[pmg-devel] [PATCH package-rebuilds v3 1/2] fetchmail: d/rules: do not skip dh_installinit

Stoiko Ivanov s.ivanov at proxmox.com
Fri Sep 26 21:27:08 CEST 2025


while removing the init-script and override in d/rules, I skipped
dropping dh_installinit from the list of PHONY targets.

this resulted in /etc/default/fetchmail not being shipped by our
version of fetchmail, thus breaking adding accounts in the PMG GUI
(which rewrites /etc/default/fetchmail, and looks for START_DAEMON as
marker).

debugging this took me quite a bit longer than I wanted - so maybe the
short explanation might help a future reader:
* the issue was not due to changes in debhelper(7), which I initially
  thought, nor was it a bug in debhelper.
* `dh_installinit` does not expect a 'd/fetchmail.init' file in order
  to copy 'd/fetchmail.default'.
These things can quite well be checked by running
`dh binary --no-act -v` - it does list `dh_installinit` right before
`dh_tmpfiles`.

The core issue is that `.PHONY:` is a make-target and all of it's
prerequisites are phony targets[0]. this makes
`override_dh_installinit` materialize as target, which is empty,
because there are no commands in its recipe.
having an empty `override_dh_*` target is the way to tell
`dh(1)` to skip a step.

[0]https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Special-Targets.html

Fixes:  90b2ccf ("fetchmail: replace sysv init script with systemd units")
Signed-off-by: Stoiko Ivanov <s.ivanov at proxmox.com>
---
 pkgs/fetchmail/fetchmail-6.4.39/debian/rules | 3 +--
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/pkgs/fetchmail/fetchmail-6.4.39/debian/rules b/pkgs/fetchmail/fetchmail-6.4.39/debian/rules
index f0241e5..a56bde5 100755
--- a/pkgs/fetchmail/fetchmail-6.4.39/debian/rules
+++ b/pkgs/fetchmail/fetchmail-6.4.39/debian/rules
@@ -80,5 +80,4 @@ override_dh_auto_test:
 	dh $@
 
 .PHONY: override_dh_auto_configure override_dh_auto_install \
-	override_dh_installinit	override_dh_installsystemduser \
-	override_dh_auto_test
+	override_dh_installsystemduser override_dh_auto_test
-- 
2.47.3





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