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. Lists can be created by opening a scope an including a
  34 single word enclosed in quotes followed by a semicolon.
  35 In general the sample configuration file in
  36 em(/usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf) and
  37 em(/usr/doc/apt/examples/configure-index)
  38 is a good guide for how it should look.
  39
  40 All of the APT tools take a -o option which allows an arbitary configuration
  41 directive to be specified on the command line. The syntax is a full option
  42 name (APT::Get::Assume-Yes for instance) followed by an equals sign then the
  43 new value of the option. Lists can be appended too by adding a trailing ::
  44 to the list name.
  45
  46 manpagesection(The APT Group)
  47 This group of options controls general APT behavoir as well as holding the
  48 options for all of the tools.
  49
  50 startdit()
  51 dit(bf(Architecture))
  52 System Architecture; sets the architecture to use when fetching files and
  53 parsing package lists. The internal default is the architecture apt was
  54 compiled for.
  55
  56 dit(bf(Ignore-Hold))
  57 Ignore Held packages; This global options causes the problem resolver to
  58 ignore held packages in its decision making.
  59
  60 dit(bf(Clean-Installed))
  61 Defaults to on. When turned on the autoclean feature will remove any pacakge
  62 which can no longer be downloaded from the cache. If turned off then
  63 packages that are locally installed are also excluded from cleaning - but
  64 note that APT provides no direct means to reinstall them.
  65
  66 dit(bf(Immediate-Configure))
  67 Disable Immedate Configuration; This dangerous option disables some
  68 of APT's ordering code to cause it to make fewer dpkg calls. Doing
  69 so may be necessary on some extremely slow single user systems but
  70 is very dangerous and may cause package install scripts to fail or worse.
  71 Use at your own risk.
  72
  73 dit(bf(Force-LoopBreak))
  74 Never Enable this option unless you -really- know what you are doing. It
  75 permits APT to temporarily remove an essential package to break a
  76 Conflicts/Conflicts or Conflicts/Pre-Depend loop between two essential
  77 packages. SUCH A LOOP SHOULD NEVER EXIST AND IS A GRAVE BUG. This option will
  78 work if the essential packages are not tar, gzip, libc, dpkg, bash or
  79 anything that those packages depend on.
  80
  81 dit(bf(Cache-Limit))
  82 APT uses a fixed size memory mapped cache file to store the 'available'
  83 information. This sets the size of that cache.
  84
  85 dit(bf(Get))
  86 The Get subsection controls the bf(apt-get(8)) tool, please see its
  87 documentation for more information about the options here.
  88
  89 dit(bf(Cache))
  90 The Cache subsection controls the bf(apt-cache(8)) tool, please see its
  91 documentation for more information about the options here.
  92
  93 dit(bf(CDROM))
  94 The CDROM subsection controls the bf(apt-cdrom(8)) tool, please see its
  95 documentation for more information about the options here.
  96
  97 enddit()
  98
  99 manpagesection(The Acquire Group)
 100 The bf(Acquire) group of options controls the download of packages and the
 101 URI handlers.
 102
 103 startdit()
 104 dit(bf(Queue-Mode))
 105 Queuing mode; bf(Queue-Mode) can be one of bf(host) or bf(access) which
 106 determins how APT parallelizes outgoing connections. bf(host) means that
 107 one connection per target host will be opened, bf(access) means that one
 108 connection per URI type will be opened.
 109
 110 dit(bf(Retries))
 111 Number of retries to perform. If this is non-zero apt will retry failed
 112 files the given number of times.
 113
 114 dit(bf(Source-Symlinks))
 115 Use symlinks for source archives. If set to true then source archives will
 116 be symlinked when possible instead of copying. True is the default
 117
 118 dit(bf(http))
 119 HTTP URIs; http::Proxy is the default http proxy to use. It is in the standard
 120 form of em(http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/). Per host proxies can also
 121 be specified by using the form http::Proxy::<host> with the special keyword
 122 em(DIRECT) meaning to use no proxies. The em($http_proxy) environment variable
 123 will override all settings.
 124
 125 Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/1.1 complient proxy
 126 caches. bf(No-Cache) tells the proxy to not used its cached response under
 127 any circumstances, bf(Max-Age) is sent only for index files and tells the
 128 cache to refresh its object if it is older than the given number of seconds.
 129 Debian updates its index files daily so the default is 1 day. bf(No-Store)
 130 specifies that the cache should never store this request, it is only
 131 set for archive files. This may be usefull to prevent polluting a proxy cache
 132 with very large .deb files. Note: Squid 2.0.2 does not support any of
 133 these options.
 134
 135 One setting is provided to control the pipeline depth in cases where the
 136 remote server is not RFC conforming or buggy (such as Squid 2.0.2)
 137 Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth can be a value from 0 to 5 indicating how many
 138 outstanding requests APT should send.
 139
 140 dit(bf(ftp))
 141 FTP URis; ftp::Proxy is the default proxy server to use. It is in the
 142 standard form of em(ftp://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/) and is overriden
 143 by the ftp_proxy environment variable. To use a ftp proxy you will have to
 144 set the ftp::ProxyLogin script in the configuration file. This entry
 145 specifies the commands to send to tell the proxy server what to connect
 146 to. Please see em(/usr/doc/apt/examples/configure-index) for an example of how
 147 to do this. The subsitution variables available are $(PROXY_USER),
 148 $(PROXY_PASS), $(SITE_USER), $(SITE_PASS), $(SITE), and $(SITE_PORT).
 149 Each is taken from it's respective URI component.
 150
 151 Several settings are provided to control passive mode. Generally it is safe
 152 to leave passive mode on, it works in nearly every environment. However some
 153 situations require that passive mode be disabled and port mode ftp used
 154 instead. This can be done globally, for connections that go through a proxy
 155 or for a specific host (See the sample config file for examples)
 156
 157 It is possible to proxy FTP over HTTP by setting the em(ftp_proxy)
 158 environment variable to a http url - see the discussion of the http method
 159 above for syntax. You cannot set this in the configuration file and it is
 160 not recommended to use FTP over HTTP due to its low efficiency.
 161
 162 dit(bf(cdrom))
 163 CDROM URIs; the only setting for CDROM URIs is the mount point, cdrom::Mount
 164 which must be the mount point for the CDROM drive as specified in /etc/fstab.
 165 It is possible to provide alternate mount and unmount commands if your
 166 mount point cannot be listed in the fstab (such as an SMB mount). The syntax
 167 is to put "/cdrom/"::Mount "foo"; within the cdrom block. It is important to
 168 have the trailing slash. Unmount commands can be specified using UMount.
 169
 170 enddit()
 171
 172 manpagesection(Directories)
 173 The bf(Dir::State) section has directories that pertain to local state
 174 information. bf(lists) is the directory to place downloaded package lists
 175 in and bf(status) is the name of the dpkg status file. bf(Dir::State)
 176 contains the default directory to prefix on all sub items if they do not
 177 start with em(/) or em(./). bf(xstatus) and bf(userstatus) are for future
 178 use.
 179
 180 bf(Dir::Cache) contains locations pertaining to local cache information, such
 181 as the two package caches bf(srcpkgcache) and bf(pkgcache) as well as the
 182 location to place downloaded archives, bf(Dir::Cache::archives). Like
 183 bf(Dir::State) the default directory is contained in bf(Dir::Cache)
 184
 185 bf(Dir::Etc) contains the location of configuration files, bf(sourcelist)
 186 gives the location of the sourcelist and bf(main) is the default configuration
 187 file (setting has no effect)
 188
 189 Binary programs are pointed to by bf(Dir::Bin). bf(methods) specifies the
 190 location of the method handlers and bf(gzip), bf(dpkg), bf(apt-get),
 191 bf(dpkg-source), bf(dpkg-buildpackage) and
 192 bf(apt-cache) specify the location of the respective programs.
 193
 194 manpagesection(APT in DSelect)
 195 When APT is used as a bf(dselect(8)) method several configuration directives
 196 control the default behavoir. These are in the bf(DSelect) section.
 197
 198 startdit()
 199 dit(bf(Clean))
 200 Cache Clean mode; this value may be one of always, auto, prompt and never.
 201 always will remove all archives after they have been downloaded while auto
 202 will only remove things that are no longer downloadable (replaced with a new
 203 version for instance)
 204
 205 dit(bf(Options))
 206 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 207 options when it is run for the install phase.
 208
 209 dit(bf(UpdateOptions))
 210 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 211 options when it is run for the update phase.
 212
 213 dit(bf(PromptAfterUpdate))
 214 If true the [U]pdate operation in dselect will always prompt to continue.
 215 The default is to prompt only on error.
 216 enddit()
 217
 218 manpagesection(How APT calls DPkg)
 219 Several configuration directives control how APT invokes dpkg. These are in
 220 the bf(DPkg) section.
 221
 222 startdit()
 223 dit(bf(Options))
 224 This is a list of options to pass to dpkg. The options must be specified
 225 using the list notation and each list item is passed as a single arugment
 226 to dpkg.
 227
 228 dit(bf(Pre-Invoke), bf(Post-Invoke))
 229 This is a list of shell commands to run before/after invoking dpkg. Like
 230 bf(Options) this must be specified in list notation. The commands
 231 are invoked in order using /bin/sh, should any fail APT will abort.
 232
 233 dit(bf(BPre-Install-Pkgs))
 234 This is a list of shell commands to run before invoking dpkg. Like
 235 bf(Options) this must be specified in list notation. The commands
 236 are invoked in order using /bin/sh, should any fail APT will abort.
 237 Apt will pass to the commands on standard input the filenames of all
 238 .deb files it is going to install, one per line.
 239
 240 dit(bf(Run-Directory))
 241 APT chdirs to this directory before invoking dpkg, the default is /.
 242
 243 dit(bf(Build-Options))
 244 These options are passed to dpkg-buildpackage when compiling packages,
 245 the default is to disable signing and produce all binaries.
 246
 247 enddit()
 248
 249 manpagesection(Debug Options)
 250 Most of the options in the bf(debug) section are not interesting to the
 251 normal user, however bf(Debug::pkgProblemResolver) shows interesting
 252 output about the decisions dist-upgrade makes. bf(Debug::NoLocking)
 253 disables file locking so apt can do some operations as non-root and
 254 bf(Debug::pkgDPkgPM) will print out the command line for each dpkg
 255 invokation. bf(Debug::IdentCdrom) will disable the inclusion of statfs
 256 data in CDROM IDs.
 257
 258 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
 259 bf(/usr/doc/apt/examples/configure-index.gz) contains a sample configuration
 260 file showing the default values for all possible options.
 261
 262 manpagesection(FILES)
 263 /etc/apt/apt.conf
 264
 265 manpageseealso()
 266 apt-cache (8),
 267 apt-get (8)
 268
 269 manpagebugs()
 270 See http://bugs.debian.org/apt.  If you wish to report a
 271 bug in bf(apt-get), please see bf(/usr/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt)
 272 or the bf(bug(1)) command.
 273
 274 manpageauthor()
 275 apt-get was written by the APT team <apt@packages.debian.org>.