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 <!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>29 February 2004</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 through 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>
 121    </listitem></itemizedlist></para>
 122
 123    <para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
 124    preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
 125    by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
 126    network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>
 127
 128    <para>Some examples:</para>
 129    <literallayout>
 130 deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main contrib non-free
 131 deb http://security.debian.org/ &stable-codename;/updates main contrib non-free
 132    </literallayout>
 133
 134  </refsect1>
 135
 136  <refsect1><title>URI specification</title>
 137
 138    <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
 139    ssh, rsh.
 140    <variablelist>
 141     <varlistentry><term>file</term>
 142     <listitem><para>
 143     The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
 144     considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
 145     archives.</para></listitem>
 146     </varlistentry>
 147
 148     <varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
 149     <listitem><para>
 150     The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
 151     swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
 152     source list.</para></listitem>
 153     </varlistentry>
 154
 155     <varlistentry><term>http</term>
 156     <listitem><para>
 157     The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
 158     variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format
 159     http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
 160     <envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
 161     HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
 162     http://user:pass@server:port/.
 163     Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
 164     </varlistentry>
 165
 166     <varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
 167     <listitem><para>
 168     The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
 169     is highly configurable; for more information see the
 170     &apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
 171     by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
 172     to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
 173     using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
 174     the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
 175     </varlistentry>
 176
 177     <varlistentry><term>copy</term>
 178     <listitem><para>
 179     The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
 180     copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
 181     This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
 182     </varlistentry>
 183
 184     <varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
 185     <listitem><para>
 186     The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
 187         as a given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
 188         arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts.
 189     Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
 190     <command>dd</command>
 191     commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
 192     </varlistentry>
 193
 194     <varlistentry><term>more recognizable URI types</term>
 195     <listitem><para>
 196     APT can be extended with more methods shipped in other optional packages which should
 197     follow the nameing scheme <literal>apt-transport-<replaceable>method</replaceable></literal>.
 198     The APT team e.g. maintains also the <literal>apt-transport-https</literal> package which
 199     provides access methods for https-URIs with features similar to the http method, but other
 200     methods for using e.g. debtorrent are also available, see <citerefentry>
 201     <refentrytitle><filename>apt-transport-debtorrent</filename></refentrytitle>
 202     <manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
 203     </para></listitem>
 204     </varlistentry>
 205   </variablelist>
 206  </para>
 207  </refsect1>
 208
 209  <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
 210    <para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
 211    for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
 212    <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 213
 214    <para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
 215    <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 216
 217    <para>Source line for the above</para>
 218    <literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 219
 220    <para>The first line gets package information for the architectures in <literal>APT::Architectures</literal>
 221    while the second always retrieves <literal>amd64</literal> and <literal>armel</literal>.</para>
 222    <literallayout>deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main
 223 deb [ arch=amd64,armel ] http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main</literallayout>
 224
 225    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
 226    the hamm/main area.</para>
 227    <literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>
 228
 229    <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
 230    directory, and uses only the &stable-codename;/contrib area.</para>
 231    <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; contrib</literallayout>
 232
 233    <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
 234    directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
 235    well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>
 236    a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
 237    <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>
 238
 239    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at ftp.tlh.debian.org, under the
 240    universe directory, and uses only files found under
 241    <filename>unstable/binary-i386</filename> on i386 machines,
 242    <filename>unstable/binary-amd64</filename> on amd64, and so
 243    forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
 244    illustrates how to use the substitution variable; official debian
 245    archives are not structured like this]
 246    <literallayout>deb http://ftp.tlh.debian.org/universe unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
 247    </para>
 248  </refsect1>
 249
 250  <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
 251    <para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
 252    </para>
 253  </refsect1>
 254
 255  &manbugs;
 256
 257 </refentry>
 258