Jeremy Higgs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [Moving to the debian-mentors mailing list - "Helping newbie developers".]
>I am trying to create a debian package for RCF (a firewall for >linux). There is currently a tarball and RPM of the firewall, but not >a debian package, so I thought I might try and make one! Always useful :) >The main file (rc.firewall) is placed into /etc/rc.d/, and the config >file in /etc. There are also some .tar files that are contained in >the rcf tarball that are uncompressed and put into directories within >/etc/firewall/. > >I have read the maintainer's guide that is at the Debian >Documentation Project, but it seems to only cover packages that >require compiling - which RCF doesn't. > >After running dh_make and cd'ing to the debian directory, is there a >file that allows you to tell dpkg (or whatever is handling the >package) to put certain files into certain places, and/or do certain >things? I've looked at the debian/rules files, but that refers to >compiling from source, and I don't need that! Just leave out the bits that refer to compiling; packages that don't require this are just an easier subset. The 'install' target of debian/rules (or the 'binary-indep' target - 'install' isn't required, but is often present and is probably in the examples you have) installs files into debian/tmp [1]. You're likely to have a build target that does nothing, an install target that installs the configuration file in debian/tmp/etc and uncompresses the tarballs into debian/tmp/etc/firewall, and, since you're using dh_make, a binary-indep target that runs lots of debhelper programs to build the rest of the package, including dh_installinit which will install rc.firewall in the right place given suitable prodding. [1] If you're using debhelper with DH_COMPAT=2, use debian/rcf or whatever instead of debian/tmp. Beware of Debian being different from Red Hat-derived distributions; we use /etc/init.d rather than /etc/rc.d/init.d, and expect packages with initialization scripts to use update-rc.d. As well as the New Maintainer's Guide, you should read the Packaging Manual, which will probably go a long way to answering other questions you may have. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]