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1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
2 <!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
3 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
4 <!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent"> %aptent;
5 <!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent"> %aptverbatiment;
6 <!ENTITY % aptvendor SYSTEM "apt-vendor.ent"> %aptvendor;
7 ]>
8
9 <refentry>
10
11 <refentryinfo>
12 &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
13 &apt-author.team;
14 <author>
15 &apt-name.dburrows;
16 <contrib>Initial documentation of Debug::*.</contrib>
17 <email>dburrows@debian.org</email>
18 </author>
19 &apt-email;
20 &apt-product;
21 <!-- The last update date -->
22 <date>2016-05-27T00:00:00Z</date>
23 </refentryinfo>
24
25 <refmeta>
26 <refentrytitle>apt.conf</refentrytitle>
27 <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
28 <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
29 </refmeta>
30
31 <!-- Man page title -->
32 <refnamediv>
33 <refname>apt.conf</refname>
34 <refpurpose>Configuration file for APT</refpurpose>
35 </refnamediv>
36
37 <refsect1><title>Description</title>
38 <para><filename>/etc/apt/apt.conf</filename> is the main configuration
39 file shared by all the tools in the APT suite of tools, though it is by
40 no means the only place options can be set. The suite also shares a common
41 command line parser to provide a uniform environment.</para>
42
43 <orderedlist>
44 <para>When an APT tool starts up it will read the configuration files
45 in the following order:</para>
46 <listitem><para>the file specified by the <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar>
47 environment variable (if any)</para></listitem>
48 <listitem><para>all files in <literal>Dir::Etc::Parts</literal> in
49 alphanumeric ascending order which have either no or "<literal>conf</literal>"
50 as filename extension and which only contain alphanumeric,
51 hyphen (-), underscore (_) and period (.) characters.
52 Otherwise APT will print a notice that it has ignored a file, unless that
53 file matches a pattern in the <literal>Dir::Ignore-Files-Silently</literal>
54 configuration list - in which case it will be silently ignored.</para></listitem>
55 <listitem><para>the main configuration file specified by
56 <literal>Dir::Etc::main</literal></para></listitem>
57 <listitem><para>all options set in the binary specific configuration
58 subtree are moved into the root of the tree.</para></listitem>
59 <listitem><para>the command line options are applied to override the
60 configuration directives or to load even more configuration files.</para></listitem>
61 </orderedlist>
62 </refsect1>
63 <refsect1><title>Syntax</title>
64 <para>The configuration file is organized in a tree with options organized into
65 functional groups. Option specification is given with a double colon
66 notation; for instance <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes</literal> is an option within
67 the APT tool group, for the Get tool. Options do not inherit from their
68 parent groups.</para>
69
70 <para>Syntactically the configuration language is modeled after what the ISC tools
71 such as bind and dhcp use. Lines starting with
72 <literal>//</literal> are treated as comments (ignored), as well as all text
73 between <literal>/*</literal> and <literal>*/</literal>, just like C/C++ comments.
74 Each line is of the form
75 <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes "true";</literal>.
76 The quotation marks and trailing semicolon are required.
77 The value must be on one line, and there is no kind of string concatenation.
78 Values must not include backslashes or extra quotation marks.
79 Option names are made up of alphanumeric characters and the characters "/-:._+".
80 A new scope can be opened with curly braces, like this:</para>
81
82 <informalexample><programlisting>
83 APT {
84 Get {
85 Assume-Yes "true";
86 Fix-Broken "true";
87 };
88 };
89 </programlisting></informalexample>
90
91 <para>with newlines placed to make it more readable. Lists can be created by
92 opening a scope and including a single string enclosed in quotes followed by a
93 semicolon. Multiple entries can be included, separated by a semicolon.</para>
94
95 <informalexample><programlisting>
96 DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt";};
97 </programlisting></informalexample>
98
99 <para>In general the sample configuration file &configureindex;
100 is a good guide for how it should look.</para>
101
102 <para>Case is not significant in names of configuration items, so in the
103 previous example you could use <literal>dpkg::pre-install-pkgs</literal>.</para>
104
105 <para>Names for the configuration items are optional if a list is defined as can be seen in
106 the <literal>DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs</literal> example above. If you don't specify a name a
107 new entry will simply add a new option to the list. If you specify a name you can override
108 the option in the same way as any other option by reassigning a new value to the option.</para>
109
110 <para>Two special commands are defined: <literal>#include</literal> (which is
111 deprecated and not supported by alternative implementations) and
112 <literal>#clear</literal>. <literal>#include</literal> will include the
113 given file, unless the filename ends in a slash, in which case the whole
114 directory is included.
115 <literal>#clear</literal> is used to erase a part of the configuration tree. The
116 specified element and all its descendants are erased.
117 (Note that these lines also need to end with a semicolon.)</para>
118
119 <para>
120 The <literal>#clear</literal> command is the only way to delete a list or
121 a complete scope. Reopening a scope (or using the syntax described below
122 with an appended <literal>::</literal>) will <emphasis>not</emphasis>
123 override previously written entries. Options can only be overridden by
124 addressing a new value to them - lists and scopes can't be overridden,
125 only cleared.
126 </para>
127
128 <para>All of the APT tools take an -o option which allows an arbitrary configuration
129 directive to be specified on the command line. The syntax is a full option
130 name (<literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes</literal> for instance) followed by an equals
131 sign then the new value of the option. To append a new element to a list, add a
132 trailing <literal>::</literal> to the name of the list.
133 (As you might suspect, the scope syntax can't be used on the command line.)</para>
134
135 <para>
136 Note that appending items to a list using <literal>::</literal> only works
137 for one item per line, and that you should not use it in combination with
138 the scope syntax (which adds <literal>::</literal> implicitly). Using both
139 syntaxes together will trigger a bug which some users unfortunately depend
140 on: an option with the unusual name "<literal>::</literal>" which acts
141 like every other option with a name. This introduces many problems; for
142 one thing, users who write multiple lines in this
143 <emphasis>wrong</emphasis> syntax in the hope of appending to a list will
144 achieve the opposite, as only the last assignment for this option
145 "<literal>::</literal>" will be used. Future versions of APT will raise
146 errors and stop working if they encounter this misuse, so please correct
147 such statements now while APT doesn't explicitly complain about them.
148 </para>
149 </refsect1>
150
151 <refsect1><title>The APT Group</title>
152 <para>This group of options controls general APT behavior as well as holding the
153 options for all of the tools.</para>
154
155 <variablelist>
156 <varlistentry><term><option>Architecture</option></term>
157 <listitem><para>System Architecture; sets the architecture to use when fetching files and
158 parsing package lists. The internal default is the architecture apt was
159 compiled for.</para></listitem>
160 </varlistentry>
161
162 <varlistentry><term><option>Architectures</option></term>
163 <listitem><para>
164 All Architectures the system supports. For instance, CPUs implementing
165 the <literal>amd64</literal> (also called <literal>x86-64</literal>)
166 instruction set are also able to execute binaries compiled for the
167 <literal>i386</literal> (<literal>x86</literal>) instruction set. This
168 list is used when fetching files and parsing package lists. The
169 initial default is always the system's native architecture
170 (<literal>APT::Architecture</literal>), and foreign architectures are
171 added to the default list when they are registered via
172 <command>dpkg --add-architecture</command>.
173 </para></listitem>
174 </varlistentry>
175
176 <varlistentry><term><option>Compressor</option></term>
177 <listitem><para>
178 This scope defines which compression formats are supported, how compression
179 and decompression can be performed if support for this format isn't built
180 into apt directly and a cost-value indicating how costly it is to compress
181 something in this format. As an example the following configuration stanza
182 would allow apt to download and uncompress as well as create and store
183 files with the low-cost <literal>.reversed</literal> file extension which
184 it will pass to the command <command>rev</command> without additional
185 commandline parameters for compression and uncompression:
186 <informalexample><programlisting>
187 APT::Compressor::rev {
188 Name "rev";
189 Extension ".reversed";
190 Binary "rev";
191 CompressArg {};
192 UncompressArg {};
193 Cost "10";
194 };
195 </programlisting></informalexample>
196 </para></listitem>
197 </varlistentry>
198
199 <varlistentry><term><option>Build-Profiles</option></term>
200 <listitem><para>
201 List of all build profiles enabled for build-dependency resolution,
202 without the "<literal>profile.</literal>" namespace prefix.
203 By default this list is empty. The <envar>DEB_BUILD_PROFILES</envar>
204 as used by &dpkg-buildpackage; overrides the list notation.
205 </para></listitem>
206 </varlistentry>
207
208 <varlistentry><term><option>Default-Release</option></term>
209 <listitem><para>Default release to install packages from if more than one
210 version is available. Contains release name, codename or release version. Examples: 'stable', 'testing',
211 'unstable', '&debian-stable-codename;', '&debian-testing-codename;', '4.0', '5.0*'. See also &apt-preferences;.</para></listitem>
212 </varlistentry>
213
214 <varlistentry><term><option>Ignore-Hold</option></term>
215 <listitem><para>Ignore held packages; this global option causes the problem resolver to
216 ignore held packages in its decision making.</para></listitem>
217 </varlistentry>
218
219 <varlistentry><term><option>Clean-Installed</option></term>
220 <listitem><para>Defaults to on. When turned on the autoclean feature will remove any packages
221 which can no longer be downloaded from the cache. If turned off then
222 packages that are locally installed are also excluded from cleaning - but
223 note that APT provides no direct means to reinstall them.</para></listitem>
224 </varlistentry>
225
226 <varlistentry><term><option>Immediate-Configure</option></term>
227 <listitem><para>
228 Defaults to on, which will cause APT to install essential and important
229 packages as soon as possible in an install/upgrade operation, in order
230 to limit the effect of a failing &dpkg; call. If this option is
231 disabled, APT treats an important package in the same way as an extra
232 package: between the unpacking of the package A and its configuration
233 there can be many other unpack or configuration calls for other
234 unrelated packages B, C etc. If these cause the &dpkg; call to fail
235 (e.g. because package B's maintainer scripts generate an error), this
236 results in a system state in which package A is unpacked but
237 unconfigured - so any package depending on A is now no longer
238 guaranteed to work, as its dependency on A is no longer satisfied.
239 </para><para>
240 The immediate configuration marker is also applied in the potentially
241 problematic case of circular dependencies, since a dependency with the
242 immediate flag is equivalent to a Pre-Dependency. In theory this allows
243 APT to recognise a situation in which it is unable to perform immediate
244 configuration, abort, and suggest to the user that the option should be
245 temporarily deactivated in order to allow the operation to proceed.
246 Note the use of the word "theory" here; in the real world this problem
247 has rarely been encountered, in non-stable distribution versions, and
248 was caused by wrong dependencies of the package in question or by a
249 system in an already broken state; so you should not blindly disable
250 this option, as the scenario mentioned above is not the only problem it
251 can help to prevent in the first place.
252 </para><para>
253 Before a big operation like <literal>dist-upgrade</literal> is run
254 with this option disabled you should try to explicitly
255 <literal>install</literal> the package APT is unable to configure
256 immediately; but please make sure you also report your problem to your
257 distribution and to the APT team with the buglink below, so they can
258 work on improving or correcting the upgrade process.
259 </para></listitem>
260 </varlistentry>
261
262 <varlistentry><term><option>Force-LoopBreak</option></term>
263 <listitem><para>
264 Never enable this option unless you <emphasis>really</emphasis> know
265 what you are doing. It permits APT to temporarily remove an essential
266 package to break a Conflicts/Conflicts or Conflicts/Pre-Depends loop
267 between two essential packages. <emphasis>Such a loop should never exist
268 and is a grave bug</emphasis>. This option will work if the essential
269 packages are not <command>tar</command>, <command>gzip</command>,
270 <command>libc</command>, <command>dpkg</command>, <command>dash</command>
271 or anything that those packages depend on.
272 </para></listitem>
273 </varlistentry>
274
275 <varlistentry><term><option>Cache-Start</option></term><term><option>Cache-Grow</option></term><term><option>Cache-Limit</option></term>
276 <listitem><para>APT uses since version 0.7.26 a resizable memory mapped cache file to store the available
277 information. <literal>Cache-Start</literal> acts as a hint of the size the cache will grow to,
278 and is therefore the amount of memory APT will request at startup. The default value is
279 20971520 bytes (~20 MB). Note that this amount of space needs to be available for APT;
280 otherwise it will likely fail ungracefully, so for memory restricted devices this value should
281 be lowered while on systems with a lot of configured sources it should be increased.
282 <literal>Cache-Grow</literal> defines in bytes with the default of 1048576 (~1 MB) how much
283 the cache size will be increased in the event the space defined by <literal>Cache-Start</literal>
284 is not enough. This value will be applied again and again until either the cache is big
285 enough to store all information or the size of the cache reaches the <literal>Cache-Limit</literal>.
286 The default of <literal>Cache-Limit</literal> is 0 which stands for no limit.
287 If <literal>Cache-Grow</literal> is set to 0 the automatic growth of the cache is disabled.
288 </para></listitem>
289 </varlistentry>
290
291 <varlistentry><term><option>Build-Essential</option></term>
292 <listitem><para>Defines which packages are considered essential build dependencies.</para></listitem>
293 </varlistentry>
294
295 <varlistentry><term><option>Get</option></term>
296 <listitem><para>The Get subsection controls the &apt-get; tool; please see its
297 documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
298 </varlistentry>
299
300 <varlistentry><term><option>Cache</option></term>
301 <listitem><para>The Cache subsection controls the &apt-cache; tool; please see its
302 documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
303 </varlistentry>
304
305 <varlistentry><term><option>CDROM</option></term>
306 <listitem><para>The CDROM subsection controls the &apt-cdrom; tool; please see its
307 documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
308 </varlistentry>
309 </variablelist>
310 </refsect1>
311
312 <refsect1><title>The Acquire Group</title>
313 <para>The <literal>Acquire</literal> group of options controls the
314 download of packages as well as the various "acquire methods" responsible
315 for the download itself (see also &sources-list;).</para>
316
317 <variablelist>
318 <varlistentry><term><option>Check-Valid-Until</option></term>
319 <listitem><para>
320 Security related option defaulting to true, as giving a Release file's
321 validation an expiration date prevents replay attacks over a long
322 timescale, and can also for example help users to identify mirrors
323 that are no longer updated - but the feature depends on the
324 correctness of the clock on the user system. Archive maintainers are
325 encouraged to create Release files with the
326 <literal>Valid-Until</literal> header, but if they don't or a
327 stricter value is desired the <literal>Max-ValidTime</literal>
328 option below can be used.
329 The <option>Check-Valid-Until</option> option of &sources-list; entries should be
330 preferred to disable the check selectively instead of using this global override.
331 </para></listitem>
332 </varlistentry>
333
334 <varlistentry><term><option>Max-ValidTime</option></term>
335 <listitem><para>Maximum time (in seconds) after its creation (as indicated
336 by the <literal>Date</literal> header) that the <filename>Release</filename>
337 file should be considered valid.
338 If the Release file itself includes a <literal>Valid-Until</literal> header
339 the earlier date of the two is used as the expiration date.
340 The default value is <literal>0</literal> which stands for "valid forever".
341 Archive specific settings can be made by appending the label of the archive
342 to the option name. Preferably, the same can be achieved for specific
343 &sources-list; entries by using the <option>Valid-Until-Max</option> option there.
344 </para></listitem>
345 </varlistentry>
346
347 <varlistentry><term><option>Min-ValidTime</option></term>
348 <listitem><para>Minimum time (in seconds) after its creation (as indicated
349 by the <literal>Date</literal> header) that the <filename>Release</filename>
350 file should be considered valid.
351 Use this if you need to use a seldom updated (local) mirror of a more
352 frequently updated archive with a <literal>Valid-Until</literal> header
353 instead of completely disabling the expiration date checking.
354 Archive specific settings can and should be used by appending the label of
355 the archive to the option name. Preferably, the same can be achieved for specific
356 &sources-list; entries by using the <option>Valid-Until-Min</option> option there.
357 </para></listitem>
358 </varlistentry>
359
360 <varlistentry><term><option>PDiffs</option></term>
361 <listitem><para>Try to download deltas called <literal>PDiffs</literal> for
362 indexes (like <filename>Packages</filename> files) instead of
363 downloading whole ones. True by default. Preferably, this can be set
364 for specific &sources-list; entries or index files by using the
365 <option>PDiffs</option> option there.</para>
366 <para>Two sub-options to limit the use of PDiffs are also available:
367 <literal>FileLimit</literal> can be used to specify a maximum number of
368 PDiff files should be downloaded to update a file. <literal>SizeLimit</literal>
369 on the other hand is the maximum percentage of the size of all patches
370 compared to the size of the targeted file. If one of these limits is
371 exceeded the complete file is downloaded instead of the patches.
372 </para></listitem>
373 </varlistentry>
374
375 <varlistentry><term><option>By-Hash</option></term>
376 <listitem><para>Try to download indexes via an URI constructed from a
377 hashsum of the expected file rather than downloaded via a well-known
378 stable filename. True by default, but automatically disabled if the
379 source indicates no support for it. Usage can be forced with the special
380 value "force". Preferably, this can be set for specific &sources-list; entries
381 or index files by using the <option>By-Hash</option> option there.
382 </para></listitem>
383 </varlistentry>
384
385 <varlistentry><term><option>Queue-Mode</option></term>
386 <listitem><para>Queuing mode; <literal>Queue-Mode</literal> can be one of <literal>host</literal> or
387 <literal>access</literal> which determines how APT parallelizes outgoing
388 connections. <literal>host</literal> means that one connection per target host
389 will be opened, <literal>access</literal> means that one connection per URI type
390 will be opened.</para></listitem>
391 </varlistentry>
392
393 <varlistentry><term><option>Retries</option></term>
394 <listitem><para>Number of retries to perform. If this is non-zero APT will retry failed
395 files the given number of times.</para></listitem>
396 </varlistentry>
397
398 <varlistentry><term><option>Source-Symlinks</option></term>
399 <listitem><para>Use symlinks for source archives. If set to true then source archives will
400 be symlinked when possible instead of copying. True is the default.</para></listitem>
401 </varlistentry>
402
403 <varlistentry><term><option>http</option></term>
404 <listitem><para><literal>http::Proxy</literal> sets the default proxy to use for HTTP
405 URIs. It is in the standard form of <literal>http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/</literal>.
406 Per host proxies can also be specified by using the form
407 <literal>http::Proxy::&lt;host&gt;</literal> with the special keyword <literal>DIRECT</literal>
408 meaning to use no proxies. If no one of the above settings is specified,
409 <envar>http_proxy</envar> environment variable
410 will be used.</para>
411
412 <para>Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/1.1 compliant
413 proxy caches.
414 <literal>No-Cache</literal> tells the proxy not to use its cached
415 response under any circumstances.
416 <literal>Max-Age</literal> sets the allowed maximum age (in seconds) of
417 an index file in the cache of the proxy.
418 <literal>No-Store</literal> specifies that the proxy should not store
419 the requested archive files in its cache, which can be used to prevent
420 the proxy from polluting its cache with (big) .deb files.</para>
421
422 <para>The option <literal>timeout</literal> sets the timeout timer used by the method;
423 this value applies to the connection as well as the data timeout.</para>
424
425 <para>The setting <literal>Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth</literal> can be used to
426 enable HTTP pipelining (RFC 2616 section 8.1.2.2) which can be beneficial e.g. on
427 high-latency connections. It specifies how many requests are sent in a pipeline.
428 APT tries to detect and workaround misbehaving webservers and proxies at runtime, but
429 if you know that yours does not conform to the HTTP/1.1 specification pipelining can
430 be disabled by setting the value to 0. It is enabled by default with the value 10.</para>
431
432 <para><literal>Acquire::http::AllowRedirect</literal> controls whether APT will follow
433 redirects, which is enabled by default.</para>
434
435 <para>The used bandwidth can be limited with
436 <literal>Acquire::http::Dl-Limit</literal> which accepts integer
437 values in kilobytes per second. The default value is 0 which
438 deactivates the limit and tries to use all available bandwidth.
439 Note that this option implicitly disables downloading from
440 multiple servers at the same time.</para>
441
442 <para><literal>Acquire::http::User-Agent</literal> can be used to set a different
443 User-Agent for the http download method as some proxies allow access for clients
444 only if the client uses a known identifier.</para>
445
446 <para><literal>Acquire::http::Proxy-Auto-Detect</literal> can be used to
447 specify an external command to discover the http proxy to use. The first
448 and only parameter is an URI denoting the host to be contacted to allow
449 for host-specific configuration. APT expects the command to output the
450 proxy on stdout as a single line in the style <literal>http://proxy:port/</literal>
451 or the word <literal>DIRECT</literal> if no proxy should be used. No output
452 indicates that the generic proxy settings should be used.
453
454 Note that auto-detection will not be used for a host if a host-specific proxy
455 configuration is already set via <literal>Acquire::http::Proxy::<replaceable>HOST</replaceable></literal>.
456
457 See the &squid-deb-proxy-client; package for an example implementation that
458 uses avahi.
459
460 This option takes precedence over the legacy option name
461 <literal>ProxyAutoDetect</literal>.
462 </para>
463
464 </listitem>
465 </varlistentry>
466
467 <varlistentry><term><option>https</option></term>
468 <listitem><para>
469 The <literal>Cache-control</literal>, <literal>Timeout</literal>,
470 <literal>AllowRedirect</literal>, <literal>Dl-Limit</literal> and
471 <literal>proxy</literal> options work for HTTPS URIs in the same way
472 as for the <literal>http</literal> method, and default to the same
473 values if they are not explicitly set. The
474 <literal>Pipeline-Depth</literal> option is not yet supported.
475 </para>
476
477 <para><literal>CaInfo</literal> suboption specifies place of file that
478 holds info about trusted certificates.
479 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::CaInfo</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
480 <literal>Verify-Peer</literal> boolean suboption determines whether or not the
481 server's host certificate should be verified against trusted certificates.
482 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::Verify-Peer</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
483 <literal>Verify-Host</literal> boolean suboption determines whether or not the
484 server's hostname should be verified.
485 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::Verify-Host</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
486 <literal>SslCert</literal> determines what certificate to use for client
487 authentication. <literal>&lt;host&gt;::SslCert</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
488 <literal>SslKey</literal> determines what private key to use for client
489 authentication. <literal>&lt;host&gt;::SslKey</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
490 <literal>SslForceVersion</literal> overrides default SSL version to use.
491 It can contain either of the strings '<literal>TLSv1</literal>' or
492 '<literal>SSLv3</literal>'.
493 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::SslForceVersion</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
494 </para></listitem></varlistentry>
495
496 <varlistentry><term><option>ftp</option></term>
497 <listitem><para>
498 <literal>ftp::Proxy</literal> sets the default proxy to use for FTP URIs.
499 It is in the standard form of <literal>ftp://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/</literal>.
500 Per host proxies can also be specified by using the form
501 <literal>ftp::Proxy::&lt;host&gt;</literal> with the special keyword <literal>DIRECT</literal>
502 meaning to use no proxies. If no one of the above settings is specified,
503 <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable
504 will be used. To use an FTP
505 proxy you will have to set the <literal>ftp::ProxyLogin</literal> script in the
506 configuration file. This entry specifies the commands to send to tell
507 the proxy server what to connect to. Please see
508 &configureindex; for an example of
509 how to do this. The substitution variables representing the corresponding
510 URI component are <literal>$(PROXY_USER)</literal>,
511 <literal>$(PROXY_PASS)</literal>, <literal>$(SITE_USER)</literal>,
512 <literal>$(SITE_PASS)</literal>, <literal>$(SITE)</literal> and
513 <literal>$(SITE_PORT)</literal>.</para>
514
515 <para>The option <literal>timeout</literal> sets the timeout timer used by the method;
516 this value applies to the connection as well as the data timeout.</para>
517
518 <para>Several settings are provided to control passive mode. Generally it is
519 safe to leave passive mode on; it works in nearly every environment.
520 However, some situations require that passive mode be disabled and port
521 mode FTP used instead. This can be done globally or for connections that
522 go through a proxy or for a specific host (see the sample config file
523 for examples).</para>
524
525 <para>It is possible to proxy FTP over HTTP by setting the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar>
526 environment variable to an HTTP URL - see the discussion of the http method
527 above for syntax. You cannot set this in the configuration file and it is
528 not recommended to use FTP over HTTP due to its low efficiency.</para>
529
530 <para>The setting <literal>ForceExtended</literal> controls the use of RFC2428
531 <literal>EPSV</literal> and <literal>EPRT</literal> commands. The default is false, which means
532 these commands are only used if the control connection is IPv6. Setting this
533 to true forces their use even on IPv4 connections. Note that most FTP servers
534 do not support RFC2428.</para></listitem>
535 </varlistentry>
536
537 <varlistentry><term><option>cdrom</option></term>
538 <listitem><para>
539 For URIs using the <literal>cdrom</literal> method, the only configurable
540 option is the mount point, <literal>cdrom::Mount</literal>, which must be
541 the mount point for the CD-ROM (or DVD, or whatever) drive as specified in
542 <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>. It is possible to provide alternate mount
543 and unmount commands if your mount point cannot be listed in the fstab.
544 The syntax is to put <literallayout>/cdrom/::Mount "foo";</literallayout> within
545 the <literal>cdrom</literal> block. It is important to have the trailing slash.
546 Unmount commands can be specified using UMount.
547 </para></listitem>
548 </varlistentry>
549
550 <varlistentry><term><option>gpgv</option></term>
551 <listitem><para>
552 For GPGV URIs the only configurable option is <literal>gpgv::Options</literal>,
553 which passes additional parameters to gpgv.
554 </para></listitem>
555 </varlistentry>
556
557 <varlistentry><term><option>CompressionTypes</option></term>
558 <listitem><para>List of compression types which are understood by the acquire methods.
559 Files like <filename>Packages</filename> can be available in various compression formats.
560 By default the acquire methods can decompress and recompress many common formats like <command>xz</command> and
561 <command>gzip</command>; with this scope the supported formats can be queried, modified
562 as well as support for more formats added (see also <option>APT::Compressor</option>). The syntax for this is:
563 <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::<replaceable>FileExtension</replaceable> "<replaceable>Methodname</replaceable>";</synopsis>
564 </para><para>Also, the <literal>Order</literal> subgroup can be used to define in which order
565 the acquire system will try to download the compressed files. The acquire system will try the first
566 and proceed with the next compression type in this list on error, so to prefer one over the other type
567 simply add the preferred type first - types not already added will be implicitly appended
568 to the end of the list, so e.g. <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order:: "gz";</synopsis> can
569 be used to prefer <command>gzip</command> compressed files over all other compression formats.
570 If <command>xz</command> should be preferred over <command>gzip</command> and <command>bzip2</command> the
571 configure setting should look like this: <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order { "xz"; "gz"; };</synopsis>
572 It is not needed to add <literal>bz2</literal> to the list explicitly as it will be added automatically.</para>
573 <para>Note that the
574 <literal>Dir::Bin::<replaceable>Methodname</replaceable></literal>
575 will be checked at run time. If this option has been set and support for
576 this format isn't directly built into apt, the method will only be used if
577 this file exists; e.g. for the <literal>bzip2</literal> method (the
578 inbuilt) setting is: <literallayout>Dir::Bin::bzip2 "/bin/bzip2";</literallayout>
579 Note also that list entries specified on the command line will be added at the end of the list
580 specified in the configuration files, but before the default entries. To prefer a type in this case
581 over the ones specified in the configuration files you can set the option direct - not in list style.
582 This will not override the defined list; it will only prefix the list with this type.</para>
583 <para>The special type <literal>uncompressed</literal> can be used to give uncompressed files a
584 preference, but note that most archives don't provide uncompressed files so this is mostly only
585 useable for local mirrors.</para></listitem>
586 </varlistentry>
587
588 <varlistentry><term><option>GzipIndexes</option></term>
589 <listitem><para>
590 When downloading <literal>gzip</literal> compressed indexes (Packages, Sources, or
591 Translations), keep them gzip compressed locally instead of unpacking
592 them. This saves quite a lot of disk space at the expense of more CPU
593 requirements when building the local package caches. False by default.
594 </para></listitem>
595 </varlistentry>
596
597 <varlistentry><term><option>Languages</option></term>
598 <listitem><para>The Languages subsection controls which <filename>Translation</filename> files are downloaded
599 and in which order APT tries to display the description-translations. APT will try to display the first
600 available description in the language which is listed first. Languages can be defined with their
601 short or long language codes. Note that not all archives provide <filename>Translation</filename>
602 files for every language - the long language codes are especially rare.</para>
603 <para>The default list includes "environment" and "en". "<literal>environment</literal>" has a special meaning here:
604 it will be replaced at runtime with the language codes extracted from the <literal>LC_MESSAGES</literal> environment variable.
605 It will also ensure that these codes are not included twice in the list. If <literal>LC_MESSAGES</literal>
606 is set to "C" only the <filename>Translation-en</filename> file (if available) will be used.
607 To force APT to use no Translation file use the setting <literal>Acquire::Languages=none</literal>. "<literal>none</literal>"
608 is another special meaning code which will stop the search for a suitable <filename>Translation</filename> file.
609 This tells APT to download these translations too, without actually
610 using them unless the environment specifies the languages. So the
611 following example configuration will result in the order "en, de" in an
612 English locale or "de, en" in a German one. Note that "fr" is
613 downloaded, but not used unless APT is used in a French locale (where
614 the order would be "fr, de, en").
615 <programlisting>Acquire::Languages { "environment"; "de"; "en"; "none"; "fr"; };</programlisting></para>
616 <para>Note: To prevent problems resulting from APT being executed in different environments
617 (e.g. by different users or by other programs) all Translation files which are found in
618 <filename>/var/lib/apt/lists/</filename> will be added to the end of the list
619 (after an implicit "<literal>none</literal>").</para>
620 </listitem>
621 </varlistentry>
622
623 <varlistentry><term><option>ForceIPv4</option></term>
624 <listitem><para>
625 When downloading, force to use only the IPv4 protocol.
626 </para></listitem>
627 </varlistentry>
628
629 <varlistentry><term><option>ForceIPv6</option></term>
630 <listitem><para>
631 When downloading, force to use only the IPv6 protocol.
632 </para></listitem>
633 </varlistentry>
634
635 <varlistentry><term><option>MaxReleaseFileSize</option></term>
636 <listitem><para>
637 The maximum file size of Release/Release.gpg/InRelease files.
638 The default is 10MB.
639 </para></listitem>
640 </varlistentry>
641
642 <varlistentry><term><option>EnableSrvRecords</option></term>
643 <listitem><para>
644 This option controls if apt will use the DNS SRV server record
645 as specified in RFC 2782 to select an alternative server to
646 connect to.
647 The default is "true".
648 </para></listitem>
649 </varlistentry>
650
651 <varlistentry><term><option>AllowInsecureRepositories</option></term>
652 <listitem><para>
653 Allow update operations to load data files from
654 repositories without sufficient security information.
655 The default value is "<literal>false</literal>".
656 Concept and implications of this are detailed in &apt-secure;.
657 </para></listitem>
658 </varlistentry>
659
660 <varlistentry><term><option>AllowDowngradeToInsecureRepositories</option></term>
661 <listitem><para>
662 Allow that a repository that was previously gpg signed to become
663 unsigned during an update operation. When there is no valid signature
664 for a previously trusted repository apt will refuse the update. This
665 option can be used to override this protection. You almost certainly
666 never want to enable this. The default is <literal>false</literal>.
667
668 Note that apt will still consider packages from this source
669 untrusted and warns about them if you try to install them.
670 </para></listitem>
671 </varlistentry>
672
673 <varlistentry><term><option>Changelogs::URI</option> scope</term>
674 <listitem><para>
675 Acquiring changelogs can only be done if an URI is known from where to get them.
676 Preferable the Release file indicates this in a 'Changelogs' field. If this isn't
677 available the Label/Origin field of the Release file is used to check if a
678 <literal>Acquire::Changelogs::URI::Label::<replaceable>LABEL</replaceable></literal> or
679 <literal>Acquire::Changelogs::URI::Origin::<replaceable>ORIGIN</replaceable></literal> option
680 exists and if so this value is taken. The value in the Release file can be overridden
681 with <literal>Acquire::Changelogs::URI::Override::Label::<replaceable>LABEL</replaceable></literal>
682 or <literal>Acquire::Changelogs::URI::Override::Origin::<replaceable>ORIGIN</replaceable></literal>.
683
684 The value should be a normal URI to a text file, except that package specific data is
685 replaced with the placeholder <literal>@CHANGEPATH@</literal>. The
686 value for it is: 1. if the package is from a component (e.g. <literal>main</literal>)
687 this is the first part otherwise it is omitted, 2. the first letter of source package name,
688 except if the source package name starts with '<literal>lib</literal>' in which case it will
689 be the first four letters. 3. The complete source package name. 4. the complete name again and
690 5. the source version.
691 The first (if present), second, third and fourth part are separated by a slash ('<literal>/</literal>')
692 and between the fourth and fifth part is an underscore ('<literal>_</literal>').
693
694 The special value '<literal>no</literal>' is available for this option indicating that
695 this source can't be used to acquire changelog files from. Another source will be tried
696 if available in this case.
697 </para></listitem>
698 </varlistentry>
699
700 </variablelist>
701 </refsect1>
702
703 <refsect1><title>Binary specific configuration</title>
704 <para>Especially with the introduction of the <command>apt</command> binary
705 it can be useful to set certain options only for a specific binary as
706 even options which look like they would effect only a certain binary like
707 <option>APT::Get::Show-Versions</option> effect
708 <command>apt-get</command> as well as <command>apt</command>.
709 </para>
710 <para>Setting an option for a specific binary only can be achieved by
711 setting the option inside the
712 <option>Binary::<replaceable>specific-binary</replaceable></option>
713 scope. Setting the option <option>APT::Get::Show-Versions</option> for
714 the <command>apt</command> only can e.g. by done by setting
715 <option>Binary::apt::APT::Get::Show-Versions</option> instead.</para>
716 <para>Note that as seen in the DESCRIPTION section further above you can't
717 set binary-specific options on the commandline itself nor in
718 configuration files loaded via the commandline.</para>
719 </refsect1>
720
721 <refsect1><title>Directories</title>
722
723 <para>The <literal>Dir::State</literal> section has directories that pertain to local
724 state information. <literal>lists</literal> is the directory to place downloaded
725 package lists in and <literal>status</literal> is the name of the &dpkg; status file.
726 <literal>preferences</literal> is the name of the APT <filename>preferences</filename> file.
727 <literal>Dir::State</literal> contains the default directory to prefix on all
728 sub-items if they do not start with <filename>/</filename> or <filename>./</filename>.</para>
729
730 <para><literal>Dir::Cache</literal> contains locations pertaining to local cache
731 information, such as the two package caches <literal>srcpkgcache</literal> and
732 <literal>pkgcache</literal> as well as the location to place downloaded archives,
733 <literal>Dir::Cache::archives</literal>. Generation of caches can be turned off
734 by setting <literal>pkgcache</literal> or <literal>srcpkgcache</literal> to
735 <literal>""</literal>. This will slow down startup but save disk space. It
736 is probably preferable to turn off the pkgcache rather than the srcpkgcache.
737 Like <literal>Dir::State</literal> the default directory is contained in
738 <literal>Dir::Cache</literal></para>
739
740 <para><literal>Dir::Etc</literal> contains the location of configuration files,
741 <literal>sourcelist</literal> gives the location of the sourcelist and
742 <literal>main</literal> is the default configuration file (setting has no effect,
743 unless it is done from the config file specified by
744 <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar>).</para>
745
746 <para>The <literal>Dir::Parts</literal> setting reads in all the config fragments in
747 lexical order from the directory specified. After this is done then the
748 main config file is loaded.</para>
749
750 <para>Binary programs are pointed to by <literal>Dir::Bin</literal>. <literal>Dir::Bin::Methods</literal>
751 specifies the location of the method handlers and <literal>gzip</literal>,
752 <literal>bzip2</literal>, <literal>lzma</literal>,
753 <literal>dpkg</literal>, <literal>apt-get</literal> <literal>dpkg-source</literal>
754 <literal>dpkg-buildpackage</literal> and <literal>apt-cache</literal> specify the location
755 of the respective programs.</para>
756
757 <para>
758 The configuration item <literal>RootDir</literal> has a special
759 meaning. If set, all paths will be
760 relative to <literal>RootDir</literal>, <emphasis>even paths that
761 are specified absolutely</emphasis>. So, for instance, if
762 <literal>RootDir</literal> is set to
763 <filename>/tmp/staging</filename> and
764 <literal>Dir::State::status</literal> is set to
765 <filename>/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>, then the status file
766 will be looked up in
767 <filename>/tmp/staging/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>.
768 If you want to prefix only relative paths, set <literal>Dir</literal> instead.
769 </para>
770
771 <para>
772 The <literal>Ignore-Files-Silently</literal> list can be used to specify
773 which files APT should silently ignore while parsing the files in the
774 fragment directories. Per default a file which end with <literal>.disabled</literal>,
775 <literal>~</literal>, <literal>.bak</literal> or <literal>.dpkg-[a-z]+</literal>
776 is silently ignored. As seen in the last default value these patterns can use regular
777 expression syntax.
778 </para>
779 </refsect1>
780
781 <refsect1><title>APT in DSelect</title>
782 <para>
783 When APT is used as a &dselect; method several configuration directives
784 control the default behavior. These are in the <literal>DSelect</literal> section.</para>
785
786 <variablelist>
787 <varlistentry><term><option>Clean</option></term>
788 <listitem><para>Cache Clean mode; this value may be one of
789 <literal>always</literal>, <literal>prompt</literal>,
790 <literal>auto</literal>, <literal>pre-auto</literal> and
791 <literal>never</literal>.
792 <literal>always</literal> and <literal>prompt</literal> will remove
793 all packages from the cache after upgrading, <literal>prompt</literal>
794 (the default) does so conditionally.
795 <literal>auto</literal> removes only those packages which are no longer
796 downloadable (replaced with a new version for instance).
797 <literal>pre-auto</literal> performs this action before downloading
798 new packages.</para></listitem>
799 </varlistentry>
800
801 <varlistentry><term><option>options</option></term>
802 <listitem><para>The contents of this variable are passed to &apt-get; as command line
803 options when it is run for the install phase.</para></listitem>
804 </varlistentry>
805
806 <varlistentry><term><option>Updateoptions</option></term>
807 <listitem><para>The contents of this variable are passed to &apt-get; as command line
808 options when it is run for the update phase.</para></listitem>
809 </varlistentry>
810
811 <varlistentry><term><option>PromptAfterUpdate</option></term>
812 <listitem><para>If true the [U]pdate operation in &dselect; will always prompt to continue.
813 The default is to prompt only on error.</para></listitem>
814 </varlistentry>
815 </variablelist>
816 </refsect1>
817
818 <refsect1><title>How APT calls &dpkg;</title>
819 <para>Several configuration directives control how APT invokes &dpkg;. These are
820 in the <literal>DPkg</literal> section.</para>
821
822 <variablelist>
823 <varlistentry><term><option>options</option></term>
824 <listitem><para>This is a list of options to pass to &dpkg;. The options must be specified
825 using the list notation and each list item is passed as a single argument
826 to &dpkg;.</para></listitem>
827 </varlistentry>
828
829 <varlistentry><term><option>Pre-Invoke</option></term><term><option>Post-Invoke</option></term>
830 <listitem><para>This is a list of shell commands to run before/after invoking &dpkg;.
831 Like <literal>options</literal> this must be specified in list notation. The
832 commands are invoked in order using <filename>/bin/sh</filename>; should any
833 fail APT will abort.</para></listitem>
834 </varlistentry>
835
836 <varlistentry><term><option>Pre-Install-Pkgs</option></term>
837 <listitem><para>This is a list of shell commands to run before invoking &dpkg;. Like
838 <literal>options</literal> this must be specified in list notation. The commands
839 are invoked in order using <filename>/bin/sh</filename>; should any fail APT
840 will abort. APT will pass the filenames of all .deb files it is going to
841 install to the commands, one per line on the requested file descriptor, defaulting
842 to standard input.</para>
843
844 <para>Version 2 of this protocol sends more information through the requested
845 file descriptor: a line with the text <literal>VERSION 2</literal>,
846 the APT configuration space, and a list of package actions with filename
847 and version information.</para>
848
849 <para>Each configuration directive line has the form
850 <literal>key=value</literal>. Special characters (equal signs, newlines,
851 nonprintable characters, quotation marks, and percent signs in
852 <literal>key</literal> and newlines, nonprintable characters, and percent
853 signs in <literal>value</literal>) are %-encoded. Lists are represented
854 by multiple <literal>key::=value</literal> lines with the same key. The
855 configuration section ends with a blank line.</para>
856
857 <para>Package action lines consist of five fields in Version 2: package
858 name (without architecture qualification even if foreign), old version,
859 direction of version change (&lt; for upgrades, &gt; for downgrades, = for
860 no change), new version, action. The version fields are "-" for no version
861 at all (for example when installing a package for the first time; no
862 version is treated as earlier than any real version, so that is an
863 upgrade, indicated as <literal>- &lt; 1.23.4</literal>). The action field
864 is "**CONFIGURE**" if the package is being configured, "**REMOVE**" if it
865 is being removed, or the filename of a .deb file if it is being
866 unpacked.</para>
867
868 <para>In Version 3 after each version field follows the architecture
869 of this version, which is "-" if there is no version, and a field showing
870 the MultiArch type "same", "foreign", "allowed" or "none". Note that "none"
871 is an incorrect typename which is just kept to remain compatible, it
872 should be read as "no" and users are encouraged to support both.</para>
873
874 <para>The version of the protocol to be used for the command
875 <literal><replaceable>cmd</replaceable></literal> can be chosen by setting
876 <literal>DPkg::Tools::options::<replaceable>cmd</replaceable>::Version</literal>
877 accordingly, the default being version 1. If APT isn't supporting the requested
878 version it will send the information in the highest version it has support for instead.
879 </para>
880
881 <para>The file descriptor to be used to send the information can be requested with
882 <literal>DPkg::Tools::options::<replaceable>cmd</replaceable>::InfoFD</literal>
883 which defaults to <literal>0</literal> for standard input and is available since
884 version 0.9.11. Support for the option can be detected by looking for the environment
885 variable <envar>APT_HOOK_INFO_FD</envar> which contains the number of the used
886 file descriptor as a confirmation.</para>
887 </listitem>
888 </varlistentry>
889
890 <varlistentry><term><option>Run-Directory</option></term>
891 <listitem><para>APT chdirs to this directory before invoking &dpkg;, the default is
892 <filename>/</filename>.</para></listitem>
893 </varlistentry>
894
895 <varlistentry><term><option>Build-options</option></term>
896 <listitem><para>These options are passed to &dpkg-buildpackage; when compiling packages;
897 the default is to disable signing and produce all binaries.</para></listitem>
898 </varlistentry>
899 </variablelist>
900
901 <refsect2><title>dpkg trigger usage (and related options)</title>
902 <para>APT can call &dpkg; in such a way as to let it make aggressive use of triggers over
903 multiple calls of &dpkg;. Without further options &dpkg; will use triggers once each time it runs.
904 Activating these options can therefore decrease the time needed to perform the
905 install or upgrade. Note that it is intended to activate these options per default in the
906 future, but as it drastically changes the way APT calls &dpkg; it needs a lot more testing.
907 <emphasis>These options are therefore currently experimental and should not be used in
908 production environments.</emphasis> It also breaks progress reporting such that all front-ends will
909 currently stay around half (or more) of the time in the 100% state while it actually configures
910 all packages.</para>
911 <para>Note that it is not guaranteed that APT will support these options or that these options will
912 not cause (big) trouble in the future. If you have understand the current risks and problems with
913 these options, but are brave enough to help testing them, create a new configuration file and test a
914 combination of options. Please report any bugs, problems and improvements you encounter and make sure
915 to note which options you have used in your reports. Asking &dpkg; for help could also be useful for
916 debugging proposes, see e.g. <command>dpkg --audit</command>. A defensive option combination would be
917 <literallayout>DPkg::NoTriggers "true";
918 PackageManager::Configure "smart";
919 DPkg::ConfigurePending "true";
920 DPkg::TriggersPending "true";</literallayout></para>
921
922 <variablelist>
923 <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::NoTriggers</option></term>
924 <listitem><para>Add the no triggers flag to all &dpkg; calls (except the ConfigurePending call).
925 See &dpkg; if you are interested in what this actually means. In short: &dpkg; will not run the
926 triggers when this flag is present unless it is explicitly called to do so in an extra call.
927 Note that this option exists (undocumented) also in older APT versions with a slightly different
928 meaning: Previously these option only append --no-triggers to the configure calls to &dpkg; -
929 now APT will also add this flag to the unpack and remove calls.</para></listitem>
930 </varlistentry>
931 <varlistentry><term><option>PackageManager::Configure</option></term>
932 <listitem><para>Valid values are "<literal>all</literal>",
933 "<literal>smart</literal>" and "<literal>no</literal>".
934 The default value is "<literal>all</literal>", which causes APT to
935 configure all packages. The "<literal>smart</literal>" way is to
936 configure only packages which need to be configured before another
937 package can be unpacked (Pre-Depends), and let the rest be configured
938 by &dpkg; with a call generated by the ConfigurePending option (see
939 below). On the other hand, "<literal>no</literal>" will not configure
940 anything, and totally relies on &dpkg; for configuration (which at the
941 moment will fail if a Pre-Depends is encountered). Setting this option
942 to any value other than <literal>all</literal> will implicitly also
943 activate the next option by default, as otherwise the system could end
944 in an unconfigured and potentially unbootable state.</para></listitem>
945 </varlistentry>
946 <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::ConfigurePending</option></term>
947 <listitem><para>If this option is set APT will call <command>dpkg --configure --pending</command>
948 to let &dpkg; handle all required configurations and triggers. This option is activated automatically
949 per default if the previous option is not set to <literal>all</literal>, but deactivating it could be useful
950 if you want to run APT multiple times in a row - e.g. in an installer. In these sceneries you could
951 deactivate this option in all but the last run.</para></listitem>
952 </varlistentry>
953 <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::TriggersPending</option></term>
954 <listitem><para>Useful for the <literal>smart</literal> configuration as a package which has pending
955 triggers is not considered as <literal>installed</literal>, and &dpkg; treats them as <literal>unpacked</literal>
956 currently which is a showstopper for Pre-Dependencies (see debbugs #526774). Note that this will
957 process all triggers, not only the triggers needed to configure this package.</para></listitem>
958 </varlistentry>
959 <varlistentry><term><option>OrderList::Score::Immediate</option></term>
960 <listitem><para>Essential packages (and their dependencies) should be configured immediately
961 after unpacking. It is a good idea to do this quite early in the upgrade process as these
962 configure calls also currently require <literal>DPkg::TriggersPending</literal> which
963 will run quite a few triggers (which may not be needed). Essentials get per default a high score
964 but the immediate flag is relatively low (a package which has a Pre-Depends is rated higher).
965 These option and the others in the same group can be used to change the scoring. The following
966 example shows the settings with their default values.
967 <literallayout>OrderList::Score {
968 Delete 500;
969 Essential 200;
970 Immediate 10;
971 PreDepends 50;
972 };</literallayout>
973 </para></listitem>
974 </varlistentry>
975 </variablelist>
976 </refsect2>
977 </refsect1>
978
979 <refsect1>
980 <title>Periodic and Archives options</title>
981 <para><literal>APT::Periodic</literal> and <literal>APT::Archives</literal>
982 groups of options configure behavior of apt periodic updates, which is
983 done by the <literal>/etc/cron.daily/apt</literal> script. See the top of
984 this script for the brief documentation of these options.
985 </para>
986 </refsect1>
987
988 <refsect1>
989 <title>Debug options</title>
990 <para>
991 Enabling options in the <literal>Debug::</literal> section will
992 cause debugging information to be sent to the standard error
993 stream of the program utilizing the <literal>apt</literal>
994 libraries, or enable special program modes that are primarily
995 useful for debugging the behavior of <literal>apt</literal>.
996 Most of these options are not interesting to a normal user, but a
997 few may be:
998
999 <itemizedlist>
1000 <listitem>
1001 <para>
1002 <literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal> enables output
1003 about the decisions made by
1004 <literal>dist-upgrade, upgrade, install, remove, purge</literal>.
1005 </para>
1006 </listitem>
1007
1008 <listitem>
1009 <para>
1010 <literal>Debug::NoLocking</literal> disables all file
1011 locking. This can be used to run some operations (for
1012 instance, <literal>apt-get -s install</literal>) as a
1013 non-root user.
1014 </para>
1015 </listitem>
1016
1017 <listitem>
1018 <para>
1019 <literal>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</literal> prints out the actual
1020 command line each time that <literal>apt</literal> invokes
1021 &dpkg;.
1022 </para>
1023 </listitem>
1024
1025 <listitem>
1026 <para>
1027 <literal>Debug::IdentCdrom</literal> disables the inclusion
1028 of statfs data in CD-ROM IDs. <!-- TODO: provide a
1029 motivating example, except I haven't a clue why you'd want
1030 to do this. -->
1031 </para>
1032 </listitem>
1033 </itemizedlist>
1034 </para>
1035
1036 <para>
1037 A full list of debugging options to apt follows.
1038 </para>
1039
1040 <variablelist>
1041 <varlistentry>
1042 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::cdrom</option></term>
1043
1044 <listitem>
1045 <para>
1046 Print information related to accessing
1047 <literal>cdrom://</literal> sources.
1048 </para>
1049 </listitem>
1050 </varlistentry>
1051
1052 <varlistentry>
1053 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::ftp</option></term>
1054
1055 <listitem>
1056 <para>
1057 Print information related to downloading packages using
1058 FTP.
1059 </para>
1060 </listitem>
1061 </varlistentry>
1062
1063 <varlistentry>
1064 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::http</option></term>
1065
1066 <listitem>
1067 <para>
1068 Print information related to downloading packages using
1069 HTTP.
1070 </para>
1071 </listitem>
1072 </varlistentry>
1073
1074 <varlistentry>
1075 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::https</option></term>
1076
1077 <listitem>
1078 <para>
1079 Print information related to downloading packages using
1080 HTTPS.
1081 </para>
1082 </listitem>
1083 </varlistentry>
1084
1085 <varlistentry>
1086 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::gpgv</option></term>
1087
1088 <listitem>
1089 <para>
1090 Print information related to verifying cryptographic
1091 signatures using <literal>gpg</literal>.
1092 </para>
1093 </listitem>
1094 </varlistentry>
1095
1096 <varlistentry>
1097 <term><option>Debug::aptcdrom</option></term>
1098
1099 <listitem>
1100 <para>
1101 Output information about the process of accessing
1102 collections of packages stored on CD-ROMs.
1103 </para>
1104 </listitem>
1105 </varlistentry>
1106
1107 <varlistentry>
1108 <term><option>Debug::BuildDeps</option></term>
1109 <listitem>
1110 <para>
1111 Describes the process of resolving build-dependencies in
1112 &apt-get;.
1113 </para>
1114 </listitem>
1115 </varlistentry>
1116
1117 <varlistentry>
1118 <term><option>Debug::Hashes</option></term>
1119 <listitem>
1120 <para>
1121 Output each cryptographic hash that is generated by the
1122 <literal>apt</literal> libraries.
1123 </para>
1124 </listitem>
1125 </varlistentry>
1126
1127 <varlistentry>
1128 <term><option>Debug::IdentCDROM</option></term>
1129 <listitem>
1130 <para>
1131 Do not include information from <literal>statfs</literal>,
1132 namely the number of used and free blocks on the CD-ROM
1133 filesystem, when generating an ID for a CD-ROM.
1134 </para>
1135 </listitem>
1136 </varlistentry>
1137
1138 <varlistentry>
1139 <term><option>Debug::NoLocking</option></term>
1140 <listitem>
1141 <para>
1142 Disable all file locking. For instance, this will allow
1143 two instances of <quote><literal>apt-get
1144 update</literal></quote> to run at the same time.
1145 </para>
1146 </listitem>
1147 </varlistentry>
1148
1149 <varlistentry>
1150 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire</option></term>
1151
1152 <listitem>
1153 <para>
1154 Log when items are added to or removed from the global
1155 download queue.
1156 </para>
1157 </listitem>
1158 </varlistentry>
1159
1160 <varlistentry>
1161 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Auth</option></term>
1162 <listitem>
1163 <para>
1164 Output status messages and errors related to verifying
1165 checksums and cryptographic signatures of downloaded files.
1166 </para>
1167 </listitem>
1168 </varlistentry>
1169
1170 <varlistentry>
1171 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Diffs</option></term>
1172 <listitem>
1173 <para>
1174 Output information about downloading and applying package
1175 index list diffs, and errors relating to package index list
1176 diffs.
1177 </para>
1178 </listitem>
1179 </varlistentry>
1180
1181 <varlistentry>
1182 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::RRed</option></term>
1183
1184 <listitem>
1185 <para>
1186 Output information related to patching apt package lists
1187 when downloading index diffs instead of full indices.
1188 </para>
1189 </listitem>
1190 </varlistentry>
1191
1192 <varlistentry>
1193 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Worker</option></term>
1194
1195 <listitem>
1196 <para>
1197 Log all interactions with the sub-processes that actually
1198 perform downloads.
1199 </para>
1200 </listitem>
1201 </varlistentry>
1202
1203 <varlistentry>
1204 <term><option>Debug::pkgAutoRemove</option></term>
1205
1206 <listitem>
1207 <para>
1208 Log events related to the automatically-installed status of
1209 packages and to the removal of unused packages.
1210 </para>
1211 </listitem>
1212 </varlistentry>
1213
1214 <varlistentry>
1215 <term><option>Debug::pkgDepCache::AutoInstall</option></term>
1216 <listitem>
1217 <para>
1218 Generate debug messages describing which packages are being
1219 automatically installed to resolve dependencies. This
1220 corresponds to the initial auto-install pass performed in,
1221 e.g., <literal>apt-get install</literal>, and not to the
1222 full <literal>apt</literal> dependency resolver; see
1223 <literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal> for that.
1224 </para>
1225 </listitem>
1226 </varlistentry>
1227
1228 <varlistentry>
1229 <term><option>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</option></term>
1230 <listitem>
1231 <para>
1232 Generate debug messages describing which packages are marked
1233 as keep/install/remove while the ProblemResolver does his work.
1234 Each addition or deletion may trigger additional actions;
1235 they are shown indented two additional spaces under the original entry.
1236 The format for each line is <literal>MarkKeep</literal>,
1237 <literal>MarkDelete</literal> or <literal>MarkInstall</literal> followed by
1238 <literal>package-name &lt;a.b.c -&gt; d.e.f | x.y.z&gt; (section)</literal>
1239 where <literal>a.b.c</literal> is the current version of the package,
1240 <literal>d.e.f</literal> is the version considered for installation and
1241 <literal>x.y.z</literal> is a newer version, but not considered for installation
1242 (because of a low pin score). The later two can be omitted if there is none or if
1243 it is the same as the installed version.
1244 <literal>section</literal> is the name of the section the package appears in.
1245 </para>
1246 </listitem>
1247 </varlistentry>
1248
1249 <varlistentry>
1250 <term><option>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</option></term>
1251 <listitem>
1252 <para>
1253 When invoking &dpkg;, output the precise command line with
1254 which it is being invoked, with arguments separated by a
1255 single space character.
1256 </para>
1257 </listitem>
1258 </varlistentry>
1259
1260 <varlistentry>
1261 <term><option>Debug::pkgDPkgProgressReporting</option></term>
1262 <listitem>
1263 <para>
1264 Output all the data received from &dpkg; on the status file
1265 descriptor and any errors encountered while parsing it.
1266 </para>
1267 </listitem>
1268 </varlistentry>
1269
1270 <varlistentry>
1271 <term><option>Debug::pkgOrderList</option></term>
1272
1273 <listitem>
1274 <para>
1275 Generate a trace of the algorithm that decides the order in
1276 which <literal>apt</literal> should pass packages to
1277 &dpkg;.
1278 </para>
1279 </listitem>
1280 </varlistentry>
1281
1282 <varlistentry>
1283 <term><option>Debug::pkgPackageManager</option></term>
1284
1285 <listitem>
1286 <para>
1287 Output status messages tracing the steps performed when
1288 invoking &dpkg;.
1289 </para>
1290 </listitem>
1291 </varlistentry>
1292
1293 <varlistentry>
1294 <term><option>Debug::pkgPolicy</option></term>
1295
1296 <listitem>
1297 <para>
1298 Output the priority of each package list on startup.
1299 </para>
1300 </listitem>
1301 </varlistentry>
1302
1303 <varlistentry>
1304 <term><option>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</option></term>
1305
1306 <listitem>
1307 <para>
1308 Trace the execution of the dependency resolver (this
1309 applies only to what happens when a complex dependency
1310 problem is encountered).
1311 </para>
1312 </listitem>
1313 </varlistentry>
1314
1315 <varlistentry>
1316 <term><option>Debug::pkgProblemResolver::ShowScores</option></term>
1317 <listitem>
1318 <para>
1319 Display a list of all installed packages with their calculated score
1320 used by the pkgProblemResolver. The description of the package
1321 is the same as described in <literal>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</literal>
1322 </para>
1323 </listitem>
1324 </varlistentry>
1325
1326 <varlistentry>
1327 <term><option>Debug::sourceList</option></term>
1328
1329 <listitem>
1330 <para>
1331 Print information about the vendors read from
1332 <filename>/etc/apt/vendors.list</filename>.
1333 </para>
1334 </listitem>
1335 </varlistentry>
1336
1337 <varlistentry>
1338 <term><option>Debug::RunScripts</option></term>
1339 <listitem>
1340 <para>
1341 Display the external commands that are called by apt hooks.
1342 This includes e.g. the config options
1343 <literal>DPkg::{Pre,Post}-Invoke</literal> or
1344 <literal>APT::Update::{Pre,Post}-Invoke</literal>.
1345 </para>
1346 </listitem>
1347 </varlistentry>
1348
1349 <!-- 2009/07/11 Currently used nowhere. The corresponding code
1350 is commented.
1351 <varlistentry>
1352 <term><literal>Debug::Vendor</literal></term>
1353
1354 <listitem>
1355 <para>
1356 Print information about each vendor.
1357 </para>
1358 </listitem>
1359 </varlistentry>
1360 -->
1361
1362 </variablelist>
1363 </refsect1>
1364
1365 <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
1366 <para>&configureindex; is a
1367 configuration file showing example values for all possible
1368 options.</para>
1369 </refsect1>
1370
1371 <refsect1><title>Files</title>
1372 <variablelist>
1373 &file-aptconf;
1374 </variablelist>
1375 </refsect1>
1376
1377 <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
1378 <para>&apt-cache;, &apt-config;<!-- ? reading apt.conf -->, &apt-preferences;.</para>
1379 </refsect1>
1380
1381 &manbugs;
1382
1383 </refentry>
1384