diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 2088db5..4be3a4c 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ monitoring-plugins (2.2-7~1.gbp30673c) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium
   * Bump debhelper from deprecated 5 to 10.
   * Set upstream metadata fields: Bug-Database, Bug-Submit, Name (from
     ./configure), Repository, Repository-Browse.
+  * Rely on pre-initialized dpkg-architecture variables.
 
  -- Jan Wagner <waja@cyconet.org>  Wed, 17 Apr 2019 08:17:55 +0200
 
diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index 72f2ac7..d613aae 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -14,9 +14,7 @@ PACKAGE = monitoring-plugins
 
 # These are used for cross-compiling and for saving the configure script
 # from having to guess our platform (since we know it already)
-DEB_HOST_GNU_TYPE   ?= $(shell dpkg-architecture -qDEB_HOST_GNU_TYPE)
-DEB_BUILD_GNU_TYPE  ?= $(shell dpkg-architecture -qDEB_BUILD_GNU_TYPE)
-DEB_HOST_ARCH_OS    ?= $(shell dpkg-architecture -qDEB_HOST_ARCH_OS)
+include /usr/share/dpkg/architecture.mk
 
 CFLAGS = -Wall -g