§2023-08-16

• How to Create a Simple Debian Package

1. Cretae a directory test

alexlai@orgpi5Jammy:~/build/debian-proj$ mkdir test && cd $_
alexlai@orgpi5Jammy:~/build/debian-proj/test$

2. only two file in it

• test.sh executable
• test.conf configuration file

$ cat test.conf 
NAME=Test
$ cat test.sh
#!/bin/bash
. test.conf
echo "Hi $NAME"

3. Creat direcories

We know that the executable files in Debian are kept in the /bin folder and the configuration files in the /etc folder. Following the convention, we’ll keep the test.sh file in the /bin folder and test.conf in the /etc folder.

Hence, we create two folders, bin and etc, in our current directory:

alexlai@orgpi5Jammy:~/build/debian-proj/test$ mkdir {bin,etc}
alexlai@orgpi5Jammy:~/build/debian-proj/test$ ls -l
total 8
drwxrwxr-x 2 alexlai alexlai  6 Aug 16 15:34 bin
drwxrwxr-x 2 alexlai alexlai  6 Aug 16 15:34 etc
-rw-rw-r-- 1 alexlai alexlai 10 Aug 16 15:30 test.conf
-rwxrwxr-x 1 alexlai alexlai 42 Aug 16 15:31 test.sh

4. The control File

Finally, we need a control file that contains the metadata for the package. This is a text file with fields and descriptions. The supported fields are:

• Package (Required): Name of package
• Version (Required): Version of the package
• Maintainer (Required): Name and email of maintainer
• Architecture (Required): Supported target machine architecture
• Description (Required): Short description of the package
• Section: Package classification like admin, database, kernel, utils
• Priority: Whether the package is optional or required
• Essential: Whether the package is always required
• Depends: List other dependent packages like libc6 (>= 2.2.4-4)
• Homepage: URL of the website associated with the package
• Package-Type: Indicate the types, like deb or udeb, for example

As mentioned above, some fields are required and others are optional.

Using this information, let’s create a control file with the required fields and some of the recommended fields. This file goes under a folder named DEBIAN:

alexlai@orgpi5Jammy:~/build/debian-proj/test$ mkdir DEBIAN
alexlai@orgpi5Jammy:~/build/debian-proj/test$ cat DEBIAN/control 
Package: test
Version: 1.0-1
Section: utils
Priority: optional
Architecture: all
Maintainer: Baeldung <test@test.com>
Description: This is a test application
 for packaging

5. test build

alexlai@orgpi5Jammy:~/build/debian-proj$ dpkg-deb --root-owner-group --build test
dpkg-deb: building package 'test' in 'test.deb'.

4. Verify the Package 4.1. Check Contents Once the package is created, we can verify if the files are present in it by running the dpkg command:

bluelake@pacific:~/Documents/deb/build$ dpkg -c test.deb drwxr-xr-x thinkpalm/thinkpalm 0 2021-12-23 12:09 ./ drwxr-xr-x thinkpalm/thinkpalm 0 2021-12-23 11:30 ./bin/ -rwxr-xr-x thinkpalm/thinkpalm 40 2021-12-23 11:15 ./bin/test.sh drwxr-xr-x thinkpalm/thinkpalm 0 2021-12-23 11:30 ./etc/ -rw-r--r-- thinkpalm/thinkpalm 10 2021-12-23 11:15 ./etc/test.conf Copy From the results, we see that it contains the files we have added in their expected paths.

4.2. Linting In order to further comply with the Debian packaging conventions, we can lint the package. For this, we use the tool called lintian.

Let’s see how we can use this tool:

bluelake@pacific:~/Documents/deb/build$ lintian test.deb E: test: debian-changelog-file-missing E: test: file-in-etc-not-marked-as-conffile etc/test.conf E: test: no-copyright-file W: test: script-with-language-extension bin/test.sh W: test: binary-without-manpage bin/test.sh Copy After running the command, we can see some errors marked as E and warnings marked as W.

Let’s check how we can fix these, one by one.

freestar Changelog File Missing:

To fix this error, we can add a changelog file:

bluelake@pacific:~/Documents/deb/build$ cat changelog.Debian test (1.0-2) stable; urgency=low

[ Baeldung ]

• Changes to installer

-- Baeldung test@test.com Thu, 23 Dec 2021 11:30:00 +0100

test (1.0-1) stable; urgency=low

[ Baeldung ]

• Wonderful program to print the name ;)

-- Baeldung test@test.com Thu, 23 Dec 2021 11:00:00 +0100 bluelake@pacific:/Documents/deb/build$ gzip --best -n changelog.Debian bluelake@pacific:/Documents/deb/build$ mkdir -p test/usr/share/doc/test bluelake@pacific:~/Documents/deb/build$ cp changelog.Debian.gz test/usr/share/doc/test/ Copy Marking File as Conf File:

In order to fix this error, we can add a conffile in the DEBIAN folder:

bluelake@pacific:~/Documents/deb/build$ cat test/DEBIAN/conffiles /etc/test.conf Copy Adding Copyright File:

To fix this one, we can add a copyright file:

bluelake@pacific:~/Documents/deb/build$ cat test/usr/share/doc/test/copyright test

Copyright: 2020 Baeldung test@test.com

2020-12-23

The entire code base may be distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), which appears immediately below. Alternatively, all of the source code as any code derived from that code may instead be distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), at the choice of the distributor. The complete text of the LGPL appears at the bottom of this file.

See /usr/share/common-licenses/(GPL|LGPL) Copy Removing Extension for Binary File:

Let’s remove the extension for the script file to fix this error:

freestar bluelake@pacific:~/Documents/deb/build$ mv test/bin/test.sh test/bin/test Copy Adding Man Entry for Binary:

Let’s add a man file to fix this error:

bluelake@pacific:~/Documents/deb/build$ cat test.1 ." Hey, EMACS: -- nroff -- ." (C) Copyright 2020 Baeldung test@test.com ." .TH TEST 1 .SH NAME test - test application .SH SYNOPSIS .B test.sh .SH DESCRIPTION The .B test prints the name. .SH SEE ALSO .BR echo (1). .SH AUTHORS The .B test script was written by Baeldung test@test.com .PP This document was written by Baeldung test@test.com for Debian.

bluelake@pacific:/Documents/deb/build$ gzip --best -n test.1 bluelake@pacific:/Documents/deb/build$ ls build.sh changelog.Debian.gz changelog.gz test test_1.0-1.deb test.1.gz bluelake@pacific:/Documents/deb/build$ mkdir -p test/usr/share/man/man1 bluelake@pacific:/Documents/deb/build$ cp test.1.gz test/usr/share/man/man1/ Copy The final folder structure would be:

bluelake@pacific:~/Documents/deb/build$ tree test test ├── bin │ └── test ├── DEBIAN │ ├── conffiles │ └── control ├── etc │ └── test.conf └── usr └── share ├── doc │ └── test │ ├── changelog.Debian.gz │ └── copyright └── man └── man1 └── test.1.gz

9 directories, 7 files Copy Let’s build this again:

bluelake@pacific:/Documents/deb/build$ dpkg-deb --root-owner-group --build test dpkg-deb: building package 'test' in 'test.deb'. bluelake@pacific:/Documents/deb/build$ mv test.deb test_1.0-2.deb bluelake@pacific:/Documents/deb/build$ lintian test_1.0-2.deb bluelake@pacific:/Documents/deb/build$ Copy Now, we can see all the errors and warnings are fixed.

5. Conclusion In this tutorial, we went through the process of creating a deb package with minimum steps. We hope this will be a good starting point for learning to create Debian packages.