.\" Author: Oxan van Leeuwen .\" Includes text from the deb-control manual page by Raul Miller .TH deb\-src\-control 5 "2011-08-14" "Debian Project" "Debian" .SH NAME deb\-src\-control \- Debian source packages' master control file format . .SH SYNOPSIS control . .SH DESCRIPTION Each Debian source package contains the master "control" file, which contains at least 2 paragraphs, separated by a blank line. The first paragraph lists all information about the source package in general, while each following paragraph describes exactly one binary package. Each paragraph consists of at least one field. A field starts with a fieldname, such as .B Package or .B Section (case insensitive), followed by a colon, the body of the field and a newline. Multi-line fields are also allowed, but each supplementary line, without a fieldname, should start with at least one space. The content of the multi-line fields is generally joined to a single line by the tools (except in the case of the .B Description field, see below). To insert empty lines into a multi-line field, insert a dot after the space. Lines starting with a \fB'#'\fP are treated as comments. . .SH SOURCE FIELDS .TP .BR Source: " \fIsource-package-name\fP (required)" The value of this field is the name of the source package, and should match the name of the source package in the debian/changelog file. A package name must consist only of lower case letters (a-z), digits (0-9), plus (+) and minus (-) signs, and periods (.). Package names must be at least two characters long and must start with an alphanumeric character. .TP .BR Maintainer: " \fIfullname-email\fP (required)" Should be in the format "Joe Bloggs ", and references the person who currently maintains the package, as opposed to the author of the software or the original packager. .TP .BI Uploaders: " fullname-email" Lists all the names and email addresses of co-maintainers of the package, in the same format as the Maintainer field. Multiple co-maintainers should be separated by a comma. .TP .BI Standards\-Version: " version-string" This documents the most recent version of the standards (which consists of the Debian Policy Manual and referenced texts from the .B debian\-policy package) this package complies to. .TP .BR DM\-Upload\-Allowed: " \fByes\fP|\fBno\fP" This field indicates whether the package can be uploaded by Debian Maintainers appearing in the Maintainer or Uploaders field. The default value is "no". .TP .BI Homepage: " url" The upstream project home page URL. .TP .BI Bugs: " url" The \fIurl\fP of the bug tracking system for this package. The current used format is \fIbts-type\fP\fB://\fP\fIbts-address\fP, like \fBdebbugs://bugs.debian.org\fP. This field is usually not needed. .TP .BI Vcs\-*: " url" The \fIurl\fP of the Version Control System repository used to maintain this package. Currently supported are \fBArch\fP, \fBBzr\fP (Bazaar), \fBCvs\fP, \fBDarcs\fP, \fBGit\fP, \fBHg\fP (Mercurial), \fBMtn\fP (Monotone) and \fBSvn\fP (Subversion). Usually this field points to the latest version of the package, such as the main branch or the trunk. .TP .BI Vcs\-Browser: " url" The \fIurl\fP of a webinterface to browse the Version Control System repository. .TP .BI Origin: " name" The name of the distribution this package is originating from. This field is usually not needed. .TP .BI Section: " section" This is a general field that gives the package a category based on the software that it installs. Some common sections are "utils", "net", "mail", "text", "x11", etc. .TP .BI Priority: " priority" Sets the importance of this package in relation to the system as a whole. Common priorities are "required", "standard", "optional", "extra", etc. In Debian, the .B Section and .B Priority fields have a defined set of accepted values based on the Policy Manual. A list of these values can be obtained from the latest version of the .B debian\-policy package. .TP .BI Build\-Depends: " package-list" A list of packages that need to be installed and configured to be able to build the source package. .TP .BI Build\-Depends\-Indep: " package-list" Same as \fBBuild\-Depends\fP, but they are only needed when building the architecture independent packages. The \fBBuild\-Depends\fP are also installed in this case. .TP .BI Build\-Conflicts: " package-list" A list of packages that should not be installed when the package is build, for example because they interfere with the used build system. .TP .BI Build\-Conflicts\-Indep: " package-list" Same as \fBBuild\-Conflicts\fP, but only when building the architecture independent packages. The syntax of the .B Build\-Depends and .B Build\-Depends\-Indep fields is a list of groups of alternative packages. Each group is a list of packages separated by vertical bar (or "pipe") symbols, "|". The groups are separated by commas. Commas are to be read as "AND", and pipes as "OR", with pipes binding more tightly. Each package name is optionally followed by a version number specification in parentheses and an architecture specification in square brackets. The syntax of the .B Build\-Conflicts and .B Build\-Conflicts\-Indep fields is a list of comma-separated package names, where the comma is read as an "AND". Specifying alternative packages using a "pipe" is not supported. Each package name is optionally followed by a version number specification in parentheses and an architecture specification in square brackets. A version number may start with a ">>", in which case any later version will match, and may specify or omit the Debian packaging revision (separated by a hyphen). Accepted version relationships are ">>" for greater than, "<<" for less than, ">=" for greater than or equal to, "<=" for less than or equal to, and "=" for equal to. A architecture specification consists of one or more architecture names, separated by whitespace. Exclamation marks may be prepended to each of the names, meaning "NOT". Note that dependencies on packages in the .B build\-essential set can be omitted and that declaring build conflicts against them is impossible. A list of these packages is in the build\-essential package. .SH BINARY FIELDS .LP Note that the .BR Priority ", " Section and .B Homepage fields can also be in a binary paragraph to override the global value from the source package. .TP .BR Package: " \fIbinary-package-name\fP (required)" This field is used to name the binary package name. The same restrictions as to a source package name apply. .TP .BR Architecture: " \fIarch\fP|\fBall\fP|\fBany\fP (required)" The architecture specifies on which type of hardware this package runs. For packages that run on all architectures, use the .B any value. For packages that are architecture independent, such as shell and Perl scripts or documentation, use the .B all value. To restrict the packages to a certain set of architectures, specify the architecture names, separated by a space. It's also possible to put architecture wildcards in that list (see .BR dpkg\-architecture (1) for more information about them). .TP .BR Package\-Type: " \fBdeb\fP|\fBudeb\fP" This field defines the type of the package. "udeb" is for size-constrained packages used by the debian installer. "deb" is the default value, it's assumed if the field is absent. More types might be added in the future. .TP .PD 0 .BI Subarchitecture: " value" .TP .PD 0 .BI Kernel\-Version: " value" .TP .PD 0 .BI Installer\-Menu\-Item: " value" These fields are used by the debian\-installer and are usually not needed. See /usr/share/doc/debian\-installer/devel/modules.txt from the .B debian\-installer package for more details about them. .TP .PD 0 .BR Essential: " \fByes\fP|\fBno\fP" .TP .PD 0 .BR Multi\-Arch: " \fBsame\fP|\fBforeign\fP|\fBallowed\fP" .TP .PD 0 .BI Tag: " tag-list" .TP .PD 0 .BR Description: " \fIshort-description\fP (required)" These fields are described in the .BR deb\-control (5) manual page, as they are copied literally to the control file of the binary package. .TP .PD 0 .BI Depends: " package-list" .TP .PD 0 .BI Pre\-Depends: " package-list" .TP .PD 0 .BI Recommends: " package-list" .TP .PD 0 .BI Suggests: " package-list" .TP .PD 0 .BI Breaks: " package-list" .TP .PD 0 .BI Enhances: " package-list" .TP .PD 0 .BI Replaces: " package-list" .TP .PD 0 .BI Conflicts: " package-list" .TP .PD 0 .BI Provides: " package-list" .TP .PD 0 .BI Built\-Using: " package-list" .br These fields declare relationships between packages. They are discussed in the .BR deb\-control (5) manpage and in the .B debian\-policy package. .SH USER-DEFINED FIELDS It is allowed to add additional user-defined fields to the control file. The tools will ignore these fields. If you want the fields to be copied over to the output files, such as the binary packages, you need to use a custom naming scheme: the fields should start with a X, followed by one or more of the letters BCS and a hypen. If the letter B is used, the field will appear in the control file in the binary package, see .BR deb\-control (5), for the letter S in the source package control file as constructed by .BR dpkg\-source (1) and for the letter C in the upload control (.changes) file. Note that the X[BCS]\- prefixes are stripped when the fields are copied over to the output files. A field \fBXC\-Approved\-By\fP will appear as \fBApproved\-By\fP in the changes file and will not appear in the binary or source package control files. .SH EXAMPLE .\" .RS .nf # Comment Source: dpkg Section: admin Priority: required Maintainer: Dpkg Developers # this field is copied to the binary and source packages XBS\-Upstream\-Release\-Status: stable Homepage: http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg Vcs\-Browser: http://git.debian.org/?p=dpkg/dpkg.git Vcs\-Git: git://git.debian.org/git/dpkg/dpkg.git Standards\-Version: 3.7.3 Build\-Depends: pkg\-config, debhelper (>= 4.1.81), libselinux1\-dev (>= 1.28\-4) [!linux\-any] Package: dpkg\-dev Section: utils Priority: optional Architecture: all # this is a custom field in the binary package XB\-Mentoring\-Contact: Raphael Hertzog Depends: dpkg (>= 1.14.6), perl5, perl\-modules, cpio (>= 2.4.2\-2), bzip2, lzma, patch (>= 2.2\-1), make, binutils, libtimedate\-perl Recommends: gcc | c\-compiler, build\-essential Suggests: gnupg, debian\-keyring Conflicts: dpkg\-cross (<< 2.0.0), devscripts (<< 2.10.26) Replaces: manpages\-pl (<= 20051117\-1) Description: Debian package development tools This package provides the development tools (including dpkg\-source) required to unpack, build and upload Debian source packages. . Most Debian source packages will require additional tools to build; for example, most packages need make and the C compiler gcc. .fi .\" .RE .SH SEE ALSO .BR deb\-control (5), .BR deb\-version (5), .BR dpkg\-source (1)