Fixing the Phion VPN DEB package


Or, how to re-build a Debian package

The Phion VPN package has a version string which isn't compatible with the latest APT system, you'll find that Debian and derivatives like Ubuntu will complain about the version string being illegal and will refuse to install the package:

dpkg: error processing /tmp/v/phionVPN-R8-SP2.deb (--install):
parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/control' near line 2 package 'phionvpn':
error in Version string 'R8-SP2': version number does not start with digit

Here is how you can fix this so that the package will install on your your system.

$ mkdir -p /tmp/vpn/debian
$ dpkg -x phionVPN-R8-SP2.deb /tmp/vpn/debian
$ mkdir -p /tmp/vpn/debian/DEBIAN
$ dpkg -e phionVPN-R8-SP2.deb /tmp/vpn/debian/DEBIAN

Now, let's change the version string:

$ vi /tmp/vpn/debian/DEBIAN/control

Change from:

Version: R8-SP2

to:

Version: 8-SP2

Now, let's re-build the package:

$ cd /tmp/vpn
$ dpkg-deb --build debian
$ mv debian.deb phionvpn_8-SP2.deb

That's it, you can now install the package successfully:

# dpkg -i /tmp/vpn/phionvpn_8-SP2.deb

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