Maintaining packages on Debian/Ubuntu (II)

Let's end up the last part of the article about Maintaining packages on Debian/Ubuntu. In the previous writing and by means of the dh_make utility, I set up the necessary structure to create the final package later.

The most important file of that structure is control, which provides information about the package. Also pay attention to the postinst.ex and preinst.ex files, which can include shell scripts run after or before installing the package, and postrm.ex and prerm.ex, executed after or before uninstalling the application.

root@ubuntu-server:/tmp/nano/nano-2.2.6# cat debian/control 
Source: nano
Section: unknown
Priority: extra
Maintainer: root <root@ubuntu-server.local>
Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 8.0.0), autotools-dev
Standards-Version: 3.9.2
Homepage: <insert the upstream URL, if relevant>
#Vcs-Git: git://git.debian.org/collab-maint/nano.git
#Vcs-Browser: http://git.debian.org/?p=collab-maint/nano.git;a=summary

Package: nano
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
Description: <insert up to 60 chars description>
 <insert long description, indented with spaces>

And lastly, we just have to develop the deb package through dpkg-buildpackage, a program which automates the process of making a Debian package. First up, it prepares the build context by setting different environment variables. Then, it checks that the build dependencies and conflicts are satisfied, and finally, generates the deb package.

root@ubuntu-server:/tmp/nano/nano-2.2.6# dpkg-buildpackage
...
dpkg-deb: building package `nano' in `../nano_2.2.6-1_i386.deb'.
 dpkg-genchanges  >../nano_2.2.6-1_i386.changes
dpkg-genchanges: including full source code in upload
 dpkg-source --after-build nano-2.2.6
dpkg-buildpackage: full upload (original source is included)

Below you can see the package which has been turned out.

root@ubuntu-server:/tmp/nano/nano-2.2.6# file ../nano_2.2.6-1_i386.deb 
../nano_2.2.6-1_i386.deb: Debian binary package (format 2.0)

If you want to verify that this package has been correctly created, you can use the lintian tool, which dissects Debian packages and reports bugs and policy violations.

root@ubuntu-server:/tmp/nano/nano-2.2.6# lintian -i ../nano_2.2.6-1_i386.deb

Now you have to take into account that when you distribute this package on the target machine, you have to hold the package available in the official repository, that is, cancel any active installation, upgrade, or removal, and prevent in this way that this package is automatically updated in the future.

root@target:~# aptitude hold nano

root@target:~# aptitude show nano
Package: nano                            
State: installed [held]
...