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. In general the sample configuration file in
  34 em(/usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf) is a good guide for how it should look.
  35
  36 manpagesection(The APT Group)
  37 This group of options controls general APT behavoir as well as holding the
  38 options for all of the tools.
  39
  40 startdit()
  41 dit(bf(Architecture))
  42 System Architecture; sets the architecture to use when fetching files and
  43 parsing package lists. The internal default is the architecture apt was
  44 compiled for.
  45
  46 dit(bf(Ignore-Hold))
  47 Ignore Held packages; This global options causes the problem resolver to
  48 ignore held packages in its decision making.
  49
  50 dit(bf(Immediate-Configure))
  51 Disable Immedate Configuration; This dangerous option disables some
  52 of APT's ordering code to cause it to make fewer dpkg calls. Doing
  53 so may be necessary on some extremely slow single user systems but
  54 is very dangerous and may cause package install scripts to fail or worse.
  55 Use at your own risk.
  56
  57 dit(bf(Get))
  58 The Get subsection controls the bf(apt-get(8)) tool, please see its
  59 documentation for more information about the options here.
  60
  61 dit(bf(Cache))
  62 The Cache subsection controls the bf(apt-cache(8)) tool, please see its
  63 documentation for more information about the options here.
  64
  65 dit(bf(CDROM))
  66 The CDROM subsection controls the bf(apt-cdrom(8)) tool, please see its
  67 documentation for more information about the options here.
  68
  69 enddit()
  70
  71 manpagesection(The Acquire Group)
  72 The bf(Acquire) group of options controls the download of packages and the
  73 URI handlers.
  74
  75 startdit()
  76 dit(bf(Queue-Mode))
  77 Queuing mode; bf(Queue-Mode) can be one of bf(host) or bf(access) which
  78 determins how APT parallelizes outgoing connections. bf(host) means that
  79 one connection per target host will be opened, bf(access) means that one
  80 connection per URI type will be opened.
  81
  82 dit(bf(Retries))
  83 Number of retries to perform. If this is non-zero apt will retry failed
  84 files the given number of times.
  85
  86 dit(bf(http))
  87 HTTP URIs; http::Proxy is the default http proxy to use. It is in the standard
  88 form of em(http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/). Per host proxies can also
  89 be specified by using the form http::Proxy::<host> with the special keyword
  90 em(DIRECT) meaning to use no proxies. The em($http_proxy) environment variable
  91 will override all settings.
  92
  93 Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/1.1 complient proxy
  94 caches. bf(No-Cache) tells the proxy to not used its cached response under
  95 any circumstances, bf(Max-Age) is sent only for index files and tells the
  96 cache to refresh its object if it is older than the given number of seconds.
  97 Debian updates its index files daily so the default is 1 day. bf(No-Store)
  98 specifies that the cache should never store this request, it is only
  99 set for archive files. This may be usefull to prevent polluting a proxy cache
 100 with very large .deb files. Note: Squid 2.0.2 does not support any of
 101 these options.
 102
 103 One setting is provided to control the pipeline depth in cases where the
 104 remote server is not RFC conforming or buggy (such as Squid 2.0.2)
 105 Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth can be a value from 0 to 5 indicating how many
 106 outstanding requests APT should send.
 107
 108 dit(bf(cdrom))
 109 CDROM URIs; the only setting for CDROM URIs is the mount point, cdrom::Mount
 110 which must be the mount point for the CDROM drive as specified in /etc/fstab.
 111
 112 enddit()
 113
 114 manpagesection(Directories)
 115 The bf(Dir::State) section has directories that pertain to local state
 116 information. bf(lists) is the directory to place downloaded package lists
 117 in and bf(status) is the name of the dpkg status file. bf(Dir::State)
 118 contains the default directory to prefix on all sub items if they do not
 119 start with em(/) or em(./). bf(xstatus) and bf(userstatus) are for future
 120 use.
 121
 122 bf(Dir::Cache) contains locations pertaining to local cache information, such
 123 as the two package caches bf(srcpkgcache) and bf(pkgcache) as well as the
 124 location to place downloaded archives, bf(Dir::Cache::archives). Like
 125 bf(Dir::State) the default directory is contained in bf(Dir::Cache)
 126
 127 bf(Dir::Etc) contains the location of configuration files, bd(sourcelist)
 128 gives the location of the sourcelist and bf(main) is the default configuration
 129 file (setting has no effect)
 130
 131 Binary programs are pointed to by bf(Dir::Bin). bf(methods) specifies the
 132 location of the method handlers and bf(gzip), bf(dpkg), bf(apt-get), and
 133 bf(apt-cache) specify the location of the respective programs.
 134
 135 manpagesection(APT in DSelect)
 136 When APT is used as a bf(dselect(8)) method several configuration directives
 137 control the default behavoir. These are in the bf(DSelect) section.
 138
 139 startdit()
 140 dit(bf(Clean))
 141 Cache Clean mode; this value may be one of always, auto, prompt and never.
 142 Currently always and auto are identical but their meanings may diverge in
 143 future to have auto only clean useless archives and always clean all archives.
 144
 145 dit(bf(Options))
 146 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 147 options when it is run for the install phase.
 148
 149 dit(bf(UpdateOptions))
 150 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 151 options when it is run for the update phase.
 152
 153 dit(bf(PromptAfterUpdate))
 154 If true the [U]pdate operation in dselect will always prompt to continue.
 155 The default is to prompt only on error.
 156 enddit()
 157
 158 manpagesection(How APT calls DPkg)
 159 Several configuration directives control how APT invokes dpkg. These are in
 160 the bf(DPkg) section.
 161
 162 startdit()
 163 dit(bf(Options))
 164 This is a list of options to pass to dpkg. The options must be specified
 165 using the list notation and each list item is passed as a single arugment
 166 to dpkg.
 167
 168 dit(bf(Pre-Invoke), bf(Post-Invoke))
 169 This is a list of shell commands to run before/after invoking dpkg. Like
 170 bf(Options) this must be specified in list notation. The commands
 171 are invoked in order using /bin/sh, should any fail APT will abort.
 172
 173 dit(bf(Run-Directory))
 174 APT chdirs to this directory before invoking dpkg, the default is /.
 175
 176 enddit()
 177
 178 manpagesection(Debug Options)
 179 Most of the options in the bf(debug) section are not interesting to the
 180 normal user, however bf(Debug::pkgProblemResolver) shows interesting
 181 output about the decisions dist-upgrade makes. bf(Debug::NoLocking)
 182 disables file locking so apt can do some operations as non-root and
 183 bf(Debug::pkgDPkgPM) will print out the command line for each dpkg invokation.
 184
 185 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
 186 bf(/usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf) contains a sample configuration file
 187 showing the default values for all possible options.
 188
 189 mapagesection(FILES)
 190 /etc/apt/apt.conf
 191
 192 manpageseealso()
 193 apt-cache (8),
 194 apt.conf (5)
 195
 196 manpagebugs()
 197 See http://bugs.debian.org/apt.  If you wish to report a
 198 bug in bf(apt-get), please see bf(/usr/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt)
 199 or the bf(bug(1)) command.
 200
 201 manpageauthor()
 202 apt-get was written by the APT team <apt@packages.debian.org>.