DH_UCF(1)

📦
version 14.5ubuntu1 · 12 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 DH_UCF(1) 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because this is dh_ucf from the Debhelper manual, and she's lowkey iconic 💅

✨ NAME ✨

dh_ucf — register configuration files with ucf 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

dh_ucf [debhelper options] [-A] [-n] [file ...]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So like, dh_ucf is a debhelper program, and her whole job — her entire main character moment — is generating the postinst and postrm commands that register files with ucf(1) and ucfr(1). That's it. That's the girl. ✨

🍓 FILES 🍓

  • debian/package.ucf — this file is literally Where It's At. It lists pairs of source and destination files to register with ucf.

Each pair gets its own line, okay? One pair per line, no stacking. The source and destination are separated by whitespace.

Both the source and the destination must be absolute paths — no shortcuts, no relativity, we don't do that here 🙈

The source should be a file that your package provides, typically hanging out in /usr/share/, while the destination is typically a file in /etc/.

Not only that, but a dependency on ucf will be generated in ${misc:Depends}. Automatic. Slay. 💅

And in compat 13 and later, it supports substitution variables as documented in debhelper(7). periodt.

💜 OPTIONS 💜

  • -A, --all — install all files specified by command line parameters in ALL packages acted on. all of them. every last one. 👑
  • -n, --no-scripts — do not modify postinst/postrm scripts. This turns the whole command into a no-op, so she's just... standing there. existing. not doing anything. 💀
  • file ... — install these info files into the first package acted on. (Or in all packages if -A is specified.) 🫶

🎀 NOTES 🎀

⚠️ bestie, listen to me: this command is not idempotent. dh_prep(1) should be called between invocations of this command. Otherwise, it may cause multiple instances of the same text to be added to maintainer scripts. And we do NOT want duplicate text in the maintainer scripts, that's giving chaos energy 😭

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

This program is a part of debhelper. 💜

⭐ AUTHOR ⭐

Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> and Jeroen Schot <schot@a-eskwadraat.nl> — absolute legends, no cap 🫶

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this manual is from version 14.5ubuntu1, dated 2026-09-21 — write that in your notes, mwah 💋✨🌸

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