The info in this thread could be the starting point for this page: http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2006/09/msg00223.html

See also:

What are binNMUs?

A binNMU is a binary-only non-maintainer upload. This is necessary when the build for a specific architecture failed, or produced buggy packages, due to a problem in the build environment itself (not due to an error in the package source). Such problems include library transitions (example) or a misconfiguration on the package maintainer's machine used for preparing uploads (example). In a binNMU, the arch: any packages are rebuilt, but the arch: all packages are not.

Each of the arch: any packages receives a new version number which is the old version number with the suffix +b appended plus a version number for the binNMU (e.g. version 2.3.4-3 will become 2.3.4-3+b1). The binNMU version is incremented independently on each architecture (example). The only file in the source package which is modified by the binNMU is debian/changelog, which gets a new entry for the new version. (Historically, binNMU version numbers were created by bumping (or creating, if it did not already exist) the third-level number in the Debian revision, for instance 2.3.4-3 would instead have become 2.3.4-3.0.1. This numbering convention is no longer used.) Please note, binNMUs don't need to be acknowledged in your source changelog afterwards, whereas NMUs typically are.

Where to request a binNMU?

Please read the documentation for details on how a binNMU request should look like and where to send the request to.

How to make packages binNMU safe?

Executive summary

Note: The versioned Build-Depends on dpkg-dev (>= 1.13.19) is not needed anymore, since Etch, Lenny and Sid all have the necessary version.


CategoryPackaging