debhelper(7)

📦
version 14.5ubuntu1 · 10 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

✨ debhelper(7) ✨

okay bestie, welcome to debhelper(7) — this is the page you read when you're leveling up your packaging game, and ngl it is dense. But we're gonna get through it together, fr fr. 💅

💖 NAME 💖

debhelper-compat-upgrade-checklist — the glow-up checklist for every supported debhelper compat level. Basically: "you're on compat what now? okay here's what changes when you move up." 👑

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

This doc is a straight-up upgrade checklist covering all the supported debhelper compat levels. It also just… lists all the supported debhelper compat levels. Two-for-one, iconic. 💖

There's also the dh_assistant compat-upgrade-checklist command, which will hand you a checklist tailored to your package, starting from compat 7 and up (requires debhelper/13.25 or later). Its one big catch? Its heuristics are only as accurate as heuristics can be, so double-check its vibe. Peep the docs for dh_assistant(1) if you want the details. 🔍

Wanna know how you even declare a compat level in the first place? That's in "COMPATIBILITY LEVELS" in debhelper(7). Go look, we'll wait. 🫶

And if you're crawling out of a (now) obsolete compat level, that's a whole different page — go read debhelper-obsolete-compat(7). 🪦

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

🎀 Upgrade checklist for supported compatibility levels 🎀

These are the compatibility levels that are available. Buckle up, bestie. 🌈

👑 v15

This compatibility level is still open for development — use with caution. It's giving "beta era, proceed mindfully." 🙈

Changes from v14 are:

  • The single-binary add-on for dh is no longer implicitly activated by source packages that have a single Package stanza in debian/control. If your package needs the short-cuts for single-binary packages, it has to explicitly activate the single-binary add-in. 🌟

You can do that via a Build-Depends on dh-sequence-single-binary.

And any --without single-binary you were passing to dh just to dodge the warning in compat 14? That can now be removed to simplify debian/rules without triggering the warning. Clean-up era. 🧹

  • It is now an error to use package-less versions of debhelper configuration files when there are 2 or more binary packages listed in debian/control, in most cases. Legacy files should be renamed to debian/package.foo (from debian/foo), where package is the first binary package listed in debian/control. 🔥

The primary exception to this change are files such as debian/changelog, debian/NEWS, and debian/copyright, where the same file is used for all packages by default. Those cases remain unchanged, no stress there. 🍓

  • It is now an error to use a packaging file without the package prefix for --name, even if the source package only produces one binary package. Example time! Say you had a debian/bar.service with this little snippet in debian/rules:
override_dh_installsystemd:
 dh_installsystemd -p foo --name bar

Then you need to rename debian/bar.service to debian/foo.bar.service. That's it, that's the fix. 💅

⭐ v14

This is the recommended mode of operation. Bestie, this is the safe pick. 🫶

Changes from v13 are:

  • The dh_installmodules tool will now install its configuration files under /usr/lib/modprobe.d/package instead of /etc/modprobe.d. 👀

Please consider using the "rm_conffile" feature from dh_installdeb(1) to make sure previous modprobe files get properly removed.

Note: Retroactively change in debhelper/14.1 — The dh_installpam command had a similar change, which was reverted at the request of the pam maintainer. 😭 So yeah, that one walked back.
  • Packages using the dh sequencer should be aware of these changes: 🚨
    • The order and placement has changed for dh_strip_nondeterminism, dh_compress, and dh_fixperm. Previously, these three commands were run in the listed order between dh_installxfonts and dh_missing.

Their new placement is after dh_missing (arch:all) or dh_shlibdeps (arch:any) and before dh_installdeb. Additionally, their new order is dh_fixperms, dh_strip_nondeterminism, and then dh_compress. 🔄

This change may require updates to third-party add-ons that use either of these three commands as anchor or to hook targets for any of these commands that made assumptions about the command order. 👀

Additionally, dh_strip_nondeterminism and dh_compress plus any commands added by third-party add-ons using these as anchors will no longer be able to rely on the mode/ownership normalization by dh_fixperms, which may expose bugs in the form of incorrect mode or ownership in the resulting binary package. 💀

Please file any such bugs against the relevant tool. Feel free to include the debhelper maintainers in CC. 🫶

  • The tool dh_installsysusers is now included in the default sequence. This helper tool will process systemd sysusers files. ✨
  • The dh_installalternatives tool will now be run after dh_link rather than after dh_installinitramfs in the default dh sequence. 🔀
  • The dh_dwz command has been removed from the default sequence. If it is still desired, add dh-sequence-dwz to Build-Depends-Arch or run it in execute_before_dh_strip-arch with -a to get the closest emulation of the previous behavior. 🛠️
Note: The dh_dwz command will cause a lot of differences in the generated debug symbols. If you use diffoscope as part of your compat upgrade checks, you may want to temporarily use dh_dwz to keep the delta reviewable while upgrading and then remove dh_dwz afterwards. 👀
  • Use of the dh_gconf command in override and hook targets now causes an error. The dh_gconf command has been a no-op for years and was removed in debhelper 13.4. 💀 It's gone, bestie, let it go.
  • A new tool called dh_computeautosubstvars has been added and is now run immediately before dh_gencontrol. If you inject commands before dh_gencontrol (either via hook targets or third-party sequence add-on), consider moving them to after dh_installdeb instead, as the new tool generally assumes no more changes will occur between it is called and dh_gencontrol is called. 🤔

Notable exception to this assumption if you have to tweak substvars per <https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2024/03/msg00030.html>.

  • This item only applies to source packages that have exactly one Package stanza in debian/control. 📌

The dh_auto_install command now unconditionally uses --destdir=debian/tmp by default. The special-case for source packages building a single binary package is now moved to single-binary dh addon. Note, this add-on is activated by default in compat 14 but not in compat 15 (see next bullet item). ⚠️

  • This item only applies to source packages that have exactly one Package stanza in debian/control. 📌

The dh sequencer will warn if the single-binary addon is implicitly activated, to warn maintainers of the pending compat 15 change in dh_auto_install. The implicit activation is a transitional feature to reduce the changes of risks with this change. In compat 15, the implicit activation will no longer trigger. 🚧

Maintainers are urged to either explicitly activate the single-binary addon to preserve the existing behaviour (e.g., by adding dh-sequence-single-binary to Build-Depends), or explicitly passing --destdir to dh_auto_install if used and then passing --without single-binary to dh (the latter to silence the warning). 👑

The rationale for this change is to avoid "surprises" when adding a second binary package later. Previously, debhelper would silently change behaviour often resulting in empty binary packages being uploaded to the archive by mistake. With the new behaviour, the single-binary addon will detect the mismatch and warn the maintainer of what is about to happen. 🙈

  • The dh_installsystemduser tool will default to enabling systemd user units, start them on installation, restart them on upgrades and stop them on uninstalling the package. Units that should not be started/stopped/restarted automatically should be marked with the RefuseManualStart=yes and/or RefuseManualStop=yes unit directives. 🎀
  • The dh_gencontrol tool now automatically applies relationship substvars to relevant fields. That means that many substvars such as ${misc:Depends} and ${shlibs:Depends} no longer need to be explicitly mentioned in debian/control. 🤯 This applies to any substvar named after a field that the installed version of dpkg considers a relation or dependency-like field (e.g., ${*:Depends}, ${*:Recommends}). At the time of writing, the list consists of:
    • Pre-Depends
    • Depends
    • Recommends
    • Suggests
    • Enhances
    • Conflicts
    • Breaks
    • Replaces
    • Provides
    • Built-Using
    • Static-Built-Using

This means that Depends: foo, ${misc:Depends} in debian/control can now be reduced to Depends: foo and Depends: ${misc:Depends}, ${shlibs:Depends} can be removed entirely as examples of how the feature works. 🔥

Note that other substvars such as ${binary:Version} are unaffected by this change and should still be used explicitly as necessary. Additionally, for Essential: yes packages that manually promoted ${shlibs:Depends} into Pre-Depends field, dh_shlibdeps will handle this automatically as well (see the next compat item). 💖

okay so the full deets on this proposal live at <https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2024/02/msg00230.html> 💖 and the summary at <https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2024/03/msg00030.html> also covers when the substvars actually need tweaking. The most common case? Using the -d option from dpkg-shlibdeps, possibly via dh_shlibdeps.

🚨 Note: this change is gonna cause false-positives from an unfixed lintian(1). Please check <https://bugs.debian.org/1067653> for lintian(1) support for this change.

And finally — and because of implementation details, no less — debhelper also applies this feature to the substvars for these fields:

  • The dh_shlibdeps tool now defaults to using ${shlibs:Pre-Depends} for packages that are Essential: yes 👑
    • Good news tho: because of that dh_gencontrol change above, any package using dh_gencontrol does not have to do anything at all for this migration. Nothing. Zero. 💅
    • Fixed in debhelper/14.3: there was a bug in the implementation that meant it didn't trigger for compat 14 before debhelper/14.3 💀
  • When running dh_auto_install, debhelper-provided build systems now make sure all paths in the destdir have minimal user permissions (chmod -R u+rwX) so you don't get weird permission-denied errors during builds.
    • Third-party debhelper build systems are recommended to support this too, bestie. You do it by running
$this->ensure_minimal_permissions($destdir) if not compat(13);

in the debhelper Buildsystem code, from your sub install implementation, after the upstream code has been run ✨

  • Not using dh_auto_install and still hitting weird permission-denied errors? Running chmod -R u+rwX DIRECTORY after you run the install target from the upstream build system often solves it.
  • But please 🥺 take care to check if your package has any special cases for permissions where files or directories for some reason must not have the "user write bit" set. Known cases are *.ali files and /etc/sudoers.d, and dh_fixperms will fix those up by default.
  • The problem with uncommon permissions has always been there in theory, but it got considerably more visible with dh_fixperms running later in the sequence as of compat 14, and with the move to remove fakeroot by default (which used to paper over some of these issues). This change is here to mitigate the problem.
  • The debhelper configuration files are getting these changes too:
    • You now get a warning for using package-less versions of debhelper configuration files when there are 2 or more binary packages listed in debian/control, in most cases. Legacy files should be renamed to debian/package.foo (from debian/foo), where package is the first binary package listed in debian/control.
      • The primary exception to this change: files such as debian/changelog, debian/NEWS, and debian/copyright, where the same file is used for all packages by default. Those cases stay unchanged. The debhelper tool using the files will trigger warnings on usage.
      • In compat 15 (or later), this is changed to an error 😭
      • For most packages, this one can be fixed by running:
apt-get satisfy 'debputy (>= 0.1.73~), debhelper (>= 13.26~)'
debputy migrate-from-dh --migration-target=dh-package-prefixed-config-files
  • The only known caveat are architecture specific configuration files (such as debian/symbols.amd64 or debian/install.amd64).
  • You also now get a warning for using a packaging file without the package prefix for --name, even if the source package only produces one binary package. Example: say you had a debian/bar.service with this snippet in debian/rules:
override_dh_installsystemd:
   dh_installsystemd -p foo --name bar

Then you need to rename debian/bar.service to debian/foo.bar.service.

  • In compat 15 (or later), this is changed to an error.
  • For most packages, this item can be fixed by running:
apt-get satisfy 'debputy (>= 0.1.73~), debhelper (>= 13.26~)'
debputy migrate-from-dh --migration-target=dh-package-prefixed-config-files
  • The only known caveat are architecture specific configuration files. The debhelper stack does not accept any config files that have architecture restrictions and --name. Third-party add-ons might, though 🙈
  • The default look up rules for Dh_Lib based tools now assume that configuration files are no longer named (--name) nor support architecture restrictions by default. If you work with a third-party debhelper-like tool and need support for either of these features, please file a bug against the tool asking it to declare its configuration file with the relevant options in its pkgfile call.
    • Note that debhelper itself tweaked its rules for most of its tools as well, based on analysis of usage via codesearch.debian.org. If you're relying on a feature like architecture restrictions for a given config file that is no longer supported, please file a feature request for the use-case and it might be restored 🥺
  • Packages using the cmake build system, listen up 📣:
    • The cmake buildsystem now passes -DCMAKE_BUILD_RPATH_USE_ORIGIN=ON to cmake(1) to avoid some reproducibility issues.
    • The cmake build system now sets the ASMFLAGS environment variable when it is unset and ASFLAGS is present. The former name (ASMFLAGS) is the name cmake expects, while the latter (ASFLAGS) is the name that dpkg-buildpackage(1) uses.
    • The cmake build systems now use cmake --install instead of make install in the dh_auto_install(1) call. So any override of dh_auto_install that passes extra parameters to the upstream build system should be reviewed 👀
  • Packages using the meson build system, same energy:
    • The meson build system now passes --auto-features=enabled to meson.
    • The meson+ninja build system now use meson install instead of ninja install in the dh_auto_install(1) call. Any override of dh_auto_install that passes extra parameters to the upstream build system should be reviewed.
  • The debian/compat file is no longer accepted as a source for specifying the debhelper compat level. Please review "COMPATIBILITY LEVELS" in debhelper(7) for alternatives.
  • The tool dh_installtmpfiles now runs with --remove on package removal, and --purge on package purge. systemd v256 is required for the latter.
  • The dh_lintian tool no longer accepts architecture specific overrides files for packages with Multi-Arch: same in debian/control, since these would not be co-installable. Instances affected by this error should migrate to lintian(1) architecture specific overrides.
  • The third-party dh_qmldeps tool (from pkg-kde-tools package) no longer demote detected dependencies. In v13 you get warnings about demotions. You can use the -d dependency field in the debian/PKG.qmlfiles to get the dependencies end up in the correct dependency field.

✨ v13 Changes from v12 are: ✨

  • The meson+ninja build system now uses meson test instead of ninja test when running the test suite. Any override of dh_auto_test that passes extra parameters to upstream test runner should be reviewed, as meson test is not command line compatible with ninja test.
  • All debhelper like tools based on the official debhelper library (including dh and the official dh_* tools) no longer accepts abbreviated command parameters. And at the very same time, dh now optimizes out calls to redundant dh_* helpers even when passed long command line options 🔥
  • The ELF related debhelper tools (dh_dwz, dh_strip, dh_makeshlibs, dh_shlibdeps) are now only run for arch dependent packages by default (i.e. they are excluded from *-indep targets and are passed -a by default). If you need them for *-indep targets, you can add an explicit Build-Depends on dh-sequence-elf-tools.
  • The third-party gradle build system (from gradle-debian-helper package) now runs the upstream-provided test suite automatically. To suppress such behavior, override dh_auto_test.
  • The dh_installman tool now aborts if it sees conflicting definitions of a manpage. This typically happens if the upstream build system is installing a compressed version and the package lists an uncompressed version of the manpage in debian/package.manpages. Often the easiest fix is to remove the manpage from debian/package.manpages (assuming both versions are identical).
  • The dh_auto_* helpers now reset the environment variable HOME and the common XDG_* variables. Please see description of the environment variables in "ENVIRONMENT" in debhelper(1) for how this is handled 🦋

(still the same bullet, bestie, we're just picking up mid-thought 💅) This feature changed between debhelper 13 and debhelper 13.2.

  • The dh command will now error out 💀 if an override or hook target for an obsolete command are present in debian/rules (like override_dh_systemd_enable:). So if you've got ghosts of helpers past haunting your rules file, it's gonna yell at you.
  • The dh_missing command will now default to --fail-missing. If you want the old non-fatal warning vibe back, you can revert it by explicitly passing --list-missing, exactly like it was in compat 12.

And if you don't want the warning either? Just omit the call to dh_missing entirely. Using the dh command sequencer? Then you can do it by inserting an empty override target in the debian/rules file of the relevant package. Example, periodt:

# Disable dh_missing
override_dh_missing:
  • The dh command sequencer now runs dh_installtmpfiles in the default sequence. ✨ The dh_installtmpfiles takes over handling of tmpfiles.d configuration files, and the related functionality in dh_installsystemd is now disabled.

Lowkey important note: dh_installtmpfiles responds to debian/package.tmpfiles — where dh_installsystemd used a name without the trailing "s". Yes the "s" matters, don't come for me.

  • Many dh_* tools now support limited variable expansion via the ${foo} syntax. 🪄 In many cases, this can be used to reference paths that contain either spaces or dpkg-architecture(1) values. While this can reduce the need for dh-exec(1) in some cases, it is not a replacement for dh-exec(1) in general. If you need filtering, renaming, etc., the package will still need dh-exec(1).

Please see "Substitutions in debhelper config files" for syntax and available substitution variables. And to all the dh_* tool writers out there: substitution expansion occurs as a part of the filearray and filedoublearray functions. iykyk 🫶

  • The dh command sequencer will now skip all hook and override targets for dh_auto_test, dh_dwz and dh_strip when DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS lists the relevant nocheck / nostrip options.

Any package relying on these targets to always be run should instead move the relevant logic out of those targets. E.g. non-test related packaging code from override_dh_auto_test would have to be moved to execute_after_dh_auto_build or execute_before_dh_auto_install. Relocate, don't cry. 😭

  • The cmake buildsystem now passes -DCMAKE_SKIP_INSTALL_ALL_DEPENDENCY=ON to cmake(1) to speed up the automatic installation process. If for some reason you need the previous behavior, override the flag like this:
dh_auto_configure -- -DCMAKE_SKIP_INSTALL_ALL_DEPENDENCY=OFF ...

### v12 Changes from v11 are: 💖

  • The dh_makeshlibs tool now generates shlibs files with versioned dependency by default. That means -VUpstream-Version (a.k.a. -V) is now the default. Slay.

If an unversioned dependency in the shlibs file is wanted, you can get it by passing -VNone instead. However, please see dh_makeshlibs(1) for the caveat of unversioned dependencies. Read the docs, bestie, not just the vibes.

  • The -s (--same-arch) option is removed. Please use -a (--arch) instead.
  • Invoking dh_clean -k now causes an error instead of a deprecation warning. It was giving "hey maybe don't" and now it's giving "absolutely not". 🚫
  • The --no-restart-on-upgrade option in dh_installinit has been removed. Please use the new name --no-stop-on-upgrade.
  • There was a bug in the doit (and similar) functions from Debian::Debhelper::Dh_Lib that made them spawn a shell in one particular circumstance. This bug is now removed and will cause helpers that rely on the bug to fail with a "command not found"-error. 💀
  • The --list-missing and --fail-missing in dh_install has been removed. Please use dh_missing and its corresponding options, which can also see the files installed by other helpers.
  • The dh_installinit helper no longer installs configuration for the upstart init system. Instead, it will abort the build if it finds an old upstart configuration file. The error is there to remind the package maintainer to ensure the proper removal of the conffiles shipped in previous versions of the package (if any). It's not being dramatic, it's being helpful. 🙈
  • The dh_installdeb tool will do basic validation of some dpkg-maintscript-helper(1) commands and will error out if the commands appear to be invalid.
  • The dh_missing tool will now default to --list-missing.
  • The dh_makeshlibs tool will now only pass libraries to dpkg-gensymbols(1) if the ELF binary has a SONAME (containing .so).
  • The dh_compress tool no longer compresses examples (i.e. anything installed in </usr/share/doc/package/examples>).
  • The standard sequence in dh now includes dh_dwz and dh_installinitramfs by default. 🔥 This makes the dwz and installinitramfs sequences obsolete and they will now fail with an error. If you want to skip these commands, then please insert an empty override target for them in debian/rules (e.g. override_dh_dwz:).
  • The build systems meson and autoconf no longer explicitly set the --libexecdir variable and thus relies on the build system default — which should be /usr/libexec (per FHS 3.0, adopted in Debian Policy 4.1.5).

If a particular upstream package does not use the correct default, the parameter can often be passed manually via dh_auto_configure(1). E.g. via the following example:

override_dh_auto_configure:
    dh_auto_configure -- --libexecdir=/usr/libexec

Note the -- before the --libexecdir parameter. Do not forget the --. The -- is the main character here. 👑

  • Retroactively removed in debhelper/13.5:

The dh_installdeb tool would no longer install the maintainer provided conffiles file as it was deemed unnecessary. However, the remove-on-upgrade from dpkg/1.20 made the file relevant again and dh_installdeb now installs it again in compat levels 12+.

  • The dh_installsystemd tool no longer relies on dh_installinit for handling systemd services that have a sysvinit alternative. Both tools must now be used in such a case to ensure the service is properly started under both sysvinit and systemd.

If you have an override for dh_installinit (e.g. to call it with --no-start) then you will probably need one for dh_installsystemd as well now.

This change makes dh_installinit inject a misc:Pre-Depends for init-system-helpers (>= 1.54~). Please ensure that the package lists ${misc:Pre-Depends} in its Pre-Depends field before upgrading to compat 12. Do not skip this step, it's not optional and it's not cute. 😤

  • The third-party dh_golang tool (from dh-golang package) now defaults on honoring DH_GOLANG_EXCLUDES variable for source installation in -dev packages and not only during the building process. Please set DH_GOLANG_EXCLUDES_ALL to false to revert to the previous behaviour. See Debian::Debhelper::Buildsystem::golang(3pm) for details and examples.
  • dh_installsystemduser is now included in the dh standard sequence by default. ✨
  • The python-distutils buildsystem is now removed. Please use the third-party build system pybuild instead. It's gone, bestie, it's not coming back. 🦋

### v11 — This mode is discouraged. 😬

The compat 11 is discouraged for new packages as it suffers from feature interaction between dh_installinit and dh_installsystemd causing services to not run correctly in some cases. Please consider using compatibility mode 10 or 12 instead. More details about the issue are available in Debian#887904 and <https://lists.debian.org/debian-release/2019/04/msg01442.html>.

Changes from v10 are:

  • dh_installinit no longer installs service or tmpfile files, nor generates maintainer scripts for those files. Please use the new dh_installsystemd helper.
  • The dh_systemd_enable and dh_systemd_start helpers have been replaced by the new dh_installsystemd helper. For the same reason, the systemd sequence for dh has also been removed. If you need to disable the dh_installsystemd helper tool, please use an empty override target.

Please note that the dh_installsystemd tool has a slightly different behaviour in some cases (e.g. when using the --name parameter). Slightly different is still different, okay? 🙈

  • dh_installdirs no longer creates debian/package directories unless explicitly requested (or it has to create a subdirectory in it).

The vast majority of all packages will be unaffected by this change. You're probably fine. Probably. 💅

  • The makefile buildsystem now passes INSTALL="install --strip-program=true" to make(1). Derivative buildsystems (e.g. configure or cmake) are unaffected by this change.
  • The autoconf buildsystem now passes --runstatedir=/run to ./configure.
  • The cmake buildsystem now passes -DCMAKE_INSTALL_RUNSTATEDIR=/run to cmake(1).
  • dh_installman will now prefer detecting the language from the path name rather than the extension.
  • dh_auto_install will now only create the destination directory it needs. Previously, it would create the package build directory for all packages. This will not affect packages that only build with debhelper commands, but it may expose bugs in commands not included in debhelper. Snitches get... well, they get exposed bugs. 🐛
  • The helpers dh_installdocs, dh_installexamples, dh_installinfo, and dh_installman now error out if their config has a pattern that does not match anything or reference a path that does not exist.

Known exceptions include building with the nodoc profile, where the above tools will silently permit failed matches where the patterns are used to specify documentation.

  • The helpers dh_installdocs, dh_installexamples, dh_installinfo, and dh_installman now accept the parameter --sourcedir with same meaning as dh_install. Furthermore, they now also fall back to debian/tmp like dh_install.

Migration note: A bug in debhelper 11 up to 11.1.5 made dh_installinfo incorrectly ignore --sourcedir. 🙈

  • The perl-makemaker and perl-build build systems no longer pass -I. to perl. Packages that rely on this behavior can often use the PERL5LIB environment variable as a substitute. E.g. by adding export PERL5LIB=. in their debian/rules file (or similar).
  • The PERL_USE_UNSAFE_INC environment variable is no longer set by dh or any of the dh_auto_* tools. It was added as a temporary work around to avoid a lot of packages failing to build at the same time.

Note this item will eventually become obsolete as upstream intends to drop support for the PERL_USE_UNSAFE_INC environment variable. When perl drops support for it, then this variable will be removed retroactively from existing compat levels as well. 💀

  • The dh_makeshlibs helper will now exit with an error if objdump returns a non-zero exit from analysing a given file.
  • The dh_installdocs and dh_installexamples tools may now install most of the documentation in a different path to comply with the recommendation from Debian policy §12.3 (since version 3.9.7). 📚

Note that if a given source package only contains a single binary package in debian/control or none of the packages are -doc packages, then this change is not relevant for that source package and you can skip to the next change. 🫶

By default, these tools will now attempt to determine a "main package for the documentation" (called a doc-main-package from here on) for every -doc package. If they find such a doc-main-package, they will now install the documentation into the path /usr/share/doc/doc-main-package in the given doc package. I.e. the path can change but the documentation is still shipped in the -doc package.

The --doc-main-package option (or, since debhelper/13.28, the X-Doc-Main-Package field) can be used when the auto-detection is insufficient or to reset the path to its previous value if there is a reason to diverge from Debian policy recommendation.

Some documentation will not be affected by this change. These exceptions include the copyright file, changelog files, README.Debian, etc. These files will still be installed in the path /usr/share/doc/package. ✨

  • The dh_strip and dh_shlibdeps tools no longer uses filename patterns to determine which files to process. Instead, they open the file and look for an ELF header to determine if a given file is an shared object or an ELF executable. 🔍

This change may cause the tools to process more files than previously.

🌈 v10 — Changes from v9 are: 🌈

  • dh_installinit will no longer installs a file named debian/package as an init script.
  • dh_installdocs will error out if it detects links created with --link-doc between packages of architecture all and non-all as it breaks binNMUs. 😤
  • dh_installdeb no longer installs a maintainer-provided debian/package.shlibs file. This is now done by dh_makeshlibs instead.
  • dh_installwm refuses to create a broken package if no man page can be found (required to register for the x-window-manager alternative).
  • Debhelper will default to --parallel for all buildsystems that support parallel building. This can be disabled by using either --no-parallel or passing --max-parallel with a value of 1.
  • The dh command will not accept any of the deprecated "manual sequence control" parameters (--before, --after, etc.). Please use override targets instead. 👑

Retroactively applied to earlier compat levels: dh no longer accepts any of these since debhelper/12.4.

  • The dh command will no longer use log files to track which commands have been run. The dh command still keeps track of whether it already ran the build sequence and skip it if it did.

The main effects of this are: 👇

  • With this, it is now easier to debug the install or/and binary sequences because they can now trivially be re-run (without having to do a full "clean and rebuild" cycle)
  • The main caveat is that dh_* now only keeps track of what happened in a single override target. When all the calls to a given dh_cmd command happens in the same override target everything will work as before.

Example of where it can go wrong:

override_dh_foo:
  dh_foo -pmy-pkg

override_dh_bar:
  dh_bar
  dh_foo --remaining

In this case, the call to dh_foo --remaining will also include my-pkg, since dh_foo -pmy-pkg was run in a separate override target. This issue is not limited to --remaining, but also includes -a, -i, etc. 😭

  • The dh_installdeb command now shell-escapes the lines in the maintscript config file. This was the original intent but it did not work properly and packages have begun to rely on the incomplete shell escaping (e.g. quoting file names).
  • The dh_installinit command now defaults to --restart-after-upgrade. For packages needing the previous behaviour, please use --no-restart-after-upgrade.
  • The autoreconf sequence is now enabled by default. Please pass --without autoreconf to dh if this is not desirable for a given package
  • The systemd sequence is now enabled by default. Please pass --without systemd to dh if this is not desirable for a given package. 🔥
  • Retroactively removed: dh no longer creates the package build directory when skipping running debhelper commands. This will not affect packages that only build with debhelper commands, but it may expose bugs in commands not included in debhelper.

This compatibility feature had a bug since its inception in debhelper/9.20130516 that made it fail to apply in compat 9 and earlier. As there has been no reports of issues caused by this bug in those ~5 years, this item have been removed rather than fixed. 💅

🌸 v9 — Changes from v8 are: 🌸

  • Multiarch support. In particular, dh_auto_configure passes multiarch directories to autoconf in --libdir and --libexecdir.
  • dh is aware of the usual dependencies between targets in debian/rules. So, "dh binary" will run any build, build-arch, build-indep, install, etc targets that exist in the rules file. There's no need to define an explicit binary target with explicit dependencies on the other targets.
  • dh_strip compresses debugging symbol files to reduce the installed size of -dbg packages.
  • dh_auto_configure does not include the source package name in --libexecdir when using autoconf.
  • dh does not default to enabling --with=python-support 🐍

(Obsolete: As the dh_pysupport tool was removed from Debian stretch. Since debhelper/10.3, dh no longer enables this sequence add-on regardless of compat level)

  • All of the dh_auto_* debhelper programs and dh set environment variables listed by dpkg-buildflags, unless they are already set.
  • dh_auto_configure passes dpkg-buildflags CFLAGS, CPPFLAGS, and LDFLAGS to perl Makefile.PL and Build.PL
  • dh_strip puts separated debug symbols in a location based on their build-id.
  • Executable debhelper config files are run and their output used as the configuration.

This mode is deprecated.

🦋 v8 — Changes from v7 are: 🦋

  • Commands will fail rather than warning when they are passed unknown options.
  • dh_makeshlibs will run dpkg-gensymbols on all shared libraries that it generates shlibs files for. So -X can be used to exclude libraries. Also, libraries in unusual locations that dpkg-gensymbols would not have processed before will be passed to it, a behavior change that can cause some packages to fail to build.
  • dh requires the sequence to run be specified as the first parameter, and any switches come after it. Ie, use "dh $@ --foo", not "dh --foo $@".
  • dh_auto_* prefer to use Perl's Module::Build in preference to Makefile.PL.

This mode is deprecated. 💀

🎀 v7 — This mode is deprecated. 🎀

This is the lowest supported compatibility level.

If you are upgrading from an earlier compatibility level, please review debhelper-obsolete-compat(7). 🙏

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

  • debhelper-obsolete-compat(7) — Upgrading from a (now) obsolete compatibility level? This document covers the upgrade checklist up to the earliest supported level. 🧚
  • debhelper(7) — General information about the debhelper framework. This document also covers how to declare your chosen debhelper compat level.

🫶 AUTHORS 🫶

Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>

Joey Hess

okay bestie that's a wrap on the whole debhelper(7) saga 💖 this page is version 14.5ubuntu1, dated 2026-09-21, and it lives in section 7 of the manual (yes, that's the debhelper(7) we've been screaming about the entire time 🌸). go forth and package, you absolute icon 👑✨

📦 where this page comes from