doc/sources.list.5.xml

   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>
  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>
  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>
 210    <para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
 211    </para>
 212  </refsect1>
 213
 214  &manbugs;
 215
 216 </refentry>
 217