deb-changes(5) — Linux manual page
deb-changes(5) dpkg suite deb-changes(5)
NAME
deb-changes - Debian upload changes control file format
SYNOPSIS
filename.changes
DESCRIPTION
Each Debian upload is composed of a .changes control file, which
contains a number of fields in deb822(5) format.
Each field begins with a tag, such as Source or Binary (case
insensitive), followed by a colon, and the body of the field
(case sensitive unless stated otherwise). Fields are delimited
only by field tags. In other words, field text may be multiple
lines in length, but the installation tools will generally join
lines when processing the body of the field (except in case of
the multiline fields Description, Changes, Files, Checksums-Sha1
and Checksums-Sha256, see below).
The control data might be enclosed in an OpenPGP ASCII Armored
signature, as specified in RFC4880.
FIELDS
Format: format-version (required)
The value of this field declares the format version of the
file. The syntax of the field value is a version number with
a major and minor component. Backward incompatible changes
to the format will bump the major version, and backward
compatible changes (such as field additions) will bump the
minor version. The current format version is 1.8.
Date: release-date (required)
The date the package was built or last edited. It must be in
the same format as the date in a deb-changelog(5) entry.
The value of this field is usually extracted from the
debian/changelog file.
Source: source-name [(source-version)] (required)
The name of the source package. If the source version
differs from the binary version, then the source-name will be
followed by a source-version in parenthesis. This can happen
when the upload is a binary-only non-maintainer upload.
Binary: binary-package-list (required in context)
This folded field is a space-separated list of binary
packages to upload. If the upload is source-only, then the
field is omitted (since dpkg 1.19.3).
Architecture: arch-list
Lists the architectures of the files currently being
uploaded. Common architectures are amd64, armel, i386, etc.
Note that the all value is meant for packages that are
architecture independent. If the source for the package is
also being uploaded, the special entry source is also
present. Architecture wildcards must never be present in the
list.
Version: version-string (required)
Typically, this is the original package's version number in
whatever form the program's author uses. It may also include
a Debian revision number (for non-native packages). The
exact format and sorting algorithm are described in
deb-version(7).
Distribution: distributions (required)
Lists one or more space-separated distributions where this
version should be installed when it is uploaded to the
archive.
Urgency: urgency (recommended)
The urgency of the upload. The currently known values, in
increasing order of urgency, are: low, medium, high, critical
and emergency.
Maintainer: fullname-email (required)
Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@example.org>”,
and is typically the person who created the package, as
opposed to the author of the software that was packaged.
Changed-By: fullname-email
Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@example.org>”,
and is typically the person who prepared the package changes
for this release.
Description: (recommended)
binary-package-name - binary-package-summary
This multiline field contains a list of binary package names
followed by a space, a dash (‘-’) and their possibly
truncated short descriptions. If the upload is source-only,
then the field is omitted (since dpkg 1.19.3).
Closes: bug-number-list
A space-separated list of bug report numbers for bug reports
that have been resolved with this upload. The distribution
archive software might use this field to automatically close
the referred bug numbers in the distribution bug tracking
system.
Binary-Only: yes
This field denotes that the upload is a binary-only non-
maintainer build. It originates from the binary-only=yes
key/value from the changelog metadata entry.
Built-For-Profiles: profile-list
This field specifies a whitespace separated list of build
profiles that this upload was built with.
Changes: (required)
changelog-entries
This multiline field contains the concatenated text of all
changelog entries that are part of the upload. To make this
a valid multiline field empty lines are replaced with a
single full stop (‘.’) and all lines are indented by one
space character. The exact content depends on the changelog
format.
Files: (required)
md5sum size section priority filename
This multiline field contains a list of files with an md5sum,
size, section and priority for each one.
The first line of the field value (the part on the same line
as the field name followed by a colon) is always empty. The
content of the field is expressed as continuation lines, one
line per file. Each line consists of space-separated entries
describing the file: the md5sum, the file size, the file
section, the file priority, and the file name.
This field lists all files that make up the upload. The list
of files in this field must match the list of files in the
other related Checksums fields.
Note: The MD5 checksum is considered weak, and should never
be assumed to be sufficient for secure verification, but this
field cannot be omitted as it provides metadata not available
anywhere else.
Checksums-Sha1: (required, weak)
Checksums-Sha256: (required, strong)
checksum size filename
These multiline fields contain a list of files with a
checksum and size for each one. These fields have the same
syntax and differ only in the checksum algorithm used: SHA-1
for Checksums-Sha1 and SHA-256 for Checksums-Sha256.
The first line of the field value (the part on the same line
as the field name followed by a colon) is always empty. The
content of the field is expressed as continuation lines, one
line per file. Each line consists of space-separated entries
describing the file: the checksum, the file size, and the
file name.
These fields list all files that make up the upload. The
list of files in these fields must match the list of files in
the Files field and the other related Checksums fields.
Note: The SHA-1 checksum is considered weak, and should never
be assumed to be sufficient for secure verification.
BUGS
The Files field is inconsistent with the other Checksums fields.
The Changed-By and Maintainer fields have confusing names. The
Distribution field contains information about what is commonly
referred to as a suite.
SEE ALSO
deb822(5), deb-src-control(5), deb-version(7).
COLOPHON
This page is part of the dpkg (Debian Package Manager) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see
⟨http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=dpkg⟩. This
page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository ⟨git
clone https://git.dpkg.org/git/dpkg/dpkg.git⟩ on 2024-06-14. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2024-05-21.) If you discover any rendering
problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
(which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
1.22.6-77-g86fe7 2024-03-10 deb-changes(5)
Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-genchanges(1), deb-buildinfo(5), deb-changelog(5), deb-src-control(5)