]> git.saurik.com Git - apt.git/blame - doc/apt.conf.5.xml
Merge pull request Debian/apt#16 from dombenson/master
[apt.git] / doc / apt.conf.5.xml
CommitLineData
24f6490f 1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
81cf16a2
DK
2<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
3 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
5abbf5bb
DK
4<!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent"> %aptent;
5<!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent"> %aptverbatiment;
6<!ENTITY % aptvendor SYSTEM "apt-vendor.ent"> %aptvendor;
24f6490f
AL
7]>
8
9<refentry>
5e80de29
AL
10
11 <refentryinfo>
12 &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
13 &apt-author.team;
be1b8568 14 <author>
d5aa88bf 15 &apt-name.dburrows;
be1b8568 16 <contrib>Initial documentation of Debug::*.</contrib>
4920c8c7 17 <email>dburrows@debian.org</email>
be1b8568 18 </author>
5e80de29
AL
19 &apt-email;
20 &apt-product;
21 <!-- The last update date -->
5ff8dd6b 22 <date>2016-05-27T00:00:00Z</date>
5e80de29 23 </refentryinfo>
24f6490f
AL
24
25 <refmeta>
26 <refentrytitle>apt.conf</refentrytitle>
27 <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
f0599b9c 28 <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
24f6490f
AL
29 </refmeta>
30
31 <!-- Man page title -->
32 <refnamediv>
33 <refname>apt.conf</refname>
34 <refpurpose>Configuration file for APT</refpurpose>
35 </refnamediv>
5723791e 36
24f6490f 37 <refsect1><title>Description</title>
5723791e
JR
38 <para><filename>/etc/apt/apt.conf</filename> is the main configuration
39 file shared by all the tools in the APT suite of tools, though it is by
40 no means the only place options can be set. The suite also shares a common
41 command line parser to provide a uniform environment.</para>
42
e29a6bb1
DK
43 <orderedlist>
44 <para>When an APT tool starts up it will read the configuration files
45 in the following order:</para>
46 <listitem><para>the file specified by the <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar>
47 environment variable (if any)</para></listitem>
48 <listitem><para>all files in <literal>Dir::Etc::Parts</literal> in
1fc8c922 49 alphanumeric ascending order which have either no or "<literal>conf</literal>"
e29a6bb1 50 as filename extension and which only contain alphanumeric,
7376837d 51 hyphen (-), underscore (_) and period (.) characters.
44477002
JR
52 Otherwise APT will print a notice that it has ignored a file, unless that
53 file matches a pattern in the <literal>Dir::Ignore-Files-Silently</literal>
5723791e 54 configuration list - in which case it will be silently ignored.</para></listitem>
e29a6bb1
DK
55 <listitem><para>the main configuration file specified by
56 <literal>Dir::Etc::main</literal></para></listitem>
c3ded84c
DK
57 <listitem><para>all options set in the binary specific configuration
58 subtree are moved into the root of the tree.</para></listitem>
e29a6bb1
DK
59 <listitem><para>the command line options are applied to override the
60 configuration directives or to load even more configuration files.</para></listitem>
61 </orderedlist>
62 </refsect1>
63 <refsect1><title>Syntax</title>
24f6490f 64 <para>The configuration file is organized in a tree with options organized into
5f4331c4 65 functional groups. Option specification is given with a double colon
5723791e 66 notation; for instance <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes</literal> is an option within
5f4331c4 67 the APT tool group, for the Get tool. Options do not inherit from their
24f6490f
AL
68 parent groups.</para>
69
e3a1f08d 70 <para>Syntactically the configuration language is modeled after what the ISC tools
7f1bc985
EL
71 such as bind and dhcp use. Lines starting with
72 <literal>//</literal> are treated as comments (ignored), as well as all text
73 between <literal>/*</literal> and <literal>*/</literal>, just like C/C++ comments.
24f6490f 74 Each line is of the form
5723791e
JR
75 <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes "true";</literal>.
76 The quotation marks and trailing semicolon are required.
77 The value must be on one line, and there is no kind of string concatenation.
78 Values must not include backslashes or extra quotation marks.
79 Option names are made up of alphanumeric characters and the characters "/-:._+".
80 A new scope can be opened with curly braces, like this:</para>
24f6490f
AL
81
82<informalexample><programlisting>
83APT {
84 Get {
85 Assume-Yes "true";
86 Fix-Broken "true";
87 };
88};
89</programlisting></informalexample>
90
91 <para>with newlines placed to make it more readable. Lists can be created by
d82cdf73 92 opening a scope and including a single string enclosed in quotes followed by a
5723791e 93 semicolon. Multiple entries can be included, separated by a semicolon.</para>
24f6490f
AL
94
95<informalexample><programlisting>
96DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt";};
97</programlisting></informalexample>
98
00612a8c 99 <para>In general the sample configuration file &configureindex;
24f6490f
AL
100 is a good guide for how it should look.</para>
101
5723791e
JR
102 <para>Case is not significant in names of configuration items, so in the
103 previous example you could use <literal>dpkg::pre-install-pkgs</literal>.</para>
fb3b7ef0 104
5723791e 105 <para>Names for the configuration items are optional if a list is defined as can be seen in
63fc5550
DK
106 the <literal>DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs</literal> example above. If you don't specify a name a
107 new entry will simply add a new option to the list. If you specify a name you can override
5723791e 108 the option in the same way as any other option by reassigning a new value to the option.</para>
63fc5550 109
5723791e
JR
110 <para>Two special commands are defined: <literal>#include</literal> (which is
111 deprecated and not supported by alternative implementations) and
112 <literal>#clear</literal>. <literal>#include</literal> will include the
113 given file, unless the filename ends in a slash, in which case the whole
114 directory is included.
d82cdf73 115 <literal>#clear</literal> is used to erase a part of the configuration tree. The
63fc5550
DK
116 specified element and all its descendants are erased.
117 (Note that these lines also need to end with a semicolon.)</para>
118
5723791e
JR
119 <para>
120 The <literal>#clear</literal> command is the only way to delete a list or
121 a complete scope. Reopening a scope (or using the syntax described below
122 with an appended <literal>::</literal>) will <emphasis>not</emphasis>
123 override previously written entries. Options can only be overridden by
124 addressing a new value to them - lists and scopes can't be overridden,
125 only cleared.
126 </para>
24f6490f 127
5723791e 128 <para>All of the APT tools take an -o option which allows an arbitrary configuration
24f6490f
AL
129 directive to be specified on the command line. The syntax is a full option
130 name (<literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes</literal> for instance) followed by an equals
c086ac18 131 sign then the new value of the option. To append a new element to a list, add a
5723791e
JR
132 trailing <literal>::</literal> to the name of the list.
133 (As you might suspect, the scope syntax can't be used on the command line.)</para>
134
135 <para>
136 Note that appending items to a list using <literal>::</literal> only works
137 for one item per line, and that you should not use it in combination with
138 the scope syntax (which adds <literal>::</literal> implicitly). Using both
139 syntaxes together will trigger a bug which some users unfortunately depend
140 on: an option with the unusual name "<literal>::</literal>" which acts
141 like every other option with a name. This introduces many problems; for
142 one thing, users who write multiple lines in this
143 <emphasis>wrong</emphasis> syntax in the hope of appending to a list will
144 achieve the opposite, as only the last assignment for this option
145 "<literal>::</literal>" will be used. Future versions of APT will raise
146 errors and stop working if they encounter this misuse, so please correct
147 such statements now while APT doesn't explicitly complain about them.
148 </para>
24f6490f
AL
149 </refsect1>
150
151 <refsect1><title>The APT Group</title>
152 <para>This group of options controls general APT behavior as well as holding the
153 options for all of the tools.</para>
154
155 <variablelist>
2b9b27c3 156 <varlistentry><term><option>Architecture</option></term>
24f6490f
AL
157 <listitem><para>System Architecture; sets the architecture to use when fetching files and
158 parsing package lists. The internal default is the architecture apt was
159 compiled for.</para></listitem>
160 </varlistentry>
58014adc 161
2b9b27c3 162 <varlistentry><term><option>Architectures</option></term>
5723791e
JR
163 <listitem><para>
164 All Architectures the system supports. For instance, CPUs implementing
165 the <literal>amd64</literal> (also called <literal>x86-64</literal>)
166 instruction set are also able to execute binaries compiled for the
167 <literal>i386</literal> (<literal>x86</literal>) instruction set. This
168 list is used when fetching files and parsing package lists. The
169 initial default is always the system's native architecture
170 (<literal>APT::Architecture</literal>), and foreign architectures are
171 added to the default list when they are registered via
172 <command>dpkg --add-architecture</command>.
58014adc
DK
173 </para></listitem>
174 </varlistentry>
175
124e6916
DK
176 <varlistentry><term><option>Compressor</option></term>
177 <listitem><para>
178 This scope defines which compression formats are supported, how compression
179 and decompression can be performed if support for this format isn't built
180 into apt directly and a cost-value indicating how costly it is to compress
181 something in this format. As an example the following configuration stanza
182 would allow apt to download and uncompress as well as create and store
183 files with the low-cost <literal>.reversed</literal> file extension which
184 it will pass to the command <command>rev</command> without additional
185 commandline parameters for compression and uncompression:
186<informalexample><programlisting>
187APT::Compressor::rev {
188 Name "rev";
189 Extension ".reversed";
190 Binary "rev";
191 CompressArg {};
192 UncompressArg {};
193 Cost "10";
194};
195</programlisting></informalexample>
196 </para></listitem>
197 </varlistentry>
198
ce7f128c
DK
199 <varlistentry><term><option>Build-Profiles</option></term>
200 <listitem><para>
201 List of all build profiles enabled for build-dependency resolution,
202 without the "<literal>profile.</literal>" namespace prefix.
203 By default this list is empty. The <envar>DEB_BUILD_PROFILES</envar>
204 as used by &dpkg-buildpackage; overrides the list notation.
205 </para></listitem>
206 </varlistentry>
207
2b9b27c3 208 <varlistentry><term><option>Default-Release</option></term>
e1dd65c9 209 <listitem><para>Default release to install packages from if more than one
5723791e 210 version is available. Contains release name, codename or release version. Examples: 'stable', 'testing',
9feb98eb 211 'unstable', '&debian-stable-codename;', '&debian-testing-codename;', '4.0', '5.0*'. See also &apt-preferences;.</para></listitem>
60a8f9c0 212 </varlistentry>
45df0ad2 213
2b9b27c3 214 <varlistentry><term><option>Ignore-Hold</option></term>
5723791e 215 <listitem><para>Ignore held packages; this global option causes the problem resolver to
24f6490f
AL
216 ignore held packages in its decision making.</para></listitem>
217 </varlistentry>
218
2b9b27c3 219 <varlistentry><term><option>Clean-Installed</option></term>
24f6490f
AL
220 <listitem><para>Defaults to on. When turned on the autoclean feature will remove any packages
221 which can no longer be downloaded from the cache. If turned off then
222 packages that are locally installed are also excluded from cleaning - but
223 note that APT provides no direct means to reinstall them.</para></listitem>
224 </varlistentry>
225
2b9b27c3 226 <varlistentry><term><option>Immediate-Configure</option></term>
5723791e
JR
227 <listitem><para>
228 Defaults to on, which will cause APT to install essential and important
229 packages as soon as possible in an install/upgrade operation, in order
230 to limit the effect of a failing &dpkg; call. If this option is
231 disabled, APT treats an important package in the same way as an extra
232 package: between the unpacking of the package A and its configuration
233 there can be many other unpack or configuration calls for other
234 unrelated packages B, C etc. If these cause the &dpkg; call to fail
235 (e.g. because package B's maintainer scripts generate an error), this
236 results in a system state in which package A is unpacked but
237 unconfigured - so any package depending on A is now no longer
238 guaranteed to work, as its dependency on A is no longer satisfied.
239 </para><para>
240 The immediate configuration marker is also applied in the potentially
241 problematic case of circular dependencies, since a dependency with the
242 immediate flag is equivalent to a Pre-Dependency. In theory this allows
243 APT to recognise a situation in which it is unable to perform immediate
244 configuration, abort, and suggest to the user that the option should be
245 temporarily deactivated in order to allow the operation to proceed.
246 Note the use of the word "theory" here; in the real world this problem
247 has rarely been encountered, in non-stable distribution versions, and
248 was caused by wrong dependencies of the package in question or by a
249 system in an already broken state; so you should not blindly disable
250 this option, as the scenario mentioned above is not the only problem it
251 can help to prevent in the first place.
252 </para><para>
253 Before a big operation like <literal>dist-upgrade</literal> is run
254 with this option disabled you should try to explicitly
255 <literal>install</literal> the package APT is unable to configure
256 immediately; but please make sure you also report your problem to your
257 distribution and to the APT team with the buglink below, so they can
258 work on improving or correcting the upgrade process.
259 </para></listitem>
24f6490f
AL
260 </varlistentry>
261
2b9b27c3 262 <varlistentry><term><option>Force-LoopBreak</option></term>
5723791e
JR
263 <listitem><para>
264 Never enable this option unless you <emphasis>really</emphasis> know
265 what you are doing. It permits APT to temporarily remove an essential
266 package to break a Conflicts/Conflicts or Conflicts/Pre-Depends loop
267 between two essential packages. <emphasis>Such a loop should never exist
268 and is a grave bug</emphasis>. This option will work if the essential
269 packages are not <command>tar</command>, <command>gzip</command>,
270 <command>libc</command>, <command>dpkg</command>, <command>dash</command>
271 or anything that those packages depend on.
272 </para></listitem>
24f6490f
AL
273 </varlistentry>
274
2b9b27c3 275 <varlistentry><term><option>Cache-Start</option></term><term><option>Cache-Grow</option></term><term><option>Cache-Limit</option></term>
5723791e
JR
276 <listitem><para>APT uses since version 0.7.26 a resizable memory mapped cache file to store the available
277 information. <literal>Cache-Start</literal> acts as a hint of the size the cache will grow to,
dcdf1ef1 278 and is therefore the amount of memory APT will request at startup. The default value is
5723791e 279 20971520 bytes (~20 MB). Note that this amount of space needs to be available for APT;
c086ac18
DK
280 otherwise it will likely fail ungracefully, so for memory restricted devices this value should
281 be lowered while on systems with a lot of configured sources it should be increased.
282 <literal>Cache-Grow</literal> defines in bytes with the default of 1048576 (~1 MB) how much
5723791e
JR
283 the cache size will be increased in the event the space defined by <literal>Cache-Start</literal>
284 is not enough. This value will be applied again and again until either the cache is big
dcdf1ef1
DK
285 enough to store all information or the size of the cache reaches the <literal>Cache-Limit</literal>.
286 The default of <literal>Cache-Limit</literal> is 0 which stands for no limit.
5723791e 287 If <literal>Cache-Grow</literal> is set to 0 the automatic growth of the cache is disabled.
dcdf1ef1 288 </para></listitem>
24f6490f
AL
289 </varlistentry>
290
2b9b27c3 291 <varlistentry><term><option>Build-Essential</option></term>
5723791e 292 <listitem><para>Defines which packages are considered essential build dependencies.</para></listitem>
24f6490f
AL
293 </varlistentry>
294
2b9b27c3 295 <varlistentry><term><option>Get</option></term>
5723791e 296 <listitem><para>The Get subsection controls the &apt-get; tool; please see its
24f6490f
AL
297 documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
298 </varlistentry>
299
2b9b27c3 300 <varlistentry><term><option>Cache</option></term>
5723791e 301 <listitem><para>The Cache subsection controls the &apt-cache; tool; please see its
24f6490f
AL
302 documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
303 </varlistentry>
304
2b9b27c3 305 <varlistentry><term><option>CDROM</option></term>
5723791e 306 <listitem><para>The CDROM subsection controls the &apt-cdrom; tool; please see its
24f6490f
AL
307 documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
308 </varlistentry>
309 </variablelist>
310 </refsect1>
311
312 <refsect1><title>The Acquire Group</title>
5723791e
JR
313 <para>The <literal>Acquire</literal> group of options controls the
314 download of packages as well as the various "acquire methods" responsible
315 for the download itself (see also &sources-list;).</para>
24f6490f
AL
316
317 <variablelist>
2b9b27c3 318 <varlistentry><term><option>Check-Valid-Until</option></term>
5723791e
JR
319 <listitem><para>
320 Security related option defaulting to true, as giving a Release file's
321 validation an expiration date prevents replay attacks over a long
322 timescale, and can also for example help users to identify mirrors
323 that are no longer updated - but the feature depends on the
324 correctness of the clock on the user system. Archive maintainers are
325 encouraged to create Release files with the
326 <literal>Valid-Until</literal> header, but if they don't or a
327 stricter value is desired the <literal>Max-ValidTime</literal>
328 option below can be used.
0741daeb
DK
329 The <option>Check-Valid-Until</option> option of &sources-list; entries should be
330 preferred to disable the check selectively instead of using this global override.
5723791e 331 </para></listitem>
b02fffa6
DK
332 </varlistentry>
333
2b9b27c3 334 <varlistentry><term><option>Max-ValidTime</option></term>
5723791e
JR
335 <listitem><para>Maximum time (in seconds) after its creation (as indicated
336 by the <literal>Date</literal> header) that the <filename>Release</filename>
337 file should be considered valid.
89500a25
DK
338 If the Release file itself includes a <literal>Valid-Until</literal> header
339 the earlier date of the two is used as the expiration date.
5723791e 340 The default value is <literal>0</literal> which stands for "valid forever".
89500a25 341 Archive specific settings can be made by appending the label of the archive
0741daeb
DK
342 to the option name. Preferably, the same can be achieved for specific
343 &sources-list; entries by using the <option>Valid-Until-Max</option> option there.
89500a25
DK
344 </para></listitem>
345 </varlistentry>
346
2b9b27c3 347 <varlistentry><term><option>Min-ValidTime</option></term>
5723791e
JR
348 <listitem><para>Minimum time (in seconds) after its creation (as indicated
349 by the <literal>Date</literal> header) that the <filename>Release</filename>
350 file should be considered valid.
351 Use this if you need to use a seldom updated (local) mirror of a more
352 frequently updated archive with a <literal>Valid-Until</literal> header
2130caa8 353 instead of completely disabling the expiration date checking.
89500a25 354 Archive specific settings can and should be used by appending the label of
0741daeb
DK
355 the archive to the option name. Preferably, the same can be achieved for specific
356 &sources-list; entries by using the <option>Valid-Until-Min</option> option there.
b02fffa6
DK
357 </para></listitem>
358 </varlistentry>
359
2b9b27c3 360 <varlistentry><term><option>PDiffs</option></term>
d82cdf73 361 <listitem><para>Try to download deltas called <literal>PDiffs</literal> for
1a3a14ac
DK
362 indexes (like <filename>Packages</filename> files) instead of
363 downloading whole ones. True by default. Preferably, this can be set
364 for specific &sources-list; entries or index files by using the
365 <option>PDiffs</option> option there.</para>
02dceb31 366 <para>Two sub-options to limit the use of PDiffs are also available:
5723791e
JR
367 <literal>FileLimit</literal> can be used to specify a maximum number of
368 PDiff files should be downloaded to update a file. <literal>SizeLimit</literal>
f3b8d857 369 on the other hand is the maximum percentage of the size of all patches
02dceb31
DK
370 compared to the size of the targeted file. If one of these limits is
371 exceeded the complete file is downloaded instead of the patches.
372 </para></listitem>
0d70b055
EL
373 </varlistentry>
374
24e8f24e
DK
375 <varlistentry><term><option>By-Hash</option></term>
376 <listitem><para>Try to download indexes via an URI constructed from a
377 hashsum of the expected file rather than downloaded via a well-known
378 stable filename. True by default, but automatically disabled if the
379 source indicates no support for it. Usage can be forced with the special
380 value "force". Preferably, this can be set for specific &sources-list; entries
381 or index files by using the <option>By-Hash</option> option there.
382 </para></listitem>
383 </varlistentry>
384
2b9b27c3 385 <varlistentry><term><option>Queue-Mode</option></term>
24f6490f
AL
386 <listitem><para>Queuing mode; <literal>Queue-Mode</literal> can be one of <literal>host</literal> or
387 <literal>access</literal> which determines how APT parallelizes outgoing
388 connections. <literal>host</literal> means that one connection per target host
389 will be opened, <literal>access</literal> means that one connection per URI type
390 will be opened.</para></listitem>
391 </varlistentry>
392
2b9b27c3 393 <varlistentry><term><option>Retries</option></term>
24f6490f
AL
394 <listitem><para>Number of retries to perform. If this is non-zero APT will retry failed
395 files the given number of times.</para></listitem>
396 </varlistentry>
397
2b9b27c3 398 <varlistentry><term><option>Source-Symlinks</option></term>
24f6490f
AL
399 <listitem><para>Use symlinks for source archives. If set to true then source archives will
400 be symlinked when possible instead of copying. True is the default.</para></listitem>
401 </varlistentry>
402
2b9b27c3 403 <varlistentry><term><option>http</option></term>
5723791e
JR
404 <listitem><para><literal>http::Proxy</literal> sets the default proxy to use for HTTP
405 URIs. It is in the standard form of <literal>http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/</literal>.
406 Per host proxies can also be specified by using the form
24f6490f 407 <literal>http::Proxy::&lt;host&gt;</literal> with the special keyword <literal>DIRECT</literal>
788a8f42
EL
408 meaning to use no proxies. If no one of the above settings is specified,
409 <envar>http_proxy</envar> environment variable
410 will be used.</para>
24f6490f 411
5723791e
JR
412 <para>Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/1.1 compliant
413 proxy caches.
414 <literal>No-Cache</literal> tells the proxy not to use its cached
415 response under any circumstances.
416 <literal>Max-Age</literal> sets the allowed maximum age (in seconds) of
417 an index file in the cache of the proxy.
418 <literal>No-Store</literal> specifies that the proxy should not store
419 the requested archive files in its cache, which can be used to prevent
420 the proxy from polluting its cache with (big) .deb files.</para>
24f6490f 421
5723791e
JR
422 <para>The option <literal>timeout</literal> sets the timeout timer used by the method;
423 this value applies to the connection as well as the data timeout.</para>
24f6490f 424
82214317 425 <para>The setting <literal>Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth</literal> can be used to
5723791e
JR
426 enable HTTP pipelining (RFC 2616 section 8.1.2.2) which can be beneficial e.g. on
427 high-latency connections. It specifies how many requests are sent in a pipeline.
895417ef
DK
428 APT tries to detect and workaround misbehaving webservers and proxies at runtime, but
429 if you know that yours does not conform to the HTTP/1.1 specification pipelining can
430 be disabled by setting the value to 0. It is enabled by default with the value 10.</para>
5900bd8d 431
5723791e 432 <para><literal>Acquire::http::AllowRedirect</literal> controls whether APT will follow
c086ac18
DK
433 redirects, which is enabled by default.</para>
434
0e279e35
MV
435 <para>The used bandwidth can be limited with
436 <literal>Acquire::http::Dl-Limit</literal> which accepts integer
437 values in kilobytes per second. The default value is 0 which
438 deactivates the limit and tries to use all available bandwidth.
439 Note that this option implicitly disables downloading from
440 multiple servers at the same time.</para>
4494239c
DK
441
442 <para><literal>Acquire::http::User-Agent</literal> can be used to set a different
443 User-Agent for the http download method as some proxies allow access for clients
444 only if the client uses a known identifier.</para>
c08cf1dc
MV
445
446 <para><literal>Acquire::http::Proxy-Auto-Detect</literal> can be used to
9515ed7b
DK
447 specify an external command to discover the http proxy to use. The first
448 and only parameter is an URI denoting the host to be contacted to allow
449 for host-specific configuration. APT expects the command to output the
450 proxy on stdout as a single line in the style <literal>http://proxy:port/</literal>
451 or the word <literal>DIRECT</literal> if no proxy should be used. No output
452 indicates that the generic proxy settings should be used.
453
454 Note that auto-detection will not be used for a host if a host-specific proxy
455 configuration is already set via <literal>Acquire::http::Proxy::<replaceable>HOST</replaceable></literal>.
c57805f9
MV
456
457 See the &squid-deb-proxy-client; package for an example implementation that
9515ed7b
DK
458 uses avahi.
459
460 This option takes precedence over the legacy option name
c57805f9
MV
461 <literal>ProxyAutoDetect</literal>.
462 </para>
c08cf1dc 463
4494239c 464 </listitem>
24f6490f
AL
465 </varlistentry>
466
2b9b27c3 467 <varlistentry><term><option>https</option></term>
5723791e
JR
468 <listitem><para>
469 The <literal>Cache-control</literal>, <literal>Timeout</literal>,
470 <literal>AllowRedirect</literal>, <literal>Dl-Limit</literal> and
471 <literal>proxy</literal> options work for HTTPS URIs in the same way
472 as for the <literal>http</literal> method, and default to the same
473 values if they are not explicitly set. The
474 <literal>Pipeline-Depth</literal> option is not yet supported.
475 </para>
370ad5e1
EL
476
477 <para><literal>CaInfo</literal> suboption specifies place of file that
478 holds info about trusted certificates.
5723791e
JR
479 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::CaInfo</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
480 <literal>Verify-Peer</literal> boolean suboption determines whether or not the
481 server's host certificate should be verified against trusted certificates.
482 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::Verify-Peer</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
483 <literal>Verify-Host</literal> boolean suboption determines whether or not the
484 server's hostname should be verified.
485 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::Verify-Host</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
370ad5e1 486 <literal>SslCert</literal> determines what certificate to use for client
5723791e 487 authentication. <literal>&lt;host&gt;::SslCert</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
370ad5e1 488 <literal>SslKey</literal> determines what private key to use for client
5723791e 489 authentication. <literal>&lt;host&gt;::SslKey</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
370ad5e1 490 <literal>SslForceVersion</literal> overrides default SSL version to use.
5723791e
JR
491 It can contain either of the strings '<literal>TLSv1</literal>' or
492 '<literal>SSLv3</literal>'.
493 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::SslForceVersion</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
370ad5e1
EL
494 </para></listitem></varlistentry>
495
2b9b27c3 496 <varlistentry><term><option>ftp</option></term>
5723791e
JR
497 <listitem><para>
498 <literal>ftp::Proxy</literal> sets the default proxy to use for FTP URIs.
499 It is in the standard form of <literal>ftp://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/</literal>.
500 Per host proxies can also be specified by using the form
788a8f42
EL
501 <literal>ftp::Proxy::&lt;host&gt;</literal> with the special keyword <literal>DIRECT</literal>
502 meaning to use no proxies. If no one of the above settings is specified,
503 <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable
5723791e 504 will be used. To use an FTP
24f6490f
AL
505 proxy you will have to set the <literal>ftp::ProxyLogin</literal> script in the
506 configuration file. This entry specifies the commands to send to tell
507 the proxy server what to connect to. Please see
508 &configureindex; for an example of
5723791e
JR
509 how to do this. The substitution variables representing the corresponding
510 URI component are <literal>$(PROXY_USER)</literal>,
511 <literal>$(PROXY_PASS)</literal>, <literal>$(SITE_USER)</literal>,
512 <literal>$(SITE_PASS)</literal>, <literal>$(SITE)</literal> and
513 <literal>$(SITE_PORT)</literal>.</para>
24f6490f 514
5723791e
JR
515 <para>The option <literal>timeout</literal> sets the timeout timer used by the method;
516 this value applies to the connection as well as the data timeout.</para>
24f6490f
AL
517
518 <para>Several settings are provided to control passive mode. Generally it is
5723791e
JR
519 safe to leave passive mode on; it works in nearly every environment.
520 However, some situations require that passive mode be disabled and port
521 mode FTP used instead. This can be done globally or for connections that
522 go through a proxy or for a specific host (see the sample config file
24f6490f
AL
523 for examples).</para>
524
525 <para>It is possible to proxy FTP over HTTP by setting the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar>
5723791e 526 environment variable to an HTTP URL - see the discussion of the http method
24f6490f
AL
527 above for syntax. You cannot set this in the configuration file and it is
528 not recommended to use FTP over HTTP due to its low efficiency.</para>
529
530 <para>The setting <literal>ForceExtended</literal> controls the use of RFC2428
e3a1f08d 531 <literal>EPSV</literal> and <literal>EPRT</literal> commands. The default is false, which means
24f6490f
AL
532 these commands are only used if the control connection is IPv6. Setting this
533 to true forces their use even on IPv4 connections. Note that most FTP servers
534 do not support RFC2428.</para></listitem>
535 </varlistentry>
536
2b9b27c3 537 <varlistentry><term><option>cdrom</option></term>
5723791e
JR
538 <listitem><para>
539 For URIs using the <literal>cdrom</literal> method, the only configurable
540 option is the mount point, <literal>cdrom::Mount</literal>, which must be
541 the mount point for the CD-ROM (or DVD, or whatever) drive as specified in
542 <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>. It is possible to provide alternate mount
543 and unmount commands if your mount point cannot be listed in the fstab.
544 The syntax is to put <literallayout>/cdrom/::Mount "foo";</literallayout> within
545 the <literal>cdrom</literal> block. It is important to have the trailing slash.
546 Unmount commands can be specified using UMount.
547 </para></listitem>
24f6490f 548 </varlistentry>
8a3642bd 549
2b9b27c3 550 <varlistentry><term><option>gpgv</option></term>
5723791e
JR
551 <listitem><para>
552 For GPGV URIs the only configurable option is <literal>gpgv::Options</literal>,
553 which passes additional parameters to gpgv.
8a3642bd
MV
554 </para></listitem>
555 </varlistentry>
556
2b9b27c3 557 <varlistentry><term><option>CompressionTypes</option></term>
e85b4cd5
DK
558 <listitem><para>List of compression types which are understood by the acquire methods.
559 Files like <filename>Packages</filename> can be available in various compression formats.
124e6916
DK
560 By default the acquire methods can decompress and recompress many common formats like <command>xz</command> and
561 <command>gzip</command>; with this scope the supported formats can be queried, modified
562 as well as support for more formats added (see also <option>APT::Compressor</option>). The syntax for this is:
e85b4cd5 563 <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::<replaceable>FileExtension</replaceable> "<replaceable>Methodname</replaceable>";</synopsis>
5723791e 564 </para><para>Also, the <literal>Order</literal> subgroup can be used to define in which order
8bd02d8b
DK
565 the acquire system will try to download the compressed files. The acquire system will try the first
566 and proceed with the next compression type in this list on error, so to prefer one over the other type
124e6916 567 simply add the preferred type first - types not already added will be implicitly appended
8bd02d8b 568 to the end of the list, so e.g. <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order:: "gz";</synopsis> can
124e6916
DK
569 be used to prefer <command>gzip</command> compressed files over all other compression formats.
570 If <command>xz</command> should be preferred over <command>gzip</command> and <command>bzip2</command> the
571 configure setting should look like this: <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order { "xz"; "gz"; };</synopsis>
5723791e
JR
572 It is not needed to add <literal>bz2</literal> to the list explicitly as it will be added automatically.</para>
573 <para>Note that the
574 <literal>Dir::Bin::<replaceable>Methodname</replaceable></literal>
124e6916
DK
575 will be checked at run time. If this option has been set and support for
576 this format isn't directly built into apt, the method will only be used if
577 this file exists; e.g. for the <literal>bzip2</literal> method (the
578 inbuilt) setting is: <literallayout>Dir::Bin::bzip2 "/bin/bzip2";</literallayout>
a9564741 579 Note also that list entries specified on the command line will be added at the end of the list
8bd02d8b 580 specified in the configuration files, but before the default entries. To prefer a type in this case
5d885723 581 over the ones specified in the configuration files you can set the option direct - not in list style.
5723791e 582 This will not override the defined list; it will only prefix the list with this type.</para>
5d885723 583 <para>The special type <literal>uncompressed</literal> can be used to give uncompressed files a
1fc8c922 584 preference, but note that most archives don't provide uncompressed files so this is mostly only
5d885723 585 useable for local mirrors.</para></listitem>
e85b4cd5 586 </varlistentry>
45df0ad2 587
2b9b27c3 588 <varlistentry><term><option>GzipIndexes</option></term>
c8c6e61b 589 <listitem><para>
590 When downloading <literal>gzip</literal> compressed indexes (Packages, Sources, or
591 Translations), keep them gzip compressed locally instead of unpacking
592 them. This saves quite a lot of disk space at the expense of more CPU
593 requirements when building the local package caches. False by default.
594 </para></listitem>
595 </varlistentry>
596
2b9b27c3 597 <varlistentry><term><option>Languages</option></term>
45df0ad2 598 <listitem><para>The Languages subsection controls which <filename>Translation</filename> files are downloaded
5723791e
JR
599 and in which order APT tries to display the description-translations. APT will try to display the first
600 available description in the language which is listed first. Languages can be defined with their
601 short or long language codes. Note that not all archives provide <filename>Translation</filename>
602 files for every language - the long language codes are especially rare.</para>
45df0ad2 603 <para>The default list includes "environment" and "en". "<literal>environment</literal>" has a special meaning here:
5723791e 604 it will be replaced at runtime with the language codes extracted from the <literal>LC_MESSAGES</literal> environment variable.
45df0ad2
DK
605 It will also ensure that these codes are not included twice in the list. If <literal>LC_MESSAGES</literal>
606 is set to "C" only the <filename>Translation-en</filename> file (if available) will be used.
5723791e
JR
607 To force APT to use no Translation file use the setting <literal>Acquire::Languages=none</literal>. "<literal>none</literal>"
608 is another special meaning code which will stop the search for a suitable <filename>Translation</filename> file.
609 This tells APT to download these translations too, without actually
610 using them unless the environment specifies the languages. So the
611 following example configuration will result in the order "en, de" in an
612 English locale or "de, en" in a German one. Note that "fr" is
613 downloaded, but not used unless APT is used in a French locale (where
614 the order would be "fr, de, en").
c086ac18
DK
615 <programlisting>Acquire::Languages { "environment"; "de"; "en"; "none"; "fr"; };</programlisting></para>
616 <para>Note: To prevent problems resulting from APT being executed in different environments
617 (e.g. by different users or by other programs) all Translation files which are found in
618 <filename>/var/lib/apt/lists/</filename> will be added to the end of the list
619 (after an implicit "<literal>none</literal>").</para>
620 </listitem>
45df0ad2
DK
621 </varlistentry>
622
6db4e5c6
MV
623 <varlistentry><term><option>ForceIPv4</option></term>
624 <listitem><para>
625 When downloading, force to use only the IPv4 protocol.
626 </para></listitem>
627 </varlistentry>
628
629 <varlistentry><term><option>ForceIPv6</option></term>
630 <listitem><para>
631 When downloading, force to use only the IPv6 protocol.
632 </para></listitem>
633 </varlistentry>
634
954d30df
MV
635 <varlistentry><term><option>MaxReleaseFileSize</option></term>
636 <listitem><para>
637 The maximum file size of Release/Release.gpg/InRelease files.
638 The default is 10MB.
639 </para></listitem>
a27c4e88
MV
640 </varlistentry>
641
c8ec5ab7 642 <varlistentry><term><option>EnableSrvRecords</option></term>
a27c4e88
MV
643 <listitem><para>
644 This option controls if apt will use the DNS SRV server record
645 as specified in RFC 2782 to select an alternative server to
646 connect to.
647 The default is "true".
648 </para></listitem>
954d30df
MV
649 </varlistentry>
650
651 <varlistentry><term><option>AllowInsecureRepositories</option></term>
652 <listitem><para>
653 Allow the update operation to load data files from
654 a repository without a trusted signature. If enabled this
655 option no data files will be loaded and the update
656 operation fails with a error for this source. The default
657 is false for backward compatibility. This will be changed
658 in the future.
659 </para></listitem>
660 </varlistentry>
661
662 <varlistentry><term><option>AllowDowngradeToInsecureRepositories</option></term>
663 <listitem><para>
664 Allow that a repository that was previously gpg signed to become
665 unsigned durign a update operation. When there is no valid signature
40ebab6a 666 of a previously trusted repository apt will refuse the update. This
954d30df
MV
667 option can be used to override this protection. You almost certainly
668 never want to enable this. The default is false.
669
670 Note that apt will still consider packages from this source
671 untrusted and warn about them if you try to install
672 them.
673 </para></listitem>
674 </varlistentry>
675
d56e2917
DK
676 <varlistentry><term><option>Changelogs::URI</option> scope</term>
677 <listitem><para>
678 Acquiring changelogs can only be done if an URI is known from where to get them.
679 Preferable the Release file indicates this in a 'Changelogs' field. If this isn't
680 available the Label/Origin field of the Release file is used to check if a
681 <literal>Acquire::Changelogs::URI::Label::<replaceable>LABEL</replaceable></literal> or
682 <literal>Acquire::Changelogs::URI::Origin::<replaceable>ORIGIN</replaceable></literal> option
683 exists and if so this value is taken. The value in the Release file can be overridden
684 with <literal>Acquire::Changelogs::URI::Override::Label::<replaceable>LABEL</replaceable></literal>
685 or <literal>Acquire::Changelogs::URI::Override::Origin::<replaceable>ORIGIN</replaceable></literal>.
686
2ffd3535 687 The value should be a normal URI to a text file, except that package specific data is
430481e7 688 replaced with the placeholder <literal>@CHANGEPATH@</literal>. The
d56e2917
DK
689 value for it is: 1. if the package is from a component (e.g. <literal>main</literal>)
690 this is the first part otherwise it is omitted, 2. the first letter of source package name,
2ffd3535 691 except if the source package name starts with '<literal>lib</literal>' in which case it will
d56e2917
DK
692 be the first four letters. 3. The complete source package name. 4. the complete name again and
693 5. the source version.
694 The first (if present), second, third and fourth part are separated by a slash ('<literal>/</literal>')
695 and between the fourth and fifth part is an underscore ('<literal>_</literal>').
696
697 The special value '<literal>no</literal>' is available for this option indicating that
698 this source can't be used to acquire changelog files from. Another source will be tried
699 if available in this case.
700 </para></listitem>
701 </varlistentry>
702
24f6490f 703 </variablelist>
24f6490f
AL
704 </refsect1>
705
c3ded84c
DK
706 <refsect1><title>Binary specific configuration</title>
707 <para>Especially with the introduction of the <command>apt</command> binary
708 it can be useful to set certain options only for a specific binary as
709 even options which look like they would effect only a certain binary like
710 <option>APT::Get::Show-Versions</option> effect
711 <command>apt-get</command> as well as <command>apt</command>.
712 </para>
713 <para>Setting an option for a specific binary only can be achieved by
714 setting the option inside the
715 <option>Binary::<replaceable>specific-binary</replaceable></option>
716 scope. Setting the option <option>APT::Get::Show-Versions</option> for
717 the <command>apt</command> only can e.g. by done by setting
718 <option>Binary::apt::APT::Get::Show-Versions</option> instead.</para>
719 <para>Note that as seen in the DESCRIPTION section further above you can't
720 set binary-specific options on the commandline itself nor in
721 configuration files loaded via the commandline.</para>
722 </refsect1>
723
24f6490f
AL
724 <refsect1><title>Directories</title>
725
726 <para>The <literal>Dir::State</literal> section has directories that pertain to local
727 state information. <literal>lists</literal> is the directory to place downloaded
5723791e 728 package lists in and <literal>status</literal> is the name of the &dpkg; status file.
c086ac18 729 <literal>preferences</literal> is the name of the APT <filename>preferences</filename> file.
5723791e
JR
730 <literal>Dir::State</literal> contains the default directory to prefix on all
731 sub-items if they do not start with <filename>/</filename> or <filename>./</filename>.</para>
24f6490f
AL
732
733 <para><literal>Dir::Cache</literal> contains locations pertaining to local cache
734 information, such as the two package caches <literal>srcpkgcache</literal> and
735 <literal>pkgcache</literal> as well as the location to place downloaded archives,
736 <literal>Dir::Cache::archives</literal>. Generation of caches can be turned off
4b73368d
CB
737 by setting <literal>pkgcache</literal> or <literal>srcpkgcache</literal> to
738 <literal>""</literal>. This will slow down startup but save disk space. It
739 is probably preferable to turn off the pkgcache rather than the srcpkgcache.
740 Like <literal>Dir::State</literal> the default directory is contained in
741 <literal>Dir::Cache</literal></para>
24f6490f
AL
742
743 <para><literal>Dir::Etc</literal> contains the location of configuration files,
744 <literal>sourcelist</literal> gives the location of the sourcelist and
745 <literal>main</literal> is the default configuration file (setting has no effect,
746 unless it is done from the config file specified by
13e8426f 747 <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar>).</para>
24f6490f
AL
748
749 <para>The <literal>Dir::Parts</literal> setting reads in all the config fragments in
750 lexical order from the directory specified. After this is done then the
751 main config file is loaded.</para>
752
753 <para>Binary programs are pointed to by <literal>Dir::Bin</literal>. <literal>Dir::Bin::Methods</literal>
754 specifies the location of the method handlers and <literal>gzip</literal>,
e85b4cd5 755 <literal>bzip2</literal>, <literal>lzma</literal>,
24f6490f
AL
756 <literal>dpkg</literal>, <literal>apt-get</literal> <literal>dpkg-source</literal>
757 <literal>dpkg-buildpackage</literal> and <literal>apt-cache</literal> specify the location
758 of the respective programs.</para>
db2cca11
OS
759
760 <para>
761 The configuration item <literal>RootDir</literal> has a special
35bf76cf 762 meaning. If set, all paths will be
db2cca11
OS
763 relative to <literal>RootDir</literal>, <emphasis>even paths that
764 are specified absolutely</emphasis>. So, for instance, if
765 <literal>RootDir</literal> is set to
766 <filename>/tmp/staging</filename> and
767 <literal>Dir::State::status</literal> is set to
768 <filename>/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>, then the status file
769 will be looked up in
770 <filename>/tmp/staging/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>.
35bf76cf 771 If you want to prefix only relative paths, set <literal>Dir</literal> instead.
db2cca11 772 </para>
1408e219
DK
773
774 <para>
775 The <literal>Ignore-Files-Silently</literal> list can be used to specify
776 which files APT should silently ignore while parsing the files in the
777 fragment directories. Per default a file which end with <literal>.disabled</literal>,
778 <literal>~</literal>, <literal>.bak</literal> or <literal>.dpkg-[a-z]+</literal>
779 is silently ignored. As seen in the last default value these patterns can use regular
780 expression syntax.
781 </para>
24f6490f
AL
782 </refsect1>
783
784 <refsect1><title>APT in DSelect</title>
785 <para>
786 When APT is used as a &dselect; method several configuration directives
5723791e 787 control the default behavior. These are in the <literal>DSelect</literal> section.</para>
24f6490f
AL
788
789 <variablelist>
2b9b27c3 790 <varlistentry><term><option>Clean</option></term>
5723791e
JR
791 <listitem><para>Cache Clean mode; this value may be one of
792 <literal>always</literal>, <literal>prompt</literal>,
793 <literal>auto</literal>, <literal>pre-auto</literal> and
794 <literal>never</literal>.
795 <literal>always</literal> and <literal>prompt</literal> will remove
796 all packages from the cache after upgrading, <literal>prompt</literal>
797 (the default) does so conditionally.
798 <literal>auto</literal> removes only those packages which are no longer
799 downloadable (replaced with a new version for instance).
800 <literal>pre-auto</literal> performs this action before downloading
801 new packages.</para></listitem>
24f6490f
AL
802 </varlistentry>
803
2b9b27c3 804 <varlistentry><term><option>options</option></term>
5723791e 805 <listitem><para>The contents of this variable are passed to &apt-get; as command line
24f6490f
AL
806 options when it is run for the install phase.</para></listitem>
807 </varlistentry>
808
2b9b27c3 809 <varlistentry><term><option>Updateoptions</option></term>
5723791e 810 <listitem><para>The contents of this variable are passed to &apt-get; as command line
24f6490f
AL
811 options when it is run for the update phase.</para></listitem>
812 </varlistentry>
813
2b9b27c3 814 <varlistentry><term><option>PromptAfterUpdate</option></term>
24f6490f
AL
815 <listitem><para>If true the [U]pdate operation in &dselect; will always prompt to continue.
816 The default is to prompt only on error.</para></listitem>
817 </varlistentry>
818 </variablelist>
819 </refsect1>
820
5723791e 821 <refsect1><title>How APT calls &dpkg;</title>
24f6490f
AL
822 <para>Several configuration directives control how APT invokes &dpkg;. These are
823 in the <literal>DPkg</literal> section.</para>
824
825 <variablelist>
2b9b27c3 826 <varlistentry><term><option>options</option></term>
5723791e 827 <listitem><para>This is a list of options to pass to &dpkg;. The options must be specified
24f6490f
AL
828 using the list notation and each list item is passed as a single argument
829 to &dpkg;.</para></listitem>
830 </varlistentry>
831
2b9b27c3 832 <varlistentry><term><option>Pre-Invoke</option></term><term><option>Post-Invoke</option></term>
24f6490f
AL
833 <listitem><para>This is a list of shell commands to run before/after invoking &dpkg;.
834 Like <literal>options</literal> this must be specified in list notation. The
5723791e 835 commands are invoked in order using <filename>/bin/sh</filename>; should any
24f6490f
AL
836 fail APT will abort.</para></listitem>
837 </varlistentry>
838
2b9b27c3 839 <varlistentry><term><option>Pre-Install-Pkgs</option></term>
5723791e 840 <listitem><para>This is a list of shell commands to run before invoking &dpkg;. Like
24f6490f 841 <literal>options</literal> this must be specified in list notation. The commands
5723791e
JR
842 are invoked in order using <filename>/bin/sh</filename>; should any fail APT
843 will abort. APT will pass the filenames of all .deb files it is going to
48498443
DK
844 install to the commands, one per line on the requested file descriptor, defaulting
845 to standard input.</para>
24f6490f 846
29efb9dd
JN
847 <para>Version 2 of this protocol sends more information through the requested
848 file descriptor: a line with the text <literal>VERSION 2</literal>,
849 the APT configuration space, and a list of package actions with filename
850 and version information.</para>
851
852 <para>Each configuration directive line has the form
853 <literal>key=value</literal>. Special characters (equal signs, newlines,
854 nonprintable characters, quotation marks, and percent signs in
855 <literal>key</literal> and newlines, nonprintable characters, and percent
856 signs in <literal>value</literal>) are %-encoded. Lists are represented
857 by multiple <literal>key::=value</literal> lines with the same key. The
858 configuration section ends with a blank line.</para>
859
2ffd3535
BT
860 <para>Package action lines consist of five fields in Version 2: package
861 name (without architecture qualification even if foreign), old version,
862 direction of version change (&lt; for upgrades, &gt; for downgrades, = for
863 no change), new version, action. The version fields are "-" for no version
29efb9dd
JN
864 at all (for example when installing a package for the first time; no
865 version is treated as earlier than any real version, so that is an
866 upgrade, indicated as <literal>- &lt; 1.23.4</literal>). The action field
867 is "**CONFIGURE**" if the package is being configured, "**REMOVE**" if it
868 is being removed, or the filename of a .deb file if it is being
869 unpacked.</para>
870
871 <para>In Version 3 after each version field follows the architecture
872 of this version, which is "-" if there is no version, and a field showing
2ffd3535 873 the MultiArch type "same", "foreign", "allowed" or "none". Note that "none"
29efb9dd
JN
874 is an incorrect typename which is just kept to remain compatible, it
875 should be read as "no" and users are encouraged to support both.</para>
7a948ec7
DK
876
877 <para>The version of the protocol to be used for the command
878 <literal><replaceable>cmd</replaceable></literal> can be chosen by setting
879 <literal>DPkg::Tools::options::<replaceable>cmd</replaceable>::Version</literal>
880 accordingly, the default being version 1. If APT isn't supporting the requested
881 version it will send the information in the highest version it has support for instead.
48498443
DK
882 </para>
883
884 <para>The file descriptor to be used to send the information can be requested with
885 <literal>DPkg::Tools::options::<replaceable>cmd</replaceable>::InfoFD</literal>
886 which defaults to <literal>0</literal> for standard input and is available since
887 version 0.9.11. Support for the option can be detected by looking for the environment
888 variable <envar>APT_HOOK_INFO_FD</envar> which contains the number of the used
889 file descriptor as a confirmation.</para>
890 </listitem>
24f6490f
AL
891 </varlistentry>
892
2b9b27c3 893 <varlistentry><term><option>Run-Directory</option></term>
5723791e 894 <listitem><para>APT chdirs to this directory before invoking &dpkg;, the default is
24f6490f
AL
895 <filename>/</filename>.</para></listitem>
896 </varlistentry>
897
2b9b27c3 898 <varlistentry><term><option>Build-options</option></term>
5723791e 899 <listitem><para>These options are passed to &dpkg-buildpackage; when compiling packages;
24f6490f
AL
900 the default is to disable signing and produce all binaries.</para></listitem>
901 </varlistentry>
902 </variablelist>
3e9c4f70 903
5e312de7 904 <refsect2><title>dpkg trigger usage (and related options)</title>
5723791e
JR
905 <para>APT can call &dpkg; in such a way as to let it make aggressive use of triggers over
906 multiple calls of &dpkg;. Without further options &dpkg; will use triggers once each time it runs.
907 Activating these options can therefore decrease the time needed to perform the
908 install or upgrade. Note that it is intended to activate these options per default in the
909 future, but as it drastically changes the way APT calls &dpkg; it needs a lot more testing.
3e9c4f70 910 <emphasis>These options are therefore currently experimental and should not be used in
5723791e 911 production environments.</emphasis> It also breaks progress reporting such that all front-ends will
3e9c4f70
DK
912 currently stay around half (or more) of the time in the 100% state while it actually configures
913 all packages.</para>
a9564741 914 <para>Note that it is not guaranteed that APT will support these options or that these options will
5e312de7 915 not cause (big) trouble in the future. If you have understand the current risks and problems with
5723791e 916 these options, but are brave enough to help testing them, create a new configuration file and test a
5e312de7 917 combination of options. Please report any bugs, problems and improvements you encounter and make sure
5723791e 918 to note which options you have used in your reports. Asking &dpkg; for help could also be useful for
5e312de7 919 debugging proposes, see e.g. <command>dpkg --audit</command>. A defensive option combination would be
3e9c4f70 920<literallayout>DPkg::NoTriggers "true";
5e312de7
DK
921PackageManager::Configure "smart";
922DPkg::ConfigurePending "true";
d5081aee 923DPkg::TriggersPending "true";</literallayout></para>
3e9c4f70
DK
924
925 <variablelist>
2b9b27c3 926 <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::NoTriggers</option></term>
5723791e
JR
927 <listitem><para>Add the no triggers flag to all &dpkg; calls (except the ConfigurePending call).
928 See &dpkg; if you are interested in what this actually means. In short: &dpkg; will not run the
5f4331c4 929 triggers when this flag is present unless it is explicitly called to do so in an extra call.
5723791e
JR
930 Note that this option exists (undocumented) also in older APT versions with a slightly different
931 meaning: Previously these option only append --no-triggers to the configure calls to &dpkg; -
932 now APT will also add this flag to the unpack and remove calls.</para></listitem>
3e9c4f70 933 </varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 934 <varlistentry><term><option>PackageManager::Configure</option></term>
5723791e
JR
935 <listitem><para>Valid values are "<literal>all</literal>",
936 "<literal>smart</literal>" and "<literal>no</literal>".
937 The default value is "<literal>all</literal>", which causes APT to
938 configure all packages. The "<literal>smart</literal>" way is to
939 configure only packages which need to be configured before another
940 package can be unpacked (Pre-Depends), and let the rest be configured
941 by &dpkg; with a call generated by the ConfigurePending option (see
942 below). On the other hand, "<literal>no</literal>" will not configure
943 anything, and totally relies on &dpkg; for configuration (which at the
944 moment will fail if a Pre-Depends is encountered). Setting this option
945 to any value other than <literal>all</literal> will implicitly also
946 activate the next option by default, as otherwise the system could end
947 in an unconfigured and potentially unbootable state.</para></listitem>
3e9c4f70 948 </varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 949 <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::ConfigurePending</option></term>
5723791e
JR
950 <listitem><para>If this option is set APT will call <command>dpkg --configure --pending</command>
951 to let &dpkg; handle all required configurations and triggers. This option is activated automatically
952 per default if the previous option is not set to <literal>all</literal>, but deactivating it could be useful
5f4331c4 953 if you want to run APT multiple times in a row - e.g. in an installer. In these sceneries you could
3e9c4f70
DK
954 deactivate this option in all but the last run.</para></listitem>
955 </varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 956 <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::TriggersPending</option></term>
5723791e
JR
957 <listitem><para>Useful for the <literal>smart</literal> configuration as a package which has pending
958 triggers is not considered as <literal>installed</literal>, and &dpkg; treats them as <literal>unpacked</literal>
959 currently which is a showstopper for Pre-Dependencies (see debbugs #526774). Note that this will
5e312de7
DK
960 process all triggers, not only the triggers needed to configure this package.</para></listitem>
961 </varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 962 <varlistentry><term><option>OrderList::Score::Immediate</option></term>
5723791e
JR
963 <listitem><para>Essential packages (and their dependencies) should be configured immediately
964 after unpacking. It is a good idea to do this quite early in the upgrade process as these
965 configure calls also currently require <literal>DPkg::TriggersPending</literal> which
966 will run quite a few triggers (which may not be needed). Essentials get per default a high score
967 but the immediate flag is relatively low (a package which has a Pre-Depends is rated higher).
5e312de7 968 These option and the others in the same group can be used to change the scoring. The following
5723791e 969 example shows the settings with their default values.
5e312de7
DK
970 <literallayout>OrderList::Score {
971 Delete 500;
972 Essential 200;
973 Immediate 10;
974 PreDepends 50;
975};</literallayout>
976 </para></listitem>
977 </varlistentry>
3e9c4f70
DK
978 </variablelist>
979 </refsect2>
24f6490f
AL
980 </refsect1>
981
0224daf2
EL
982 <refsect1>
983 <title>Periodic and Archives options</title>
984 <para><literal>APT::Periodic</literal> and <literal>APT::Archives</literal>
985 groups of options configure behavior of apt periodic updates, which is
5723791e 986 done by the <literal>/etc/cron.daily/apt</literal> script. See the top of
0224daf2
EL
987 this script for the brief documentation of these options.
988 </para>
989 </refsect1>
990
be1b8568
EL
991 <refsect1>
992 <title>Debug options</title>
993 <para>
994 Enabling options in the <literal>Debug::</literal> section will
995 cause debugging information to be sent to the standard error
996 stream of the program utilizing the <literal>apt</literal>
997 libraries, or enable special program modes that are primarily
998 useful for debugging the behavior of <literal>apt</literal>.
999 Most of these options are not interesting to a normal user, but a
1000 few may be:
1001
1002 <itemizedlist>
1003 <listitem>
1004 <para>
1005 <literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal> enables output
1006 about the decisions made by
1007 <literal>dist-upgrade, upgrade, install, remove, purge</literal>.
1008 </para>
1009 </listitem>
1010
1011 <listitem>
1012 <para>
1013 <literal>Debug::NoLocking</literal> disables all file
1014 locking. This can be used to run some operations (for
1015 instance, <literal>apt-get -s install</literal>) as a
1016 non-root user.
1017 </para>
1018 </listitem>
1019
1020 <listitem>
1021 <para>
1022 <literal>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</literal> prints out the actual
1023 command line each time that <literal>apt</literal> invokes
1024 &dpkg;.
1025 </para>
1026 </listitem>
1027
1028 <listitem>
1029 <para>
1030 <literal>Debug::IdentCdrom</literal> disables the inclusion
25838be6 1031 of statfs data in CD-ROM IDs. <!-- TODO: provide a
be1b8568
EL
1032 motivating example, except I haven't a clue why you'd want
1033 to do this. -->
1034 </para>
1035 </listitem>
1036 </itemizedlist>
8a3642bd 1037 </para>
be1b8568
EL
1038
1039 <para>
1040 A full list of debugging options to apt follows.
1041 </para>
1042
1043 <variablelist>
1044 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1045 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::cdrom</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1046
1047 <listitem>
1048 <para>
1049 Print information related to accessing
1050 <literal>cdrom://</literal> sources.
1051 </para>
1052 </listitem>
1053 </varlistentry>
1054
1055 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1056 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::ftp</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1057
1058 <listitem>
1059 <para>
1060 Print information related to downloading packages using
1061 FTP.
1062 </para>
1063 </listitem>
1064 </varlistentry>
1065
1066 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1067 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::http</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1068
1069 <listitem>
1070 <para>
1071 Print information related to downloading packages using
1072 HTTP.
1073 </para>
1074 </listitem>
1075 </varlistentry>
1076
1077 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1078 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::https</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1079
1080 <listitem>
1081 <para>
1082 Print information related to downloading packages using
1083 HTTPS.
1084 </para>
1085 </listitem>
1086 </varlistentry>
1087
1088 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1089 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::gpgv</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1090
1091 <listitem>
1092 <para>
1093 Print information related to verifying cryptographic
1094 signatures using <literal>gpg</literal>.
1095 </para>
1096 </listitem>
1097 </varlistentry>
1098
1099 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1100 <term><option>Debug::aptcdrom</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1101
1102 <listitem>
1103 <para>
1104 Output information about the process of accessing
1105 collections of packages stored on CD-ROMs.
1106 </para>
1107 </listitem>
1108 </varlistentry>
1109
1110 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1111 <term><option>Debug::BuildDeps</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1112 <listitem>
1113 <para>
1114 Describes the process of resolving build-dependencies in
1115 &apt-get;.
1116 </para>
1117 </listitem>
1118 </varlistentry>
1119
1120 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1121 <term><option>Debug::Hashes</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1122 <listitem>
1123 <para>
1124 Output each cryptographic hash that is generated by the
1125 <literal>apt</literal> libraries.
1126 </para>
1127 </listitem>
1128 </varlistentry>
1129
1130 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1131 <term><option>Debug::IdentCDROM</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1132 <listitem>
1133 <para>
1134 Do not include information from <literal>statfs</literal>,
1135 namely the number of used and free blocks on the CD-ROM
1136 filesystem, when generating an ID for a CD-ROM.
1137 </para>
1138 </listitem>
1139 </varlistentry>
1140
1141 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1142 <term><option>Debug::NoLocking</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1143 <listitem>
1144 <para>
1145 Disable all file locking. For instance, this will allow
1146 two instances of <quote><literal>apt-get
1147 update</literal></quote> to run at the same time.
1148 </para>
1149 </listitem>
1150 </varlistentry>
1151
1152 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1153 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1154
1155 <listitem>
1156 <para>
1157 Log when items are added to or removed from the global
1158 download queue.
1159 </para>
1160 </listitem>
1161 </varlistentry>
1162
1163 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1164 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Auth</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1165 <listitem>
1166 <para>
1167 Output status messages and errors related to verifying
1168 checksums and cryptographic signatures of downloaded files.
1169 </para>
1170 </listitem>
1171 </varlistentry>
1172
1173 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1174 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Diffs</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1175 <listitem>
1176 <para>
1177 Output information about downloading and applying package
1178 index list diffs, and errors relating to package index list
1179 diffs.
1180 </para>
1181 </listitem>
1182 </varlistentry>
1183
1184 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1185 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::RRed</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1186
1187 <listitem>
1188 <para>
1189 Output information related to patching apt package lists
1190 when downloading index diffs instead of full indices.
1191 </para>
1192 </listitem>
1193 </varlistentry>
1194
1195 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1196 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Worker</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1197
1198 <listitem>
1199 <para>
1200 Log all interactions with the sub-processes that actually
1201 perform downloads.
1202 </para>
1203 </listitem>
1204 </varlistentry>
1205
1206 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1207 <term><option>Debug::pkgAutoRemove</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1208
1209 <listitem>
1210 <para>
1211 Log events related to the automatically-installed status of
1212 packages and to the removal of unused packages.
1213 </para>
1214 </listitem>
1215 </varlistentry>
1216
1217 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1218 <term><option>Debug::pkgDepCache::AutoInstall</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1219 <listitem>
1220 <para>
1221 Generate debug messages describing which packages are being
1222 automatically installed to resolve dependencies. This
1223 corresponds to the initial auto-install pass performed in,
1224 e.g., <literal>apt-get install</literal>, and not to the
1225 full <literal>apt</literal> dependency resolver; see
1226 <literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal> for that.
1227 </para>
1228 </listitem>
1229 </varlistentry>
1230
af29ffb4 1231 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1232 <term><option>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</option></term>
af29ffb4
MV
1233 <listitem>
1234 <para>
5723791e 1235 Generate debug messages describing which packages are marked
af29ffb4
MV
1236 as keep/install/remove while the ProblemResolver does his work.
1237 Each addition or deletion may trigger additional actions;
5723791e 1238 they are shown indented two additional spaces under the original entry.
af29ffb4
MV
1239 The format for each line is <literal>MarkKeep</literal>,
1240 <literal>MarkDelete</literal> or <literal>MarkInstall</literal> followed by
1241 <literal>package-name &lt;a.b.c -&gt; d.e.f | x.y.z&gt; (section)</literal>
1242 where <literal>a.b.c</literal> is the current version of the package,
1243 <literal>d.e.f</literal> is the version considered for installation and
1244 <literal>x.y.z</literal> is a newer version, but not considered for installation
1245 (because of a low pin score). The later two can be omitted if there is none or if
5723791e 1246 it is the same as the installed version.
af29ffb4
MV
1247 <literal>section</literal> is the name of the section the package appears in.
1248 </para>
1249 </listitem>
1250 </varlistentry>
be1b8568
EL
1251
1252 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1253 <term><option>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1254 <listitem>
1255 <para>
1256 When invoking &dpkg;, output the precise command line with
1257 which it is being invoked, with arguments separated by a
1258 single space character.
1259 </para>
1260 </listitem>
1261 </varlistentry>
1262
1263 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1264 <term><option>Debug::pkgDPkgProgressReporting</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1265 <listitem>
1266 <para>
1267 Output all the data received from &dpkg; on the status file
1268 descriptor and any errors encountered while parsing it.
1269 </para>
1270 </listitem>
1271 </varlistentry>
1272
1273 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1274 <term><option>Debug::pkgOrderList</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1275
1276 <listitem>
1277 <para>
1278 Generate a trace of the algorithm that decides the order in
1279 which <literal>apt</literal> should pass packages to
1280 &dpkg;.
1281 </para>
1282 </listitem>
1283 </varlistentry>
1284
1285 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1286 <term><option>Debug::pkgPackageManager</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1287
1288 <listitem>
1289 <para>
1290 Output status messages tracing the steps performed when
1291 invoking &dpkg;.
1292 </para>
1293 </listitem>
1294 </varlistentry>
1295
1296 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1297 <term><option>Debug::pkgPolicy</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1298
1299 <listitem>
1300 <para>
1301 Output the priority of each package list on startup.
1302 </para>
1303 </listitem>
1304 </varlistentry>
1305
1306 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1307 <term><option>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1308
1309 <listitem>
1310 <para>
1311 Trace the execution of the dependency resolver (this
1312 applies only to what happens when a complex dependency
1313 problem is encountered).
1314 </para>
1315 </listitem>
1316 </varlistentry>
1317
8b4894fe 1318 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1319 <term><option>Debug::pkgProblemResolver::ShowScores</option></term>
8b4894fe
MV
1320 <listitem>
1321 <para>
1322 Display a list of all installed packages with their calculated score
1323 used by the pkgProblemResolver. The description of the package
1324 is the same as described in <literal>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</literal>
1325 </para>
1326 </listitem>
1327 </varlistentry>
1328
be1b8568 1329 <varlistentry>
2b9b27c3 1330 <term><option>Debug::sourceList</option></term>
be1b8568
EL
1331
1332 <listitem>
1333 <para>
1334 Print information about the vendors read from
1335 <filename>/etc/apt/vendors.list</filename>.
1336 </para>
1337 </listitem>
1338 </varlistentry>
1339
e5b7e019
MV
1340 <varlistentry>
1341 <term><option>Debug::RunScripts</option></term>
1342 <listitem>
1343 <para>
1344 Display the external commands that are called by apt hooks.
1345 This includes e.g. the config options
1346 <literal>DPkg::{Pre,Post}-Invoke</literal> or
1347 <literal>APT::Update::{Pre,Post}-Invoke</literal>.
1348 </para>
1349 </listitem>
1350 </varlistentry>
1351
d82cdf73
MV
1352<!-- 2009/07/11 Currently used nowhere. The corresponding code
1353is commented.
be1b8568
EL
1354 <varlistentry>
1355 <term><literal>Debug::Vendor</literal></term>
1356
1357 <listitem>
1358 <para>
1359 Print information about each vendor.
1360 </para>
1361 </listitem>
1362 </varlistentry>
d82cdf73 1363-->
45df0ad2 1364
be1b8568 1365 </variablelist>
24f6490f
AL
1366 </refsect1>
1367
1368 <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
640c5d94
MZ
1369 <para>&configureindex; is a
1370 configuration file showing example values for all possible
24f6490f
AL
1371 options.</para>
1372 </refsect1>
1373
1374 <refsect1><title>Files</title>
6e2525a1 1375 <variablelist>
1221c3a3 1376 &file-aptconf;
6e2525a1 1377 </variablelist>
24f6490f
AL
1378 </refsect1>
1379
1380 <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
1381 <para>&apt-cache;, &apt-config;<!-- ? reading apt.conf -->, &apt-preferences;.</para>
1382 </refsect1>
1383
1384 &manbugs;
24f6490f
AL
1385
1386</refentry>
1387