creating a Debian package fails

Question

I'm trying to build a Debian package. When I tried to build it again, it failed.

I have:

1. /home/debpackage/debianpackage_1.0.orig.tar.gz
2. the tar above contains a folder named debianpackage-1.0/ (all sorts of packages in it)

3. I extracted the tar and now I have /home/alon/debpackage/debianpackage_1.0.orig.tar.gz /home/alon/debpackage/debianpackage-1.0/ (all the files that were extracted)

4. in /home/alon/debpackage/debianpackage-1.0/, I created a folder called "debian"

5. in /home/alon/debpackage/debianpackage-1.0/ I have: ./debian/changelog/copyright (empty) ./debian/changelog/rules ./debian/changelog/changelog ./debian/changelog/compact (contains "8") ./debian/changelog/control ./debian/changelog/source/format (contains 3.0 (quilt) )

rules contains:

#!/usr/bin/make -f

%:
        dh $@

override_dh_auto_install:
        $(MAKE) DESTDIR=$$(pwd)/debian/debianpackage prefix=/usr install

when I try to run ./debian/debuild -us -uc, I get:

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -D -us -uc
dpkg-buildpackage: warning: using a gain-root-command while being root
dpkg-buildpackage: export CFLAGS from dpkg-buildflags (origin: vendor): -g -O2
dpkg-buildpackage: export CPPFLAGS from dpkg-buildflags (origin: vendor): 
dpkg-buildpackage: export CXXFLAGS from dpkg-buildflags (origin: vendor): -g -O2
dpkg-buildpackage: export FFLAGS from dpkg-buildflags (origin: vendor): -g -O2
dpkg-buildpackage: export LDFLAGS from dpkg-buildflags (origin: vendor): -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions
dpkg-buildpackage: source package debianpackage
dpkg-buildpackage: source version 1.0-1
dpkg-buildpackage: source changed by root <alon.zeiri@gmail.com>
 dpkg-source --before-build debianpackage-1.0
dpkg-buildpackage: host architecture amd64
 fakeroot debian/rules clean
dh clean
dh: Compatibility levels before 5 are deprecated.
   dh_testdir
   dh_auto_clean
dh_auto_clean: Compatibility levels before 5 are deprecated.
   dh_clean
dh_clean: Compatibility levels before 5 are deprecated.
 dpkg-source -b debianpackage-1.0
dpkg-source: info: using source format `3.0 (quilt)'
dpkg-source: info: building debianpackage using existing ./debianpackage_1.0.orig.tar.gz
dpkg-source: info: building debianpackage in debianpackage_1.0-1.debian.tar.gz
dpkg-source: info: building debianpackage in debianpackage_1.0-1.dsc
 debian/rules build
dh build
dh: Compatibility levels before 5 are deprecated.
   dh_testdir
   dh_auto_configure
dh_auto_configure: Compatibility levels before 5 are deprecated.
   dh_auto_build
dh_auto_build: Compatibility levels before 5 are deprecated.
   dh_auto_test
dh_auto_test: Compatibility levels before 5 are deprecated.
 fakeroot debian/rules binary
dh binary
dh: Compatibility levels before 5 are deprecated.
   dh_testroot
   dh_prep
dh_prep: Compatibility levels before 5 are deprecated.
   dh_installdirs
dh_installdirs: Compatibility levels before 5 are deprecated.
   debian/rules override_dh_auto_install
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/alon/debpackage/debianpackage-1.0'
/usr/bin/make DESTDIR=$(pwd)/debian/debianpackage prefix=/usr install
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/alon/debpackage/debianpackage-1.0'
make[2]: *** No rule to make target `install'.  Stop.
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/alon/debpackage/debianpackage-1.0'
make[1]: *** [override_dh_auto_install] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/alon/debpackage/debianpackage-1.0'
make: *** [binary] Error 2
dpkg-buildpackage: error: fakeroot debian/rules binary gave error exit status 2
debuild: fatal error at line 1335:
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -D -us -uc failed

Any ideas?

Answer 1

I usually exprience this error if I run cmake in the source before debuild. debuild/dpkg-buildpackage is very particular in that it needs to be run on a clean source. I'd suggest you try to generate the debian folder and its contents by using dh_make --createorig on a clean source instead of creating it manually. There after debuild should work without any problems unless the creater of the sources archive included compiled code or auto-generated files in it.

Answer 2

Why is your debian/changelog a directory? You're not supposed to have debian/changelog/rules and debian/changelog/changelog etc. It's just supposed to be debian/changelog (regular file), debian/rules, debian/control ... something bad has happened to your directory structure.

You should cd debian; mv changelog oopsdir; mv -i oopsdir/* .;rmdir oopsdir

Or just kill the whole thing and start over, since you can't know that the disaster which caused changelog to become a directory didn't affect anything else.

Answer 3

it seems like the makefile of your upstream sources ("debianpackage-1.0") has not install target, but in the override_dh_auto_install target of debian/rules you explicitely call make install

possible solutions:

• add an install target to debianpackage-1./Makefile

  if you are not upstream, you should do this via a path in debian/patches

• use the override_dh_auto_install target to manually install the files to their proper place

btw, why do you override dh_auto_install in the first place? it seems that you are not adding anything, that isn't called automatically.