(debian-policy.info)Package control information files

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14.2 Package control information files
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The control information portion of a binary package is a collection of
files with names known to ‘dpkg’.  It will treat the contents of these
files specially - some of them contain information used by ‘dpkg’ when
installing or removing the package; others are scripts which the package
maintainer wants ‘dpkg’ to run.

It is possible to put other files in the package control information
file area, but this is not generally a good idea (though they will
largely be ignored).

Here is a brief list of the control information files supported by
‘dpkg’ and a summary of what they’re used for.

‘control’

     This is the key description file used by ‘dpkg’.  It specifies the
     package’s name and version, gives its description for the user,
     states its relationships with other packages, and so forth.  See
     Note: Source package control files – debian/control. and Note:
     Binary package control files – DEBIAN/control.

     It is usually generated automatically from information in the
     source package by the ‘dpkg-gencontrol’ program, and with
     assistance from ‘dpkg-shlibdeps’.  See Note: Source packages (from
     old Packaging Manual).

‘postinst’, ‘preinst’, ‘postrm’, ‘prerm’

     These are executable files (usually scripts) which ‘dpkg’ runs
     during installation, upgrade and removal of packages.  They allow
     the package to deal with matters which are particular to that
     package or require more complicated processing than that provided
     by ‘dpkg’.  Details of when and how they are called are in Note:
     Package maintainer scripts and installation procedure.

     It is very important to make these scripts idempotent.  See Note:
     Maintainer scripts idempotency.

     The maintainer scripts are not guaranteed to run with a controlling
     terminal and may not be able to interact with the user.  See Note:
     Controlling terminal for maintainer scripts.

‘conffiles’ This file contains a list of configuration files which

     are to be handled automatically by ‘dpkg’ (see Note: Configuration
     file handling (from old Packaging Manual).).  Note that not
     necessarily every configuration file should be listed here.

‘shlibs’

     This file contains a list of the shared libraries supplied by the
     package, with dependency details for each.  This is used by
     ‘dpkg-shlibdeps’ when it determines what dependencies are required
     in a package control file.  The ‘shlibs’ file format is described
     on Note: The shlibs File Format.