doc/apt.conf.5.yo

   1 mailto(apt@packages.debian.org)
   2 manpage(apt.conf)(5)(5 Dec 1998)(apt)()
   3 manpagename(apt.conf)(configuration file for APT)
   4
   5 manpagedescription()
   6 bf(apt.conf) is the main configuration file for the APT suite of
   7 tools, all tools make use of the configuration file and a common command line
   8 parser to provide a uniform environment. When an APT tool starts up it will
   9 read bf(/etc/apt/apt.conf), then read the configuration specified by the
  10 bf($APT_CONFIG) environment variable and then finally apply the command line
  11 options to override the configuration directives, possibly loading more
  12 config files.
  13
  14 The configuration file is organized in a tree with options organized into
  15 functional groups. Option specification is given with a double colon
  16 notation, for instance em(APT::Get::Assume-Yes) is an option within the
  17 APT tool group, for the Get tool. Options do not inherit from their parent
  18 groups.
  19
  20 Syntacticly the configuration language is modeled after what the ISC tools
  21 such as bind and dhcp use. Each line is of the form
  22 quote(APT::Get::Assume-Yes "true";) The trailing semicolon is required and
  23 the quotes are optional. A new em(scope) can be opened with curly braces,
  24 like:
  25 verb(APT {
  26   Get {
  27     Assume-Yes "true";
  28     Fix-Broken "true";
  29   };
  30 };
  31 )
  32 with newlines placed to make
  33 it more readable. Lists can be created by opening a scope an including a
  34 single word enclosed in quotes followed by a semicolon.
  35 In general the sample configuration file in
  36 em(/usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf) and
  37 em(/usr/doc/apt/examples/configure-index)
  38 is a good guide for how it should look.
  39
  40 All of the APT tools take a -o option which allows an arbitary configuration
  41 directive to be specified on the command line. The syntax is a full option
  42 name (APT::Get::Assume-Yes for instance) followed by an equals sign then the
  43 new value of the option. Lists can be appended too by adding a trailing ::
  44 to the list name.
  45
  46 manpagesection(The APT Group)
  47 This group of options controls general APT behavoir as well as holding the
  48 options for all of the tools.
  49
  50 startdit()
  51 dit(bf(Architecture))
  52 System Architecture; sets the architecture to use when fetching files and
  53 parsing package lists. The internal default is the architecture apt was
  54 compiled for.
  55
  56 dit(bf(Ignore-Hold))
  57 Ignore Held packages; This global options causes the problem resolver to
  58 ignore held packages in its decision making.
  59
  60 dit(bf(Clean-Installed))
  61 Defaults to on. When turned on the autoclean feature will remove any pacakge
  62 which can no longer be downloaded from the cache. If turned off then
  63 packages that are locally installed are also excluded from cleaning - but
  64 note that APT provides no direct means to reinstall them.
  65
  66 dit(bf(Immediate-Configure))
  67 Disable Immedate Configuration; This dangerous option disables some
  68 of APT's ordering code to cause it to make fewer dpkg calls. Doing
  69 so may be necessary on some extremely slow single user systems but
  70 is very dangerous and may cause package install scripts to fail or worse.
  71 Use at your own risk.
  72
  73 dit(bf(Force-LoopBreak))
  74 Never Enable this option unless you -really- know what you are doing. It
  75 permits APT to temporarily remove an essential package to break a
  76 Conflicts/Conflicts or Conflicts/Pre-Depend loop between two essential
  77 packages. SUCH A LOOP SHOULD NEVER EXIST AND IS A GRAVE BUG. This option will
  78 work if the essential packages are not tar, gzip, libc, dpkg, bash or
  79 anything that those packages depend on.
  80
  81 dit(bf(Cache-Limit))
  82 APT uses a fixed size memory mapped cache file to store the 'available'
  83 information. This sets the size of that cache.
  84
  85 dit(bf(Get))
  86 The Get subsection controls the bf(apt-get(8)) tool, please see its
  87 documentation for more information about the options here.
  88
  89 dit(bf(Cache))
  90 The Cache subsection controls the bf(apt-cache(8)) tool, please see its
  91 documentation for more information about the options here.
  92
  93 dit(bf(CDROM))
  94 The CDROM subsection controls the bf(apt-cdrom(8)) tool, please see its
  95 documentation for more information about the options here.
  96
  97 enddit()
  98
  99 manpagesection(The Acquire Group)
 100 The bf(Acquire) group of options controls the download of packages and the
 101 URI handlers.
 102
 103 startdit()
 104 dit(bf(Queue-Mode))
 105 Queuing mode; bf(Queue-Mode) can be one of bf(host) or bf(access) which
 106 determins how APT parallelizes outgoing connections. bf(host) means that
 107 one connection per target host will be opened, bf(access) means that one
 108 connection per URI type will be opened.
 109
 110 dit(bf(Retries))
 111 Number of retries to perform. If this is non-zero apt will retry failed
 112 files the given number of times.
 113
 114 dit(bf(Source-Symlinks))
 115 Use symlinks for source archives. If set to true then source archives will
 116 be symlinked when possible instead of copying. True is the default
 117
 118 dit(bf(http))
 119 HTTP URIs; http::Proxy is the default http proxy to use. It is in the standard
 120 form of em(http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/). Per host proxies can also
 121 be specified by using the form http::Proxy::<host> with the special keyword
 122 em(DIRECT) meaning to use no proxies. The em($http_proxy) environment variable
 123 will override all settings.
 124
 125 Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/1.1 complient proxy
 126 caches. bf(No-Cache) tells the proxy to not used its cached response under
 127 any circumstances, bf(Max-Age) is sent only for index files and tells the
 128 cache to refresh its object if it is older than the given number of seconds.
 129 Debian updates its index files daily so the default is 1 day. bf(No-Store)
 130 specifies that the cache should never store this request, it is only
 131 set for archive files. This may be usefull to prevent polluting a proxy cache
 132 with very large .deb files. Note: Squid 2.0.2 does not support any of
 133 these options.
 134
 135 The option bf(timeout) sets the timeout timer used by the method, this
 136 applies to all things including connection timeout and data timeout.
 137
 138 One setting is provided to control the pipeline depth in cases where the
 139 remote server is not RFC conforming or buggy (such as Squid 2.0.2)
 140 Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth can be a value from 0 to 5 indicating how many
 141 outstanding requests APT should send.
 142
 143 dit(bf(ftp))
 144 FTP URis; ftp::Proxy is the default proxy server to use. It is in the
 145 standard form of em(ftp://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/) and is overriden
 146 by the ftp_proxy environment variable. To use a ftp proxy you will have to
 147 set the ftp::ProxyLogin script in the configuration file. This entry
 148 specifies the commands to send to tell the proxy server what to connect
 149 to. Please see em(/usr/doc/apt/examples/configure-index) for an example of how
 150 to do this. The subsitution variables available are $(PROXY_USER),
 151 $(PROXY_PASS), $(SITE_USER), $(SITE_PASS), $(SITE), and $(SITE_PORT).
 152 Each is taken from it's respective URI component.
 153
 154 The option bf(timeout) sets the timeout timer used by the method, this
 155 applies to all things including connection timeout and data timeout.
 156
 157 Several settings are provided to control passive mode. Generally it is safe
 158 to leave passive mode on, it works in nearly every environment. However some
 159 situations require that passive mode be disabled and port mode ftp used
 160 instead. This can be done globally, for connections that go through a proxy
 161 or for a specific host (See the sample config file for examples)
 162
 163
 164 It is possible to proxy FTP over HTTP by setting the em(ftp_proxy)
 165 environment variable to a http url - see the discussion of the http method
 166 above for syntax. You cannot set this in the configuration file and it is
 167 not recommended to use FTP over HTTP due to its low efficiency.
 168
 169 dit(bf(cdrom))
 170 CDROM URIs; the only setting for CDROM URIs is the mount point, cdrom::Mount
 171 which must be the mount point for the CDROM drive as specified in /etc/fstab.
 172 It is possible to provide alternate mount and unmount commands if your
 173 mount point cannot be listed in the fstab (such as an SMB mount). The syntax
 174 is to put "/cdrom/"::Mount "foo"; within the cdrom block. It is important to
 175 have the trailing slash. Unmount commands can be specified using UMount.
 176
 177 enddit()
 178
 179 manpagesection(Directories)
 180 The bf(Dir::State) section has directories that pertain to local state
 181 information. bf(lists) is the directory to place downloaded package lists
 182 in and bf(status) is the name of the dpkg status file. bf(Dir::State)
 183 contains the default directory to prefix on all sub items if they do not
 184 start with em(/) or em(./). bf(xstatus) and bf(userstatus) are for future
 185 use.
 186
 187 bf(Dir::Cache) contains locations pertaining to local cache information, such
 188 as the two package caches bf(srcpkgcache) and bf(pkgcache) as well as the
 189 location to place downloaded archives, bf(Dir::Cache::archives). Like
 190 bf(Dir::State) the default directory is contained in bf(Dir::Cache)
 191
 192 bf(Dir::Etc) contains the location of configuration files, bf(sourcelist)
 193 gives the location of the sourcelist and bf(main) is the default configuration
 194 file (setting has no effect)
 195
 196 Binary programs are pointed to by bf(Dir::Bin). bf(methods) specifies the
 197 location of the method handlers and bf(gzip), bf(dpkg), bf(apt-get),
 198 bf(dpkg-source), bf(dpkg-buildpackage) and
 199 bf(apt-cache) specify the location of the respective programs.
 200
 201 manpagesection(APT in DSelect)
 202 When APT is used as a bf(dselect(8)) method several configuration directives
 203 control the default behavoir. These are in the bf(DSelect) section.
 204
 205 startdit()
 206 dit(bf(Clean))
 207 Cache Clean mode; this value may be one of always, auto, prompt and never.
 208 always will remove all archives after they have been downloaded while auto
 209 will only remove things that are no longer downloadable (replaced with a new
 210 version for instance)
 211
 212 dit(bf(Options))
 213 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 214 options when it is run for the install phase.
 215
 216 dit(bf(UpdateOptions))
 217 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 218 options when it is run for the update phase.
 219
 220 dit(bf(PromptAfterUpdate))
 221 If true the [U]pdate operation in dselect will always prompt to continue.
 222 The default is to prompt only on error.
 223 enddit()
 224
 225 manpagesection(How APT calls DPkg)
 226 Several configuration directives control how APT invokes dpkg. These are in
 227 the bf(DPkg) section.
 228
 229 startdit()
 230 dit(bf(Options))
 231 This is a list of options to pass to dpkg. The options must be specified
 232 using the list notation and each list item is passed as a single arugment
 233 to dpkg.
 234
 235 dit(bf(Pre-Invoke), bf(Post-Invoke))
 236 This is a list of shell commands to run before/after invoking dpkg. Like
 237 bf(Options) this must be specified in list notation. The commands
 238 are invoked in order using /bin/sh, should any fail APT will abort.
 239
 240 dit(bf(Pre-Install-Pkgs))
 241 This is a list of shell commands to run before invoking dpkg. Like
 242 bf(Options) this must be specified in list notation. The commands
 243 are invoked in order using /bin/sh, should any fail APT will abort.
 244 Apt will pass to the commands on standard input the filenames of all
 245 .deb files it is going to install, one per line.
 246
 247 dit(bf(Run-Directory))
 248 APT chdirs to this directory before invoking dpkg, the default is /.
 249
 250 dit(bf(Build-Options))
 251 These options are passed to dpkg-buildpackage when compiling packages,
 252 the default is to disable signing and produce all binaries.
 253
 254 enddit()
 255
 256 manpagesection(Debug Options)
 257 Most of the options in the bf(debug) section are not interesting to the
 258 normal user, however bf(Debug::pkgProblemResolver) shows interesting
 259 output about the decisions dist-upgrade makes. bf(Debug::NoLocking)
 260 disables file locking so apt can do some operations as non-root and
 261 bf(Debug::pkgDPkgPM) will print out the command line for each dpkg
 262 invokation. bf(Debug::IdentCdrom) will disable the inclusion of statfs
 263 data in CDROM IDs.
 264
 265 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
 266 bf(/usr/doc/apt/examples/configure-index.gz) contains a sample configuration
 267 file showing the default values for all possible options.
 268
 269 manpagesection(FILES)
 270 /etc/apt/apt.conf
 271
 272 manpageseealso()
 273 apt-cache (8),
 274 apt-get (8)
 275
 276 manpagebugs()
 277 See http://bugs.debian.org/apt.  If you wish to report a
 278 bug in bf(apt-get), please see bf(/usr/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt)
 279 or the bf(bug(1)) command.
 280
 281 manpageauthor()
 282 apt-get was written by the APT team <apt@packages.debian.org>.