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 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>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
 113    preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
 114    by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
 115    network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>
 116
 117    <para>Some examples:</para>
 118    <literallayout>
 119 deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main contrib non-free
 120 deb http://security.debian.org/ &stable-codename;/updates main contrib non-free
 121    </literallayout>
 122
 123  </refsect1>
 124
 125  <refsect1><title>URI specification</title>
 126
 127    <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
 128    ssh, rsh.
 129    <variablelist>
 130     <varlistentry><term>file</term>
 131     <listitem><para>
 132     The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
 133     considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
 134     archives.</para></listitem>
 135     </varlistentry>
 136
 137     <varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
 138     <listitem><para>
 139     The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
 140     swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
 141     source list.</para></listitem>
 142     </varlistentry>
 143
 144     <varlistentry><term>http</term>
 145     <listitem><para>
 146     The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
 147     variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format
 148     http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
 149     <envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
 150     HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
 151     http://user:pass@server:port/.
 152     Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
 153     </varlistentry>
 154
 155     <varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
 156     <listitem><para>
 157     The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
 158     is highly configurable; for more information see the
 159     &apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
 160     by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
 161     to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
 162     using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
 163     the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
 164     </varlistentry>
 165
 166     <varlistentry><term>copy</term>
 167     <listitem><para>
 168     The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
 169     copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
 170     This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
 171     </varlistentry>
 172
 173     <varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
 174     <listitem><para>
 175     The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
 176         as a given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
 177         arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts.
 178     Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
 179     <command>dd</command>
 180     commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
 181     </varlistentry>
 182
 183     <varlistentry><term>more recognizable URI types</term>
 184     <listitem><para>
 185     APT can be extended with more methods shipped in other optional packages which should
 186     follow the nameing scheme <literal>apt-transport-<replaceable>method</replaceable></literal>.
 187     The APT team e.g. maintains also the <literal>apt-transport-https</literal> package which
 188     provides access methods for https-URIs with features similar to the http method, but other
 189     methods for using e.g. debtorrent are also available, see <citerefentry>
 190     <refentrytitle><filename>apt-transport-debtorrent</filename></refentrytitle>
 191     <manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
 192     </para></listitem>
 193     </varlistentry>
 194   </variablelist>
 195  </para>
 196  </refsect1>
 197
 198  <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
 199    <para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
 200    for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
 201    <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 202
 203    <para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
 204    <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 205
 206    <para>Source line for the above</para>
 207    <literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 208
 209    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
 210    the hamm/main area.</para>
 211    <literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>
 212
 213    <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
 214    directory, and uses only the &stable-codename;/contrib area.</para>
 215    <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; contrib</literallayout>
 216
 217    <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
 218    directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
 219    well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>
 220    a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
 221    <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>
 222
 223    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at ftp.tlh.debian.org, under the
 224    universe directory, and uses only files found under
 225    <filename>unstable/binary-i386</filename> on i386 machines,
 226    <filename>unstable/binary-amd64</filename> on amd64, and so
 227    forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
 228    illustrates how to use the substitution variable; official debian
 229    archives are not structured like this]
 230    <literallayout>deb http://ftp.tlh.debian.org/universe unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
 231    </para>
 232  </refsect1>
 233
 234  <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
 235    <para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
 236    </para>
 237  </refsect1>
 238
 239  &manbugs;
 240
 241 </refentry>
 242