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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 ]>
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>The deb and deb-src types</title>
50 <para>The <literal>deb</literal> type describes a typical two-level Debian
51 archive, <filename>distribution/component</filename>. Typically,
52 <literal>distribution</literal> is generally one of
53 <literal>stable</literal> <literal>unstable</literal> or
54 <literal>testing</literal> while component is one of <literal>main</literal>
55 <literal>contrib</literal> <literal>non-free</literal> or
56 <literal>non-us</literal> The
57 <literal>deb-src</literal> type describes a debian distribution's source
58 code in the same form as the <literal>deb</literal> type.
59 A <literal>deb-src</literal> line is required to fetch source indexes.</para>
60
61
62 <para>The format for a <filename>sources.list</filename> entry using the
63 <literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types are:</para>
64
65 <literallayout>deb uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>
66
67 <para>The URI for the <literal>deb</literal> type must specify the base of the
68 Debian distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs.
69 <literal>distribution</literal> can specify an exact path, in which case the
70 components must be omitted and <literal>distribution</literal> must end with
71 a slash (/). This is useful for when only a particular sub-section of the
72 archive denoted by the URI is of interest.
73 If <literal>distribution</literal> does not specify an exact path, at least
74 one <literal>component</literal> must be present.</para>
75
76 <para><literal>distribution</literal> may also contain a variable,
77 <literal>$(ARCH)</literal>
78 which expands to the Debian architecture (i386, m68k, powerpc, ...)
79 used on the system. This permits architecture-independent
80 <filename>sources.list</filename> files to be used. In general this is only
81 of interest when specifying an exact path, <literal>APT</literal> will
82 automatically generate a URI with the current architecture otherwise.</para>
83
84 <para>Since only one distribution can be specified per line it may be necessary
85 to have multiple lines for the same URI, if a subset of all available
86 distributions or components at that location is desired.
87 APT will sort the URI list after it has generated a complete set
88 internally, and will collapse multiple references to the same Internet
89 host, for instance, into a single connection, so that it does not
90 inefficiently establish an FTP connection, close it, do something else,
91 and then re-establish a connection to that same host. This feature is
92 useful for accessing busy FTP sites with limits on the number of
93 simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to
94 different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.</para>
95
96 <para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
97 preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
98 by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
99 network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>
100
101 <para>Some examples:</para>
102 <literallayout>
103 deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
104 deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian dists/stable-updates/
105 </literallayout>
106
107 </refsect1>
108
109 <refsect1><title>URI specification</title>
110
111 <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, and ftp.
112 <variablelist>
113 <varlistentry><term>file</term>
114 <listitem><para>
115 The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
116 considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
117 archives.</para></listitem>
118 </varlistentry>
119
120 <varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
121 <listitem><para>
122 The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
123 swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
124 source list.</para></listitem>
125 </varlistentry>
126
127 <varlistentry><term>http</term>
128 <listitem><para>
129 The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
130 variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format
131 http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
132 <envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
133 HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
134 http://user:pass@server:port/
135 Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
136 </varlistentry>
137
138 <varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
139 <listitem><para>
140 The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
141 is highly configurable; for more information see the
142 &apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
143 by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
144 to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
145 using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
146 the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
147 </varlistentry>
148
149 <varlistentry><term>copy</term>
150 <listitem><para>
151 The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
152 copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
153 This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
154 </varlistentry>
155
156 <varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
157 <listitem><para>
158 The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
159 as a given user and access the files. No password authentication is
160 possible, prior arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts must have been made.
161 Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
162 <command>dd</command>
163 commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
164 </varlistentry>
165 </variablelist>
166 </para>
167 </refsect1>
168
169 <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
170 <para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
171 for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
172 <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
173
174 <para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
175 <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
176
177 <para>Source line for the above</para>
178 <literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
179
180 <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
181 the hamm/main area.</para>
182 <literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>
183
184 <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
185 directory, and uses only the stable/contrib area.</para>
186 <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian stable contrib</literallayout>
187
188 <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
189 directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
190 well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>.
191 a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
192 <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>
193
194 <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
195 debian-non-US directory.</para>
196 <literallayout>deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free</literallayout>
197
198 <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
199 debian-non-US directory, and uses only files found under
200 <filename>unstable/binary-i3866</filename> on i386 machines,
201 <filename>unstable/binary-m68k</filename> on m68k, and so
202 forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
203 illustrates how to use the substitution variable; non-us is no longer
204 structured like this]
205 <literallayout>deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
206 </para>
207 </refsect1>
208
209 <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
210 <para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
211 </para>
212 </refsect1>
213
214 &manbugs;
215
216 </refentry>
217