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