 of whether it already ran the "build" sequence and skip it
761 if it did.
762 The main effects of this are:
764 - With this, it is now easier to debug the install or/and
766 binary sequences because they can now trivially be re-
767 run (without having to do a full "clean and rebuild"
768 cycle)
769 - The main caveat is that dh_* now only keeps track of
771 what happened in a single override target. When all
772 the calls to a given dh_cmd command happens in the same
773 override target everything will work as before.
774 Example of where it can go wrong:
776 override_dh_foo:
778 dh_foo -pmy-pkg
779 override_dh_bar:
781 dh_bar
782 dh_foo --remaining
783 In this case, the call to dh_foo --remaining will also
785 include my-pkg, since dh_foo -pmy-pkg was run in a
786 separate override target. This issue is not limited to
787 --remaining, but also includes -a, -i, etc.
788 - The dh_installdeb command now shell-escapes the lines in
790 the maintscript config file. This was the original intent
791 but it did not work properly and packages have begun to
792 rely on the incomplete shell escaping (e.g. quoting file
793 names).
794 - The dh_installinit command now defaults to
796 --restart-after-upgrade. For packages needing the previous
797 behaviour, please use --no-restart-after-upgrade.
798 - The autoreconf sequence is now enabled by default. Please
800 pass --without autoreconf to dh if this is not desirable
801 for a given package
802 - The systemd sequence is now enabled by default. Please
804 pass --without systemd to dh if this is not desirable for a
805 given package.
806 - Retroactively removed: dh no longer creates the package
808 build directory when skipping running debhelper commands.
809 This will not affect packages that only build with
810 debhelper commands, but it may expose bugs in commands not
811 included in debhelper.
812 This compatibility feature had a bug since its inception in
814 debhelper/9.20130516 that made it fail to apply in compat 9
815 and earlier. As there has been no reports of issues caused
816 by this bug in those ~5 years, this item have been removed
817 rather than fixed.
818 v11 This mode is discouraged.
820 The compat 11 is discouraged for new packages as it suffers from
822 feature interaction between dh_installinit and dh_installsystemd
823 causing services to not run correctly in some cases. Please
824 consider using compatibility mode 10 or 12 instead. More details
825 about the issue are available in Debian#887904 and
826 <https://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2019/04/msg01442.html>.
827 Changes from v10 are:
829 - dh_installinit no longer installs service or tmpfile files,
831 nor generates maintainer scripts for those files. Please
832 use the new dh_installsystemd helper.
833 - The dh_systemd_enable and dh_systemd_start helpers have
835 been replaced by the new dh_installsystemd helper. For the
836 same reason, the systemd sequence for dh has also been
837 removed. If you need to disable the dh_installsystemd
838 helper tool, please use an empty override target.
839 Please note that the dh_installsystemd tool has a slightly
841 different behaviour in some cases (e.g. when using the
842 --name parameter).
843 - dh_installdirs no longer creates debian/package directories
845 unless explicitly requested (or it has to create a
846 subdirectory in it).
847 The vast majority of all packages will be unaffected by
849 this change.
850 - The makefile buildsystem now passes INSTALL="install
852 --strip-program=true" to make(1). Derivative buildsystems
853 (e.g. configure or cmake) are unaffected by this change.
854 - The autoconf buildsystem now passes --runstatedir=/run to
856 ./configure.
857 - The cmake buildsystem now passes
859 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_RUNSTATEDIR=/run to cmake(1).
860 - dh_installman will now prefer detecting the language from
862 the path name rather than the extension.
863 - dh_auto_install will now only create the destination
865 directory it needs. Previously, it would create the
866 package build directory for all packages. This will not
867 affect packages that only build with debhelper commands,
868 but it may expose bugs in commands not included in
869 debhelper.
870 - The helpers dh_installdocs, dh_installexamples,
872 dh_installinfo, and dh_installman now error out if their
873 config has a pattern that does not match anything or
874 reference a path that does not exist.
875 Known exceptions include building with the nodoc profile,
877 where the above tools will silently permit failed matches
878 where the patterns are used to specify documentation.
879 - The helpers dh_installdocs, dh_installexamples,
881 dh_installinfo, and dh_installman now accept the parameter
882 --sourcedir with same meaning as dh_install. Furthermore,
883 they now also fall back to debian/tmp like dh_install.
884 Migration note: A bug in debhelper 11 up to 11.1.5 made
886 dh_installinfo incorrectly ignore --sourcedir.
887 - The perl-makemaker and perl-build build systems no longer
889 pass -I. to perl. Packages that still need this behaviour
890 can emulate it by using the PERL5LIB environment variable.
891 E.g. by adding export PERL5LIB=. in their debian/rules file
892 (or similar).
893 - The PERL_USE_UNSAFE_INC environment variable is no longer
895 set by dh or any of the dh_auto_* tools. It was added as a
896 temporary work around to avoid a lot of packages failing to
897 build at the same time.
898 Note this item will eventually become obsolete as upstream
900 intends to drop support for the PERL_USE_UNSAFE_INC
901 environment variable. When perl drops support for it, then
902 this variable will be removed retroactively from existing
903 compat levels as well.
904 - The dh_makeshlibs helper will now exit with an error if
906 objdump returns a non-zero exit from analysing a given
907 file.
908 - The dh_installdocs and dh_installexamples tools may now
910 install most of the documentation in a different path to
911 comply with the recommendation from Debian policy §12.3
912 (since version 3.9.7).
913 Note that if a given source package only contains a single
915 binary package in debian/control or none of the packages
916 are -doc packages, then this change is not relevant for
917 that source package and you can skip to the next change.
918 By default, these tools will now attempt to determine a
920 "main package for the documentation" (called a doc-main-
921 package from here on) for every -doc package. If they find
922 such a doc-main-package, they will now install the
923 documentation into the path /usr/share/doc/doc-main-package
924 in the given doc package. I.e. the path can change but the
925 documentation is still shipped in the -doc package.
926 The --doc-main-package option can be used when the auto-
928 detection is insufficient or to reset the path to its
929 previous value if there is a reason to diverge from Debian
930 policy recommendation.
931 Some documentation will not be affected by this change.
933 These exceptions include the copyright file, changelog
934 files, README.Debian, etc. These files will still be
935 installed in the path /usr/share/doc/package.
936 - The dh_strip and dh_shlibdeps tools no longer uses filename
938 patterns to determine which files to process. Instead,
939 they open the file and look for an ELF header to determine
940 if a given file is an shared object or an ELF executable.
941 This change may cause the tools to process more files than
943 previously.
944 v12 Changes from v11 are:
946 - The dh_makeshlibs tool now generates shlibs files with
948 versioned dependency by default. This means that
949 -VUpstream-Version (a.k.a. -V) is now the default.
950 If an unversioned dependency in the shlibs file is wanted,
952 this can be obtained by passing -VNone instead. However,
953 please see dh_makeshlibs(1) for the caveat of unversioned
954 dependencies.
955 - The -s (--same-arch) option is removed. Please use -a
957 (--arch) instead.
958 - Invoking dh_clean -k now causes an error instead of a
960 deprecation warning.
961 - The --no-restart-on-upgrade option in dh_installinit has
963 been removed. Please use the new name --no-stop-on-upgrade
964 - There was a bug in the doit (and similar) functions from
966 Debian::Debhelper::Dh_Lib that made them spawn a shell in
967 one particular circumstance. This bug is now removed and
968 will cause helpers that rely on the bug to fail with a
969 "command not found"-error.
970 - The --list-missing and --fail-missing in dh_install has
972 been removed. Please use dh_missing and its corresponding
973 options, which can also see the files installed by other
974 helpers.
975 - The dh_installinit helper no longer installs configuration
977 for the upstart init system. Instead, it will abort the
978 build if it finds an old upstart configuration file. The
979 error is there to remind the package maintainer to ensure
980 the proper removal of the conffiles shipped in previous
981 versions of the package (if any).
982 - The dh_installdeb tool will do basic validation of some
984 dpkg-maintscript-helper(1) commands and will error out if
985 the commands appear to be invalid.
986 - The dh_missing tool will now default to --list-missing.
988 - The dh_makeshlibs tool will now only pass libraries to
990 dpkg-gensymbols(1) if the ELF binary has a SONAME
991 (containing ".so").
992 - The dh_compress tool no longer compresses examples (i.e.
994 anything installed in </usr/share/doc/package/examples>.)
995 - The standard sequence in dh now includes dh_dwz and
997 dh_installinitramfs by default. This makes the dwz and
998 installinitramfs sequences obsolete and they will now fail
999 with an error. If you want to skip these commands, then
1000 please insert an empty override target for them in
1001 debian/rules (e.g. override_dh_dwz:)
1002 - The build systems meson and autoconf no longer explicitly
1004 set the --libexecdir variable and thus relies on the build
1005 system default - which should be /usr/libexec (per FHS 3.0,
1006 adopted in Debian Policy 4.1.5).
1007 If a particular upstream package does not use the correct
1009 default, the parameter can often be passed manually via
1010 dh_auto_configure(1). E.g. via the following example:
1011 override_dh_auto_configure:
1013 dh_auto_configure -- --libexecdir=/usr/libexec
1014 Note the -- before the --libexecdir parameter.
1016 - The dh_installdeb tool no longer installs the maintainer
1018 provided conffiles file. The file has mostly been obsolete
1019 since compatibility level 3, where dh_installdeb began to
1020 automatically compute the resulting conffiles control file.
1021 - The dh_installsystemd tool no longer relies on
1023 dh_installinit for handling systemd services that have a
1024 sysvinit alternative. Both tools must now be used in such
1025 a case to ensure the service is properly started under both
1026 sysvinit and systemd.
1027 If you have an override for dh_installinit (e.g. to call it
1029 with --no-start) then you will probably need one for
1030 dh_installsystemd as well now.
1031 This change makes dh_installinit inject a misc:Pre-Depends
1033 for init-system-helpers (>= 1.54~). Please ensure that the
1034 package lists ${misc:Pre-Depends} in its Pre-Depends field
1035 before upgrading to compat 12.
1036 - The third-party dh_golang tool (from dh-golang package) now
1038 defaults on honoring DH_GOLANG_EXCLUDES variable for source
1039 installation in -dev packages and not only during the
1040 building process. Please set DH_GOLANG_EXCLUDES_ALL to
1041 false to revert to the previous behaviour. See
1042 Debian::Debhelper::Buildsystem::golang(3pm) for details and
1043 examples.
1044 - dh_installsystemduser is now included in the dh standard
1046 sequence by default.
1047 - The python-distutils buildsystem is now removed. Please
1049 use the third-party build system pybuild instead.
1050 v13 This is the recommended mode of operation.
1052 Changes from v12 are:
1054 - The meson+ninja build system now uses meson test instead of
1056 ninja test when running the test suite. Any override of
1057 dh_auto_test that passes extra parameters to upstream test
1058 runner should be reviewed as meson test is not command line
1059 compatible with ninja test.
1060 - All debhelper like tools based on the official debhelper
1062 library (including dh and the official dh_* tools) no
1063 longer accepts abbreviated command parameters. At the same
1064 time, dh now optimizes out calls to redundant dh_* helpers
1065 even when passed long command line options.
1066 - The ELF related debhelper tools (dh_dwz, dh_strip,
1068 dh_makeshlibs, dh_shlibdeps) are now only run for arch
1069 dependent packages by default (i.e. they are excluded from
1070 *-indep targets and are passed -a by default). If you need
1071 them for *-indep targets, you can add an explicit Build-
1072 Depends on dh-sequence-elf-tools.
1073 - The third-party gradle build system (from gradle-debian-
1075 helper package) now runs the upstream-provided test suite
1076 automatically. To suppress such behavior, override
1077 dh_auto_test.
1078 - The dh_installman tool now aborts if it sees conflicting
1080 definitions of a manpage. This typically happens if the
1081 upstream build system is installing a compressed version
1082 and the package lists an uncompressed version of the
1083 manpage in debian/package.manpages. Often the easiest fix
1084 is to remove the manpage from debian/package.manpages
1085 (assuming both versions are identical).
1086 - The dh_auto_* helpers now reset the environment variables
1088 HOME and common XDG_* variable. Please see description of
1089 the environment variables in "ENVIRONMENT" for how this is
1090 handled.
1091 This feature changed between debhelper 13 and debhelper
1093 13.2.
1094 - The dh command will now error if an override or hook target
1096 for an obsolete command are present in debian/rules (e.g.
1097 override_dh_systemd_enable:).
1098 - The dh_missing command will now default to --fail-missing.
1100 This can be reverted to a non-fatal warning by explicitly
1101 passing --list-missing like it was in compat 12.
1102 If you do not want the warning either, please omit the call
1104 to dh_missing. If you use the dh command sequencer, then
1105 you can do this by inserting an empty override target in
1106 the debian/rules file of the relevant package. As an
1107 example:
1108 # Disable dh_missing
1110 override_dh_missing:
1111 - The dh command sequencer now runs dh_installtmpfiles in the
1113 default sequence. The dh_installtmpfiles takes over
1114 handling of tmpfiles.d configuration files. Related
1115 functionality in dh_installsystemd is now disabled.
1116 Note that dh_installtmpfiles responds to
1118 debian/package.tmpfiles where dh_installsystemd used a name
1119 without the trailing "s".
1120 - Many dh_* tools now support limited variable expansion via
1122 the ${foo} syntax. In many cases, this can be used to
1123 reference paths that contain either spaces or
1124 dpkg-architecture(1) values. While this can reduce the
1125 need for dh-exec(1) in some cases, it is not a replacement
1126 dh-exec(1) in general. If you need filtering, renaming,
1127 etc., the package will still need dh-exec(1).
1128 Please see "Substitutions in debhelper config files" for
1130 syntax and available substitution variables. To dh_* tool
1131 writers, substitution expansion occurs as a part of the
1132 filearray and filedoublearray functions.
1133 - The dh command sequencer will now skip all hook and
1135 override targets for dh_auto_test, dh_dwz and dh_strip when
1136 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS lists the relevant nocheck / nostrip
1137 options.
1138 Any package relying on these targets to always be run
1140 should instead move relevant logic out of those targets.
1141 E.g. non-test related packaging code from
1142 override_dh_auto_test would have to be moved to
1143 execute_after_dh_auto_build or
1144 execute_before_dh_auto_install.
1145 - The cmake buildsystem now passes
1147 -DCMAKE_SKIP_INSTALL_ALL_DEPENDENCY=ON to cmake(1) to speed
1148 up automatic installation process. If for some reason you
1149 need previous behavior, override the flag:
1150 dh_auto_configure -- -DCMAKE_SKIP_INSTALL_ALL_DEPENDENCY=OFF ...
1152 v14 This compatibility level is still open for development; use with
1154 caution.
1155 Changes from v13 are:
1157 - The cmake buildsystem now passes -DCMAKE_SKIP_RPATH=ON and
1159 -DCMAKE_BUILD_RPATH_USE_ORIGIN=ON to cmake(1) to avoid some
1160 reproducibility issues.
1161 This can cause issues with running binaries directly from
1163 the build directories as they might now require a manually
1164 set LD_LIBRARY_PATH. If you need to override this change,
1165 we recommend that you try to pass the
1166 -DCMAKE_SKIP_RPATH=OFF option first to see if that fixes
1167 the problem (leaving CMAKE_BUILD_RPATH_USE_ORIGIN at its
1168 new default). This should undo the need for
1169 LD_LIBRARY_PATH and avoid the reproducibility issues on
1170 Linux, where $ORIGIN is supported by the runtime linkers.
1171 - The tool dh_installsysusers is now included in the default
1173 sequence.
1174
1176 Multiple binary package support
1177 If your source package generates more than one binary package,
1178 debhelper programs will default to acting on all binary packages when
1179 run. If your source package happens to generate one architecture
1180 dependent package, and another architecture independent package, this
1181 is not the correct behavior, because you need to generate the
1182 architecture dependent packages in the binary-arch debian/rules target,
1183 and the architecture independent packages in the binary-indep
1184 debian/rules target.
1185 To facilitate this, as well as give you more control over which
1187 packages are acted on by debhelper programs, all debhelper programs
1188 accept the -a, -i, -p, and -s parameters. These parameters are
1189 cumulative. If none are given, debhelper programs default to acting on
1190 all packages listed in the control file, with the exceptions below.
1191 First, any package whose Architecture field in debian/control does not
1193 match the DEB_HOST_ARCH architecture will be excluded ("Debian Policy,
1194 section 5.6.8").
1195 Also, some additional packages may be excluded based on the contents of
1197 the DEB_BUILD_PROFILES environment variable and Build-Profiles fields
1198 in binary package stanzas in debian/control, according to the draft
1199 policy at <https://wiki.debian.org/BuildProfileSpec>.
1200 Interaction between package selections and Build-Profiles
1202 Build-Profiles affect which packages are included in the package
1204 selections mechanisms in debhelper. Generally, the package selections
1205 are described from the assumption that all packages are enabled. This
1206 section describes how the selections react when a package is disabled
1207 due to the active Build-Profiles (or lack of active Build-Profiles).
1208 -a/--arch, -i/--indep OR no selection options (a raw "dh_X" call)
1210 The package disabled by Build-Profiles is silently excluded from
1211 the selection.
1212 Note you will receive a warning if all packages related to these
1214 selections are disabled. In that case, it generally does not make
1215 sense to do the build in the first place.
1216 -N package / --no-package package
1218 The option is accepted and effectively does nothing.
1219 -p package / --package package
1221 The option is accepted, but debhelper will not act on the package.
1222 Note that it does not matter whether a package is enabled or disabled
1224 by default.
1225 Automatic generation of Debian install scripts
1227 Some debhelper commands will automatically generate parts of Debian
1228 maintainer scripts. If you want these automatically generated things
1229 included in your existing Debian maintainer scripts, then you need to
1230 add #DEBHELPER# to your scripts, in the place the code should be added.
1231 #DEBHELPER# will be replaced by any auto-generated code when you run
1232 dh_installdeb.
1233 If a script does not exist at all and debhelper needs to add something
1235 to it, then debhelper will create the complete script.
1236 All debhelper commands that automatically generate code in this way let
1238 it be disabled by the -n parameter (see above).
1239 Note that the inserted code will be shell code, so you cannot directly
1241 use it in a Perl script. If you would like to embed it into a Perl
1242 script, here is one way to do that (note that I made sure that $1, $2,
1243 etc are set with the set command):
1244 my $temp="set -e\nset -- @ARGV\n" . << 'EOF';
1246 #DEBHELPER#
1247 EOF
1248 if (system($temp)) {
1249 my $exit_code = ($? >> 8) & 0xff;
1250 my $signal = $? & 0x7f;
1251 if ($exit_code) {
1252 die("The debhelper script failed with error code: ${exit_code}");
1253 } else {
1254 die("The debhelper script was killed by signal: ${signal}");
1255 }
1256 }
1257 Automatic generation of miscellaneous dependencies.
1259 Some debhelper commands may make the generated package need to depend
1260 on some other packages. For example, if you use dh_installdebconf(1),
1261 your package will generally need to depend on debconf. Or if you use
1262 dh_installxfonts(1), your package will generally need to depend on a
1263 particular version of xutils. Keeping track of these miscellaneous
1264 dependencies can be annoying since they are dependent on how debhelper
1265 does things, so debhelper offers a way to automate it.
1266 All commands of this type, besides documenting what dependencies may be
1268 needed on their man pages, will automatically generate a substvar
1269 called ${misc:Depends}. If you put that token into your debian/control
1270 file, it will be expanded to the dependencies debhelper figures you
1271 need.
1272 This is entirely independent of the standard ${shlibs:Depends}
1274 generated by dh_makeshlibs(1), and the ${perl:Depends} generated by
1275 dh_perl(1). You can choose not to use any of these, if debhelper's
1276 guesses don't match reality.
1277 Package build directories
1279 By default, all debhelper programs assume that the temporary directory
1280 used for assembling the tree of files in a package is debian/package.
1281 Sometimes, you might want to use some other temporary directory. This
1283 is supported by the -P flag. For example, "dh_installdocs
1284 -Pdebian/tmp", will use debian/tmp as the temporary directory. Note
1285 that if you use -P, the debhelper programs can only be acting on a
1286 single package at a time. So if you have a package that builds many
1287 binary packages, you will need to also use the -p flag to specify which
1288 binary package the debhelper program will act on.
1289 udebs
1291 Debhelper includes support for udebs. To create a udeb with debhelper,
1292 add "Package-Type: udeb" to the package's stanza in debian/control.
1293 Debhelper will try to create udebs that comply with debian-installer
1294 policy, by making the generated package files end in .udeb, not
1295 installing any documentation into a udeb, skipping over preinst,
1296 postrm, prerm, and config scripts, etc.
1297
1299 This section describes some of the environment variables that
1300 influences the behaviour of debhelper or which debhelper interacts
1301 with.
1302 It is important to note that these must be actual environment variables
1304 in order to affect the behaviour of debhelper (not simply Makefile
1305 variables). To specify them properly in debian/rules, be sure to
1306 "export" them. For example, "export DH_VERBOSE".
1307 DH_VERBOSE
1309 Set to 1 to enable verbose mode. Debhelper will output every
1310 command it runs. Also enables verbose build logs for some build
1311 systems like autoconf.
1312 DH_QUIET
1314 Set to 1 to enable quiet mode. Debhelper will not output commands
1315 calling the upstream build system nor will dh print which
1316 subcommands are called and depending on the upstream build system
1317 might make that more quiet, too. This makes it easier to spot
1318 important messages but makes the output quite useless as buildd
1319 log. Ignored if DH_VERBOSE is also set.
1320 DH_COMPAT
1322 Temporarily specifies what compatibility level debhelper should run
1323 at, overriding any value specified via Build-Depends on debhelper-
1324 compat or via the debian/compat file.
1325 DH_NO_ACT
1327 Set to 1 to enable no-act mode.
1328 DH_OPTIONS
1330 All debhelper tools will parse command line arguments listed in
1331 this variable before any command option (as if they had been
1332 prepended to the command line arguments). Unfortunately, some
1333 third-party provided tools may not support this variable and will
1334 ignore these command line arguments.
1335 When using dh(1), it can be passed options that will be passed on
1337 to each debhelper command, which is generally better than using
1338 DH_OPTIONS.
1339 DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE
1341 If set, this adds the value the variable is set to to the -X
1342 options of all commands that support the -X option. Moreover,
1343 dh_builddeb will rm -rf anything that matches the value in your
1344 package build tree.
1345 This can be useful if you are doing a build from a CVS source tree,
1347 in which case setting DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS will prevent any CVS
1348 directories from sneaking into the package you build. Or, if a
1349 package has a source tarball that (unwisely) includes CVS
1350 directories, you might want to export DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS in
1351 debian/rules, to make it take effect wherever your package is
1352 built.
1353 Multiple things to exclude can be separated with colons, as in
1355 DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS:.svn
1356 DH_EXTRA_ADDONS
1358 If set, this adds the specified dh addons to be run in the
1359 appropriate places in the sequence of commands. This is equivalent
1360 to specifying the addon to run with the --with flag in the
1361 debian/rules file. Any --without calls specifying an addon in this
1362 environment variable will not be run.
1363 This is intended to be used by downstreams or specific local
1365 configurations that require a debhelper addon to be run during
1366 multiple builds without having to patch a large number of rules
1367 file. If at all possible, this should be avoided in favor of a
1368 --with flag in the rules file.
1369 DH_COLORS, DPKG_COLORS
1371 These variables can be used to control whether debhelper commands
1372 should use colors in their textual output. Can be set to "always",
1373 "auto" (the default), or "never".
1374 Note that DPKG_COLOR also affects a number of dpkg related tools
1376 and debhelper uses it on the assumption that you want the same
1377 color setting for dpkg and debhelper. In the off-hand chance you
1378 want different color setting for debhelper, you can use DH_COLORS
1379 instead or in addition to DPKG_COLORS.
1380 NO_COLOR
1382 If no explicit request for color has been given (e.g. DH_COLORS and
1383 DPKG_COLORS are both unset), the presence of this environment
1384 variable cause the default color setting to be "never".
1385 The variable is defined according to <https://no-color.org/>. In
1387 this project, the environment variables (such as DH_COLORS) are
1388 considered an explicit request for color.
1389 CFLAGS, CPPFLAGS, CXXFLAGS, OBJCFLAGS, OBJCXXFLAGS, GCJFLAGS, FFLAGS,
1391 FCFLAGS, LDFLAGS
1392 By default (in any non-deprecated compat level), debhelper will
1393 automatically set these flags by using dpkg-buildflags(1), when
1394 they are unset. If you need to change the default flags, please
1395 use the features from dpkg-buildflags(1) to do this (e.g.
1396 DEB_BUILD_MAINT_OPTIONS=hardening=all or
1397 DEB_CPPFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND=-DCUSTOM_MACRO=true) rather than setting
1398 the concrete variable directly.
1399 HOME, XDG_*
1401 In compat 13 and later, these environment variables are reset
1402 before invoking the upstream build system via the dh_auto_*
1403 helpers. The variables HOME (all dh_auto_* helpers) and
1404 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (dh_auto_test only) will be set to a writable
1405 directory. All remaining variables and XDG_RUNTIME_DIR (except for
1406 during dh_auto_test) will be cleared.
1407 The HOME directory will be created as an empty directory but it
1409 will be reused between calls to dh_auto_*. Any content will
1410 persist until explicitly deleted or dh_clean.
1411 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
1413 Please see "Supported flags in DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS" for this
1414 environment variable.
1415 Please note that this variable should not be altered by package
1417 maintainers inside debian/rules to change the behaviour of
1418 debhelper. Instead, where the package maintainer need these
1419 features, they should look disabling the relevant feature directly
1420 (e.g. by overriding the concrete tools).
1421 DEB_MAINT_BUILD_OPTIONS
1423 This is a dpkg specific environment variable (see e.g.
1424 dpkg-buildflags(1)). The debhelper tool suite silently ignores it.
1425 It is documented here because it has a similar name to
1427 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS, which make some people mistakenly assume that
1428 debhelper will also react to this variable.
1429 Supported flags in DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
1431 The debhelper tool suite reacts to the following flags in
1432 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS.
1433 dherroron=obsolete-compat-levels
1435 This is a debhelper specific value.
1436 When dherroron is present and set to obsolete-compat-levels, then
1438 debhelper tools will promote deprecation warnings for usage of old
1439 soon to be removed compat levels into errors.
1440 This is useful for automated checking for code relying on
1442 deprecated compat levels that is scheduled for removal.
1443 This option is intended for testing purposes; not production
1445 builds.
1446 nostrip
1448 This value will change the content of the debs being built. The
1449 .deb packages built when this is set is therefore not bit-for-bit
1450 reproducible with a regular build in the general case.
1451 This value will cause the official debhelper tools will skip
1453 actions and helpers that either remove, detach or deduplicate
1454 debugging symbols in ELF binaries.
1455 This value affects dh_dwz(1) and dh_strip(1).
1457 nocheck
1459 This value will cause the official debhelper build systems to skip
1460 runs of upstream test suites.
1461 Package maintainers looking to avoid running the upstream tests
1463 should not rely on this. Instead, they can add an empty override
1464 target to skip dh_auto_test.
1465 This value affects dh_auto_test(1).
1467 nodoc
1469 This value will change the content of the debs being built. The
1470 .deb packages built when this is set is therefore not bit-for-bit
1471 reproducible with a regular build in the general case.
1472 This value will cause several debhelper tools to skip installation
1474 of documentation such as manpages or upstream provided
1475 documentation. Additionally, the tools will also ignore if
1476 declared documentation is "missing" on the assumption that the
1477 documentation has not been built.
1478 This value effects tools like dh_installdocs(1), which knows it is
1480 working with documentation.
1481 noautodbgsym, noddebs
1483 The official name is autodbgsym. The noddebs variant is accepted
1484 for historical reasons.
1485 This value causes debhelper to skip the generation of automatically
1487 generated debug symbol packages.
1488 This value affects dh_strip(1).
1490 parallel=N
1492 This value enables debhelper to use up to N threads or processes
1493 (subject to parameters like --no-parallel and --max-parallel=M).
1494 Not all debhelper tools work with parallel tasks and may silently
1495 ignore the request.
1496 This value affects many debhelper tools. Most notably dh_auto_*,
1498 which will attempt to run the underlying upstream build system with
1499 that number of threads.
1500 terse
1502 This value will cause the official debhelper build systems to
1503 configure upstream builds to be terse (i.e. reduce verbosity in
1504 their output). This is subject to the upstream and the debhelper
1505 build system supporting such features.
1506 This value affects most dh_auto_* tools.
1508 Unknown flags are silently ignored.
1510 Note third-party debhelper-like tools or third-party provided build
1512 systems may or may not react to the above flags. This tends to depend
1513 on implementation details of the tool.
1514
1516 /usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/
1517 A set of example debian/rules files that use debhelper.
1518 <http://joeyh.name/code/debhelper/>
1520 Debhelper web site.
1521
1523 Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>
152413.3.4 2021-05-13 debhelper(7)