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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 <!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent">
9 %aptverbatiment;
10
11 ]>
12
13 <refentry>
14
15 <refentryinfo>
16 &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
17 &apt-author.team;
18 &apt-email;
19 &apt-product;
20 <!-- The last update date -->
21 <date>2004-02-29T00:00:00Z</date>
22 </refentryinfo>
23
24 <refmeta>
25 <refentrytitle>sources.list</refentrytitle>
26 <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
27 <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
28 </refmeta>
29
30 <!-- Man page title -->
31 <refnamediv>
32 <refname>sources.list</refname>
33 <refpurpose>Package resource list for APT</refpurpose>
34 </refnamediv>
35
36 <refsect1><title>Description</title>
37 <para>The package resource list is used to locate archives of the package
38 distribution system in use on the system. At this time, this manual page
39 documents only the packaging system used by the Debian GNU/Linux system.
40 This control file is <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename>.</para>
41
42 <para>The source list is designed to support any number of active sources and a
43 variety of source media. The file lists one source per line, with the
44 most preferred source listed first. The format of each line is:
45 <literal>type uri args</literal> The first item, <literal>type</literal>
46 determines the format for <literal>args</literal>. <literal>uri</literal> is
47 a Universal Resource Identifier
48 (URI), which is a superset of the more specific and well-known Universal
49 Resource Locator, or URL. The rest of the line can be marked as a comment
50 by using a #.</para>
51 </refsect1>
52
53 <refsect1><title>sources.list.d</title>
54 <para>The <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list.d</filename> directory provides
55 a way to add sources.list entries in separate files.
56 The format is the same as for the regular <filename>sources.list</filename> file.
57 File names need to end with
58 <filename>.list</filename> and may only contain letters (a-z and A-Z),
59 digits (0-9), underscore (_), hyphen (-) and period (.) characters.
60 Otherwise APT will print a notice that it has ignored a file if the file
61 doesn't match a pattern in the <literal>Dir::Ignore-Files-Silently</literal>
62 configuration list - in this case it will be silently ignored.</para>
63 </refsect1>
64
65 <refsect1><title>The deb and deb-src types</title>
66 <para>The <literal>deb</literal> type describes a typical two-level Debian
67 archive, <filename>distribution/component</filename>. Typically,
68 <literal>distribution</literal> is generally an archivename like
69 <literal>stable</literal> or <literal>testing</literal> or a codename like
70 <literal>&stable-codename;</literal> or <literal>&testing-codename;</literal>
71 while component is one of <literal>main</literal> <literal>contrib</literal> or
72 <literal>non-free</literal>. The
73 <literal>deb-src</literal> type describes a debian distribution's source
74 code in the same form as the <literal>deb</literal> type.
75 A <literal>deb-src</literal> line is required to fetch source indexes.</para>
76
77
78 <para>The format for a <filename>sources.list</filename> entry using the
79 <literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types is:</para>
80
81 <literallayout>deb [ options ] uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>
82
83 <para>The URI for the <literal>deb</literal> type must specify the base of the
84 Debian distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs.
85 <literal>distribution</literal> can specify an exact path, in which case the
86 components must be omitted and <literal>distribution</literal> must end with
87 a slash (/). This is useful for when the case only a particular sub-section of the
88 archive denoted by the URI is of interest.
89 If <literal>distribution</literal> does not specify an exact path, at least
90 one <literal>component</literal> must be present.</para>
91
92 <para><literal>distribution</literal> may also contain a variable,
93 <literal>$(ARCH)</literal>
94 which expands to the Debian architecture (i386, m68k, powerpc, ...)
95 used on the system. This permits architecture-independent
96 <filename>sources.list</filename> files to be used. In general this is only
97 of interest when specifying an exact path, <literal>APT</literal> will
98 automatically generate a URI with the current architecture otherwise.</para>
99
100 <para>Since only one distribution can be specified per line it may be necessary
101 to have multiple lines for the same URI, if a subset of all available
102 distributions or components at that location is desired.
103 APT will sort the URI list after it has generated a complete set
104 internally, and will collapse multiple references to the same Internet
105 host, for instance, into a single connection, so that it does not
106 inefficiently establish an FTP connection, close it, do something else,
107 and then re-establish a connection to that same host. This feature is
108 useful for accessing busy FTP sites with limits on the number of
109 simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to
110 different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.</para>
111
112 <para><literal>options</literal> is always optional and needs to be surounded by
113 square brackets. It can consist of multiple settings in the form
114 <literal><replaceable>setting</replaceable>=<replaceable>value</replaceable></literal>.
115 Multiple settings are separated by spaces. The following settings are supported by APT,
116 note though that unsupported settings will be ignored silently:
117 <itemizedlist><listitem><para><literal>arch=<replaceable>arch1</replaceable>,<replaceable>arch2</replaceable>,…</literal>
118 can be used to specify for which architectures packages information should
119 be downloaded. If this option is not set all architectures defined by the
120 <literal>APT::Architectures</literal> option will be downloaded.</para></listitem>
121 <listitem><para><literal>trusted=yes</literal> can be set to indicate that packages
122 from this source are always authenticated even if the <filename>Release</filename> file
123 is not signed or the signature can't be checked. This disables parts of &apt-secure;
124 and should therefore only be used in a local and trusted context. <literal>trusted=no</literal>
125 is the opposite which handles even correctly authenticated sources as not authenticated.</para></listitem>
126 </itemizedlist></para>
127
128 <para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
129 preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
130 by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
131 network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>
132
133 <para>Some examples:</para>
134 <literallayout>
135 deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main contrib non-free
136 deb http://security.debian.org/ &stable-codename;/updates main contrib non-free
137 </literallayout>
138
139 </refsect1>
140
141 <refsect1><title>URI specification</title>
142
143 <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
144 ssh, rsh.
145 <variablelist>
146 <varlistentry><term>file</term>
147 <listitem><para>
148 The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
149 considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
150 archives.</para></listitem>
151 </varlistentry>
152
153 <varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
154 <listitem><para>
155 The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
156 swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
157 source list.</para></listitem>
158 </varlistentry>
159
160 <varlistentry><term>http</term>
161 <listitem><para>
162 The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
163 variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format
164 http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
165 <envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
166 HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
167 http://user:pass@server:port/.
168 Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
169 </varlistentry>
170
171 <varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
172 <listitem><para>
173 The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
174 is highly configurable; for more information see the
175 &apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
176 by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
177 to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
178 using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
179 the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
180 </varlistentry>
181
182 <varlistentry><term>copy</term>
183 <listitem><para>
184 The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
185 copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
186 This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
187 </varlistentry>
188
189 <varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
190 <listitem><para>
191 The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
192 as a given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
193 arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts.
194 Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
195 <command>dd</command>
196 commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
197 </varlistentry>
198
199 <varlistentry><term>more recognizable URI types</term>
200 <listitem><para>
201 APT can be extended with more methods shipped in other optional packages which should
202 follow the nameing scheme <literal>apt-transport-<replaceable>method</replaceable></literal>.
203 The APT team e.g. maintains also the <literal>apt-transport-https</literal> package which
204 provides access methods for https-URIs with features similar to the http method, but other
205 methods for using e.g. debtorrent are also available, see <citerefentry>
206 <refentrytitle><filename>apt-transport-debtorrent</filename></refentrytitle>
207 <manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
208 </para></listitem>
209 </varlistentry>
210 </variablelist>
211 </para>
212 </refsect1>
213
214 <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
215 <para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
216 for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
217 <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
218
219 <para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
220 <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
221
222 <para>Source line for the above</para>
223 <literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
224
225 <para>The first line gets package information for the architectures in <literal>APT::Architectures</literal>
226 while the second always retrieves <literal>amd64</literal> and <literal>armel</literal>.</para>
227 <literallayout>deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main
228 deb [ arch=amd64,armel ] http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main</literallayout>
229
230 <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
231 the hamm/main area.</para>
232 <literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>
233
234 <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
235 directory, and uses only the &stable-codename;/contrib area.</para>
236 <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; contrib</literallayout>
237
238 <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
239 directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
240 well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>
241 a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
242 <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>
243
244 <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at ftp.tlh.debian.org, under the
245 universe directory, and uses only files found under
246 <filename>unstable/binary-i386</filename> on i386 machines,
247 <filename>unstable/binary-amd64</filename> on amd64, and so
248 forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
249 illustrates how to use the substitution variable; official debian
250 archives are not structured like this]
251 <literallayout>deb http://ftp.tlh.debian.org/universe unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
252 </para>
253 </refsect1>
254
255 <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
256 <para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
257 </para>
258 </refsect1>
259
260 &manbugs;
261
262 </refentry>
263