How do I add a postinst file to my debian package?

Question

I'm trying to add a 'postinst' script to my debian package to clean up something a previous version may have left behind.

I've simply created a 'postinst' file in the debian/ directory, but the file is not present in the .deb file.

The permissions:

-rwxrwxr-x 1 kp kp 354 Sep 16 20:00 postinst*

The content:

#!/bin/sh

set -e
set -x

...

Answer 1

You need to copy the postinst file (and other similar files) to the package staging directory. If you use dh_make, this is performed by dh_installdeb, which is of course included in dh install. If you're doing everything manually. copy the file to debian/tmp/DEBIAN/ where debian/tmp is the staging directory.