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 ]>
   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    <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
  25  </refmeta>
  26
  27  <!-- Man page title -->
  28  <refnamediv>
  29     <refname>sources.list</refname>
  30     <refpurpose>Package resource list for APT</refpurpose>
  31  </refnamediv>
  32
  33  <refsect1><title>Description</title>
  34    <para>The package resource list is used to locate archives of the package
  35    distribution system in use on the system. At this time, this manual page
  36    documents only the packaging system used by the Debian GNU/Linux system.
  37    This control file is <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename>.</para>
  38
  39    <para>The source list is designed to support any number of active sources and a
  40    variety of source media. The file lists one source per line, with the
  41    most preferred source listed first. The format of each line is:
  42    <literal>type uri args</literal> The first item, <literal>type</literal>
  43    determines the format for <literal>args</literal>. <literal>uri</literal> is
  44    a Universal Resource Identifier
  45    (URI), which is a superset of the more specific and well-known Universal
  46    Resource Locator, or URL. The rest of the line can be marked as a comment
  47    by using a #.</para>
  48  </refsect1>
  49
  50  <refsect1><title>sources.list.d</title>
  51    <para>The <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list.d</filename> directory provides
  52    a way to add sources.list entries in separate files.
  53    The format is the same as for the regular <filename>sources.list</filename> file.
  54    File names need to end with
  55    <filename>.list</filename> and may only contain letters (a-z and A-Z),
  56    digits (0-9), underscore (_), hyphen (-) and period (.) characters.
  57    Otherwise they will be silently ignored.</para>
  58  </refsect1>
  59
  60  <refsect1><title>The deb and deb-src types</title>
  61    <para>The <literal>deb</literal> type describes a typical two-level Debian
  62    archive, <filename>distribution/component</filename>. Typically,
  63    <literal>distribution</literal> is generally one of
  64    <literal>stable</literal> <literal>unstable</literal> or
  65    <literal>testing</literal> while component is one of <literal>main</literal>
  66    <literal>contrib</literal> <literal>non-free</literal> or
  67    <literal>non-us</literal>. The
  68    <literal>deb-src</literal> type describes a debian distribution's source
  69    code in the same form as the <literal>deb</literal> type.
  70    A <literal>deb-src</literal> line is required to fetch source indexes.</para>
  71
  72
  73    <para>The format for a <filename>sources.list</filename> entry using the
  74    <literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types is:</para>
  75
  76    <literallayout>deb uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>
  77
  78    <para>The URI for the <literal>deb</literal> type must specify the base of the
  79    Debian distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs.
  80    <literal>distribution</literal> can specify an exact path, in which case the
  81    components must be omitted and <literal>distribution</literal> must end with
  82    a slash (/). This is useful for when the case only a particular sub-section of the
  83    archive denoted by the URI is of interest.
  84    If <literal>distribution</literal> does not specify an exact path, at least
  85    one <literal>component</literal> must be present.</para>
  86
  87    <para><literal>distribution</literal> may also contain a variable,
  88    <literal>$(ARCH)</literal>
  89    which expands to the Debian architecture (i386, m68k, powerpc, ...)
  90    used on the system. This permits architecture-independent
  91    <filename>sources.list</filename> files to be used. In general this is only
  92    of interest when specifying an exact path, <literal>APT</literal> will
  93    automatically generate a URI with the current architecture otherwise.</para>
  94
  95    <para>Since only one distribution can be specified per line it may be necessary
  96    to have multiple lines for the same URI, if a subset of all available
  97    distributions or components at that location is desired.
  98    APT will sort the URI list after it has generated a complete set
  99    internally, and will collapse multiple references to the same Internet
 100    host, for instance, into a single connection, so that it does not
 101    inefficiently establish an FTP connection, close it, do something else,
 102    and then re-establish a connection to that same host. This feature is
 103    useful for accessing busy FTP sites with limits on the number of
 104    simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to
 105    different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.</para>
 106
 107    <para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
 108    preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
 109    by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
 110    network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>
 111
 112    <para>Some examples:</para>
 113    <literallayout>
 114 deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
 115 deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian dists/stable-updates/
 116    </literallayout>
 117
 118  </refsect1>
 119
 120  <refsect1><title>URI specification</title>
 121
 122    <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
 123    ssh, rsh.
 124    <variablelist>
 125     <varlistentry><term>file</term>
 126     <listitem><para>
 127     The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
 128     considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
 129     archives.</para></listitem>
 130     </varlistentry>
 131
 132     <varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
 133     <listitem><para>
 134     The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
 135     swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
 136     source list.</para></listitem>
 137     </varlistentry>
 138
 139     <varlistentry><term>http</term>
 140     <listitem><para>
 141     The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
 142     variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format
 143     http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
 144     <envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
 145     HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
 146     http://user:pass@server:port/.
 147     Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
 148     </varlistentry>
 149
 150     <varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
 151     <listitem><para>
 152     The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
 153     is highly configurable; for more information see the
 154     &apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
 155     by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
 156     to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
 157     using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
 158     the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
 159     </varlistentry>
 160
 161     <varlistentry><term>copy</term>
 162     <listitem><para>
 163     The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
 164     copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
 165     This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
 166     </varlistentry>
 167
 168     <varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
 169     <listitem><para>
 170     The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
 171         as a given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
 172         arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts.
 173     Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
 174     <command>dd</command>
 175     commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
 176     </varlistentry>
 177
 178     <varlistentry><term>more recognizable URI types</term>
 179     <listitem><para>
 180     APT can be extended with more methods shipped in other optional packages which should
 181     follow the nameing scheme <literal>apt-transport-<replaceable>method</replaceable></literal>.
 182     The APT team e.g. maintains also the <literal>apt-transport-https</literal> package which
 183     provides access methods for https-URIs with features similar to the http method, but other
 184     methods for using e.g. debtorrent are also available, see <citerefentry>
 185     <refentrytitle><filename>apt-transport-debtorrent</filename></refentrytitle>
 186     <manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
 187     </para></listitem>
 188     </varlistentry>
 189   </variablelist>
 190  </para>
 191  </refsect1>
 192
 193  <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
 194    <para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
 195    for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
 196    <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 197
 198    <para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
 199    <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 200
 201    <para>Source line for the above</para>
 202    <literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 203
 204    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
 205    the hamm/main area.</para>
 206    <literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>
 207
 208    <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
 209    directory, and uses only the stable/contrib area.</para>
 210    <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian stable contrib</literallayout>
 211
 212    <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
 213    directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
 214    well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>
 215    a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
 216    <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>
 217
 218    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
 219     debian-non-US directory.</para>
 220    <literallayout>deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 221
 222    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
 223    debian-non-US directory, and uses only files found under
 224    <filename>unstable/binary-i386</filename> on i386 machines,
 225    <filename>unstable/binary-m68k</filename> on m68k, and so
 226    forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
 227    illustrates how to use the substitution variable; non-us is no longer
 228    structured like this]
 229    <literallayout>deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
 230    </para>
 231  </refsect1>
 232
 233  <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
 234    <para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
 235    </para>
 236  </refsect1>
 237
 238  &manbugs;
 239
 240 </refentry>
 241