doc/apt.conf.5.yo

   1 mailto(apt@packages.debian.org)
   2 manpage(apt.conf)(5)(5 Dec 1998)(apt)()
   3 manpagename(apt.conf)(configuration file for APT)
   4
   5 manpagedescription()
   6 bf(apt.conf) is the main configuration file for the APT suite of
   7 tools, all tools make use of the configuration file and a common command line
   8 parser to provide a uniform environment. When an APT tool starts up it will
   9 read bf(/etc/apt/apt.conf), then read the configuration specified by the
  10 bf($APT_CONFIG) environment variable and then finally apply the command line
  11 options to override the configuration directives, possibly loading more
  12 config files.
  13
  14 The configuration file is organized in a tree with options organized into
  15 functional groups. Option specification is given with a double colon
  16 notation, for instance em(APT::Get::Assume-Yes) is an option within the
  17 APT tool group, for the Get tool. Options do not inherit from their parent
  18 groups.
  19
  20 Syntacticly the configuration language is modeled after what the ISC tools
  21 such as bind and dhcp use. Each line is of the form
  22 quote(APT::Get::Assume-Yes "true";) The trailing semicolon is required and
  23 the quotes are optional. A new em(scope) can be opened with curly braces,
  24 like:
  25 verb(APT {
  26   Get {
  27     Assume-Yes "true";
  28     Fix-Broken "true";
  29   };
  30 };
  31 )
  32 with newlines placed to make
  33 it more readable. In general the sample configuration file in
  34 em(/usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf) is a good guide for how it should look.
  35
  36 manpagesection(The APT Group)
  37 This group of options controls general APT behavoir as well as holding the
  38 options for all of the tools.
  39
  40 startdit()
  41 dit(bf(Architecture))
  42 System Architecture; sets the architecture to use when fetching files and
  43 parsing package lists. The internal default is the architecture apt was
  44 compiled for.
  45
  46 dit(bf(Ignore-Hold))
  47 Ignore Held packages; This global options causes the problem resolver to
  48 ignore held packages in its decision making.
  49
  50 dit(bf(Get))
  51 The Get subsection controls the bf(apt-get(8)) tool, please see its
  52 documentation for more information about the options here.
  53
  54 dit(bf(Cache))
  55 The Cache subsection controls the bf(apt-cache(8)) tool, please see its
  56 documentation for more information about the options here.
  57
  58 dit(bf(CDROM))
  59 The CDROM subsection controls the bf(apt-cdrom(8)) tool, please see its
  60 documentation for more information about the options here.
  61
  62 enddit()
  63
  64 manpagesection(The Acquire Group)
  65 The bf(Acquire) group of options controls the download of packages and the
  66 URI handlers.
  67
  68 startdit()
  69 dit(bf(Queue-Mode))
  70 Queuing mode; bf(Queue-Mode) can be one of bf(host) or bf(access) which
  71 determins how APT parallelizes outgoing connections. bf(host) means that
  72 one connection per target host will be opened, bf(access) means that one
  73 connection per URI type will be opened.
  74
  75 dit(bf(Retries))
  76 Number of retries to perform. If this is non-zero apt will retry failed
  77 files the given number of times.
  78
  79 dit(bf(http))
  80 HTTP URIs; http::Proxy is the default http proxy to use. It is in the standard
  81 form of em(http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/). Per host proxies can also
  82 be specified by using the form http::Proxy::<host> with the special keyword
  83 em(DIRECT) meaning to use no proxies. The em($http_proxy) environment variable
  84 will override all settings.
  85
  86 Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/1.1 complient proxy
  87 caches. bf(No-Cache) tells the proxy to not used its cached response under
  88 any circumstances, bf(Max-Age) is sent only for index files and tells the
  89 cache to refresh its object if it is older than the given number of seconds.
  90 Debian updates its index files daily so the default is 1 day. bf(No-Store)
  91 specifies that the cache should never store this request, it is only
  92 set for archive files. This may be usefull to prevent polluting a proxy cache
  93 with very large .deb files. Note: Squid 2.0.2 does not support any of
  94 these options.
  95
  96 One setting is provided to control the pipeline depth in cases where the
  97 remote server is not RFC conforming or buggy (such as Squid 2.0.2)
  98 Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth can be a value from 0 to 5 indicating how many
  99 outstanding requests APT should send.
 100
 101 dit(bf(cdrom))
 102 CDROM URIs; the only setting for CDROM URIs is the mount point, cdrom::Mount
 103 which must be the mount point for the CDROM drive as specified in /etc/fstab.
 104
 105 enddit()
 106
 107 manpagesection(Directories)
 108 The bf(Dir::State) section has directories that pertain to local state
 109 information. bf(lists) is the directory to place downloaded package lists
 110 in and bf(status) is the name of the dpkg status file. bf(Dir::State)
 111 contains the default directory to prefix on all sub items if they do not
 112 start with em(/) or em(./). bf(xstatus) and bf(userstatus) are for future
 113 use.
 114
 115 bf(Dir::Cache) contains locations pertaining to local cache information, such
 116 as the two package caches bf(srcpkgcache) and bf(pkgcache) as well as the
 117 location to place downloaded archives, bf(Dir::Cache::archives). Like
 118 bf(Dir::State) the default directory is contained in bf(Dir::Cache)
 119
 120 bf(Dir::Etc) contains the location of configuration files, bd(sourcelist)
 121 gives the location of the sourcelist and bf(main) is the default configuration
 122 file (setting has no effect)
 123
 124 Binary programs are pointed to by bf(Dir::Bin). bf(methods) specifies the
 125 location of the method handlers and bf(gzip), bf(dpkg), bf(apt-get), and
 126 bf(apt-cache) specify the location of the respective programs.
 127
 128 manpagesection(APT in DSelect)
 129 When APT is used as a bf(dselect(8)) method several configuration directives
 130 control the default behavoir. These are in the bf(DSelect) section.
 131
 132 startdit()
 133 dit(bf(Clean))
 134 Cache Clean mode; this value may be one of always, auto, prompt and never.
 135 Currently always and auto are identical but their meanings may diverge in
 136 future to have auto only clean useless archives and always clean all archives.
 137
 138 dit(bf(Options))
 139 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 140 options when it is run for the install phase.
 141
 142 dit(bf(UpdateOptions))
 143 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 144 options when it is run for the update phase.
 145
 146 dit(bf(PromptAfterUpdate))
 147 If true the [U]pdate operation in dselect will always prompt to continue.
 148 The default is to prompt only on error.
 149 enddit()
 150
 151 manpagesection(Debug Options)
 152 Most of the options in the bf(debug) section are not interesting to the
 153 normal user, however bf(Debug::pkgProblemResolver) shows interesting
 154 output about the decisions dist-upgrade makes. bf(Debug::NoLocking)
 155 disables file locking so apt can do some operations as non-root and
 156 bf(Debug::pkgDPkgPM) will print out the command line for each dpkg invokation.
 157
 158 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
 159 bf(/usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf) contains a sample configuration file
 160 showing the default values for all possible options.
 161
 162 mapagesection(FILES)
 163 /etc/apt/apt.conf
 164
 165 manpageseealso()
 166 apt-cache (8),
 167 apt.conf (5)
 168
 169 manpagebugs()
 170 See http://bugs.debian.org/apt.  If you wish to report a
 171 bug in bf(apt-get), please see bf(/usr/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt)
 172 or the bf(bug(1)) command.
 173
 174 manpageauthor()
 175 apt-get was written by the APT team <apt@packages.debian.org>.