DH_FIXPERMS(1)

📦
version 14.5ubuntu1 · 12 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💅 DH_FIXPERMS(1) — the Debhelper one ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to dh_fixperms, a page straight out of the Debhelper manual 💖 pull up a chair, grab a boba, we're fixing file permissions today and honestly? it's giving glow-up.

🌸 NAME 🌸

dh_fixperms — fix permissions of files in package build directories 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

dh_fixperms [debhelper options] [-Xitem]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so like, dh_fixperms is a debhelper program and its whole job — its entire main character arc — is setting the permissions of files and directories inside package build directories to a sane state. and by sane we mean a state that complies with Debian policy. no chaos, no rogue modes, just vibes that policy will accept 🫶

here's the full rundown, and yes every single one of these is real:

  • it makes all files in usr/share/doc in the package build directory be mode 644 — but wait, lowkey important: files in the examples/ directory are excluded from that 🙈
  • it also changes the permissions of all man pages to mode 644 ✨
  • it removes group and other write permission from all files 💀
  • it removes execute permissions from any libraries, headers, Perl modules, or desktop files that have it set
  • it makes all files in the standard bin and sbin directories, usr/games/ and etc/init.d executable (since v4) 🔥
  • and finally? it removes the setuid and setgid bits from all files in the package, periodt 👑

and one more thing — when the Rules-Requires-Root field has the (effective) value of binary-targets, dh_fixperms will also reset the ownership of all paths to "root:root". not optional, just how it is 💅

🌈 OPTIONS 🌈

  • -Xitem, --exclude item — exclude files that contain item anywhere in their filename from having their permissions changed. and yes you can use this option multiple times to build up a whole little list of things to exclude 🦋

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

this program is a part of debhelper 💜

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> 🌸

okay bestie that's the whole page, you ate it, you understood it, slay. this was version 14.5ubuntu1, dated 2026-09-21 — go forth and fix those perms, no cap 💖✨👑

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