Bug#992188: alien: Fails to create packages that place files in /usr/local

[Rob N <robn@despairlabs.com>]

Package: alien
Version: 8.95.4
Severity: normal
X-Debbugs-Cc: robn@despairlabs.com

Dear Maintainer,

Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

We build a number of local packages installing to /usr/local in a
chroot, creating a tarball, then running alien to produce a .deb file.

Since bullseye, packages fail to build, eg:

  # debian/rules binary
  dh binary
     dh_testroot
     dh_prep
     debian/rules override_dh_auto_install
  make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/nginx-build/nginx-fastmail-9:1fmbullseye75159-1.20.1-fastmail'
  mkdir -p debian/nginx-fastmail
  # Copy the packages's files.
  find . -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -not -name debian -print0 | \
  >-sed -e s#'./'##g | \
  >-xargs -0 -r -i cp -a ./{} debian/nginx-fastmail/{}
  make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/nginx-build/nginx-fastmail-9:1fmbullseye75159-1.20.1-fastmail'
     dh_installdocs
     dh_installchangelogs
     dh_perl
     dh_usrlocal
  dh_usrlocal: error: debian/nginx-fastmail/usr/local/nginx/conf/fastcgi.conf is not a directory
  make: *** [debian/rules:7: binary] Error 255

The easiest workaround seems to be to add:

  override_dh_usrlocal:

to the generated debian/rules.

I understand that files in /usr/local is against Debian policy, but
these aren't packages for Debian proper, and there's no telling what
might be included inside the source package.

Cheers,
Rob N.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 11.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-10-cloud-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU threads)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: unable to detect

Versions of packages alien depends on:
ii  cpio       2.13+dfsg-4
ii  debhelper  13.3.4
ii  dpkg-dev   1.20.9
ii  make       4.3-4.1
ii  perl       5.32.1-4
ii  rpm        4.16.1.2+dfsg1-3
ii  rpm2cpio   4.16.1.2+dfsg1-3

alien recommends no packages.

Versions of packages alien suggests:
ii  bzip2            1.0.8-4
ii  lintian          2.104.0
ii  patch            2.7.6-7
ii  xz-utils [lzma]  5.2.5-2

-- debconf information:
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
	LANGUAGE = (unset),
	LC_ALL = (unset),
	LC_CTYPE = "C.UTF-8",
	LANG = "en_US.UTF-8"
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory