[apt.git] / doc / sources.list.5.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
  "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [

<!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent">
%aptent;

]>

<refentry>

 <refentryinfo>
   &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
   &apt-author.team;
   &apt-email;
   &apt-product;
   <!-- The last update date -->
   <date>29 February 2004</date>
 </refentryinfo>
 
 <refmeta>
   <refentrytitle>sources.list</refentrytitle>
   <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
   <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
 </refmeta>
 
 <!-- Man page title -->
 <refnamediv>
    <refname>sources.list</refname>
    <refpurpose>Package resource list for APT</refpurpose>
 </refnamediv>
 
 <refsect1><title>Description</title>
   <para>The package resource list is used to locate archives of the package
   distribution system in use on the system. At this time, this manual page
   documents only the packaging system used by the Debian GNU/Linux system.
   This control file is <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename>.</para>

   <para>The source list is designed to support any number of active sources and a
   variety of source media. The file lists one source per line, with the
   most preferred source listed first. The format of each line is:
   <literal>type uri args</literal> The first item, <literal>type</literal>
   determines the format for <literal>args</literal>. <literal>uri</literal> is
   a Universal Resource Identifier 
   (URI), which is a superset of the more specific and well-known Universal
   Resource Locator, or URL. The rest of the line can be marked as a comment 
   by using a #.</para>
 </refsect1>
 
 <refsect1><title>sources.list.d</title>
   <para>The <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list.d</filename> directory provides
   a way to add sources.list entries in separate files.
   The format is the same as for the regular <filename>sources.list</filename> file.
   File names need to end with
   <filename>.list</filename> and may only contain letters (a-z and A-Z),
   digits (0-9), underscore (_), hyphen (-) and period (.) characters.
   Otherwise they will be silently ignored.</para>
 </refsect1>

 <refsect1><title>The deb and deb-src types</title>
   <para>The <literal>deb</literal> type describes a typical two-level Debian
   archive, <filename>distribution/component</filename>. Typically,
   <literal>distribution</literal> is generally one of
   <literal>stable</literal> <literal>unstable</literal> or 
   <literal>testing</literal> while component is one of <literal>main</literal> 
   <literal>contrib</literal> <literal>non-free</literal> or
   <literal>non-us</literal>. The 
   <literal>deb-src</literal> type describes a debian distribution's source
   code in the same form as the <literal>deb</literal> type.
   A <literal>deb-src</literal> line is required to fetch source indexes.</para>


   <para>The format for a <filename>sources.list</filename> entry using the
   <literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types is:</para>

   <literallayout>deb uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>

   <para>The URI for the <literal>deb</literal> type must specify the base of the
   Debian distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs. 
   <literal>distribution</literal> can specify an exact path, in which case the 
   components must be omitted and <literal>distribution</literal> must end with
   a slash (/). This is useful for when the case only a particular sub-section of the 
   archive denoted by the URI is of interest.
   If <literal>distribution</literal> does not specify an exact path, at least
   one <literal>component</literal> must be present.</para>

   <para><literal>distribution</literal> may also contain a variable, 
   <literal>$(ARCH)</literal>
   which expands to the Debian architecture (i386, m68k, powerpc, ...)
   used on the system. This permits architecture-independent
   <filename>sources.list</filename> files to be used. In general this is only
   of interest when specifying an exact path, <literal>APT</literal> will
   automatically generate a URI with the current architecture otherwise.</para>

   <para>Since only one distribution can be specified per line it may be necessary
   to have multiple lines for the same URI, if a subset of all available
   distributions or components at that location is desired.
   APT will sort the URI list after it has generated a complete set 
   internally, and will collapse multiple references to the same Internet 
   host, for instance, into a single connection, so that it does not 
   inefficiently establish an FTP connection, close it, do something else, 
   and then re-establish a connection to that same host. This feature is 
   useful for accessing busy FTP sites with limits on the number of 
   simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to 
   different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.</para>

   <para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
   preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
   by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
   network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>

   <para>Some examples:</para>
   <literallayout>
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ &stable-codename;/updates main contrib non-free
   </literallayout>

 </refsect1>

 <refsect1><title>URI specification</title>

   <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
   ssh, rsh.
   <variablelist>
    <varlistentry><term>file</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
    considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
    archives.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>
    
    <varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
    swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
    source list.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry><term>http</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
    variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format 
    http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
    <envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
    HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
    http://user:pass@server:port/.
    Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
    is highly configurable; for more information see the
    &apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
    by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
    to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
    using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
    the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry><term>copy</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
    copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
    This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>
    
    <varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
	as a given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
	arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts.
    Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
    <command>dd</command> 
    commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry><term>more recognizable URI types</term>
    <listitem><para>
    APT can be extended with more methods shipped in other optional packages which should
    follow the nameing scheme <literal>apt-transport-<replaceable>method</replaceable></literal>.
    The APT team e.g. maintains also the <literal>apt-transport-https</literal> package which
    provides access methods for https-URIs with features similar to the http method, but other
    methods for using e.g. debtorrent are also available, see <citerefentry>
    <refentrytitle><filename>apt-transport-debtorrent</filename></refentrytitle>
    <manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
    </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>
  </variablelist>
 </para>
 </refsect1>
 
 <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
   <para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
   for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
   <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>

   <para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
   <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>

   <para>Source line for the above</para>
   <literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>

   <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
   the hamm/main area.</para>
   <literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>

   <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
   directory, and uses only the &stable-codename;/contrib area.</para>
   <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; contrib</literallayout>

   <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
   directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
   well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>
   a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
   <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>

   <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
    debian-non-US directory.</para>
   <literallayout>deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free</literallayout>

   <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
   debian-non-US directory, and uses only files found under
   <filename>unstable/binary-i386</filename> on i386 machines, 
   <filename>unstable/binary-m68k</filename> on m68k, and so
   forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only 
   illustrates how to use the substitution variable; non-us is no longer 
   structured like this] 
   <literallayout>deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
   </para>
 </refsect1>
 
 <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
   <para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
   </para>
 </refsect1>

 &manbugs;
 
</refentry>
Commit	Line	Data
24f6490f AL	1	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
	2	<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
	3	"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [
	4
	5	<!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent">
	6	%aptent;
	7
	8	]>
	9
	10	<refentry>
5e80de29 AL	11
	12	<refentryinfo>
	13	&apt-author.jgunthorpe;
	14	&apt-author.team;
	15	&apt-email;
	16	&apt-product;
	17	<!-- The last update date -->
	18	<date>29 February 2004</date>
	19	</refentryinfo>
24f6490f AL	20
	21	<refmeta>
	22	<refentrytitle>sources.list</refentrytitle>
	23	<manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
f0599b9c	24	<refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
24f6490f AL	25	</refmeta>
	26
	27	<!-- Man page title -->
	28	<refnamediv>
	29	<refname>sources.list</refname>
	30	<refpurpose>Package resource list for APT</refpurpose>
	31	</refnamediv>
	32
	33	<refsect1><title>Description</title>
	34	<para>The package resource list is used to locate archives of the package
	35	distribution system in use on the system. At this time, this manual page
	36	documents only the packaging system used by the Debian GNU/Linux system.
5f4331c4	37	This control file is <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename>.</para>
24f6490f AL	38
	39	<para>The source list is designed to support any number of active sources and a
	40	variety of source media. The file lists one source per line, with the
	41	most preferred source listed first. The format of each line is:
	42	<literal>type uri args</literal> The first item, <literal>type</literal>
5f4331c4	43	determines the format for <literal>args</literal>. <literal>uri</literal> is
24f6490f AL	44	a Universal Resource Identifier
	45	(URI), which is a superset of the more specific and well-known Universal
	46	Resource Locator, or URL. The rest of the line can be marked as a comment
	47	by using a #.</para>
	48	</refsect1>
	49
7e154433 MV	50	<refsect1><title>sources.list.d</title>
7e154433 MV	51	<para>The <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list.d</filename> directory provides
6823d85b EL	52	a way to add sources.list entries in separate files.
	53	The format is the same as for the regular <filename>sources.list</filename> file.
	54	File names need to end with
	55	<filename>.list</filename> and may only contain letters (a-z and A-Z),
	56	digits (0-9), underscore (_), hyphen (-) and period (.) characters.
	57	Otherwise they will be silently ignored.</para>
7e154433 MV	58	</refsect1>
7e154433 MV	59
24f6490f AL	60	<refsect1><title>The deb and deb-src types</title>
	61	<para>The <literal>deb</literal> type describes a typical two-level Debian
	62	archive, <filename>distribution/component</filename>. Typically,
	63	<literal>distribution</literal> is generally one of
	64	<literal>stable</literal> <literal>unstable</literal> or
	65	<literal>testing</literal> while component is one of <literal>main</literal>
	66	<literal>contrib</literal> <literal>non-free</literal> or
5f4331c4	67	<literal>non-us</literal>. The
24f6490f AL	68	<literal>deb-src</literal> type describes a debian distribution's source
	69	code in the same form as the <literal>deb</literal> type.
	70	A <literal>deb-src</literal> line is required to fetch source indexes.</para>
	71
	72
	73	<para>The format for a <filename>sources.list</filename> entry using the
5f4331c4	74	<literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types is:</para>
24f6490f AL	75
	76	<literallayout>deb uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>
	77
	78	<para>The URI for the <literal>deb</literal> type must specify the base of the
	79	Debian distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs.
	80	<literal>distribution</literal> can specify an exact path, in which case the
	81	components must be omitted and <literal>distribution</literal> must end with
5f4331c4	82	a slash (/). This is useful for when the case only a particular sub-section of the
24f6490f AL	83	archive denoted by the URI is of interest.
	84	If <literal>distribution</literal> does not specify an exact path, at least
	85	one <literal>component</literal> must be present.</para>
	86
	87	<para><literal>distribution</literal> may also contain a variable,
	88	<literal>$(ARCH)</literal>
	89	which expands to the Debian architecture (i386, m68k, powerpc, ...)
	90	used on the system. This permits architecture-independent
	91	<filename>sources.list</filename> files to be used. In general this is only
	92	of interest when specifying an exact path, <literal>APT</literal> will
	93	automatically generate a URI with the current architecture otherwise.</para>
	94
	95	<para>Since only one distribution can be specified per line it may be necessary
	96	to have multiple lines for the same URI, if a subset of all available
	97	distributions or components at that location is desired.
	98	APT will sort the URI list after it has generated a complete set
	99	internally, and will collapse multiple references to the same Internet
	100	host, for instance, into a single connection, so that it does not
	101	inefficiently establish an FTP connection, close it, do something else,
	102	and then re-establish a connection to that same host. This feature is
	103	useful for accessing busy FTP sites with limits on the number of
	104	simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to
	105	different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.</para>
	106
	107	<para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
	108	preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
	109	by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
	110	network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>
	111
	112	<para>Some examples:</para>
	113	<literallayout>
e1dd65c9 DK	114	deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main contrib non-free
e1dd65c9 DK	115	deb http://security.debian.org/ &stable-codename;/updates main contrib non-free
24f6490f AL	116	</literallayout>
	117
	118	</refsect1>
	119
	120	<refsect1><title>URI specification</title>
	121
c06b16a9 EL	122	<para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
c06b16a9 EL	123	ssh, rsh.
24f6490f AL	124	<variablelist>
	125	<varlistentry><term>file</term>
	126	<listitem><para>
	127	The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
	128	considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
	129	archives.</para></listitem>
	130	</varlistentry>
	131
	132	<varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
	133	<listitem><para>
	134	The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
	135	swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
	136	source list.</para></listitem>
	137	</varlistentry>
	138
	139	<varlistentry><term>http</term>
	140	<listitem><para>
	141	The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
	142	variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format
	143	http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
	144	<envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
	145	HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
5f4331c4	146	http://user:pass@server:port/.
24f6490f AL	147	Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
	148	</varlistentry>
	149
	150	<varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
	151	<listitem><para>
	152	The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
	153	is highly configurable; for more information see the
	154	&apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
	155	by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
	156	to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
	157	using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
	158	the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
	159	</varlistentry>
	160
	161	<varlistentry><term>copy</term>
	162	<listitem><para>
	163	The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
	164	copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
	165	This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
	166	</varlistentry>
	167
	168	<varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
	169	<listitem><para>
	170	The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
b2d941c5 EL	171	as a given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
b2d941c5 EL	172	arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts.
24f6490f AL	173	Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
	174	<command>dd</command>
	175	commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
	176	</varlistentry>
71bba383	177
f1243317	178	<varlistentry><term>more recognizable URI types</term>
71bba383 DK	179	<listitem><para>
	180	APT can be extended with more methods shipped in other optional packages which should
	181	follow the nameing scheme <literal>apt-transport-<replaceable>method</replaceable></literal>.
f1243317	182	The APT team e.g. maintains also the <literal>apt-transport-https</literal> package which
46e39c8e	183	provides access methods for https-URIs with features similar to the http method, but other
71bba383 DK	184	methods for using e.g. debtorrent are also available, see <citerefentry>
	185	<refentrytitle><filename>apt-transport-debtorrent</filename></refentrytitle>
	186	<manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
	187	</para></listitem>
	188	</varlistentry>
24f6490f AL	189	</variablelist>
	190	</para>
	191	</refsect1>
	192
	193	<refsect1><title>Examples</title>
	194	<para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
	195	for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
	196	<literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
	197
	198	<para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
	199	<literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
	200
	201	<para>Source line for the above</para>
	202	<literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
	203
	204	<para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
	205	the hamm/main area.</para>
	206	<literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>
	207
	208	<para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
e1dd65c9 DK	209	directory, and uses only the &stable-codename;/contrib area.</para>
e1dd65c9 DK	210	<literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; contrib</literallayout>
24f6490f AL	211
	212	<para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
	213	directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
5f4331c4	214	well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>
24f6490f AL	215	a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
	216	<literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>
	217
	218	<para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
	219	debian-non-US directory.</para>
	220	<literallayout>deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free</literallayout>
	221
	222	<para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
	223	debian-non-US directory, and uses only files found under
6db56565	224	<filename>unstable/binary-i386</filename> on i386 machines,
24f6490f AL	225	<filename>unstable/binary-m68k</filename> on m68k, and so
	226	forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
	227	illustrates how to use the substitution variable; non-us is no longer
	228	structured like this]
	229	<literallayout>deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
	230	</para>
	231	</refsect1>
	232
	233	<refsect1><title>See Also</title>
5e80de29	234	<para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
24f6490f AL	235	</para>
	236	</refsect1>
	237
	238	&manbugs;
24f6490f AL	239
	240	</refentry>
	241