doc/sources.list.5.xml

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   2 <!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
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   4
   5 <!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent">
   6 %aptent;
   7
   8 ]>
   9
  10 <refentry>
  11
  12  <refentryinfo>
  13    &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
  14    &apt-author.team;
  15    &apt-email;
  16    &apt-product;
  17    <!-- The last update date -->
  18    <date>29 February 2004</date>
  19  </refentryinfo>
  20
  21  <refmeta>
  22    <refentrytitle>sources.list</refentrytitle>
  23    <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
  24  </refmeta>
  25
  26  <!-- Man page title -->
  27  <refnamediv>
  28     <refname>sources.list</refname>
  29     <refpurpose>Package resource list for APT</refpurpose>
  30  </refnamediv>
  31
  32  <refsect1><title>Description</title>
  33    <para>The package resource list is used to locate archives of the package
  34    distribution system in use on the system. At this time, this manual page
  35    documents only the packaging system used by the Debian GNU/Linux system.
  36    This control file is located in <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename></para>
  37
  38    <para>The source list is designed to support any number of active sources and a
  39    variety of source media. The file lists one source per line, with the
  40    most preferred source listed first. The format of each line is:
  41    <literal>type uri args</literal> The first item, <literal>type</literal>
  42    determines the format for <literal>args</literal> <literal>uri</literal> is
  43    a Universal Resource Identifier
  44    (URI), which is a superset of the more specific and well-known Universal
  45    Resource Locator, or URL. The rest of the line can be marked as a comment
  46    by using a #.</para>
  47  </refsect1>
  48
  49  <refsect1><title>sources.list.d</title>
  50    <para>The <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list.d</filename> directory provides
  51    a way to add sources.list entries in separate files.
  52    The format is the same as for the regular <filename>sources.list</filename> file.
  53    File names need to end with
  54    <filename>.list</filename> and may only contain letters (a-z and A-Z),
  55    digits (0-9), underscore (_), hyphen (-) and period (.) characters.
  56    Otherwise they will be silently ignored.</para>
  57  </refsect1>
  58
  59  <refsect1><title>The deb and deb-src types</title>
  60    <para>The <literal>deb</literal> type describes a typical two-level Debian
  61    archive, <filename>distribution/component</filename>. Typically,
  62    <literal>distribution</literal> is generally one of
  63    <literal>stable</literal> <literal>unstable</literal> or
  64    <literal>testing</literal> while component is one of <literal>main</literal>
  65    <literal>contrib</literal> <literal>non-free</literal> or
  66    <literal>non-us</literal> The
  67    <literal>deb-src</literal> type describes a debian distribution's source
  68    code in the same form as the <literal>deb</literal> type.
  69    A <literal>deb-src</literal> line is required to fetch source indexes.</para>
  70
  71
  72    <para>The format for a <filename>sources.list</filename> entry using the
  73    <literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types are:</para>
  74
  75    <literallayout>deb uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>
  76
  77    <para>The URI for the <literal>deb</literal> type must specify the base of the
  78    Debian distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs.
  79    <literal>distribution</literal> can specify an exact path, in which case the
  80    components must be omitted and <literal>distribution</literal> must end with
  81    a slash (/). This is useful for when only a particular sub-section of the
  82    archive denoted by the URI is of interest.
  83    If <literal>distribution</literal> does not specify an exact path, at least
  84    one <literal>component</literal> must be present.</para>
  85
  86    <para><literal>distribution</literal> may also contain a variable,
  87    <literal>$(ARCH)</literal>
  88    which expands to the Debian architecture (i386, m68k, powerpc, ...)
  89    used on the system. This permits architecture-independent
  90    <filename>sources.list</filename> files to be used. In general this is only
  91    of interest when specifying an exact path, <literal>APT</literal> will
  92    automatically generate a URI with the current architecture otherwise.</para>
  93
  94    <para>Since only one distribution can be specified per line it may be necessary
  95    to have multiple lines for the same URI, if a subset of all available
  96    distributions or components at that location is desired.
  97    APT will sort the URI list after it has generated a complete set
  98    internally, and will collapse multiple references to the same Internet
  99    host, for instance, into a single connection, so that it does not
 100    inefficiently establish an FTP connection, close it, do something else,
 101    and then re-establish a connection to that same host. This feature is
 102    useful for accessing busy FTP sites with limits on the number of
 103    simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to
 104    different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.</para>
 105
 106    <para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
 107    preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
 108    by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
 109    network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>
 110
 111    <para>Some examples:</para>
 112    <literallayout>
 113 deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
 114 deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian dists/stable-updates/
 115    </literallayout>
 116
 117  </refsect1>
 118
 119  <refsect1><title>URI specification</title>
 120
 121    <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
 122    ssh, rsh.
 123    <variablelist>
 124     <varlistentry><term>file</term>
 125     <listitem><para>
 126     The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
 127     considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
 128     archives.</para></listitem>
 129     </varlistentry>
 130
 131     <varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
 132     <listitem><para>
 133     The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
 134     swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
 135     source list.</para></listitem>
 136     </varlistentry>
 137
 138     <varlistentry><term>http</term>
 139     <listitem><para>
 140     The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
 141     variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format
 142     http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
 143     <envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
 144     HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
 145     http://user:pass@server:port/
 146     Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
 147     </varlistentry>
 148
 149     <varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
 150     <listitem><para>
 151     The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
 152     is highly configurable; for more information see the
 153     &apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
 154     by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
 155     to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
 156     using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
 157     the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
 158     </varlistentry>
 159
 160     <varlistentry><term>copy</term>
 161     <listitem><para>
 162     The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
 163     copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
 164     This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
 165     </varlistentry>
 166
 167     <varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
 168     <listitem><para>
 169     The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
 170         as a given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
 171         arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts.
 172     Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
 173     <command>dd</command>
 174     commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
 175     </varlistentry>
 176   </variablelist>
 177  </para>
 178  </refsect1>
 179
 180  <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
 181    <para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
 182    for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
 183    <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 184
 185    <para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
 186    <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 187
 188    <para>Source line for the above</para>
 189    <literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 190
 191    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
 192    the hamm/main area.</para>
 193    <literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>
 194
 195    <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
 196    directory, and uses only the stable/contrib area.</para>
 197    <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian stable contrib</literallayout>
 198
 199    <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
 200    directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
 201    well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>.
 202    a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
 203    <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>
 204
 205    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
 206     debian-non-US directory.</para>
 207    <literallayout>deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 208
 209    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
 210    debian-non-US directory, and uses only files found under
 211    <filename>unstable/binary-i386</filename> on i386 machines,
 212    <filename>unstable/binary-m68k</filename> on m68k, and so
 213    forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
 214    illustrates how to use the substitution variable; non-us is no longer
 215    structured like this]
 216    <literallayout>deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
 217    </para>
 218  </refsect1>
 219
 220  <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
 221    <para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
 222    </para>
 223  </refsect1>
 224
 225  &manbugs;
 226
 227 </refentry>
 228