devscripts - scripts to ease the lives of Debian developers
The devscripts package provides a collection of scripts
which may be of use to Debian developers and others wishing to build Debian
packages. For a summary of the available scripts, please see the file
/usr/share/doc/devscripts/README.gz, and for full details, please see
the individual manpages. They are contributed by multiple developers; for
details of the authors, please see the code or manpages.
Also, the directory /usr/share/doc/devscripts/examples
contains examples of procmail and exim scripts for sorting
mail arriving to Debian mailing lists.
Several scripts of the devscripts suite use the following
environment variables. Check the man pages of individual scripts for more
details on how the variables are used.
- DEBEMAIL
- Email of the person acting on a given Debian package via devscripts.
- DEBFULLNAME
- Full name (first + family) of the person acting on a given Debian package
via devscripts.
Here is the complete list of available devscripts. See their man
pages for additional documentation.
- annotate-output(1)
- run a command and prepend time and stream (O for stdout, E for stderr) for
every line of output.
- archpath(1)
- Prints arch (tla/Bazaar) package names. Also supports calculating the
package names for other branches. [tla | bazaar]
- bts(1)
- A command-line tool for accessing the Debian Bug Tracking System, both to
send mails to control@bts.debian.org and to access the web pages and SOAP
interface of the BTS. [www-browser, libauthen-sasl-perl,
libnet-smtps-perl, libsoap-lite-perl, liburi-perl, libwww-perl, bsd-mailx
| mailx]
- build-rdeps(1)
- Searches for all packages that build-depend on a given package.
[dctrl-tools, dose-extra, libdpkg-perl]
- chdist(1)
- tool to easily play with several distributions. [dctrl-tools]
- checkbashisms(1)
- check whether a /bin/sh script contains any common bash-specific
constructs.
- cowpoke(1)
- upload a Debian source package to a cowbuilder host and build it,
optionally also signing and uploading the result to an incoming queue.
[ssh-client]
- cvs-debi,
cvs-debc(1)
- wrappers around debi and debc respectively (see below) which allow them to
be called from the CVS working directory. [cvs-buildpackage]
- cvs-debrelease(1)
- wrapper around debrelease which allows it to be called from the CVS
working directory. [cvs-buildpackage, dupload | dput, ssh-client]
- cvs-debuild(1)
- A wrapper for cvs-buildpackage to use debuild as its package building
program. [cvs-buildpackage, fakeroot, lintian, gnupg |gnupg2]
- dcmd(1)
- run a given command replacing the name of a .changes or .dsc file with
each of the files referenced therein. *
- dd-list(1)
- given a list of packages, pretty-print it ordered by maintainer. *
- debbisect(1)
- bisect snapshot.debian.org to find which change in the archive introduced
a certain problem. [mmdebstrap, python3-debian]
- debc(1)
- List contents of current package. Do this after a successful
"debuild" to see if the package looks all right.
- debchange
(abbreviation dch)(1)
- Modifies debian/changelog and manages version numbers for you. It will
either increment the version number or add an entry for the current
version, depending upon the options given to it. [libdistro-info-perl,
libsoap-lite-perl]*
- debcheckout(1)
- checkout the development repository of a Debian package. *
- debclean(1)
- Clean a Debian source tree. Debclean will clean all Debian source trees
below the current directory, and if requested, also remove all files that
were generated from these source trees (that is .deb, .dsc and .changes
files). It will keep the .diffs and original files, though, so that the
binaries and other files can be rebuilt if necessary. [fakeroot]*
- debcommit(1)
- Commits changes to cvs, darcs, svn, svk, tla, bzr, git, or hg, using new
entries in debian/changelog as the commit message. Also supports tagging
Debian package releases. [cvs | darcs | subversion | svk | tla | bzr |
git-core | mercurial, libtimedate-perl]
- debdiff(1)
- A program which examines two .deb files or two .changes files and reports
on any difference found in their file lists. Useful for ensuring that no
files were inadvertently lost between versions. Can also examine two .dsc
files and report on the changes between source versions. For a deeper
comparison one can use the diffoscope package. [wdiff, patchutils]*
- debdiff-apply(1)
- Apply unified diffs of two Debian source packages, such as those generated
by debdiff, to a target Debian source package. Any changes to
debian/changelog are dealt with specially, to avoid the conflicts that
changelog diffs typically produce when applied naively. May be used to
check that old patches still apply to newer versions of those packages.
[python3-debian, python3-unidiff, quilt]
- debi(1)
- Installs the current package by using the setuid root debpkg script
described below. It assumes that the current package has just been built
(for example by debuild), and the .deb lives in the parent directory, and
will effectively run dpkg -i on the .deb. The ability to install the
package with a very short command is very useful when troubleshooting
packages.
- debpkg(1)
- A wrapper for dpkg used by debi to allow convenient testing of packages.
For debpkg to work, it needs to be made setuid root, and this needs to be
performed by the sysadmin -- it is not installed as setuid root by
default. (Note that being able to run a setuid root debpkg is effectively
the same as having root access to the system, so this should be done with
caution.) Having debpkg as a wrapper for dpkg can be a Good Thing (TM), as
it decreases the potential for damage by accidental wrong use of commands
in superuser mode (e.g., an inadvertent rm -rf * in the wrong directory is
disastrous as many can attest to).
- debrelease(1)
- A wrapper around dupload or dput which figures out which version to
upload, and then calls dupload or dput to actually perform the upload.
[dupload | dput, ssh-client]
- debrebuild(1)
- A script that provided a .buildinfo file reports the instructions on how
to try to reproduce the reported build. [sbuild | mmdebstrap,
libdistro-info-perl]
- debrepro(1)
- A script that tests reproducibility of Debian packages. It will build a
given source directory twice, with a set of variation between the first
and second build, and compare the binary packages produced. If diffoscope
is installed, it is used to compare non-matching binaries. If disorderfs
is installed, it is used during the build to inject non-determinism in
filesystem listing operations. [faketime, diffoscope, disorderfs]
- debrsign(1)
- This transfers a .changes/.dsc pair to a remote machine for signing, and
runs debsign on the remote machine over an SSH connection. [gnupg |
gnupg2, debian-keyring, ssh-client]
- debsign(1)
- Use GNU Privacy Guard to sign the changes (and possibly dsc) files created
by running dpkg-buildpackage with no-sign options. Useful if you are
building a package on a remote machine and wish to sign it on a local one.
This script is capable of automatically downloading the .changes and .dsc
files from a remote machine. [gnupg |gnupg2, debian-keyring,
ssh-client]*
- debsnap(1)
- grab packages from https://snapshot.debian.org [libwww-perl,
libjson-perl]
- debuild(1)
- A wrapper for building a package (i.e., dpkg-buildpackage) to avoid
problems with insufficient permissions and wrong paths etc. Debuild will
set up the proper environment for building a package. Debuild will use the
fakeroot program to build the package by default, but can be instructed to
use any other gain-root command, or can even be installed setuid root.
Debuild can also be used to run various of the debian/rules operations
with the same root-gaining procedure. Debuild will also run lintian to
check that the package does not have any major policy violations.
[fakeroot, lintian, gnupg | gnupg2]*
- deb-reversion(1)
- increases a binary package version number and repacks the package, useful
for porters and the like.
- deb-why-removed(1)
- shows the reason a package was removed from the archive.
[libdpkg-perl]
- dep3changelog(1)
- generate a changelog entry from a DEP3-style patch header.
- given a freedesktop.org desktop file, generate a skeleton for a menu file.
[libfile-desktopentry-perl]
- dget(1)
- Downloads Debian source and binary packages. Point at a .changes or .dsc
to download all references files. Specify a package name to download it
from the configured apt repository. [wget | curl]
- diff2patches(1)
- extracts patches from a .diff.gz file placing them under debian/ or, if
present, debian/patches. [patchutils]
- dpkg-depcheck,
dpkg-genbuilddeps(1)
- Runs a specified command (such as debian/rules build) or
dpkg-buildpackage, respectively, to determine the packages used during the
build process. This information can be helpful when trying to determine
the packages needed in the Build-Depends etc. lines in the debian/control
file. [build-essential, strace]
- extract a single file from a Debian source package. [patchutils]
- dscverify(1)
- check the signature and MD5 sums of a dsc file against the most current
Debian keyring on your system. [gnupg | gnupg2, debian-keyring]
- edit-patch(1)
- add/edit a patch for a source package and commit the changes. [quilt |
dpatch | cdbs]
- getbuildlog(1)
- download package build logs from Debian auto-builders. [wget]
- git-deborig(1)
- try to produce Debian orig.tar using git-archive(1). [libdpkg-perl,
libgit-wrapper-perl, liblist-compare-perl, libstring-shellquote-perl,
libtry-tiny-perl]
- grep-excuses(1)
- grep britney's excuses to find out what is happening to your packages.
[libdbd-pg-perl, libterm-size-perl, libyaml-syck-perl, wget, w3m]
- hardening-check(1)
- report the hardening characteristics of a set of binaries.
- list-unreleased(1)
- searches for packages marked UNRELEASED in their changelog.
- ltnu (Long Time No
Upload)(1)
- List all uploads of packages by the given uploader or maintainer and
display them ordered by the last upload of that package, oldest uploads
first.
- manpage-alert(1)
- locate binaries without corresponding manpages. [man-db]
- mass-bug(1)
- mass-file bug reports. [bsd-mailx | mailx]
- mergechanges(1)
- merge .changes files from the same release but built on different
architectures.
- mk-build-deps(1)
- Given a package name and/or control file, generate a binary package which
may be installed to satisfy the build-dependencies of the given package.
[equivs]
- mk-origtargz(1)
- Rename upstream tarball, optionally changing the compression and removing
unwanted files. [libfile-which-perl, unzip, xz-utils, file]
- namecheck(1)
- Check project names are not already taken.
- nmudiff(1)
- prepare a diff of this version (presumably an NMU against the previously
released version (as per the changelog) and submit the diff to the BTS.
[patchutils, mutt]
- origtargz(1)
- fetch the orig tarball of a Debian package from various sources, and
unpack it. [pristine-tar]
- plotchangelog(1)
- display information from a changelog graphically using gnuplot.
[libtimedate-perl, gnuplot]
- pts-subscribe(1)
- subscribe to the PTS (Package Tracking System) for a limited period of
time. [bsd-mailx | mailx, at]
- rc-alert(1)
- list installed packages which have release-critical bugs. [wget |
curl]
- reproducible-check(1)
- reports on the reproducible status of installed packages. For more details
please see <https://reproducible-builds.org>.
- rmadison(1)
- remotely query the Debian archive database about packages. [liburi-perl,
wget | curl]
- sadt(1)
- run DEP-8 tests. [python3-debian]
- salsa(1)
- manipulates salsa.debian.org repositories and users
[libgitlab-api-v4-perl]
- suspicious-source(1)
- output a list of files which are not common source files.
[python3-magic]
- svnpath(1)
- Prints the path to the Subversion repository of a Subversion checkout.
Also supports calculating the paths for branches and tags in a repository
independent fashion. Used by debcommit to generate svn tags.
[subversion]
- tagpending(1)
- runs from a Debian source tree and tags bugs that are to be closed in the
latest changelog as pending. [libsoap-lite-perl]
- transition-check(1)
- Check a list of source packages for involvement in transitions for which
uploads to unstable are currently blocked. [libwww-perl,
libyaml-syck-perl]
- uscan(1)
- Automatically scan for and download upstream updates. Uscan can also call
a program such as uupdate to attempt to update the Debianised version
based on the new update. Whilst uscan could be used to release the updated
version automatically, it is probably better not to without testing it
first. Uscan can also verify detached OpenPGP signatures if upstream's
signing key is known. [file, gpgv | gpgv2, gnupg | gnupg2,
libfile-dirlist-perl, libfile-touch-perl, libfile-which-perl,
liblwp-protocol-https-perl, libmoo-perl, libwww-perl, unzip,
xz-utils]*
- uupdate(1)
- Update the package with an archive or patches from an upstream author.
This will be of help if you have to update your package. It will try to
apply the latest diffs to your package and tell you how successful it was.
[patch]
- what-patch(1)
- determine what patch system, if any, a source package is using.
[patchutils]
- whodepends(1)
- check which maintainers' packages depend on a package.
- who-permits-upload(1)
- Retrieve information about Debian Maintainer access control lists. [gnupg
| gnupg2, libencode-locale-perl, libwww-perl, debian-keyring]
- who-uploads(1)
- determine the most recent uploaders of a package to the Debian archive.
[gnupg | gnupg2, debian-keyring, debian-maintainers, wget]
- wnpp-alert(1)
- list installed packages which are orphaned or up for adoption. [wget |
curl]
- wnpp-check(1)
- check whether there is an open request for packaging or intention to
package bug for a package. [wget | curl]
- wrap-and-sort(1)
- wrap long lines and sort items in packaging files. [python3-debian]