uscan(1) 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. Then 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 downloads a web page from the specified URL in debian/watch.
  • uscan extracts hrefs pointing to the upstream tarball(s) from the web page using the specified matching-pattern in debian/watch.
  • uscan downloads the upstream tarball with the highest version newer than the last upstream version.
  • uscan saves the downloaded tarball to the parent ../ directory: ../<upkg>-<uversion>.tar.gz
  • uscan invokes mk-origtargz to create the source tarball: ../<spkg>_<oversion>.orig.tar.gz
  • For a multiple upstream tarball (MUT) package, the secondary upstream tarball will instead be named ../<spkg>_<oversion>.orig-<component>.tar.gz.
  • Repeat until all lines in debian/watch are processed.
  • 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.
  • The new version=4 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 --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 version 4 format of debian/watch can be summarized as follows:
•
Leading spaces and tabs are dropped.
•
Empty lines are dropped.
•
A line started by # (hash) is a comment line and dropped.
•
A single \ (back slash) at the end of a line is dropped and the next line is concatenated after removing leading spaces and tabs. The concatenated line is parsed as a single line. (The existence or non-existence of the space before the tailing single \ is significant.)
•
The first non-comment line is:
version=4

This is required.

•
The following non-comment lines (watch lines) specify the rules for the selection of the candidate upstream tarball URLs and are in one of the following three formats:
  • opts=" ... " http://URL matching-pattern [version [script]]
  • http://URL matching-pattern [version [script]]
  • opts=" ... "

Here,

  • opts=" ... " specifies the behavior of uscan. See ``WATCH FILE OPTIONS''.
  • http://URL specifies the web page where upstream publishes the link to the latest source archive.
  • https://URL may also be used, as may
  • ftp://URL
  • Some parts of URL may be in the regex match pattern surrounded between ( and ) such as /foo/bar-([\.\d]+)/. (If multiple directories match, the highest version is picked.) Otherwise, the URL is taken as verbatim.
  • matching-pattern specifies the full string matching pattern for hrefs in the web page. See ``WATCH FILE EXAMPLES''.
  • All matching parts in ( and ) are concatenated with . (period) to form the upstream version.
  • If the hrefs do not contain directories, you can combine this with the previous entry. I.e., http://URL/matching-pattern .
  • version restricts the upstream tarball which may be downloaded. The newest available version is chosen in each case.
  • debian requires the downloading upstream tarball to be newer than the version obtained from debian/changelog.
  • version-number such as 12.5 requires the upstream tarball to be newer than the version-number.
  • same requires the downloaded version of the secondary tarballs to be exactly the same as the one for the first upstream tarball downloaded. (Useful only for MUT)
  • previous restricts the version of the signature file. (Used with pgpmode=previous)
  • ignore does not restrict the version of the secondary tarballs. (Maybe useful for MUT)
  • script is executed at the end of uscan execution with appropriate arguments provided by uscan.
  • The typical Debian package is a non-native package made from one upstream tarball. Only a single line of the watch line in one of the first two formats is usually used with its version set to debian and script set to uupdate.
  • A native package should not specify script.
  • A multiple upstream tarball (MUT) package should specify uupdate as script in the last watch line and should skip specifying script in the rest of the watch lines.
  • The last format of the watch line is useful to set the persistent parameters: user-agent, compression. If this format is used, this must be followed by the URL defining watch line(s).
  • [ and ] in the above format are there to mark the optional parts and should not be typed.

There are a few special strings which are substituted by uscan to make it easy to write the watch file.

@PACKAGE@
This is substituted with the source package name found in the first line of the debian/changelog file.
@ANY_VERSION@
This is substituted by the legal upstream version regex (capturing). 

  [-_]?(\d[\-+\.:\~\da-zA-Z]*)
@ARCHIVE_EXT@
This is substituted by the typical archive file extension regex (non-capturing). 

  (?i)\.(?:tar\.xz|tar\.bz2|tar\.gz|zip)
@SIGNATURE_EXT@
This is substituted by the typical signature file extension regex (non-capturing). 

  (?i)\.(?:tar\.xz|tar\.bz2|tar\.gz|zip)\.(?:asc|pgp|gpg|sig)

Some file extensions are not included in the above intentionally to avoid false positives. You can still set such file extension patterns manually.

WATCH FILE OPTIONS

uscan reads the watch options specified in opts=" ... " to customize its behavior. Multiple options option1, option2, option3, ... can be set as opts="option1, option2, option3, ... " . The double quotes are necessary if options contain any spaces.

Unless otherwise noted as persistent, most options are valid only within their containing watch line.

The available watch options are:

component=component
Set the name of the secondary source tarball as <spkg>_<oversion>.orig-<component>.tar.gz for a MUT package.
compression=method
Set the compression method when the tarball is repacked (persistent).

Available method values are xz, gzip (alias gz), bzip2 (alias bz2), and lzma. The default is gzip for normal tarballs, and xz for tarballs generated directly from a git repository.

If the debian source format is not 1.0, setting this to xz should help reduce the package size when the package is repacked.

Please note the repacking of the upstream tarballs by mk-origtargz happens only if one of the following conditions is satisfied:

  • USCAN_REPACK is set in the devscript configuration. See ``DEVSCRIPT CONFIGURATION VARIABLES''.
  • --repack is set on the commandline. See <COMMANDLINE OPTIONS>.
  • repack is set in the watch line as opts="repack,...".
  • The upstream archive is of zip type including jar, xpi, ...
  • Files-Excluded or Files-Excluded-component stanzas are set in debian/copyright to make mk-origtargz invoked from uscan remove files from the upstream tarball and repack it. See ``COPYRIGHT FILE EXAMPLES'' and mk-origtargz(1).
repack
Force repacking of the upstream tarball using the compression method.
repacksuffix=suffix
Add suffix to the Debian package upstream version only when the source tarball is repackaged. This rule should be used only for a single upstream tarball package.
mode=mode
Set the archive download mode.
LWP
This mode is the default one which downloads the specified tarball from the archive URL on the web.
git
This mode accesses the upstream git archive directly with the git command and packs the source tree with the specified tag into spkg-version.tar.xz.

If the upstream publishes the released tarball via its web interface, please use it instead of using this mode. This mode is the last resort method.

pgpmode=mode
Set the PGP/GPG signature verification mode.
auto
uscan checks possible URLs for the signature file and autogenerates a pgpsigurlmangle rule to use it.
default
Use pgpsigurlmangle=rules to generate the candidate upstream signature file URL string from the upstream tarball URL. (default)

If the specified pgpsigurlmangle is missing, uscan checks possible URLs for the signature file and suggests adding a pgpsigurlmangle rule.

mangle
Use pgpsigurlmangle=rules to generate the candidate upstream signature file URL string from the upstream tarball URL.
next
Verify this downloaded tarball file with the signature file specified in the next watch line. The next watch line must be pgpmode=previous. Otherwise, no verification occurs.
previous
Verify the downloaded tarball file specified in the previous watch line with this signature file. The previous watch line must be pgpmode=next.
self
Verify the downloaded file foo.ext with its self signature and extract its content tarball file as foo.
none
No signature available. (No warning.)
decompress
Decompress compressed archive before the pgp/gpg signature verification.
bare
Disable all site specific special case code such as URL redirector uses and page content alterations. (persistent)
user-agent=user-agent-string
Set the user-agent string used to contact the HTTP(S) server as user-agent-string. (persistent)

user-agent option should be specified by itself in the watch line without URL, to allow using semicolons and commas in it.

pasv, passive
Use PASV mode for the FTP connection.

If PASV mode is required due to the client side network environment, set uscan to use PASV mode via ``COMMANDLINE OPTIONS'' or ``DEVSCRIPT CONFIGURATION VARIABLES'' instead.

active, nopasv
Don't use PASV mode for the FTP connection.
unzipopt=options
Add the extra options to use with the unzip command, such as -a, -aa, and -b, when executed by mk-origtargz.
dversionmangle=rules
Normalize the last upstream version string found in debian/changelog to compare it to the available upstream tarball version. Removal of the Debian specific suffix such as s/\+dfsg\d*$// is usually done here.
dirversionmangle=rules
Normalize the directory path string matching the regex in a set of parentheses of http://URL as the sortable version index string. This is used as the directory path sorting index only.

Substitution such as s/PRE/~pre/; s/RC/~rc/ may help.

pagemangle=rules
Normalize the downloaded web page string. (Don't use this unless this is absolutely needed. Generally, g flag is required for these rules.)

This is handy if you wish to access Amazon AWS or Subversion repositories in which <a href=``...''> is not used.

uversionmangle=rules
Normalize the candidate upstream version strings extracted from hrefs in the source of the web page. This is used as the version sorting index when selecting the latest upstream version.

Substitution such as s/PRE/~pre/; s/RC/~rc/ may help.

versionmangle=rules
Syntactic shorthand for uversionmangle=rules, dversionmangle=rules
downloadurlmangle=rules
Convert the selected upstream tarball href string into the accessible URL for obfuscated web sites.
filenamemangle=rules
Generate the upstream tarball filename from the selected href string if matching-pattern can extract the latest upstream version <uversion> from the selected href string. Otherwise, generate the upstream tarball filename from its full URL string and set the missing <uversion> from the generated upstream tarball filename.

Without this option, the default upstream tarball filename is generated by taking the last component of the URL and removing everything after any '?' or '#'.

pgpsigurlmangle=rules
Generate the candidate upstream signature file URL string from the upstream tarball URL.
oversionmangle=rules
Generate the version string <oversion> of the source tarball <spkg>_<oversion>.orig.tar.gz from <uversion>. This should be used to add a suffix such as +dfsg1 to a MUT package.

Here, the mangling rules apply the rules to the pertinent string. Multiple rules can be specified in a mangling rule string by making a concatenated string of each mangling rule separated by ; (semicolon).

Each mangling rule cannot contain ; (semicolon), , (comma), or " (double quote).

Each mangling rule behaves as if a Perl command "$string =~ rule" is executed. There are some notable details.

•
rule may only use the s, tr, and y operations.
s/regex/replacement/options
Regex pattern match and replace the target string. Only the g, i and x flags are available. Use the $1 syntax for back references (No \1 syntax). Code execution is not allowed (i.e. no (?{}) or (??{}) constructs).
y/source/dest/ or tr/source/dest/
Transliterate the characters in the target string.

EXAMPLE OF EXECUTION

uscan reads the first entry in debian/changelog to determine the source package name and the last upstream version.

For example, if the first entry of debian/changelog is:

  • bar (3:2.03+dfsg1-4) unstable; urgency=low

then, the source package name is bar and the last Debian package version is 3:2.03+dfsg1-4.

The last upstream version is normalized to 2.03+dfsg1 by removing the epoch and the Debian revision.

If the dversionmangle rule exists, the last upstream version is further normalized by applying this rule to it. For example, if the last upstream version is 2.03+dfsg1 indicating the source tarball is repackaged, the suffix +dfsg1 is removed by the string substitution s/\+dfsg\d*$// to make the (dversionmangled) last upstream version 2.03 and it is compared to the candidate upstream tarball versions such as 2.03, 2.04, ... found in the remote site. Thus, set this rule as:

  • opts=``dversionmangle=s/\+dfsg\d*$//''

uscan downloads a web page from http://URL specified in debian/watch.

  • If the directory name part of URL has no parentheses, ( and ), it is taken as verbatim.
  • If the directory name part of URL has parentheses, ( and ), then uscan recursively searches all possible directories to find a page for the newest version. If the dirversionmangle rule exists, the generated sorting index is used to find the newest version. If a specific version is specified for the download, the matching version string has priority over the newest version.

For example, this http://URL may be specified as:

Please note the trailing / in the above to make ([\d\.]+) as the directory.

If the pagemangle rule exists, the whole downloaded web page as a string is normalized by applying this rule to it. This is very powerful tool and needs to be used with caution. If other mangling rules can be used to address your objective, do not use this rule.

The downloaded web page is scanned for hrefs defined in the <a href=" ... "> tag to locate the candidate upstream tarball hrefs. These candidate upstream tarball hrefs are matched by the Perl regex pattern matching-pattern such as DL-(?:[\d\.]+?)/foo-(.+)\.tar\.gz to narrow down the candidates. This pattern match needs to be anchored at the beginning and the end. For example, candidate hrefs may be:

  • DL-2.02/foo-2.02.tar.gz
  • DL-2.03/foo-2.03.tar.gz
  • DL-2.04/foo-2.04.tar.gz

Here the matching string of (.+) in matching-pattern is considered as the candidate upstream version. If there are multiple matching strings of capturing patterns in matching-pattern, they are all concatenated with . (period) to form the candidate upstream version. Make sure to use the non-capturing regex such as (?:[\d\.]+?) instead for the variable text matching part unrelated to the version.

Then, the candidate upstream versions are:

  • 2.02
  • 2.03
  • 2.04

The downloaded tarball filename is basically set to the same as the filename in the remote URL of the selected href.

If the uversionmangle rule exists, the candidate upstream versions are normalized by applying this rule to them. (This rule may be useful if the upstream version scheme doesn't sort correctly to identify the newest version.)

The upstream tarball href corresponding to the newest (uversionmangled) candidate upstream version newer than the (dversionmangled) last upstream version is selected.

If multiple upstream tarball hrefs corresponding to a single version with different extensions exist, the highest compression one is chosen. (Priority: tar.xz > tar.lzma > tar.bz2 > tar.gz.)

If the selected upstream tarball href is the relative URL, it is converted to the absolute URL using the base URL of the web page. If the <base href=" ... "> tag exists in the web page, the selected upstream tarball href is converted to the absolute URL using the specified base URL in the base tag, instead.

If the downloadurlmangle rule exists, the selected upstream tarball href is normalized by applying this rule to it. (This is useful for some sites with the obfuscated download URL.)

If the filenamemangle rule exists, the downloaded tarball filename is generated by applying this rule to the selected href if matching-pattern can extract the latest upstream version <uversion> from the selected href string. Otherwise, generate the upstream tarball filename from its full URL string and set the missing <uversion> from the generated upstream tarball filename.

Without the filenamemangle rule, the default upstream tarball filename is generated by taking the last component of the URL and removing everything after any '?' or '#'.

uscan downloads the selected upstream tarball to the parent ../ directory. For example, the downloaded file may be:

  • ../foo-2.04.tar.gz

Let's call this downloaded version 2.04 in the above example generically as <uversion> in the following.

If the pgpsigurlmangle rule exists, the upstream signature file URL is generated by applying this rule to the (downloadurlmangled) selected upstream tarball href and the signature file is tried to be downloaded from it.

If the pgpsigurlmangle rule doesn't exist, uscan warns user if the matching upstream signature file is available from the same URL with their filename being suffixed by the 4 common suffix asc, gpg, pgp, and sig. (You can avoid this warning by setting pgpmode=none.)

If the signature file is downloaded, the downloaded upstream tarball is checked for its authenticity against the downloaded signature file using the keyring debian/upstream/signing-key.pgp or the armored keyring debian/upstream/signing-key.asc (see ``KEYRING FILE EXAMPLES''). If its signature is not valid, or not made by one of the listed keys, uscan will report an error.

If the oversionmangle rule exists, the source tarball version oversion is generated from the downloaded upstream version uversion by applying this rule. This rule is useful to add suffix such as +dfsg1 to the version of all the source packages of the MUT package for which the repacksuffix mechanism doesn't work.

uscan invokes mk-origtargz to create the source tarball properly named for the source package with .orig. (or .orig-<component>. for the secondary tarballs) in its filename.

case A: packaging of the upstream tarball as is
mk-origtargz creates a symlink ../bar_<oversion>.orig.tar.gz linked to the downloaded local upstream tarball. Here, bar is the source package name found in debian/changelog. The generated symlink may be:
  • ../bar_2.04.orig.tar.gz -> foo-2.04.tar.gz (as is)

Usually, there is no need to set up opts="dversionmangle= ... " for this case.

case B: packaging of the upstream tarball after removing non-DFSG files
mk-origtargz checks the filename glob of the Files-Excluded stanza in the first section of debian/copyright, removes matching files to create a repacked upstream tarball. Normally, the repacked upstream tarball is renamed with suffix to ../bar_<oversion><suffix>.orig.tar.gz using the repacksuffix option for the single upstream package. Here <oversion> is updated to be <oversion><suffix>.

The removal of files is required if files are not DFSG-compliant. For such case, +dfsg1 is used as suffix.

So the combined options are set as opts=``dversionmangle=s/\+dfsg\d*$// ,repacksuffix=+dfsg1'', instead.

For example, the repacked upstream tarball may be:

  • ../bar_2.04+dfsg1.orig.tar.gz (repackaged)

uscan normally invokes "uupdate --find --upstream-version oversion " for the version=4 watch file.

Please note that --find option is used here since mk-origtargz has been invoked to make *.orig.tar.gz file already. uscan picks bar from debian/changelog.

It creates the new upstream source tree under the ../bar-<oversion> directory and Debianize it leveraging the last package contents.

WATCH FILE EXAMPLES

When writing the watch file, you should rely on the latest upstream source announcement web page. You should not try to second guess the upstream archive structure if possible. Here are the typical debian/watch files.

Please note that executing uscan with -v or -vv reveals what exactly happens internally.

The existence and non-existence of a space the before tailing \ (back slash) are significant.

HTTP site (basic)

Here is an example for the basic single upstream tarball. 

  version=4
  http://example.com/~user/release/foo.html \
      files/foo-([\d\.]+)\.tar\.gz debian uupdate

Or using the special strings: 

  version=4
  http://example.com/~user/release/@[email protected] \
      files/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ debian uupdate

For the upstream source package foo-2.0.tar.gz, this watch file downloads and creates the Debian orig.tar file foo_2.0.orig.tar.gz.

HTTP site (pgpsigurlmangle)

Here is an example for the basic single upstream tarball with the matching signature file in the same file path. 

  version=4
  opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.asc%" http://example.com/release/@[email protected] \
      files/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ debian uupdate

For the upstream source package foo-2.0.tar.gz and the upstream signature file foo-2.0.tar.gz.asc, this watch file downloads these files, verifies the authenticity using the keyring debian/upstream-key.pgp and creates the Debian orig.tar file foo_2.0.orig.tar.gz.

HTTP site (pgpmode=next/previous)

Here is an example for the basic single upstream tarball with the matching signature file in the unrelated file path. 

  version=4
  opts="pgpmode=next" http://example.com/release/@[email protected] \
      files/(?:\d+)/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ debian
  opts="pgpmode=previous" http://example.com/release/@[email protected] \
      files/(?:\d+)/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@SIGNATURE_EXT@ previous uupdate

(?:\d+) part can be any random value. The tarball file can have 53, while the signature file can have 33.

([\d\.]+) part for the signature file has a strict requirement to match that for the upstream tarball specified in the previous line by having previous as version in the watch line.

HTTP site (flexible)

Here is an example for the maximum flexibility of upstream tarball and signature file extensions. 

  version=4
  opts="pgpmode=next" http://example.com/DL/ \
      files/(?:\d+)/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ debian
  opts="pgpmode=previous" http://example.com/DL/ \
      files/(?:\d+)/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@SIGNATURE_EXT@ \
      previous uupdate

HTTP site (basic MUT)

Here is an example for the basic multiple upstream tarballs. 

  version=4
  opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%" \
      http://example.com/release/foo.html \
      files/foo-([\d\.]+)\.tar\.gz debian
  opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%, component=bar" \
      http://example.com/release/foo.html \
      files/foobar-([\d\.]+)\.tar\.gz same
  opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%, component=baz" \
      http://example.com/release/foo.html \
      files/foobaz-([\d\.]+)\.tar\.gz same uupdate

For the main upstream source package foo-2.0.tar.gz and the secondary upstream source packages foobar-2.0.tar.gz and foobaz-2.0.tar.gz which install under bar/ and baz/, this watch file downloads and creates the Debian orig.tar file foo_2.0.orig.tar.gz, foo_2.0.orig-bar.tar.gz and foo_2.0.orig-baz.tar.gz. Also, these upstream tarballs are verified by their signature files.

HTTP site (recursive directory scanning)

Here is an example with the recursive directory scanning for the upstream tarball and its signature files released in a directory named after their version. 

  version=4
  opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%, dirversionmangle=s/-PRE/~pre/;s/-RC/~rc/" \
      http://tmrc.mit.edu/mirror/twisted/Twisted/([\d+\.]+)/ \
      Twisted-([\d\.]+)\.tar\.xz debian uupdate

Here, the web site should be accessible at the following URL: 

  http://tmrc.mit.edu/mirror/twisted/Twisted/

Here, dirversionmangle option is used to normalize the sorting order of the directory names.

HTTP site (alternative shorthand)

For the bare HTTP site where you can directly see archive filenames, the normal watch file: 

  version=4
  opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%" \
      http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Text/ \
      Text-CSV_XS-(.+)\.tar\.gz \
      debian uupdate

can be rewritten in an alternative shorthand form: 

  version=4
  opts="pgpsigurlmangle=s%$%.sig%" \
      http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Text/\
      Text-CSV_XS-(.+)\.tar\.gz \
      debian uupdate

Please note that matching-pattern of the first example doesn't have directory and the subtle difference of a space before the tailing \.

HTTP site (funny version)

For a site which has funny version numbers, the parenthesized groups will be joined with . (period) to make a sanitized version number. 

  version=4
  http://www.site.com/pub/foobar/foobar_v(\d+)_(\d+)\.tar\.gz \
  debian uupdate

HTTP site (DFSG)

The upstream part of the Debian version number can be mangled to indicate the source package was repackaged to clean up non-DFSG files: 

  version=4
  opts="dversionmangle=s/\+dfsg\d*$//,repacksuffix=+dfsg1" \
  http://some.site.org/some/path/foobar-(.+)\.tar\.gz debian uupdate

See ``COPYRIGHT FILE EXAMPLES''.

HTTP site (filenamemangle)

The upstream tarball filename is found by taking the last component of the URL and removing everything after any '?' or '#'.

If this does not fit to you, use filenamemangle. For example, <A href=``http://foo.bar.org/dl/?path=&dl=foo-0.1.1.tar.gz''> could be handled as: 

  version=4
  opts=filenamemangle=s/.*=(.*)/$1/ \
  http://foo.bar.org/dl/\?path=&dl=foo-(.+)\.tar\.gz \
  debian uupdate

<A href=``http://foo.bar.org/dl/?path=&dl_version=0.1.1''> could be handled as: 

  version=4
  opts=filenamemangle=s/.*=(.*)/foo-$1\.tar\.gz/ \
  http://foo.bar.org/dl/\?path=&dl_version=(.+) \
  debian uupdate

If the href string has no version using <I>matching-pattern>, the version can be obtained from the full URL using filenamemangle. 

  version=4
  opts=filenamemangle=s&.*/dl/(.*)/foo\.tar\.gz&foo-$1\.tar\.gz& \
  http://foo.bar.org/dl/([\.\d]+)/ foo.tar.gz \
  debian uupdate

HTTP site (downloadurlmangle)

The option downloadurlmangle can be used to mangle the URL of the file to download. This can only be used with http:// URLs. This may be necessary if the link given on the web page needs to be transformed in some way into one which will work automatically, for example: 

  version=4
  opts=downloadurlmangle=s/prdownload/download/ \
  http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2051 \
  http://prdownload.berlios.de/softdevice/vdr-softdevice-(.+).tgz \
  debian uupdate

HTTP site (oversionmangle, MUT)

The option oversionmangle can be used to mangle the version of the source tarball (.orig.tar.gz and .orig-bar.tar.gz). For example, +dfsg1 can be added to the upstream version as: 

  version=4
  opts=oversionmangle=s/(.*)/$1+dfsg1/ \
  http://example.com/~user/release/foo.html \
  files/foo-([\d\.]*).tar.gz debian
  opts="component=bar" \
  http://example.com/~user/release/foo.html \
  files/bar-([\d\.]*).tar.gz same uupdate

See ``COPYRIGHT FILE EXAMPLES''.

HTTP site (pagemangle)

The option pagemangle can be used to mangle the downloaded web page before applying other rules. The non-standard web page without proper <a href=" << ... >> "> entries can be converted. For example, if foo.html uses <a bogus=" ... ">, this can be converted to the standard page format with: 

  version=4
  opts=pagemangle="s/<a\s+bogus=/<a href=/g" \
  http://example.com/release/@[email protected] \
  files/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ debian uupdate

Please note the use of g here to replace all occurrences.

If foo.html uses <Key> ... </Key>, this can be converted to the standard page format with: 

  version=4
  opts="pagemangle=s%<Key>([^<]*)</Key>%<Key><a href="$1">$1</a></Key>%g" \\
  http://localhost:$PORT/ \
  (?:.*)/@PACKAGE@@ANY_VERSION@@ARCHIVE_EXT@ debian uupdate

FTP site (basic):

  version=4
  ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/web/c_cpp/cweb/cweb-(.+)\.tar\.gz \
  debian uupdate

FTP site (regex special characters):

  version=4
  ftp://ftp.worldforge.org/pub/worldforge/libs/\
  Atlas-C++/transitional/Atlas-C\+\+-(.+)\.tar\.gz debian uupdate

Please note that this URL is connected to be ... libs/Atlas-C++/ ... . For ++, the first one in the directory path is verbatim while the one in the filename is escaped by \.

FTP site (funny version)

This is another way of handling site with funny version numbers, this time using mangling. (Note that multiple groups will be concatenated before mangling is performed, and that mangling will only be performed on the basename version number, not any path version numbers.) 

  version=4
  opts="uversionmangle=s/^/0.0./" \
  ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/ALPHA/wine/\
  development/Wine-(.+)\.tar\.gz debian uupdate

sf.net

For SourceForge based projects, qa.debian.org runs a redirector which allows a simpler form of URL. The format below will automatically be rewritten to use the redirector with the watch file: 

  version=4
  http://sf.net/<project>/ <tar-name>-(.+)\.tar\.gz debian uupdate

For audacity, set the watch file as: 

  version=4
  http://sf.net/audacity/ audacity-minsrc-(.+)\.tar\.gz debian uupdate

Please note, you can still use normal functionalities of uscan to set up a watch file for this site without using the redirector. 

  version=4
  opts="uversionmangle=s/-pre/~pre/, \
        filenamemangle=s%(?:.*)audacity-minsrc-(.+)\.tar\.xz/download%\
                         audacity-$1.tar.xz%" \
        http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/files/audacity/(\d[\d\.]+)/ \
        (?:.*)audacity-minsrc-([\d\.]+)\.tar\.xz/download debian uupdate

Here, % is used as the separator instead of the standard /.

github.com

For GitHub based projects, you can use the tags or releases page. The archive URL uses only the version as the filename. You can rename the downloaded upstream tarball from into the standard <project>-<version>.tar.gz using filenamemangle: 

  version=4
  opts="filenamemangle=s%(?:.*?)?v?(\d[\d.]*)\.tar\.gz%<project>-$1.tar.gz%" \
      https://github.com/<user>/<project>/tags \
      (?:.*?/)?v?(\d[\d.]*)\.tar\.gz debian uupdate

PyPI

For PyPI based projects, pypi.debian.net runs a redirector which allows a simpler form of URL. The format below will automatically be rewritten to use the redirector with the watch file: 

  version=4
  https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/<initial>/<project>/ \
      <tar-name>-(.+)\.tar\.gz debian uupdate

For cfn-sphere, set the watch file as: 

  version=4
  https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/c/cfn-sphere/ \
      cfn-sphere-([\d\.]+).tar.gz debian uupdate

Please note, you can still use normal functionalities of uscan to set up a watch file for this site without using the redirector. 

  version=4
  opts="pgpmode=none" \
      https://pypi.python.org/pypi/cfn-sphere/ \
      https://pypi.python.org/packages/source/c/cfn-sphere/\
      cfn-sphere-([\d\.]+).tar.gz#.* debian uupdate

code.google.com

Sites which used to be hosted on the Google Code service should have migrated to elsewhere (github?). Please look for the newer upstream site.

direct access to the git repository

If the upstream only publishes its code via the git repository and it has no web interface to obtain the release tarball, you can use uscan with the tags of the git repository. 

  version=4
  opts="mode=git, pgpmode=none" \
  http://git.ao2.it/tweeper.git \
  refs/tags/v([\d\.]+) debian uupdate

Please note "git ls-remote" is used to obtain references for tags. If a tag v20.5 is the newest tag, the above example downloads spkg-20.5.tar.xz.

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: ...
   ...

See mk-origtargz(1).

KEYRING FILE EXAMPLES

Let's assume that the upstream "uscan test key (no secret) <[email protected]>" signs its package and publishes its public key fingerprint 'CF21 8F0E 7EAB F584 B7E2 0402 C77E 2D68 7254 3FAF' which you know is the trusted one.

Please note that the short keyid 72543FAF is the last 4 Bytes, the long keyid C77E2D6872543FAF is the last 8 Bytes, and the finger print is the last 20 Bytes of the public key in hexadecimal form. You can save typing by using the short keyid but you must verify the OpenPGP key using its fingerprint.

The armored keyring file debian/upstream/signing-key.asc can be created by using the gpg (or gpg2) command as follows. 

  $ gpg --recv-keys "72543FAF"
  ...
  $ gpg --finger "72543FAF"
  pub   4096R/72543FAF 2015-09-02
        Key fingerprint = CF21 8F0E 7EAB F584 B7E2  0402 C77E 2D68 7254 3FAF
  uid                  uscan test key (no secret) <[email protected]>
  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 file can be created instead by skipping --armor and changing the storing file to debian/upstream/signing-key.pgp in the above example. 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.
--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 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
Set the path of directory to which to download instead of its default ../. If the specified path is not absolute, it will be relative to one of the current directory or, if directory scanning is enabled, the package's source directory.
--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.
--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).
--bare
Disable all site specific special case codes to perform URL redirections and page content alterations.
--no-exclusion
Don't automatically exclude files mentioned in debian/copyright field Files-Excluded.
--pasv
Force PASV mode for FTP connections.
--no-pasv
Don't use PASV mode for FTP connections.
--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, zip, jar, xpi archive, repack it to the specified compression (see --compression).

The unzip package must be installed in order to repack zip and jar archives, the mozilla-devscripts package must be installed to repack xpi archives, and the xz-utils package must be installed to repack lzma or xz 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
If this is set to no, then newer upstream files will not be downloaded; this is equivalent to the --no-download options.
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_PASV
If this is set to yes or no, this will force FTP connections to use PASV mode or not to, respectively. If this is set to default, then Net::FTP(3) makes the choice (primarily based on the FTP_PASSIVE environment variable).
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, or zip 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.

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 actually scans not just the current directory but all its subdirectories looking for debian/watch to process them all. See ``Directory name checking''.

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

See ``COMMANDLINE OPTIONS'' and ``DEVSCRIPT CONFIGURATION VARIABLES'' for other variations.

Custom script

The optional script parameter in debian/watch means to execute script with options after processing this line if specified.

For compatibility with other tools such as git-buildpackage, it may not be wise to create custom scripts with random behavior. In general, uupdate is the best choice for the non-native package and custom scripts, if created, should behave as if uupdate. For possible use case, see <http://bugs.debian.org/748474> as an example.

URL diversion

Some popular web sites changed their web page structure causing maintenance problems to the watch file. There are some redirection services created to ease maintenance of the watch file. Currently, uscan makes automatic diversion of URL requests to the following URLs to cope with this situation.

Directory name checking

Similarly to several other scripts in the devscripts package, uscan explores the requested directory trees looking for debian/changelog and debian/watch files. As a safeguard against stray files causing potential problems, and in order to promote efficiency, it will examine the name of the parent directory once it finds the debian/changelog file, and check that the directory name corresponds to the package name. It will only attempt to download newer versions of the package and then perform any requested action if the directory name matches the package name. Precisely how it does this is controlled by two configuration file variables DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL and DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX, and their corresponding command-line options --check-dirname-level and --check-dirname-regex.

DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL can take the following values:

0
Never check the directory name.
1
Only check the directory name if we have had to change directory in our search for debian/changelog, that is, the directory containing debian/changelog is not the directory from which uscan was invoked. This is the default behavior.
2
Always check the directory name.

The directory name is checked by testing whether the current directory name (as determined by pwd(1)) matches the regex given by the configuration file option DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX or by the command line option --check-dirname-regex regex. Here regex is a Perl regex (see perlre(3perl)), which will be anchored at the beginning and the end. If regex contains a /, then it must match the full directory path. If not, then it must match the full directory name. If regex contains the string package, this will be replaced by the source package name, as determined from the debian/changelog. The default value for the regex is: package(-.+)?, thus matching directory names such as package and package-version.

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.
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.

  • uscan invokes the custom script as "script --upstream-version version ../spkg_version.orig.tar.gz".
  • uscan invokes the standard uupdate as "uupdate --no-symlink --upstream-version version ../spkg_version.orig.tar.gz".
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.

  • uscan invokes the custom script as "script --upstream-version version".
  • uscan invokes the standard uupdate as "uupdate --find --upstream-version version".

Restriction for --dehs is lifted by redirecting other output to STDERR when it is activated.

AUTHOR

The original version of uscan was written by Christoph Lameter <[email protected]>. Significant improvements, changes and bugfixes were made by Julian Gilbey <[email protected]>. HTTP support was added by Piotr Roszatycki <[email protected]>. The program was rewritten in Perl by Julian Gilbey.

TRANSLATIONS

SEE ALSO

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