(debian-policy.info)Creating package files - dpkg-deb

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14.1 Creating package files - ‘dpkg-deb’
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All manipulation of binary package files is done by ‘dpkg-deb’; it’s the
only program that has knowledge of the format.  (‘dpkg-deb’ may be
invoked by calling ‘dpkg’, as ‘dpkg’ will spot that the options
requested are appropriate to ‘dpkg-deb’ and invoke that instead with the
same arguments.)

In order to create a binary package, you must make a directory tree
which contains all the files and directories you want to have in the
file system data part of the package.  In Debian-format source packages,
this directory is usually either ‘debian/tmp’ or ‘debian/pkg’, relative
to the top of the package’s source tree.

They should have the locations (relative to the root of the directory
tree you’re constructing) ownerships and permissions which you want them
to have on the system when they are installed.

With current versions of ‘dpkg’ the uid/username and gid/groupname
mappings for the users and groups being used should be the same on the
system where the package is built and the one where it is installed.

You need to add one special directory to the root of the miniature file
system tree you’re creating: ‘DEBIAN’.  It should contain the control
information files, notably the binary package control file (see Note:
The main control information file; control.).

The ‘DEBIAN’ directory will not appear in the file system archive of the
package, and so won’t be installed by ‘dpkg’ when the package is
unpacked.

When you’ve prepared the package, you should invoke:

     dpkg --build directory

This will build the package in ‘directory.deb’.  (‘dpkg’ knows that
‘--build’ is a ‘dpkg-deb’ option, so it invokes ‘dpkg-deb’ with the same
arguments to build the package.)

See the dpkg-deb(8) man page for details of how to examine the contents
of this newly-created file.  You may find the output of following
commands enlightening:

     dpkg-deb --info filename.deb
     dpkg-deb --contents filename.deb
     dpkg --contents filename.deb

To view the copyright file for a package you could use this command:

     dpkg --fsys-tarfile filename.deb | tar xOf - --wildcards \*/copyright | pager