Install a dummy package to satisfy dependencies on debian

From Wickle Wiki

Sometimes any packages may require another ones that are not installed and we DONT want to install it. An example is logrotate which depends on exim (or another mail server) and we could have installed postfix at hand( with the tarball)

To fix that, we must create a dummy package called exim. We must install equivs:

# apt-get install equivs

them we must create a file that describes the dummy package : exim.ctl

 
Section: web
Package: exim-dummy
Provides: exim
Description: EXIM dummy package
 This package provides dpkg with the information that
 there is a local mail server installed.
 .
 Installing logrotate etc. won't bug you to
 install exim any more

Them create a package:

serverweb:~# equivs-build exim.ctl
dh_testdir
touch build-stamp
dh_testdir
dh_testroot
dh_clean -k
# Add here commands to install the package into debian/tmp.
touch install-stamp
dh_testdir
dh_testroot
dh_installdocs
dh_installchangelogs
dh_compress
dh_fixperms
dh_installdeb
dh_gencontrol
dh_md5sums
dh_builddeb
dpkg-deb: building package `exim-dummy' in `../exim-dummy_1.0_all.deb'.

The package has been created.
Attention, the package has been created in the current directory,
not in ".." as indicated by the message above!

Now, we must install this package:

# apt-get install exim-dummy_1.0_all.deb