Check-Script: debconf Author: Colin Watson Abbrev: dc Type: binary, udeb, source Unpack-Level: 2 Info: This looks for common mistakes in packages using debconf. Needs-Info: scripts Tag: missing-debconf-dependency Severity: normal Certainty: possible Info: Packages using debconf should depend on it, since debconf is not an essential package. Tag: missing-debconf-dependency-for-preinst Severity: normal Certainty: possible Info: Packages using debconf in their preinst script must pre-depend on debconf, with appropriate discussion on &debdev;. Since debconf is almost always already installed, this is normally better than depending on it and falling back to a different configuration system. Tag: duplicate-fields-in-templates Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: A template contains two identical fields (with identical values or not). This is either an error in this template, or two templates are not properly separated by a lone newline. Tag: unknown-field-in-templates Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: Valid fields are currently "Template:", "Type:", "Choices:", "Default:", and "Description:". Ref: debconf-spec aen45, debconf-devel(7) Tag: no-template-name Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: The templates file contains a template without a "Template:" field. Tag: malformed-template-name Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: The "Template:" field should contain more than one component, each separated by a slash ("/"). Each component may only consist of the alphanumeric characters, "+", "-", and ".". Tag: no-template-type Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: The templates file contains a template without a "Type:" field. Tag: unknown-template-type Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: A "Type:" field in a templates file provided by this package uses an unknown data type. Valid types are currently "string", "boolean", "select", "multiselect", "note", "text", and "password". Tag: empty-translated-choices Severity: important Certainty: possible Info: When the translation of a Choices: field is empty, the whole question is skipped (and nothing is selected). Please verify that the translation you're using is valid. Tag: mismatch-translated-choices Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: A "Choices:" field is a comma separated list, and translated "Choices:" fields must have the exact same number of elements. One of the translations does not follow this rule, you should contact the translator and request for a new translation where elements of "Choices:" fields have no embedded commas. . Cdebconf understands escaped commas in such fields, but packages outside the scope of debian-installer must not have them until they are also supported by debconf. Tag: select-without-choices Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: Templates using the "select" or "multiselect" data types must provide a "Choices:" field listing the possible values of the template. Ref: debconf-spec aen45, debconf-devel(7) Tag: boolean-template-has-bogus-default Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: The "boolean" type in a debconf template, can have only two values: true and false. The default has been set to something different. Ref: debconf-spec aen45, debconf-devel(7) Tag: no-template-description Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: The templates file contains a template without a "Description:" field. Ref: debconf-spec aen45, debconf-devel(7) Tag: duplicate-long-description-in-template Severity: minor Certainty: certain Info: The long description of one of the templates provided by this package is a duplicate of the short description. If you cannot provide a good extended description, it is better to leave it blank. Tag: config-does-not-load-confmodule Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: The config script must load one of the debconf libraries. Tag: postinst-uses-db-input Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: It is generally not a good idea for postinst scripts to use debconf commands like db_input. Typically, they should restrict themselves to db_get to request previously acquired information, and have the config script do the actual prompting. Tag: postinst-does-not-load-confmodule Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: Even if your postinst does not involve debconf, you currently need to make sure it loads one of the debconf libraries. This will be changed in the future. Tag: loads-obsolete-confmodule Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: The maintainer script uses an obsolete name for a debconf confmodule. Shell scripts should source /usr/share/debconf/confmodule, while Perl scripts should use Debconf::Client::ConfModule. Ref: debconf-devel(7) Tag: postrm-does-not-purge-debconf Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: Packages using debconf should call db_purge or its equivalent in their postrm. If the package uses debhelper, dh_installdebconf(1) should take care of this. Tag: isdefault-flag-is-deprecated Severity: normal Certainty: possible Info: The "isdefault" flag on debconf questions is deprecated as of debconf 0.5.00, and has been replaced by "seen" with the inverse meaning. From debconf 0.5 onwards there should be very few reasons to use isdefault/seen anyway, as backing up works much better now. See /usr/share/doc/debconf-doc/changelog.gz for more information. . The misuse of isdefault often leads to questions being asked twice in one installation run, or, worse, on every upgrade. Please test your package carefully to make sure this does not happen. Tag: debconf-config-not-executable Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: The debconf "config" script in the package control area must be executable. Tag: no-debconf-config Severity: important Certainty: possible Info: The package contains a "templates" file in its control area but has no corresponding "config" script. This is occasionally OK, but is usually an error. Tag: no-debconf-templates Severity: normal Certainty: possible Info: The package contains a "config" script in its control area but has no corresponding "templates" file. This is occasionally OK, but is usually an error. Tag: debconf-is-not-a-registry Severity: important Certainty: wild-guess Info: In the Unix tradition, Debian packages should have human-readable and human-editable configuration files. This package uses debconf commands outside its maintainer scripts, which often indicates that it is taking configuration information directly from the debconf database. Typically, packages should use debconf-supplied information to generate configuration files, and -- to avoid losing configuration information on upgrades -- should parse these configuration files in the config script if it is necessary to ask the user for changes. . Some standalone programs may legitimately use debconf to prompt the user for questions. If you maintain a package containing such a program, please install an override. Other exceptions to this check include configuration scripts called from the package's post-installation script. Ref: devref 6.5.1, debconf-devel(7) Tag: malformed-prompt-in-templates Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: The short description of a select, multiselect, string and password debconf template is a prompt and not a title. Avoid question style prompts ("IP Address?") in favour of "opened" prompts ("IP address:"). The use of colons is recommended. . If this template is only used internally by the package and not displayed to the user, put "for internal use" in the short description. Ref: devref 6.5.4.2 Tag: malformed-title-in-templates Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: The short description of a note debconf template should be written as a title and therefore should not end with a period, question mark, colon, or semicolon. Ref: devref 6.5.4.2.4 Tag: malformed-question-in-templates Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: The short description of a boolean debconf template should be phrased in the form of a question which should be kept short and should generally end with a question mark. Terse writing style is permitted and even encouraged if the question is rather long. . If this template is only used internally by the package and not displayed to the user, put "for internal use" in the short description. Ref: devref 6.5.4.2.2 Tag: using-question-in-extended-description-in-templates Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: The extended description of a debconf template should never include a question. . If this template is only used internally by the package and not displayed to the user, put "for internal use" in the short description. Ref: devref 6.5.3.2 Tag: using-imperative-form-in-templates Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: Do not use useless imperative constructions such as "Please choose...", "Enter...". The interface will make it obvious that the user needs to choose or enter something. Ref: devref 6.5.4.2 Tag: using-first-person-in-templates Severity: normal Certainty: possible Info: You should avoid the use of first person ("I will do this..." or "We recommend..."). The computer is not a person and the Debconf templates do not speak for the Debian developers. You should use neutral construction and often the passive form. . If this template is only used internally by the package and not displayed to the user, put "for internal use" in the short description. Ref: devref 6.5.2.5 Tag: making-assumptions-about-interfaces-in-templates Severity: normal Certainty: possible Info: Template text should not make reference to widgets belonging to some debconf interfaces. Sentences like "If you answer Yes..." have no meaning for users of graphical interfaces which use checkboxes for boolean questions. Ref: devref 6.5.2.4 Tag: too-long-short-description-in-templates Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: The short description should be kept short (50 characters or so) so that it may be accommodated by most debconf interfaces. Keeping it short also helps translators, as usually translations tend to end up being longer than the original. Ref: devref 6.5.3.2 Tag: too-long-extended-description-in-templates Severity: normal Certainty: certain Info: Some debconf interfaces cannot deal very well with descriptions of more than about 20 lines, so try to keep the extended description below this limit. Ref: devref 6.5.3.2 Tag: unknown-debconf-priority Severity: important Certainty: certain Info: The given maintainer script calls db_input or or db_text with a first argument that doesn't match one of the known priorities. The supported priorities are low, medium, high, and critical. Ref: debconf-devel(7) Tag: possible-debconf-note-abuse Severity: normal Certainty: possible Info: Debconf notes should be used only for important notes that the user really should see, since debconf will go to great pains to make sure the user sees it. . Displaying a note with a low priority is conflicting with this statement, since using a low or medium priority shows that the note is not important. . The right fix is NOT to increase the priority of the note, but to move it somewhere else in the inline documentation, for example in a README.Debian file for notes about package usability or NEWS.Debian for changes in the package behavior, or to simply drop it if it is not needed (e.g. "welcome" notes). Changing the templates type to "error" can also be appropriate, such as for input validation errors. Ref: policy 3.9.1 Tag: select-with-boolean-choices Severity: normal Certainty: possible Info: Select templates with only yes and no choices should use the boolean type instead. Ref: debconf-devel(7) Tag: template-uses-unsplit-choices Severity: normal Certainty: possible Experimental: yes Info: The use of _Choices in templates is deprecated. An _Choices field must be translated as a single string. . Using __Choices allows each choice to be translated separately, easing translation and is therefore recommended. . Instead of simply replacing all occurrences of "_Choices" by "__Choices", apply the method described in po-debconf(7) under "SPLITTING CHOICES LIST", to avoid breaking existing translations. . If in doubt, please ask for help on the debian-i18n mailing list. Ref: po-debconf(7) Tag: unused-debconf-template Severity: minor Certainty: possible Info: Templates which are not used by the package should be removed from the templates file. . This will reduce the size of the templates database and prevent translators from unnecessarily translating the template's text. . In some cases, the template is used but Maemian is unable to determine this. Common causes are: . - the maintainer scripts embed a variable in the template name in order to allow a template to be selected from a range of similar templates (e.g. db_input low start_$service_at_boot) . - the template is not used by the maintainer scripts but is used by a program in the package . - the maintainer scripts are written in perl. lintian currently only understands the shell script debconf functions. . If any of the above apply, please install an override.