[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>
 </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 located in <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>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 are:</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 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://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian dists/stable-updates/
   </literallayout>

 </refsect1>

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

   <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, and ftp.
   <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. No password authentication is 
    possible, prior arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts must have been made.
    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>
  </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/contrib area.</para>
   <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian stable 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-i3866</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>
	24	</refmeta>
	25
	26	<!-- Man page title -->
	27	<refnamediv>
	28	<refname>sources.list</refname>
	29	<refpurpose>Package resource list for APT</refpurpose>
	30	</refnamediv>
	31
	32	<refsect1><title>Description</title>
	33	<para>The package resource list is used to locate archives of the package
	34	distribution system in use on the system. At this time, this manual page
	35	documents only the packaging system used by the Debian GNU/Linux system.
	36	This control file is located in <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename></para>
	37
	38	<para>The source list is designed to support any number of active sources and a
	39	variety of source media. The file lists one source per line, with the
	40	most preferred source listed first. The format of each line is:
	41	<literal>type uri args</literal> The first item, <literal>type</literal>
	42	determines the format for <literal>args</literal> <literal>uri</literal> is
	43	a Universal Resource Identifier
	44	(URI), which is a superset of the more specific and well-known Universal
	45	Resource Locator, or URL. The rest of the line can be marked as a comment
	46	by using a #.</para>
	47	</refsect1>
	48
	49	<refsect1><title>The deb and deb-src types</title>
	50	<para>The <literal>deb</literal> type describes a typical two-level Debian
	51	archive, <filename>distribution/component</filename>. Typically,
	52	<literal>distribution</literal> is generally one of
	53	<literal>stable</literal> <literal>unstable</literal> or
	54	<literal>testing</literal> while component is one of <literal>main</literal>
	55	<literal>contrib</literal> <literal>non-free</literal> or
	56	<literal>non-us</literal> The
	57	<literal>deb-src</literal> type describes a debian distribution's source
	58	code in the same form as the <literal>deb</literal> type.
	59	A <literal>deb-src</literal> line is required to fetch source indexes.</para>
	60
	61
	62	<para>The format for a <filename>sources.list</filename> entry using the
	63	<literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types are:</para>
	64
	65	<literallayout>deb uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>
	66
	67	<para>The URI for the <literal>deb</literal> type must specify the base of the
	68	Debian distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs.
	69	<literal>distribution</literal> can specify an exact path, in which case the
	70	components must be omitted and <literal>distribution</literal> must end with
	71	a slash (/). This is useful for when only a particular sub-section of the
	72	archive denoted by the URI is of interest.
	73	If <literal>distribution</literal> does not specify an exact path, at least
	74	one <literal>component</literal> must be present.</para>
	75
	76	<para><literal>distribution</literal> may also contain a variable,
	77	<literal>$(ARCH)</literal>
	78	which expands to the Debian architecture (i386, m68k, powerpc, ...)
	79	used on the system. This permits architecture-independent
	80	<filename>sources.list</filename> files to be used. In general this is only
	81	of interest when specifying an exact path, <literal>APT</literal> will
	82	automatically generate a URI with the current architecture otherwise.</para>
	83
84	<para>Since only one distribution can be specified per line it may be necessary
85	to have multiple lines for the same URI, if a subset of all available
86	distributions or components at that location is desired.
87	APT will sort the URI list after it has generated a complete set
88	internally, and will collapse multiple references to the same Internet
89	host, for instance, into a single connection, so that it does not
90	inefficiently establish an FTP connection, close it, do something else,
91	and then re-establish a connection to that same host. This feature is
92	useful for accessing busy FTP sites with limits on the number of
93	simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to
94	different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.</para>
95
96	<para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
97	preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
98	by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
99	network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>
100
101	<para>Some examples:</para>
102	<literallayout>
103	deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
104	deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian dists/stable-updates/
105	</literallayout>
106
107	</refsect1>
108
109	<refsect1><title>URI specification</title>
110
111	<para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, and ftp.
112	<variablelist>
113	<varlistentry><term>file</term>
114	<listitem><para>
115	The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
116	considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
117	archives.</para></listitem>
118	</varlistentry>
119
120	<varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
121	<listitem><para>
122	The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
123	swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
124	source list.</para></listitem>
125	</varlistentry>
126
127	<varlistentry><term>http</term>
128	<listitem><para>
129	The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
130	variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format
131	http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
132	<envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
133	HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
134	http://user:pass@server:port/
135	Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
136	</varlistentry>
137
138	<varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
139	<listitem><para>
140	The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
141	is highly configurable; for more information see the
142	&apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
143	by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
144	to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
145	using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
146	the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
147	</varlistentry>
148
149	<varlistentry><term>copy</term>
150	<listitem><para>
151	The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
152	copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
153	This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
154	</varlistentry>
155
156	<varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
157	<listitem><para>
158	The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
159	as a given user and access the files. No password authentication is
160	possible, prior arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts must have been made.
161	Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
162	<command>dd</command>
163	commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
164	</varlistentry>
165	</variablelist>
166	</para>
167	</refsect1>
168
169	<refsect1><title>Examples</title>
170	<para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
171	for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
172	<literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
173
174	<para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
175	<literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
176
177	<para>Source line for the above</para>
178	<literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
179
180	<para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
181	the hamm/main area.</para>
182	<literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>
183
184	<para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
185	directory, and uses only the stable/contrib area.</para>
186	<literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian stable contrib</literallayout>
187
188	<para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
189	directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
190	well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>.
191	a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
192	<literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>
193
194	<para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
195	debian-non-US directory.</para>
196	<literallayout>deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free</literallayout>
197
198	<para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
199	debian-non-US directory, and uses only files found under
200	<filename>unstable/binary-i3866</filename> on i386 machines,
201	<filename>unstable/binary-m68k</filename> on m68k, and so
202	forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
203	illustrates how to use the substitution variable; non-us is no longer
204	structured like this]
205	<literallayout>deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
206	</para>
207	</refsect1>
208
209	<refsect1><title>See Also</title>
5e80de29	210	<para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
24f6490f AL	211	</para>
	212	</refsect1>
	213
	214	&manbugs;
24f6490f AL	215
	216	</refentry>
	217