NAME¶

uscan - scan/watch upstream sources for new releases of software

SYNOPSIS¶

uscan [options] [path]

DESCRIPTION¶

For basic usage, uscan is executed without any arguments from the root of the Debianized source tree where you see the debian/ directory, or a directory containing multiple source trees.

Unless --watchfile is given, uscan looks recursively for valid source trees starting from the current directory (see the below section "Directory name checking" for details).

For each valid source tree found, typically the following happens:

• uscan reads the first entry in debian/changelog to determine the source package name <spkg> and the last upstream version.
• uscan process the watch lines debian/watch from the top to the bottom in a single pass.

•

uscan invokes uupdate to create the Debianized source tree: ../<spkg>-<oversion>/*

Please note the following.

• For simplicity, the compression method used in examples is gzip with .gz suffix. Other methods such as xz, bzip2, and lzma with corresponding xz, bz2 and lzma suffixes may also be used.
• Since version 4 of debian/watch, uscan enables handling of multiple upstream tarball (MUT) packages but this is a rare case for Debian packaging. For a single upstream tarball package, there is only one watch line and no ../<spkg>_<oversion>.orig-<component>.tar.gz.
• uscan with the --verbose option produces a human readable report of uscan's execution.
• uscan with the --debug option produces a human readable report of uscan's execution including internal variable states.
• uscan with the --extra-debug option produces a human readable report of uscan's execution including internal variable states and remote content during "search" step.
• uscan with the --dehs option produces an upstream package status report in XML format for other programs such as the Debian External Health System.
• The primary objective of uscan is to help identify if the latest version upstream tarball is used or not; and to download the latest upstream tarball. The ordering of versions is decided by dpkg --compare-versions.
• uscan with the --safe option limits the functionality of uscan to its primary objective. Both the repacking of downloaded files and updating of the source tree are skipped to avoid running unsafe scripts. This also changes the default to --no-download and --skip-signature.

FORMAT OF THE WATCH FILE¶

The current debian/watch format is describe in debian-watch(5) manpage. Old formats (version 1 to 4) are described in debian-watch-4(5) manpage.

COPYRIGHT FILE EXAMPLES¶

Here is an example for the debian/copyright file which initiates automatic repackaging of the upstream tarball into <spkg>_<oversion>.orig.tar.gz (In debian/copyright, the Files-Excluded and Files-Excluded-component stanzas are a part of the first paragraph and there is a blank line before the following paragraphs which contain Files and other stanzas.):

  Format: http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
  Files-Excluded: exclude-this
   exclude-dir
   */exclude-dir
   .*
   */js/jquery.js
  Files: *
  Copyright: ...
  ...

Here is another example for the debian/copyright file which initiates automatic repackaging of the multiple upstream tarballs into <spkg>_<oversion>.orig.tar.gz and <spkg>_<oversion>.orig-bar.tar.gz:

  Format: http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
  Files-Excluded: exclude-this
   exclude-dir
   */exclude-dir
   .*
   */js/jquery.js
  Files-Excluded-bar: exclude-this
   exclude-dir
   */exclude-dir
   .*
   */js/jquery.js
  Files: *
  Copyright: ...
  ...

The debian/copyright file may also contain Files-Included and Files-Included-component stanzas which include files that were previously excluded. This is useful to exclude most but not all files in a directory:

  Format: http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/
  Files-Excluded: vendor-dir
  Files-Included:
   vendor-dir/directory/to/keep
   vendor-dir/*/file-to-keep
  Files: *
  Copyright: ...
  ...

See mk-origtargz(1).

KEYRING FILE EXAMPLES¶

Let's assume that the upstream "uscan test key (no secret) <none@debian.org>" signs its package with a secret OpenPGP key and publishes the corresponding public OpenPGP key. This public OpenPGP key can be identified in 3 ways using the hexadecimal form.

• The fingerprint as the 20 byte data calculated from the public OpenPGP key. E. g., 'CF21 8F0E 7EAB F584 B7E2 0402 C77E 2D68 7254 3FAF'
• The long keyid as the last 8 byte data of the fingerprint. E. g., 'C77E2D6872543FAF'
• The short keyid is the last 4 byte data of the fingerprint. E. g., '72543FAF'

Considering the existence of the collision attack on the short keyid, the use of the long keyid is recommended for receiving keys from the public key servers. You must verify the downloaded OpenPGP key using its full fingerprint value which you know is the trusted one.

The armored keyring file debian/upstream/signing-key.asc can be created by using the gpg command as follows.

  $ gpg --recv-keys "C77E2D6872543FAF"
  ...
  $ gpg --finger "C77E2D6872543FAF"
  pub   4096R/72543FAF 2015-09-02
        Key fingerprint = CF21 8F0E 7EAB F584 B7E2  0402 C77E 2D68 7254 3FAF
  uid                  uscan test key (no secret) <none@debian.org>
  sub   4096R/52C6ED39 2015-09-02
  $ cd path/to/<upkg>-<uversion>
  $ mkdir -p debian/upstream
  $ gpg --export --export-options export-minimal --armor \
        'CF21 8F0E 7EAB F584 B7E2  0402 C77E 2D68 7254 3FAF' \
        >debian/upstream/signing-key.asc

The binary keyring files, debian/upstream/signing-key.pgp and debian/upstream-signing-key.pgp, are still supported but deprecated.

If a group of developers sign the package, you need to list fingerprints of all of them in the argument for gpg --export ... to make the keyring to contain all OpenPGP keys of them.

Sometimes you may wonder who made a signature file. You can get the public keyid used to create the detached signature file foo-2.0.tar.gz.asc by running gpg as:

  $ gpg -vv foo-2.0.tar.gz.asc
  gpg: armor: BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE
  gpg: armor header: Version: GnuPG v1
  :signature packet: algo 1, keyid C77E2D6872543FAF
        version 4, created 1445177469, md5len 0, sigclass 0x00
        digest algo 2, begin of digest 7a c7
        hashed subpkt 2 len 4 (sig created 2015-10-18)
        subpkt 16 len 8 (issuer key ID C77E2D6872543FAF)
        data: [4091 bits]
  gpg: assuming signed data in `foo-2.0.tar.gz'
  gpg: Signature made Sun 18 Oct 2015 11:11:09 PM JST using RSA key ID 72543FAF
  ...

COMMANDLINE OPTIONS¶

For the basic usage, uscan does not require to set these options.

--conffile, --conf-file

Add or replace default configuration files ("/etc/devscripts.conf" and "~/.devscripts"). This can only be used as the first option given on the command-line.

--no-conf, --noconf

Don't read any configuration files. This can only be used as the first option given on the command-line.

--no-verbose

Don't report verbose information. (default)

--verbose, -v

Report verbose information.

--debug, -vv

Report verbose information and some internal state values.

--extra-debug, -vvv

Report verbose information including the downloaded web pages as processed to STDERR for debugging.

--dehs

Send DEHS style output (XML-type) to STDOUT, while send all other uscan output to STDERR.

--no-dehs

Use only traditional uscan output format. (default)

--download, -d

Download the new upstream release. (default)

--force-download, -dd

Download the new upstream release even if up-to-date. (may not overwrite the local file)

--overwrite-download, -ddd

Download the new upstream release even if up-to-date. (may overwrite the local file)

--no-download, --nodownload

Don't download and report information.

Previously downloaded tarballs may be used.

Change default to --skip-signature.

--signature

Download signature. (default)

--no-signature

Don't download signature but verify if already downloaded.

--skip-signature

Don't bother download signature nor verifying signature.

--safe, --report

Avoid running unsafe scripts by skipping both the repacking of the downloaded package and the updating of the new source tree.

Change default to --no-download and --skip-signature.

When the objective of running uscan is to gather the upstream package status under the security conscious environment, please make sure to use this option.

--report-status

This is equivalent of setting "--verbose --safe".

--download-version version

Specify the version which the upstream release must match in order to be considered, rather than using the release with the highest version. (a best effort feature)

--download-debversion version

Specify the Debian package version to download the corresponding upstream release version. The dversionmangle and uversionmangle rules are considered. (a best effort feature)

--download-current-version

Download the currently packaged version. (a best effort feature)

--check-dirname-level N

See the below section "Directory name checking" for an explanation of this option.

--check-dirname-regex regex

See the below section "Directory name checking" for an explanation of this option.

--destdir path Normally, uscan changes its internal current directory to the package's source directory where the debian/ is located. Then the destination directory for the downloaded tarball and other files is set to the parent directory ../ from this internal current directory.

This default destination directory can be overridden by setting --destdir option to a particular path. If this path is a relative path, the destination directory is determined in relative to the internal current directory of uscan execution. If this path is a absolute path, the destination directory is set to path irrespective of the internal current directory of uscan execution.

The above is true not only for the simple uscan run in the single source tree but also for the advanced scanning uscan run with subdirectories holding multiple source trees.

One exception is when --watchfile and --package are used together. For this case, the internal current directory of uscan execution and the default destination directory are set to the current directory . where uscan is started. The default destination directory can be overridden by setting --destdir option as well.

--package package

Specify the name of the package to check for rather than examining debian/changelog; this requires the --upstream-version (unless a version is specified in the watch file) and --watchfile options as well. Furthermore, no directory scanning will be done and nothing will be downloaded. This option automatically sets --no-download and --skip-signature; and probably most useful in conjunction with the DEHS system (and --dehs).

--upstream-version upstream-version

Specify the current upstream version rather than examine debian/watch or debian/changelog to determine it. This is ignored if a directory scan is being performed and more than one debian/watch file is found.

--vcs-export-uncompressed

Disable compression of tarballs exported from a version control system (Git or Subversion). This takes more space, but saves time if mk-origtargz must repack the tarball to exclude files. It forces repacking of all exported tarballs.

--watchfile watchfile

Specify the watchfile rather than perform a directory scan to determine it. If this option is used without --package, then uscan must be called from within the Debian package source tree (so that debian/changelog can be found simply by stepping up through the tree).

One exception is when --watchfile and --package are used together. uscan can be called from anywhare and the internal current directory of uscan execution and the default destination directory are set to the current directory . where uscan is started.

See more in the --destdir explanation.

--bare

Disable all site specific special case codes to perform URL redirections and page content alterations.

--http-header

Add specified header in HTTP requests for matching url. This option can be used more than one time, values must be in the form "baseUrl@Name=value. Example:

  uscan --http-header https://example.org@My-Token=qwertyuiop
    

Security:

--no-exclusion

Don't automatically exclude files mentioned in debian/copyright field Files-Excluded.

--no-symlink

Don't rename nor repack upstream tarball.

--timeout N

Set timeout to N seconds (default 20 seconds).

--user-agent, --useragent

Override the default user agent header.

--help

Give brief usage information.

--version

Display version information.

uscan also accepts following options and passes them to mk-origtargz:

--symlink

Make orig.tar.gz (with the appropriate extension) symlink to the downloaded files. (This is the default behavior.)

--copy

Instead of symlinking as described above, copy the downloaded files.

--rename

Instead of symlinking as described above, rename the downloaded files.

--repack

After having downloaded an lzma tar, xz tar, bzip tar, gz tar, lz tar, zip, jar, xpi, zstd archive, repack it to the specified compression (see --compression).

The unzip package must be installed in order to repack zip, jar, and xpi archives, the xz-utils package must be installed to repack lzma or xz tar archives, zstd must be installed to repack zstd archives, and lzip must be installed to repack lz tar archives.

--compression [ gzip | bzip2 | lzma | xz ]

In the case where the upstream sources are repacked (either because --repack option is given or debian/copyright contains the field Files-Excluded), it is possible to control the compression method via the parameter. The default is gzip for normal tarballs, and xz for tarballs generated directly from the git repository.

--copyright-file copyright-file

Exclude files mentioned in Files-Excluded in the given copyright-file. This is useful when running uscan not within a source package directory.

DEVSCRIPT CONFIGURATION VARIABLES¶

For the basic usage, uscan does not require to set these configuration variables.

The two configuration files /etc/devscripts.conf and ~/.devscripts are sourced by a shell in that order to set configuration variables. These may be overridden by command line options. Environment variable settings are ignored for this purpose. If the first command line option given is --noconf, then these files will not be read. The currently recognized variables are:

USCAN_DOWNLOAD

Download or report only:

USCAN_SAFE

If this is set to yes, then uscan avoids running unsafe scripts by skipping both the repacking of the downloaded package and the updating of the new source tree; this is equivalent to the --safe options; this also sets the default to --no-download and --skip-signature.

USCAN_TIMEOUT

If set to a number N, then set the timeout to N seconds. This is equivalent to the --timeout option.

USCAN_SYMLINK

If this is set to no, then a pkg_version.orig.tar.{gz|bz2|lzma|xz} symlink will not be made (equivalent to the --no-symlink option). If it is set to yes or symlink, then the symlinks will be made. If it is set to rename, then the files are renamed (equivalent to the --rename option).

USCAN_DEHS_OUTPUT

If this is set to yes, then DEHS-style output will be used. This is equivalent to the --dehs option.

USCAN_VERBOSE

If this is set to yes, then verbose output will be given. This is equivalent to the --verbose option.

USCAN_USER_AGENT

If set, the specified user agent string will be used in place of the default. This is equivalent to the --user-agent option.

USCAN_DESTDIR

If set, the downloaded files will be placed in this directory. This is equivalent to the --destdir option.

USCAN_REPACK

If this is set to yes, then after having downloaded a bzip tar, lzma tar, xz tar, zip or zstd archive, uscan will repack it to the specified compression (see --compression). This is equivalent to the --repack option.

USCAN_EXCLUSION

If this is set to no, files mentioned in the field Files-Excluded of debian/copyright will be ignored and no exclusion of files will be tried. This is equivalent to the --no-exclusion option.

USCAN_HTTP_HEADER

If set, the specified http header will be used if URL match. This is equivalent to --http-header option.

USCAN_VCS_EXPORT_UNCOMPRESSED

If this is set to yes, tarballs exported from a version control system will not be compressed. This is equivalent to the --vcs-export-uncompressed option.

EXIT STATUS¶

The exit status gives some indication of whether a newer version was found or not; one is advised to read the output to determine exactly what happened and whether there were any warnings to be noted.

0

Either --help or --version was used, or for some watch file which was examined, a newer upstream version was located.

1

No newer upstream versions were located for any of the watch files examined.

ADVANCED FEATURES¶

uscan has many other enhanced features which are skipped in the above section for the simplicity. Let's check their highlights.

uscan can be executed with path as its argument to change the starting directory of search from the current directory to path .

If you are not sure what exactly is happening behind the scene, please enable the --verbose option. If this is not enough, enable the --debug option too see all the internal activities.

See "COMMANDLINE OPTIONS" and "DEVSCRIPT CONFIGURATION VARIABLES" for other variations.

HISTORY AND UPGRADING¶

This section briefly describes the backwards-incompatible watch file features which have been added in each watch file version, and the first version of the devscripts package which understood them.

Pre-version 2

The watch file syntax was significantly different in those days. Don't use it. If you are upgrading from a pre-version 2 watch file, you are advised to read this manpage and to start from scratch.

Version 2

devscripts version 2.6.90: The first incarnation of the current style of watch files. This version is also deprecated and will be rejected after the Debian 11 release.

Version 3

devscripts version 2.8.12: Introduced the following: correct handling of regex special characters in the path part, directory/path pattern matching, version number in several parts, version number mangling. Later versions have also introduced URL mangling.

If you are upgrading from version 2, the key incompatibility is if you have multiple groups in the pattern part; whereas only the first one would be used in version 2, they will all be used in version 3. To avoid this behavior, change the non-version-number groups to be (?: ... ) instead of a plain ( ... ) group.

Version 4

devscripts version 2.15.10: The first incarnation of watch files supporting multiple upstream tarballs.

The syntax of the watch file is relaxed to allow more spaces for readability.

If you have a custom script in place of uupdate, you may also encounter problems updating from Version 3.

SEE ALSO¶

dpkg(1), mk-origtargz(1), perlre(1), uupdate(1), devscripts.conf(5)

AUTHOR¶

The original version of uscan was written by Christoph Lameter <clameter@debian.org>. Significant improvements, changes and bugfixes were made by Julian Gilbey <jdg@debian.org>. HTTP support was added by Piotr Roszatycki <dexter@debian.org>. The program was rewritten in Perl by Julian Gilbey. Xavier Guimard converted it in object-oriented Perl using Moo.