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. In general the sample configuration file in
  34 em(/usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf) is a good guide for how it should look.
  35
  36 manpagesection(The APT Group)
  37 This group of options controls general APT behavoir as well as holding the
  38 options for all of the tools.
  39
  40 startdit()
  41 dit(bf(Architecture))
  42 System Architecture; sets the architecture to use when fetching files and
  43 parsing package lists. The internal default is the architecture apt was
  44 compiled for.
  45
  46 dit(bf(Ignore-Hold))
  47 Ignore Held packages; This global options causes the problem resolver to
  48 ignore held packages in its decision making.
  49
  50 dit(bf(Get))
  51 The Get subsection controls the bf(apt-get(8)) tool, please see its
  52 documentation for more information about the options here.
  53
  54 dit(bf(Cache))
  55 The Cache subsection controls the bf(apt-cache(8)) tool, please see its
  56 documentation for more information about the options here.
  57
  58 dit(bf(CDROM))
  59 The CDROM subsection controls the bf(apt-cdrom(8)) tool, please see its
  60 documentation for more information about the options here.
  61
  62 enddit()
  63
  64 manpagesection(The Acquire Group)
  65 The bf(Acquire) group of options controls the download of packages and the
  66 URI handlers.
  67
  68 startdit()
  69 dit(bf(Queue-Mode))
  70 Queuing mode; bf(Queue-Mode) can be one of bf(host) or bf(access) which
  71 determins how APT parallelizesoutgoing connections. bf(host) means that
  72 one connection per target host will be opened, bf(access) means that one
  73 connection per URI type will be opened.
  74
  75 dit(bf(http))
  76 HTTP URIs; http::Proxy is the default http proxy to use. It is in the standard
  77 form of em(http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/). Per host proxies can also
  78 be specified by using the form http::Proxy::<host> with the special keyword
  79 em(DIRECT) meaning to use no proxies. The em($http_proxy) environment variable
  80 will override all settings.
  81
  82 Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/1.1 complient proxy
  83 caches. bf(No-Cache) tells the proxy to not used its cached response under
  84 any circumstances, bf(Max-Age) is sent only for index files and tells the
  85 cache to refresh its object if it is older than the given value. Debian
  86 updates its index files daily so the default is 1 day. bd(No-Store)
  87 specifies that the cache should never store this request, it is only
  88 set for archive files. This may be usefull to prevent polluting a proxy cache
  89 with very large .deb files. Note: Squid 2.0.2 does not support any of
  90 these options.
  91
  92 One setting is provided to control the pipeline depth in cases where the
  93 remote server is not RFC conforming or buggy (such as Squid 2.0.2)
  94 Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth can be a value from 0 to 5 indicating how many
  95 outstanding requests APT should send.
  96
  97 dit(bf(cdrom))
  98 CDROM URIs; the only setting for CDROM URIs is the mount point, cdrom::Mount
  99 which must be the mount point for the CDROM drive as specified in /etc/fstab.
 100
 101 enddit()
 102
 103 manpagesection(Directories)
 104 The bf(Dir::State) section has directories that pertain to local state
 105 information. bf(lists) is the directory to place downloaded package lists
 106 in and bf(status) is the name of the dpkg status file. bf(Dir::State)
 107 contains the default directory to prefix on all sub items if they do not
 108 start with em(/) or em(./). bf(xstatus) and bf(userstatus) are for future
 109 use.
 110
 111 bf(Dir::Cache) contains locations pertaining to local cache information, such
 112 as the two package caches bf(srcpkgcache) and bf(pkgcache) as well as the
 113 location to place downloaded archives, bf(Dir::Cache::archives). Like
 114 bf(Dir::State) the default directory is contained in bf(Dir::Cache)
 115
 116 bf(Dir::Etc) contains the location of configuration files, bd(sourcelist)
 117 gives the location of the sourcelist and bf(main) is the default configuration
 118 file (setting has no effect)
 119
 120 Binary programs are pointed to by bf(Dir::Bin). bf(methods) specifies the
 121 location of the method handlers and bf(gzip), bf(dpkg), bf(apt-get), and
 122 bf(apt-cache) specify the location of the respective programs.
 123
 124 manpagesection(APT in DSelect)
 125 When APT is used as a bf(dselect(8)) method several configuration directives
 126 control the default behavoir. These are in the bf(DSelect) section.
 127
 128 startdit()
 129 dit(bf(Clean))
 130 Cache Clean mode; this value may be one of always, auto, prompt and never.
 131 Currently always and auto are identical but their meanings may diverge in
 132 future to have auto only clean useless archives and always clean all archives.
 133
 134 dit(bf(Options))
 135 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 136 options when it is run for the install phase.
 137
 138 dit(bf(UpdateOptions))
 139 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 140 options when it is run for the update phase.
 141
 142 dit(bf(PromptAfterUpdate))
 143 If true the [U]pdate operation in dselect will always prompt to continue.
 144 The default is to prompt only on error.
 145 enddit()
 146
 147 manpagesection(Debug Options)
 148 Most of the options in the bf(debug) section are not interesting to the
 149 normal user, however bf(Debug::pkgProblemResolver) shows interesting
 150 output about the decisions dist-upgrade makes. bf(Debug::NoLocking)
 151 disables file locking so apt can do some operations as non-root and
 152 bf(Debug::pkgDPkgPM) will print out the command line for each dpkg invokation.
 153
 154 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
 155 bf(/usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf) contains a sample configuration file
 156 showing the default values for all possible options.
 157
 158 manpageseealso()
 159 apt-cache (8),
 160 apt.conf (5)
 161
 162 manpagebugs()
 163 See http://bugs.debian.org/apt.  If you wish to report a
 164 bug in bf(apt-get), please see bf(/usr/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt)
 165 or the bf(bug(1)) command.
 166
 167 manpageauthor()
 168 apt-get was written by the APT team <apt@packages.debian.org>.