Debian Developer's Reference Developer's Reference Team, Andreas Barth, Adam Di Carlo, Raphaël Hertzog, Lucas Nussbaum, Christian Schwarz, and Ian Jackson June 25, 2012 Debian Developer's Reference by Developer's Reference Team, Andreas Barth, Adam Di Carlo, Raphaël Hertzog, Lucas Nussbaum, Christian Schwarz, and Ian Jackson Published 2012-06-25 Copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Andreas Barth Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Adam Di Carlo Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2008, 2009 Raphaël Hertzog Copyright © 2008, 2009 Lucas Nussbaum Copyright © 1997, 1998 Christian Schwarz This manual is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU General Public License for more details. A copy of the GNU General Public License is available as /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-2 in the Debian GNU/Linux distribution or on the World Wide Web at the GNU web site. You can also obtain it by writing to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA. If you want to print this reference, you should use the pdf version. This page is also available in French, German and Japanese. ii Contents 1 Scope of This Document 1 2 Applying to Become a Maintainer 3 2.1 Getting started . 3 2.2 Debian mentors and sponsors . 3 2.3 Registering as a Debian developer . 4 3 Debian Developer's Duties 7 3.1 Package Maintainer's Duties . 7 3.1.1 Work towards the next stable release . 7 3.1.2 Maintain packages in stable ................................ 7 3.1.3 Manage release-critical bugs . 7 3.1.4 Coordination with upstream developers . 8 3.2 Administrative Duties . 8 3.2.1 Maintaining your Debian information . 8 3.2.2 Maintaining your public key . 8 3.2.3 Voting . 8 3.2.4 Going on vacation gracefully . 9 3.2.5 Retiring . 9 3.2.6 Returning after retirement . 9 4 Resources for Debian Developers 11 4.1 Mailing lists . 11 4.1.1 Basic rules for use . 11 4.1.2 Core development mailing lists . 11 4.1.3 Special lists . 11 4.1.4 Requesting new development-related lists . 12 4.2 IRC channels . 12 4.3 Documentation . 12 4.4 Debian machines . 12 4.4.1 The bugs server . 13 4.4.2 The ftp-master server . 13 4.4.3 The www-master server . 13 4.4.4 The people web server . 13 4.4.5 The VCS servers . 13 4.4.6 chroots to different distributions . 14 4.5 The Developers Database . 14 4.6 The Debian archive . 14 4.6.1 Sections . 15 4.6.2 Architectures . 16 4.6.3 Packages . 16 4.6.4 Distributions . 16 4.6.4.1 Stable, testing, and unstable . 17 4.6.4.2 More information about the testing distribution . 17 4.6.4.3 Experimental . 17 4.6.5 Release code names . 18 4.7 Debian mirrors . 18 4.8 The Incoming system . 18 4.9 Package information . 19 4.9.1 On the web . 19 4.9.2 The dak ls utility . 19 4.10 The Package Tracking System . 19 4.10.1 The PTS email interface . 20 4.10.2 Filtering PTS mails . 21 iii CONTENTS 4.10.3 Forwarding VCS commits in the PTS . 21 4.10.4 The PTS web interface . 21 4.11 Developer's packages overview . 22 4.12 Debian's FusionForge installation: Alioth . 23 4.13 Goodies for Developers . 23 4.13.1 LWN Subscriptions . 23 4.13.2 Gandi.net Hosting Discount . 23 5 Managing Packages 25 5.1 New packages . 25 5.2 Recording changes in the package . 26 5.3 Testing the package . 26 5.4 Layout of the source package . 26 5.5 Picking a distribution . 27 5.5.1 Special case: uploads to the stable and oldstable distributions . 27 5.5.2 Special case: uploads to testing/testing-proposed-updates .......... 28 5.6 Uploading a package . 28 5.6.1 Uploading to ftp-master ................................. 28 5.6.2 Delayed uploads . 28 5.6.3 Security uploads . 28 5.6.4 Other upload queues . 28 5.6.5 Notification that a new package has been installed . 28 5.7 Specifying the package section, subsection and priority . 29 5.8 Handling bugs . 29 5.8.1 Monitoring bugs . 29 5.8.2 Responding to bugs . 29 5.8.3 Bug housekeeping . 30 5.8.4 When bugs are closed by new uploads . 31 5.8.5 Handling security-related bugs . 31 5.8.5.1 The Security Tracker . 32 5.8.5.2 Confidentiality . 32 5.8.5.3 Security Advisories . 33 5.8.5.4 Preparing packages to address security issues . 33 5.8.5.5 Uploading the fixed package . 34 5.9 Moving, removing, renaming, adopting, and orphaning packages . 34 5.9.1 Moving packages . 34 5.9.2 Removing packages . 35 5.9.2.1 Removing packages from Incoming ...................... 35 5.9.3 Replacing or renaming packages . 35 5.9.4 Orphaning a package . ..