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NAME

       lintian - Debian package checker

SYNOPSIS

       lintian [action] [options] [packages] ...

DESCRIPTION

       Lintian dissects Debian packages and reports bugs and policy
       violations.  It contains automated checks for many aspects of Debian
       policy as well as some checks for common errors.

       It uses an archive directory, called laboratory, in which it stores
       information about the packages it examines.  It can keep this
       information between multiple invocations in order to avoid repeating
       expensive data-collection operations.

       There are three ways to specify binary, udeb or source packages for
       Lintian to process: by file name (the .deb file for a binary package or
       the .dsc file for a source package), by package name, or by naming a
       .changes file.  If you list packages by package name, you'll have to
       define the LINTIAN_DIST variable in the configuration file (see below).
       Lintian will then search for any binary or source packages in this
       directory for packages with the given name. (You can use the -b
       (--binary), --udeb and -s (--source) options if you only want to
       process binary, udeb or source packages.)

       If you specify a .changes file, Lintian will process all packages
       listed in that file.  This is convenient when checking a new package
       before uploading it.

OPTIONS

       Actions of the lintian command: (Only one action can be specified per
       invocation)

       -S, --setup-lab
              Set up or update the laboratory.

       -R, --remove-lab
              Remove the laboratory directory.

       -c, --check
              Run all checks over the specified packages.  This is the default
              action.

       -C chk1,chk2,..., --check-part chk1,chk2,...
              Run only the specified checks.  You can either specify the name
              of the check script or the abbreviation.  For details, see the
              CHECKS section below.

       -T tag1,tag2,..., --tags tag1,tag2,...
              Run only the checks that issue the requested tags.  The tests
              for other tags within the check scripts will be run but the tags
              will not be issued.

       --tags-from-file filename
              Same functionality as --tags, but read the list of tags from a
              file.  Blank lines and lines beginning with # are ignored.  All
              other lines are taken to be tag names or comma-separated lists
              of tag names to (potentially) issue.

       -F, --ftp-master-rejects
              Run only the checks that issue tags that result in automatic
              rejects from the Debian upload queue.  The list of such tags is
              refreshed with each Lintian release, so may be slightly out of
              date if it has changed recently.  This option does not, as yet,
              ignore overrides for fatal tags for which overrides aren't
              allowed.

       -X chk1,chk2,..., --dont-check-part chk1,chk2,...
              Run all but the the specified checks.  You can either specify
              the name of the check script or the abbreviation.  For details,
              see the CHECKS section below.

       -u, --unpack
              Unpack the specified packages up to the current unpack level.
              The default and only unpack level is 1 for this option.  See the
              UNPACK LEVELS section below.

       -r, --remove
              Clean up the lintian directory of the specified packages up to
              the current unpack level.  The default unpack level is 0 for
              this option.

       General options:

       -h, --help
              Display usage information and exit.

       -V, --version
              Display lintian version number and exit.

       --print-version
              Print unadorned version number and exit.

       -v, --verbose
              Display verbose messages.

       -d, --debug
              Display debugging messages. (Implies -v).

       -q, --quiet
              Suppress all informational messages.  Currently, the only
              message this suppresses is the message at the end of the run
              giving the total count of overrides.

       Behaviour options for lintian.

       -i, --info
              Print explanatory information about each problem discovered in
              addition to the lintian error tags. To print a long tag
              description without running lintian, see lintian-info(1).

       -I, --display-info
              Display informational ("I:") tags as well.  They are normally
              suppressed.  (This is equivalent to -L ">=wishlist").

       -E, --display-experimental
              Display experimental ("X:") tags as well.  They are normally
              suppressed.

              If a tag is marked experimental, this means that the code that
              generates this message is not as well tested as the rest of
              Lintian, and might still give surprising results.  Feel free to
              ignore Experimental messages that do not seem to make sense,
              though of course bug reports are always welcomed (particularly
              if they include fixes).

       --pedantic
              Display pedantic ("P:") tags as well.  They are normally
              suppressed.

              Pedantic tags are Lintian at its most pickiest and include
              checks for particular Debian packaging styles and checks that
              many people disagree with.  Expect false positives and Lintian
              tags that you don't consider useful if you use this option.
              Adding overrides for pedantic tags is probably not worth the
              effort.

       -L [+|-|=][>=|>|<|<=][S|C|S/C], --display-level
       [+|-|=][>=|>|<|<=][S|C|S/C]
              Fine-grained selection of tags to be displayed. It is possible
              to add, remove or set the levels to display, specifying a
              severity (S: serious, important, normal, minor, wishlist), a
              certainty (C: certain, possible, wild-guess), or both (S/C).
              The default settings are equivalent to -L ">=important" -L
              "+>=normal/possible" -L +minor/certain).

       --suppress-tags tag1,tag2,...
              Suppress the listed tags.  They will not be reported if they
              occur and will not affect the exit status of Lintian.

       --suppress-tags-from-file file
              Suppress all tags listed in the given file.  Blank lines and
              lines beginning with # are ignored.  All other lines are taken
              to be tag names or comma-separated lists of tag names to
              suppress.  The suppressed tags will not be reported if they
              occur and will not affect the exit status of Lintian.

       -l n, --unpack-level n
              Set unpack level to n.  See the UNPACK LEVELS section, below.

       -o, --no-override
              Don't use the overrides file.

       --show-overrides
              Output tags that have been overridden.

       --color (never|always|auto|html)
              Whether to colorize tags in lintian output based on their
              severity.  The default is "never", which never uses color.
              "always" will always use color, "auto" will use color only if
              the output is going to a terminal, and "html" will use HTML
              <span> tags with a color style attribute (instead of ANSI color
              escape sequences).

       -U info1,info2,..., --unpack-info info1,info2,...
              Collect information info1, info2, etc. even if these are not
              required by the checks.

       -m, --md5sums, --checksums
              Check checksums when processing a .changes file.  Normally,
              Lintian only checks the checksums for .dsc files when processing
              a .changes file.

       --allow-root
              Override lintian's warning when it is run with superuser
              privileges.

       --fail-on-warnings
              By default, lintian exits with 0 status if only warnings were
              found.  If this flag is given, exit with a status of 1 if either
              warnings or errors are found.

       --keep-lab
              By default, temporary labs will be removed after lintian is
              finished.  Specifying this options will leave the lab behind,
              which might be useful for debugging purposes.  You can find out
              where the temporary lab is located by running lintian with the
              --verbose option.  Implies --unpack-level=2 unless another
              unpack level is specified directly.

       Configuration options:

       --cfg configfile
              Read the configuration from configfile rather than the default
              locations.  This option overrides the LINTIAN_CFG environment
              variable.

       --lab labdir
              Use labdir as the permanent laboratory.  This is where Lintian
              keeps information about the packages it checks.  This option
              overrides the LINTIAN_LAB environment variable and the
              configuration file entry of the same name.

       --archivedir archivedir
              Location of Debian archive to scan for packages.  (See the FILES
              section for complete information on how the path is
              constructed.)  Use this if you want Lintian to check the whole
              Debian archive instead of just single packages. This option
              overrides the LINTIAN_ARCHIVEDIR environment variable and the
              configuration file entry of the same name.

       --dist distdir
              Scan for packages in the distdir directory.  (See the FILES
              section for complete information on how the path is
              constructed.)  Use this if you want Lintian to check the whole
              Debian archive instead of just single packages.  This option
              overrides the LINTIAN_DIST environment variable and the
              configuration file entry of the same name.

       --area area
              When scanning for packages in the distdir, select only packages
              from the comma-separated list of archive areas areas (e.g. main,
              contrib). This option overrides the LINTIAN_AREA environment
              variable and the configuration file entry of the same name.

       --section area
              This is an old name for the --area option and accepted as a
              synonym for that option.

       --arch arch
              When scanning for packages in the distdir, select only packages
              for architecture arch.  This option overrides the LINTIAN_ARCH
              environment variable and the configuration file entry of the
              same name.

       --root rootdir
              Look for lintian's support files (such as check scripts and
              collection scripts) in rootdir.  This overrides the LINTIAN_ROOT
              environment variable.  The default location is
              /usr/share/lintian.

       Package selection options:

       -a, --all
              Check all packages in the distribution. (This requires that the
              LINTIAN_DIST variable is defined in the configuration file.)

       -b, --binary
              The following packages listed on the command line are binary
              packages.

       -s, --source
              The following packages listed on the command line are source
              packages.

       --udeb The following packages listed on the command line are udeb
              packages.

       -p, --packages-file X
              Process all packages which are listed in file X.  Each package
              has to be listed in a single line using the following format:

              type package version file

              where type is either `b', `u', or `s' (binary, udeb, or source
              package), package is the package name, version is the package's
              version, and file is the package file name (absolute path
              specification).

UNPACK LEVELS

       0 (none)
              The package does not exist in the laboratory at all.

       1 (basic)
              A directory for this package exists in the laboratory and basic
              information is extracted.  This does not take much space.

              For binary and udeb packages, the control and fields directories
              and the index file are unpacked, and symbolic links are made to
              the .deb file and to the lintian directory for the source
              package.

              For source packages, the binary and fields directories are
              unpacked, and symbolic links are made to the source package
              files.

       2 (contents)
              This unpack level is deprecated and no longer functional. The
              unpacked collection script replaced it.

       Lintian will unpack packages as far as is necessary to do its checks,
       but it will leave the package in whatever unpack level was specified
       when it is done.

       The default unpack level can be overwritten by setting the
       LINTIAN_UNPACK_LEVEL variable in the configuration file.

CHECKS

       binaries (bin)
              Search for bugs in binaries and object files.

       changelog-file (chg)
              Check changelog files in a binary package.

       changes-file (chng)
              Check for various issues with .changes files.

       conffiles (cnf)
              Check if the conffiles control file of a binary package is
              correct.

       control-file (dctl)
              This script checks debian/control files in source packages.

       control-files (ctl)
              Check for unknown control files in the binary package.

       copyright-file (cpy)
              Check if a binary package conforms to policy with respect to the
              copyright file.  Each binary package must either have a
              /usr/share/doc/package/copyright file or must have a symlink
              /usr/share/doc/package->foo, where foo comes from the same
              source package, and this package declares a "Depends" relation
              on foo.

       cruft (deb)
              Looks for cruft in source packages, like files of version
              control systems and temporary files from the build process.

       deb-format (dfmt)
              Checks the format of the binary package ar archive.

       debconf (dc)
              Looks for common mistakes in packages using debconf, like
              missing dependencies or errors in the template file.

       debhelper (dh)
              Looks for common mistakes in source packages using debhelper.

       debian-readme (drm)
              Check if the README.Debian file is merely the debmake template.

       debian-source-dir (dsd)
              Check the debian/source/* control files in source packages for
              errors.

       description (des)
              Check if the Description control field of a binary package
              conforms to the rules in the Policy Manual (section 3.4).

       etcfiles (etc)
              Checks if all files in /etc that are shipped with the package
              are marked as conffiles as required by policy.

       fields (fld)
              Check control fields of a binary or source package.

       files (fil)
              Check if a binary package conforms to policy with respect to
              types, permissions and ownerships of files and directories.

       huge-usr-share (hus)
              Checks whether an architecture-dependent package does have a
              significantly big /usr/share. Big amounts of architecture
              independent data in architecture dependent packages waste space
              on the mirrors.

       infofiles (info)
              Check if a binary package conforms to policy with respect to
              info documents.

       init.d (ini)
              Check if a binary package conforms to policy with respect to
              scripts in /etc/init.d.

       manpages (man)
              Check if a binary package conforms to policy with respect to
              manual pages.

       md5sums (md5)
              If the md5sum control file of a binary package exists, check if
              it is valid.

       menus (men)
              Check if a binary package conforms to policy with respect to
              menu and doc-base files.

       menu-format (mnf)
              Check the syntax of menu files installed by the package.

       nmu (nmu)
              Checks whether the package is consistent as to whether it is an
              NMU.

       ocaml (ocaml)
              Checks various things related to packaging of OCaml libraries
              and other software.

       patch-systems (pat)
              Check source package use of patch systems.

       po-debconf (pd)
              Looks for common mistakes in packages using po-debconf.

       rules (rul)
              Looks for common problems in the debian/rules file in source
              packages.

       scripts (scr)
              Check the the #! lines of scripts in a binary package.

       shared-libs (shl)
              Check if a binary package conforms to policy with respect to
              shared libraries and the shlibs control file.

       standards-version (std)
              Check if a source package contains a valid Standards-Version
              field in its debian/control file.

       version-substvars (v-s)
              Check use of version substvars in a source package, particularly
              whether the relationships between packages allow safe binary
              NMUs.

       watch-file (watch)
              Check debian/watch files in source packages.

COLLECTION

       ar-info
              Collects the results of "ar t" command for all *.a files in the
              package.

       changelog-file
              Copy the changelog file of a package into the lintian directory.

       copyright-file
              Copy the copyright file of a package into the lintian directory.

       debfiles
              Collects files shipped in the source of the package.

       debian-readme
              Copy the README.Debian file of a package into the lintian
              directory.

       diffstat
              Collect the output of the diffstat(1) utility for the Debian
              diff in a source package.

       doc-base-files
              Copy the contents of /usr/share/doc-base into the lintian
              directory (below doc-base).

       file-info
              Collect the output of the file(1) utility for each file in a
              binary, udeb, and source package.

       init.d Copy /etc/init.d scripts into the lintian directory (below
              init.d).

       md5sums
              Collect the md5sums of all files in a binary package.

       menu-files
              Copy the contents of a binary package's usr/share/doc/menu
              directory into the menu directory in the lab.

       objdump-info
              Collect the output of the objdump(1) utility for each file in a
              binary package.

       override-file
              Copy the override file of a package into the lintian directory

       scripts
              Collect information about scripts in binary package.

       source-control-file
              Collects information about binary packages from debian/control
              in source packages

       strings
              Collect the output of the strings(1) utility for each non-debug
              ELF object in a binary package.

       unpacked
              Unpack the contents of a source or binary package.

FILES

       Lintian looks for its configuration file in the following locations:

       The directory given with the --cfg option

       $LINTIAN_CFG

       $LINTIAN_ROOT/lintianrc

       $HOME/.lintianrc

       /etc/lintianrc

       Lintian uses the following directories:

       /tmp   If no lab location is specified via the LINTIAN_LAB environment
              variable, configuration, or the --lab command-line option,
              lintian defaults to creating a temporary lab directory in /tmp.
              To change the directory used, set the TMPDIR environment
              variable to a suitable directory.

       /usr/share/lintian/checks
              Scripts that check aspects of a package.

       /usr/share/lintian/collection
              Scripts that collect information about a package and store it
              for use by the check scripts.

       /usr/share/lintian/data
              Supporting data used by Lintian checks and for output
              formatting.

       /usr/share/lintian/lib
              Utility scripts used by the other lintian scripts.

       /usr/share/lintian/unpack
              Scripts that manage the laboratory.

       The /usr/share/lintian directory can be overridden with the
       LINTIAN_ROOT environment variable or the --root option.

       When looking for packages in a Debian archive, lintian constructs the
       path to the archive from the archivedir, distdir, release, andarch as
       follows:

       archivedir/dists/distdir/release/arch

       Lintian always expects the "/dists/" path component in paths to Debian
       archives.

       For binary packages, Lintian looks for overrides in a file named
       usr/share/lintian/overrides/<package> inside the binary package, where
       <package> is the name of the binary package.  For source packages,
       Lintian looks for overrides in debian/source/lintian-overrides and then
       in debian/source.lintian-overrides if the first file is not found.  The
       first path is preferred.  See the Lintian User's Manual for the syntax
       of overrides.

EXIT STATUS

       0      No policy violations or major errors detected.  (There may have
              been warnings, though.)

       1      Policy violations or major errors detected.

       2      Lintian run-time error. An error message is sent to stderr.

USAGE

       Examples:

       $ lintian foo.deb
              Check binary package foo given by foo.deb.

       $ lintian foo.dsc
              Check source package foo given by foo.dsc.

       $ lintian foo.dsc -L +minor/possible
              Check source package foo given by foo.dsc, including
              minor/possible tags.

       $ lintian foo
              Search for package foo in the Debian archive and check it.
              (Depending on what is found, this command will check either the
              source or binary package foo, or both.)

       $ lintian --archivedir /var/packages --dist custom --section main
              Check all packages found in the Debian archive at
              /var/packages/dists/custom/main.

       $ lintian -i foo.changes
              Check the changes file and, if listed, the source and binary
              package of the upload. The output will contain detailed
              information about the reported tags.

       $ lintian -c --binary foo
              Search for binary package foo in the Debian archive and check
              it.

       $ lintian -C cpy --source foo
              Run the copyright checks on source package foo.

       $ lintian -u foo
              Unpack package foo in the Lintian laboratory up to level 1. (If
              it's already unpacked at level 1 or 2, nothing is done.)

       $ lintian -l1 -r foo
              Search for package foo in the Debian archive and, if found,
              reduce the package disk usage in the laboratory to level 1.

       $ lintian -r foo
              Remove package foo from the Lintian laboratory.

BUGS

       Lintian does not have any locking mechanisms yet. (Running several
       checks simultaneously is likely to fail.)

       If you discover any other bugs in Lintian, please contact the authors.

SEE ALSO

       lintian-info(1), Lintian User's Manual
       (file:/usr/share/doc/lintian/lintian.html/index.html)

       Packaging tools: debhelper(7), dh_make(8), dpkg-buildpackage(1)

AUTHORS

       Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>
       Christian Schwarz <schwarz@monet.m.isar.de>
       Please use the email address <lintian-maint@debian.org> for Lintian
       related comments.