1 <?xml version=
"1.0" encoding=
"utf-8" standalone=
"no"?>
2 <!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC
"-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
3 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd" [
4 <!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM
"apt.ent"> %aptent;
5 <!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM
"apt-verbatim.ent"> %aptverbatiment;
6 <!ENTITY % aptvendor SYSTEM
"apt-vendor.ent"> %aptvendor;
12 &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
16 <contrib>Initial documentation of Debug::*.
</contrib>
17 <email>dburrows@debian.org
</email>
21 <!-- The last update date -->
22 <date>2012-
06-
09T00:
00:
00Z
</date>
26 <refentrytitle>apt.conf
</refentrytitle>
27 <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
28 <refmiscinfo class=
"manual">APT
</refmiscinfo>
31 <!-- Man page title -->
33 <refname>apt.conf
</refname>
34 <refpurpose>Configuration file for APT
</refpurpose>
37 <refsect1><title>Description
</title>
38 <para><filename>/etc/apt/apt.conf
</filename> is the main configuration
39 file shared by all the tools in the APT suite of tools, though it is by
40 no means the only place options can be set. The suite also shares a common
41 command line parser to provide a uniform environment.
</para>
44 <para>When an APT tool starts up it will read the configuration files
45 in the following order:
</para>
46 <listitem><para>the file specified by the
<envar>APT_CONFIG
</envar>
47 environment variable (if any)
</para></listitem>
48 <listitem><para>all files in
<literal>Dir::Etc::Parts
</literal> in
49 alphanumeric ascending order which have either no or "
<literal>conf
</literal>"
50 as filename extension and which only contain alphanumeric,
51 hyphen (-), underscore (_) and period (.) characters.
52 Otherwise APT will print a notice that it has ignored a file, unless that
53 file matches a pattern in the <literal>Dir::Ignore-Files-Silently</literal>
54 configuration list - in which case it will be silently ignored.</para></listitem>
55 <listitem><para>the main configuration file specified by
56 <literal>Dir::Etc::main</literal></para></listitem>
57 <listitem><para>the command line options are applied to override the
58 configuration directives or to load even more configuration files.</para></listitem>
61 <refsect1><title>Syntax</title>
62 <para>The configuration file is organized in a tree with options organized into
63 functional groups. Option specification is given with a double colon
64 notation; for instance <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes</literal> is an option within
65 the APT tool group, for the Get tool. Options do not inherit from their
68 <para>Syntactically the configuration language is modeled after what the ISC tools
69 such as bind and dhcp use. Lines starting with
70 <literal>//</literal> are treated as comments (ignored), as well as all text
71 between <literal>/*</literal> and <literal>*/</literal>, just like C/C++ comments.
72 Each line is of the form
73 <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes "true";
</literal>.
74 The quotation marks and trailing semicolon are required.
75 The value must be on one line, and there is no kind of string concatenation.
76 Values must not include backslashes or extra quotation marks.
77 Option names are made up of alphanumeric characters and the characters "/-:._+".
78 A new scope can be opened with curly braces, like this:
</para>
80 <informalexample><programlisting>
87 </programlisting></informalexample>
89 <para>with newlines placed to make it more readable. Lists can be created by
90 opening a scope and including a single string enclosed in quotes followed by a
91 semicolon. Multiple entries can be included, separated by a semicolon.
</para>
93 <informalexample><programlisting>
94 DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt";};
95 </programlisting></informalexample>
97 <para>In general the sample configuration file
&configureindex;
98 is a good guide for how it should look.
</para>
100 <para>Case is not significant in names of configuration items, so in the
101 previous example you could use
<literal>dpkg::pre-install-pkgs
</literal>.
</para>
103 <para>Names for the configuration items are optional if a list is defined as can be seen in
104 the
<literal>DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs
</literal> example above. If you don't specify a name a
105 new entry will simply add a new option to the list. If you specify a name you can override
106 the option in the same way as any other option by reassigning a new value to the option.
</para>
108 <para>Two special commands are defined:
<literal>#include
</literal> (which is
109 deprecated and not supported by alternative implementations) and
110 <literal>#clear
</literal>.
<literal>#include
</literal> will include the
111 given file, unless the filename ends in a slash, in which case the whole
112 directory is included.
113 <literal>#clear
</literal> is used to erase a part of the configuration tree. The
114 specified element and all its descendants are erased.
115 (Note that these lines also need to end with a semicolon.)
</para>
118 The
<literal>#clear
</literal> command is the only way to delete a list or
119 a complete scope. Reopening a scope (or using the syntax described below
120 with an appended
<literal>::
</literal>) will
<emphasis>not
</emphasis>
121 override previously written entries. Options can only be overridden by
122 addressing a new value to them - lists and scopes can't be overridden,
126 <para>All of the APT tools take an -o option which allows an arbitrary configuration
127 directive to be specified on the command line. The syntax is a full option
128 name (
<literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes
</literal> for instance) followed by an equals
129 sign then the new value of the option. To append a new element to a list, add a
130 trailing
<literal>::
</literal> to the name of the list.
131 (As you might suspect, the scope syntax can't be used on the command line.)
</para>
134 Note that appending items to a list using
<literal>::
</literal> only works
135 for one item per line, and that you should not use it in combination with
136 the scope syntax (which adds
<literal>::
</literal> implicitly). Using both
137 syntaxes together will trigger a bug which some users unfortunately depend
138 on: an option with the unusual name "
<literal>::
</literal>" which acts
139 like every other option with a name. This introduces many problems; for
140 one thing, users who write multiple lines in this
141 <emphasis>wrong</emphasis> syntax in the hope of appending to a list will
142 achieve the opposite, as only the last assignment for this option
143 "<literal>::
</literal>" will be used. Future versions of APT will raise
144 errors and stop working if they encounter this misuse, so please correct
145 such statements now while APT doesn't explicitly complain about them.
149 <refsect1><title>The APT Group</title>
150 <para>This group of options controls general APT behavior as well as holding the
151 options for all of the tools.</para>
154 <varlistentry><term><option>Architecture</option></term>
155 <listitem><para>System Architecture; sets the architecture to use when fetching files and
156 parsing package lists. The internal default is the architecture apt was
157 compiled for.</para></listitem>
160 <varlistentry><term><option>Architectures</option></term>
162 All Architectures the system supports. For instance, CPUs implementing
163 the <literal>amd64</literal> (also called <literal>x86-64</literal>)
164 instruction set are also able to execute binaries compiled for the
165 <literal>i386</literal> (<literal>x86</literal>) instruction set. This
166 list is used when fetching files and parsing package lists. The
167 initial default is always the system's native architecture
168 (<literal>APT::Architecture</literal>), and foreign architectures are
169 added to the default list when they are registered via
170 <command>dpkg --add-architecture</command>.
174 <varlistentry><term><option>Build-Profiles</option></term>
176 List of all build profiles enabled for build-dependency resolution,
177 without the "<literal>profile.
</literal>" namespace prefix.
178 By default this list is empty. The <envar>DEB_BUILD_PROFILES</envar>
179 as used by &dpkg-buildpackage; overrides the list notation.
183 <varlistentry><term><option>Default-Release</option></term>
184 <listitem><para>Default release to install packages from if more than one
185 version is available. Contains release name, codename or release version. Examples: 'stable', 'testing',
186 'unstable', '&stable-codename;', '&testing-codename;', '4.0', '5.0*'. See also &apt-preferences;.</para></listitem>
189 <varlistentry><term><option>Ignore-Hold</option></term>
190 <listitem><para>Ignore held packages; this global option causes the problem resolver to
191 ignore held packages in its decision making.</para></listitem>
194 <varlistentry><term><option>Clean-Installed</option></term>
195 <listitem><para>Defaults to on. When turned on the autoclean feature will remove any packages
196 which can no longer be downloaded from the cache. If turned off then
197 packages that are locally installed are also excluded from cleaning - but
198 note that APT provides no direct means to reinstall them.</para></listitem>
201 <varlistentry><term><option>Immediate-Configure</option></term>
203 Defaults to on, which will cause APT to install essential and important
204 packages as soon as possible in an install/upgrade operation, in order
205 to limit the effect of a failing &dpkg; call. If this option is
206 disabled, APT treats an important package in the same way as an extra
207 package: between the unpacking of the package A and its configuration
208 there can be many other unpack or configuration calls for other
209 unrelated packages B, C etc. If these cause the &dpkg; call to fail
210 (e.g. because package B's maintainer scripts generate an error), this
211 results in a system state in which package A is unpacked but
212 unconfigured - so any package depending on A is now no longer
213 guaranteed to work, as its dependency on A is no longer satisfied.
215 The immediate configuration marker is also applied in the potentially
216 problematic case of circular dependencies, since a dependency with the
217 immediate flag is equivalent to a Pre-Dependency. In theory this allows
218 APT to recognise a situation in which it is unable to perform immediate
219 configuration, abort, and suggest to the user that the option should be
220 temporarily deactivated in order to allow the operation to proceed.
221 Note the use of the word "theory" here; in the real world this problem
222 has rarely been encountered, in non-stable distribution versions, and
223 was caused by wrong dependencies of the package in question or by a
224 system in an already broken state; so you should not blindly disable
225 this option, as the scenario mentioned above is not the only problem it
226 can help to prevent in the first place.
228 Before a big operation like
<literal>dist-upgrade
</literal> is run
229 with this option disabled you should try to explicitly
230 <literal>install
</literal> the package APT is unable to configure
231 immediately; but please make sure you also report your problem to your
232 distribution and to the APT team with the buglink below, so they can
233 work on improving or correcting the upgrade process.
237 <varlistentry><term><option>Force-LoopBreak
</option></term>
239 Never enable this option unless you
<emphasis>really
</emphasis> know
240 what you are doing. It permits APT to temporarily remove an essential
241 package to break a Conflicts/Conflicts or Conflicts/Pre-Depends loop
242 between two essential packages.
<emphasis>Such a loop should never exist
243 and is a grave bug
</emphasis>. This option will work if the essential
244 packages are not
<command>tar
</command>,
<command>gzip
</command>,
245 <command>libc
</command>,
<command>dpkg
</command>,
<command>dash
</command>
246 or anything that those packages depend on.
250 <varlistentry><term><option>Cache-Start
</option></term><term><option>Cache-Grow
</option></term><term><option>Cache-Limit
</option></term>
251 <listitem><para>APT uses since version
0.7.26 a resizable memory mapped cache file to store the available
252 information.
<literal>Cache-Start
</literal> acts as a hint of the size the cache will grow to,
253 and is therefore the amount of memory APT will request at startup. The default value is
254 20971520 bytes (~
20 MB). Note that this amount of space needs to be available for APT;
255 otherwise it will likely fail ungracefully, so for memory restricted devices this value should
256 be lowered while on systems with a lot of configured sources it should be increased.
257 <literal>Cache-Grow
</literal> defines in bytes with the default of
1048576 (~
1 MB) how much
258 the cache size will be increased in the event the space defined by
<literal>Cache-Start
</literal>
259 is not enough. This value will be applied again and again until either the cache is big
260 enough to store all information or the size of the cache reaches the
<literal>Cache-Limit
</literal>.
261 The default of
<literal>Cache-Limit
</literal> is
0 which stands for no limit.
262 If
<literal>Cache-Grow
</literal> is set to
0 the automatic growth of the cache is disabled.
266 <varlistentry><term><option>Build-Essential
</option></term>
267 <listitem><para>Defines which packages are considered essential build dependencies.
</para></listitem>
270 <varlistentry><term><option>Get
</option></term>
271 <listitem><para>The Get subsection controls the &apt-get; tool; please see its
272 documentation for more information about the options here.
</para></listitem>
275 <varlistentry><term><option>Cache
</option></term>
276 <listitem><para>The Cache subsection controls the &apt-cache; tool; please see its
277 documentation for more information about the options here.
</para></listitem>
280 <varlistentry><term><option>CDROM
</option></term>
281 <listitem><para>The CDROM subsection controls the &apt-cdrom; tool; please see its
282 documentation for more information about the options here.
</para></listitem>
287 <refsect1><title>The Acquire Group
</title>
288 <para>The
<literal>Acquire
</literal> group of options controls the
289 download of packages as well as the various "acquire methods" responsible
290 for the download itself (see also &sources-list;).
</para>
293 <varlistentry><term><option>Check-Valid-Until
</option></term>
295 Security related option defaulting to true, as giving a Release file's
296 validation an expiration date prevents replay attacks over a long
297 timescale, and can also for example help users to identify mirrors
298 that are no longer updated - but the feature depends on the
299 correctness of the clock on the user system. Archive maintainers are
300 encouraged to create Release files with the
301 <literal>Valid-Until
</literal> header, but if they don't or a
302 stricter value is desired the
<literal>Max-ValidTime
</literal>
303 option below can be used.
307 <varlistentry><term><option>Max-ValidTime
</option></term>
308 <listitem><para>Maximum time (in seconds) after its creation (as indicated
309 by the
<literal>Date
</literal> header) that the
<filename>Release
</filename>
310 file should be considered valid.
311 If the Release file itself includes a
<literal>Valid-Until
</literal> header
312 the earlier date of the two is used as the expiration date.
313 The default value is
<literal>0</literal> which stands for "valid forever".
314 Archive specific settings can be made by appending the label of the archive
319 <varlistentry><term><option>Min-ValidTime
</option></term>
320 <listitem><para>Minimum time (in seconds) after its creation (as indicated
321 by the
<literal>Date
</literal> header) that the
<filename>Release
</filename>
322 file should be considered valid.
323 Use this if you need to use a seldom updated (local) mirror of a more
324 frequently updated archive with a
<literal>Valid-Until
</literal> header
325 instead of completely disabling the expiration date checking.
326 Archive specific settings can and should be used by appending the label of
327 the archive to the option name.
331 <varlistentry><term><option>PDiffs
</option></term>
332 <listitem><para>Try to download deltas called
<literal>PDiffs
</literal> for
333 indexes (like
<filename>Packages
</filename> files) instead of downloading
334 whole ones. True by default.
</para>
335 <para>Two sub-options to limit the use of PDiffs are also available:
336 <literal>FileLimit
</literal> can be used to specify a maximum number of
337 PDiff files should be downloaded to update a file.
<literal>SizeLimit
</literal>
338 on the other hand is the maximum percentage of the size of all patches
339 compared to the size of the targeted file. If one of these limits is
340 exceeded the complete file is downloaded instead of the patches.
344 <varlistentry><term><option>Queue-Mode
</option></term>
345 <listitem><para>Queuing mode;
<literal>Queue-Mode
</literal> can be one of
<literal>host
</literal> or
346 <literal>access
</literal> which determines how APT parallelizes outgoing
347 connections.
<literal>host
</literal> means that one connection per target host
348 will be opened,
<literal>access
</literal> means that one connection per URI type
349 will be opened.
</para></listitem>
352 <varlistentry><term><option>Retries
</option></term>
353 <listitem><para>Number of retries to perform. If this is non-zero APT will retry failed
354 files the given number of times.
</para></listitem>
357 <varlistentry><term><option>Source-Symlinks
</option></term>
358 <listitem><para>Use symlinks for source archives. If set to true then source archives will
359 be symlinked when possible instead of copying. True is the default.
</para></listitem>
362 <varlistentry><term><option>http
</option></term>
363 <listitem><para><literal>http::Proxy
</literal> sets the default proxy to use for HTTP
364 URIs. It is in the standard form of
<literal>http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/
</literal>.
365 Per host proxies can also be specified by using the form
366 <literal>http::Proxy::
<host
></literal> with the special keyword
<literal>DIRECT
</literal>
367 meaning to use no proxies. If no one of the above settings is specified,
368 <envar>http_proxy
</envar> environment variable
371 <para>Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/
1.1 compliant
373 <literal>No-Cache
</literal> tells the proxy not to use its cached
374 response under any circumstances.
375 <literal>Max-Age
</literal> sets the allowed maximum age (in seconds) of
376 an index file in the cache of the proxy.
377 <literal>No-Store
</literal> specifies that the proxy should not store
378 the requested archive files in its cache, which can be used to prevent
379 the proxy from polluting its cache with (big) .deb files.
</para>
381 <para>The option
<literal>timeout
</literal> sets the timeout timer used by the method;
382 this value applies to the connection as well as the data timeout.
</para>
384 <para>The setting
<literal>Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth
</literal> can be used to
385 enable HTTP pipelining (RFC
2616 section
8.1.2.2) which can be beneficial e.g. on
386 high-latency connections. It specifies how many requests are sent in a pipeline.
387 APT tries to detect and workaround misbehaving webservers and proxies at runtime, but
388 if you know that yours does not conform to the HTTP/
1.1 specification pipelining can
389 be disabled by setting the value to
0. It is enabled by default with the value
10.
</para>
391 <para><literal>Acquire::http::AllowRedirect
</literal> controls whether APT will follow
392 redirects, which is enabled by default.
</para>
394 <para>The used bandwidth can be limited with
395 <literal>Acquire::http::Dl-Limit
</literal> which accepts integer
396 values in kilobytes per second. The default value is
0 which
397 deactivates the limit and tries to use all available bandwidth.
398 Note that this option implicitly disables downloading from
399 multiple servers at the same time.
</para>
401 <para><literal>Acquire::http::User-Agent
</literal> can be used to set a different
402 User-Agent for the http download method as some proxies allow access for clients
403 only if the client uses a known identifier.
</para>
405 <para><literal>Acquire::http::Proxy-Auto-Detect
</literal> can be used to
406 specify an external command to discover the http proxy to use. Apt expects
407 the command to output the proxy on stdout in the style
408 <literal>http://proxy:port/
</literal>. This will override the
409 generic
<literal>Acquire::http::Proxy
</literal> but not any specific
410 host proxy configuration set via
411 <literal>Acquire::http::Proxy::$HOST
</literal>.
413 See the &squid-deb-proxy-client; package for an example implementation that
414 uses avahi. This option takes precedence over the legacy option name
415 <literal>ProxyAutoDetect
</literal>.
421 <varlistentry><term><option>https
</option></term>
423 The
<literal>Cache-control
</literal>,
<literal>Timeout
</literal>,
424 <literal>AllowRedirect
</literal>,
<literal>Dl-Limit
</literal> and
425 <literal>proxy
</literal> options work for HTTPS URIs in the same way
426 as for the
<literal>http
</literal> method, and default to the same
427 values if they are not explicitly set. The
428 <literal>Pipeline-Depth
</literal> option is not yet supported.
431 <para><literal>CaInfo
</literal> suboption specifies place of file that
432 holds info about trusted certificates.
433 <literal><host
>::CaInfo
</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
434 <literal>Verify-Peer
</literal> boolean suboption determines whether or not the
435 server's host certificate should be verified against trusted certificates.
436 <literal><host
>::Verify-Peer
</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
437 <literal>Verify-Host
</literal> boolean suboption determines whether or not the
438 server's hostname should be verified.
439 <literal><host
>::Verify-Host
</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
440 <literal>SslCert
</literal> determines what certificate to use for client
441 authentication.
<literal><host
>::SslCert
</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
442 <literal>SslKey
</literal> determines what private key to use for client
443 authentication.
<literal><host
>::SslKey
</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
444 <literal>SslForceVersion
</literal> overrides default SSL version to use.
445 It can contain either of the strings '
<literal>TLSv1
</literal>' or
446 '
<literal>SSLv3
</literal>'.
447 <literal><host
>::SslForceVersion
</literal> is the corresponding per-host option.
448 </para></listitem></varlistentry>
450 <varlistentry><term><option>ftp
</option></term>
452 <literal>ftp::Proxy
</literal> sets the default proxy to use for FTP URIs.
453 It is in the standard form of
<literal>ftp://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/
</literal>.
454 Per host proxies can also be specified by using the form
455 <literal>ftp::Proxy::
<host
></literal> with the special keyword
<literal>DIRECT
</literal>
456 meaning to use no proxies. If no one of the above settings is specified,
457 <envar>ftp_proxy
</envar> environment variable
458 will be used. To use an FTP
459 proxy you will have to set the
<literal>ftp::ProxyLogin
</literal> script in the
460 configuration file. This entry specifies the commands to send to tell
461 the proxy server what to connect to. Please see
462 &configureindex; for an example of
463 how to do this. The substitution variables representing the corresponding
464 URI component are
<literal>$(PROXY_USER)
</literal>,
465 <literal>$(PROXY_PASS)
</literal>,
<literal>$(SITE_USER)
</literal>,
466 <literal>$(SITE_PASS)
</literal>,
<literal>$(SITE)
</literal> and
467 <literal>$(SITE_PORT)
</literal>.
</para>
469 <para>The option
<literal>timeout
</literal> sets the timeout timer used by the method;
470 this value applies to the connection as well as the data timeout.
</para>
472 <para>Several settings are provided to control passive mode. Generally it is
473 safe to leave passive mode on; it works in nearly every environment.
474 However, some situations require that passive mode be disabled and port
475 mode FTP used instead. This can be done globally or for connections that
476 go through a proxy or for a specific host (see the sample config file
477 for examples).
</para>
479 <para>It is possible to proxy FTP over HTTP by setting the
<envar>ftp_proxy
</envar>
480 environment variable to an HTTP URL - see the discussion of the http method
481 above for syntax. You cannot set this in the configuration file and it is
482 not recommended to use FTP over HTTP due to its low efficiency.
</para>
484 <para>The setting
<literal>ForceExtended
</literal> controls the use of RFC2428
485 <literal>EPSV
</literal> and
<literal>EPRT
</literal> commands. The default is false, which means
486 these commands are only used if the control connection is IPv6. Setting this
487 to true forces their use even on IPv4 connections. Note that most FTP servers
488 do not support RFC2428.
</para></listitem>
491 <varlistentry><term><option>cdrom
</option></term>
493 For URIs using the
<literal>cdrom
</literal> method, the only configurable
494 option is the mount point,
<literal>cdrom::Mount
</literal>, which must be
495 the mount point for the CD-ROM (or DVD, or whatever) drive as specified in
496 <filename>/etc/fstab
</filename>. It is possible to provide alternate mount
497 and unmount commands if your mount point cannot be listed in the fstab.
498 The syntax is to put
<literallayout>/cdrom/::Mount "foo";
</literallayout> within
499 the
<literal>cdrom
</literal> block. It is important to have the trailing slash.
500 Unmount commands can be specified using UMount.
504 <varlistentry><term><option>gpgv
</option></term>
506 For GPGV URIs the only configurable option is
<literal>gpgv::Options
</literal>,
507 which passes additional parameters to gpgv.
511 <varlistentry><term><option>CompressionTypes
</option></term>
512 <listitem><para>List of compression types which are understood by the acquire methods.
513 Files like
<filename>Packages
</filename> can be available in various compression formats.
514 By default the acquire methods can decompress
<command>bzip2
</command>,
<command>lzma
</command>
515 and
<command>gzip
</command> compressed files; with this setting more formats can be added
516 on the fly or the used method can be changed. The syntax for this is:
517 <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::
<replaceable>FileExtension
</replaceable> "<replaceable>Methodname</replaceable>";
</synopsis>
518 </para><para>Also, the
<literal>Order
</literal> subgroup can be used to define in which order
519 the acquire system will try to download the compressed files. The acquire system will try the first
520 and proceed with the next compression type in this list on error, so to prefer one over the other type
521 simply add the preferred type first - default types not already added will be implicitly appended
522 to the end of the list, so e.g.
<synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order:: "gz";
</synopsis> can
523 be used to prefer
<command>gzip
</command> compressed files over
<command>bzip2
</command> and
<command>lzma
</command>.
524 If
<command>lzma
</command> should be preferred over
<command>gzip
</command> and
<command>bzip2
</command> the
525 configure setting should look like this:
<synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order { "lzma"; "gz"; };
</synopsis>
526 It is not needed to add
<literal>bz2
</literal> to the list explicitly as it will be added automatically.
</para>
528 <literal>Dir::Bin::
<replaceable>Methodname
</replaceable></literal>
529 will be checked at run time. If this option has been set, the
530 method will only be used if this file exists; e.g. for the
531 <literal>bzip2
</literal> method (the inbuilt) setting is:
532 <literallayout>Dir::Bin::bzip2 "/bin/bzip2";
</literallayout>
533 Note also that list entries specified on the command line will be added at the end of the list
534 specified in the configuration files, but before the default entries. To prefer a type in this case
535 over the ones specified in the configuration files you can set the option direct - not in list style.
536 This will not override the defined list; it will only prefix the list with this type.
</para>
537 <para>The special type
<literal>uncompressed
</literal> can be used to give uncompressed files a
538 preference, but note that most archives don't provide uncompressed files so this is mostly only
539 useable for local mirrors.
</para></listitem>
542 <varlistentry><term><option>GzipIndexes
</option></term>
544 When downloading
<literal>gzip
</literal> compressed indexes (Packages, Sources, or
545 Translations), keep them gzip compressed locally instead of unpacking
546 them. This saves quite a lot of disk space at the expense of more CPU
547 requirements when building the local package caches. False by default.
551 <varlistentry><term><option>Languages
</option></term>
552 <listitem><para>The Languages subsection controls which
<filename>Translation
</filename> files are downloaded
553 and in which order APT tries to display the description-translations. APT will try to display the first
554 available description in the language which is listed first. Languages can be defined with their
555 short or long language codes. Note that not all archives provide
<filename>Translation
</filename>
556 files for every language - the long language codes are especially rare.
</para>
557 <para>The default list includes "environment" and "en". "
<literal>environment
</literal>" has a special meaning here:
558 it will be replaced at runtime with the language codes extracted from the <literal>LC_MESSAGES</literal> environment variable.
559 It will also ensure that these codes are not included twice in the list. If <literal>LC_MESSAGES</literal>
560 is set to "C" only the
<filename>Translation-en
</filename> file (if available) will be used.
561 To force APT to use no Translation file use the setting
<literal>Acquire::Languages=none
</literal>. "
<literal>none
</literal>"
562 is another special meaning code which will stop the search for a suitable <filename>Translation</filename> file.
563 This tells APT to download these translations too, without actually
564 using them unless the environment specifies the languages. So the
565 following example configuration will result in the order "en, de" in an
566 English locale or "de, en" in a German one. Note that "fr" is
567 downloaded, but not used unless APT is used in a French locale (where
568 the order would be "fr, de, en").
569 <programlisting>Acquire::Languages { "environment"; "de"; "en"; "none"; "fr"; };
</programlisting></para>
570 <para>Note: To prevent problems resulting from APT being executed in different environments
571 (e.g. by different users or by other programs) all Translation files which are found in
572 <filename>/var/lib/apt/lists/
</filename> will be added to the end of the list
573 (after an implicit "
<literal>none
</literal>").</para>
577 <varlistentry><term><option>ForceIPv4</option></term>
579 When downloading, force to use only the IPv4 protocol.
583 <varlistentry><term><option>ForceIPv6</option></term>
585 When downloading, force to use only the IPv6 protocol.
592 <refsect1><title>Directories</title>
594 <para>The <literal>Dir::State</literal> section has directories that pertain to local
595 state information. <literal>lists</literal> is the directory to place downloaded
596 package lists in and <literal>status</literal> is the name of the &dpkg; status file.
597 <literal>preferences</literal> is the name of the APT <filename>preferences</filename> file.
598 <literal>Dir::State</literal> contains the default directory to prefix on all
599 sub-items if they do not start with <filename>/</filename> or <filename>./</filename>.</para>
601 <para><literal>Dir::Cache</literal> contains locations pertaining to local cache
602 information, such as the two package caches <literal>srcpkgcache</literal> and
603 <literal>pkgcache</literal> as well as the location to place downloaded archives,
604 <literal>Dir::Cache::archives</literal>. Generation of caches can be turned off
605 by setting <literal>pkgcache</literal> or <literal>srcpkgcache</literal> to
606 <literal>""</literal>. This will slow down startup but save disk space. It
607 is probably preferable to turn off the pkgcache rather than the srcpkgcache.
608 Like <literal>Dir::State</literal> the default directory is contained in
609 <literal>Dir::Cache</literal></para>
611 <para><literal>Dir::Etc</literal> contains the location of configuration files,
612 <literal>sourcelist</literal> gives the location of the sourcelist and
613 <literal>main</literal> is the default configuration file (setting has no effect,
614 unless it is done from the config file specified by
615 <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar>).</para>
617 <para>The <literal>Dir::Parts</literal> setting reads in all the config fragments in
618 lexical order from the directory specified. After this is done then the
619 main config file is loaded.</para>
621 <para>Binary programs are pointed to by <literal>Dir::Bin</literal>. <literal>Dir::Bin::Methods</literal>
622 specifies the location of the method handlers and <literal>gzip</literal>,
623 <literal>bzip2</literal>, <literal>lzma</literal>,
624 <literal>dpkg</literal>, <literal>apt-get</literal> <literal>dpkg-source</literal>
625 <literal>dpkg-buildpackage</literal> and <literal>apt-cache</literal> specify the location
626 of the respective programs.</para>
629 The configuration item <literal>RootDir</literal> has a special
630 meaning. If set, all paths in <literal>Dir::</literal> will be
631 relative to <literal>RootDir</literal>, <emphasis>even paths that
632 are specified absolutely</emphasis>. So, for instance, if
633 <literal>RootDir</literal> is set to
634 <filename>/tmp/staging</filename> and
635 <literal>Dir::State::status</literal> is set to
636 <filename>/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>, then the status file
638 <filename>/tmp/staging/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>.
642 The <literal>Ignore-Files-Silently</literal> list can be used to specify
643 which files APT should silently ignore while parsing the files in the
644 fragment directories. Per default a file which end with <literal>.disabled</literal>,
645 <literal>~</literal>, <literal>.bak</literal> or <literal>.dpkg-[a-z]+</literal>
646 is silently ignored. As seen in the last default value these patterns can use regular
651 <refsect1><title>APT in DSelect</title>
653 When APT is used as a &dselect; method several configuration directives
654 control the default behavior. These are in the <literal>DSelect</literal> section.</para>
657 <varlistentry><term><option>Clean</option></term>
658 <listitem><para>Cache Clean mode; this value may be one of
659 <literal>always</literal>, <literal>prompt</literal>,
660 <literal>auto</literal>, <literal>pre-auto</literal> and
661 <literal>never</literal>.
662 <literal>always</literal> and <literal>prompt</literal> will remove
663 all packages from the cache after upgrading, <literal>prompt</literal>
664 (the default) does so conditionally.
665 <literal>auto</literal> removes only those packages which are no longer
666 downloadable (replaced with a new version for instance).
667 <literal>pre-auto</literal> performs this action before downloading
668 new packages.</para></listitem>
671 <varlistentry><term><option>options</option></term>
672 <listitem><para>The contents of this variable are passed to &apt-get; as command line
673 options when it is run for the install phase.</para></listitem>
676 <varlistentry><term><option>Updateoptions</option></term>
677 <listitem><para>The contents of this variable are passed to &apt-get; as command line
678 options when it is run for the update phase.</para></listitem>
681 <varlistentry><term><option>PromptAfterUpdate</option></term>
682 <listitem><para>If true the [U]pdate operation in &dselect; will always prompt to continue.
683 The default is to prompt only on error.</para></listitem>
688 <refsect1><title>How APT calls &dpkg;</title>
689 <para>Several configuration directives control how APT invokes &dpkg;. These are
690 in the <literal>DPkg</literal> section.</para>
693 <varlistentry><term><option>options</option></term>
694 <listitem><para>This is a list of options to pass to &dpkg;. The options must be specified
695 using the list notation and each list item is passed as a single argument
696 to &dpkg;.</para></listitem>
699 <varlistentry><term><option>Pre-Invoke</option></term><term><option>Post-Invoke</option></term>
700 <listitem><para>This is a list of shell commands to run before/after invoking &dpkg;.
701 Like <literal>options</literal> this must be specified in list notation. The
702 commands are invoked in order using <filename>/bin/sh</filename>; should any
703 fail APT will abort.</para></listitem>
706 <varlistentry><term><option>Pre-Install-Pkgs</option></term>
707 <listitem><para>This is a list of shell commands to run before invoking &dpkg;. Like
708 <literal>options</literal> this must be specified in list notation. The commands
709 are invoked in order using <filename>/bin/sh</filename>; should any fail APT
710 will abort. APT will pass the filenames of all .deb files it is going to
711 install to the commands, one per line on the requested file descriptor, defaulting
712 to standard input.</para>
714 <para>Version 2 of this protocol dumps more information, including the
715 protocol version, the APT configuration space and the packages, files
716 and versions being changed. Version 3 adds the architecture and <literal>MultiArch</literal>
717 flag to each version being dumped.</para>
719 <para>The version of the protocol to be used for the command
720 <literal><replaceable>cmd</replaceable></literal> can be chosen by setting
721 <literal>DPkg::Tools::options::<replaceable>cmd</replaceable>::Version</literal>
722 accordingly, the default being version 1. If APT isn't supporting the requested
723 version it will send the information in the highest version it has support for instead.
726 <para>The file descriptor to be used to send the information can be requested with
727 <literal>DPkg::Tools::options::<replaceable>cmd</replaceable>::InfoFD</literal>
728 which defaults to <literal>0</literal> for standard input and is available since
729 version 0.9.11. Support for the option can be detected by looking for the environment
730 variable <envar>APT_HOOK_INFO_FD</envar> which contains the number of the used
731 file descriptor as a confirmation.</para>
735 <varlistentry><term><option>Run-Directory</option></term>
736 <listitem><para>APT chdirs to this directory before invoking &dpkg;, the default is
737 <filename>/</filename>.</para></listitem>
740 <varlistentry><term><option>Build-options</option></term>
741 <listitem><para>These options are passed to &dpkg-buildpackage; when compiling packages;
742 the default is to disable signing and produce all binaries.</para></listitem>
746 <refsect2><title>dpkg trigger usage (and related options)</title>
747 <para>APT can call &dpkg; in such a way as to let it make aggressive use of triggers over
748 multiple calls of &dpkg;. Without further options &dpkg; will use triggers once each time it runs.
749 Activating these options can therefore decrease the time needed to perform the
750 install or upgrade. Note that it is intended to activate these options per default in the
751 future, but as it drastically changes the way APT calls &dpkg; it needs a lot more testing.
752 <emphasis>These options are therefore currently experimental and should not be used in
753 production environments.</emphasis> It also breaks progress reporting such that all front-ends will
754 currently stay around half (or more) of the time in the 100% state while it actually configures
756 <para>Note that it is not guaranteed that APT will support these options or that these options will
757 not cause (big) trouble in the future. If you have understand the current risks and problems with
758 these options, but are brave enough to help testing them, create a new configuration file and test a
759 combination of options. Please report any bugs, problems and improvements you encounter and make sure
760 to note which options you have used in your reports. Asking &dpkg; for help could also be useful for
761 debugging proposes, see e.g. <command>dpkg --audit</command>. A defensive option combination would be
762 <literallayout>DPkg::NoTriggers "true";
763 PackageManager::Configure "smart";
764 DPkg::ConfigurePending "true";
765 DPkg::TriggersPending "true";
</literallayout></para>
768 <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::NoTriggers
</option></term>
769 <listitem><para>Add the no triggers flag to all
&dpkg; calls (except the ConfigurePending call).
770 See
&dpkg; if you are interested in what this actually means. In short:
&dpkg; will not run the
771 triggers when this flag is present unless it is explicitly called to do so in an extra call.
772 Note that this option exists (undocumented) also in older APT versions with a slightly different
773 meaning: Previously these option only append --no-triggers to the configure calls to
&dpkg; -
774 now APT will also add this flag to the unpack and remove calls.
</para></listitem>
776 <varlistentry><term><option>PackageManager::Configure
</option></term>
777 <listitem><para>Valid values are "
<literal>all
</literal>",
778 "<literal>smart
</literal>" and "<literal>no
</literal>".
779 The default value is "<literal>all
</literal>", which causes APT to
780 configure all packages. The "<literal>smart
</literal>" way is to
781 configure only packages which need to be configured before another
782 package can be unpacked (Pre-Depends), and let the rest be configured
783 by &dpkg; with a call generated by the ConfigurePending option (see
784 below). On the other hand, "<literal>no
</literal>" will not configure
785 anything, and totally relies on &dpkg; for configuration (which at the
786 moment will fail if a Pre-Depends is encountered). Setting this option
787 to any value other than <literal>all</literal> will implicitly also
788 activate the next option by default, as otherwise the system could end
789 in an unconfigured and potentially unbootable state.</para></listitem>
791 <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::ConfigurePending</option></term>
792 <listitem><para>If this option is set APT will call <command>dpkg --configure --pending</command>
793 to let &dpkg; handle all required configurations and triggers. This option is activated automatically
794 per default if the previous option is not set to <literal>all</literal>, but deactivating it could be useful
795 if you want to run APT multiple times in a row - e.g. in an installer. In these sceneries you could
796 deactivate this option in all but the last run.</para></listitem>
798 <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::TriggersPending</option></term>
799 <listitem><para>Useful for the <literal>smart</literal> configuration as a package which has pending
800 triggers is not considered as <literal>installed</literal>, and &dpkg; treats them as <literal>unpacked</literal>
801 currently which is a showstopper for Pre-Dependencies (see debbugs #526774). Note that this will
802 process all triggers, not only the triggers needed to configure this package.</para></listitem>
804 <varlistentry><term><option>OrderList::Score::Immediate</option></term>
805 <listitem><para>Essential packages (and their dependencies) should be configured immediately
806 after unpacking. It is a good idea to do this quite early in the upgrade process as these
807 configure calls also currently require <literal>DPkg::TriggersPending</literal> which
808 will run quite a few triggers (which may not be needed). Essentials get per default a high score
809 but the immediate flag is relatively low (a package which has a Pre-Depends is rated higher).
810 These option and the others in the same group can be used to change the scoring. The following
811 example shows the settings with their default values.
812 <literallayout>OrderList::Score {
825 <title>Periodic and Archives options</title>
826 <para><literal>APT::Periodic</literal> and <literal>APT::Archives</literal>
827 groups of options configure behavior of apt periodic updates, which is
828 done by the <literal>/etc/cron.daily/apt</literal> script. See the top of
829 this script for the brief documentation of these options.
834 <title>Debug options</title>
836 Enabling options in the <literal>Debug::</literal> section will
837 cause debugging information to be sent to the standard error
838 stream of the program utilizing the <literal>apt</literal>
839 libraries, or enable special program modes that are primarily
840 useful for debugging the behavior of <literal>apt</literal>.
841 Most of these options are not interesting to a normal user, but a
847 <literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal> enables output
848 about the decisions made by
849 <literal>dist-upgrade, upgrade, install, remove, purge</literal>.
855 <literal>Debug::NoLocking</literal> disables all file
856 locking. This can be used to run some operations (for
857 instance, <literal>apt-get -s install</literal>) as a
864 <literal>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</literal> prints out the actual
865 command line each time that <literal>apt</literal> invokes
872 <literal>Debug::IdentCdrom</literal> disables the inclusion
873 of statfs data in CD-ROM IDs. <!-- TODO: provide a
874 motivating example, except I haven't a clue why you'd want
882 A full list of debugging options to apt follows.
887 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::cdrom</option></term>
891 Print information related to accessing
892 <literal>cdrom://</literal> sources.
898 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::ftp</option></term>
902 Print information related to downloading packages using
909 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::http</option></term>
913 Print information related to downloading packages using
920 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::https</option></term>
924 Print information related to downloading packages using
931 <term><option>Debug::Acquire::gpgv</option></term>
935 Print information related to verifying cryptographic
936 signatures using <literal>gpg</literal>.
942 <term><option>Debug::aptcdrom</option></term>
946 Output information about the process of accessing
947 collections of packages stored on CD-ROMs.
953 <term><option>Debug::BuildDeps</option></term>
956 Describes the process of resolving build-dependencies in
963 <term><option>Debug::Hashes</option></term>
966 Output each cryptographic hash that is generated by the
967 <literal>apt</literal> libraries.
973 <term><option>Debug::IdentCDROM</option></term>
976 Do not include information from <literal>statfs</literal>,
977 namely the number of used and free blocks on the CD-ROM
978 filesystem, when generating an ID for a CD-ROM.
984 <term><option>Debug::NoLocking</option></term>
987 Disable all file locking. For instance, this will allow
988 two instances of <quote><literal>apt-get
989 update</literal></quote> to run at the same time.
995 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire</option></term>
999 Log when items are added to or removed from the global
1006 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Auth</option></term>
1009 Output status messages and errors related to verifying
1010 checksums and cryptographic signatures of downloaded files.
1016 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Diffs</option></term>
1019 Output information about downloading and applying package
1020 index list diffs, and errors relating to package index list
1027 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::RRed</option></term>
1031 Output information related to patching apt package lists
1032 when downloading index diffs instead of full indices.
1038 <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Worker</option></term>
1042 Log all interactions with the sub-processes that actually
1049 <term><option>Debug::pkgAutoRemove</option></term>
1053 Log events related to the automatically-installed status of
1054 packages and to the removal of unused packages.
1060 <term><option>Debug::pkgDepCache::AutoInstall</option></term>
1063 Generate debug messages describing which packages are being
1064 automatically installed to resolve dependencies. This
1065 corresponds to the initial auto-install pass performed in,
1066 e.g., <literal>apt-get install</literal>, and not to the
1067 full <literal>apt</literal> dependency resolver; see
1068 <literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal> for that.
1074 <term><option>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</option></term>
1077 Generate debug messages describing which packages are marked
1078 as keep/install/remove while the ProblemResolver does his work.
1079 Each addition or deletion may trigger additional actions;
1080 they are shown indented two additional spaces under the original entry.
1081 The format for each line is <literal>MarkKeep</literal>,
1082 <literal>MarkDelete</literal> or <literal>MarkInstall</literal> followed by
1083 <literal>package-name <a.b.c -> d.e.f | x.y.z> (section)</literal>
1084 where <literal>a.b.c</literal> is the current version of the package,
1085 <literal>d.e.f</literal> is the version considered for installation and
1086 <literal>x.y.z</literal> is a newer version, but not considered for installation
1087 (because of a low pin score). The later two can be omitted if there is none or if
1088 it is the same as the installed version.
1089 <literal>section</literal> is the name of the section the package appears in.
1095 <term><option>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</option></term>
1098 When invoking &dpkg;, output the precise command line with
1099 which it is being invoked, with arguments separated by a
1100 single space character.
1106 <term><option>Debug::pkgDPkgProgressReporting</option></term>
1109 Output all the data received from &dpkg; on the status file
1110 descriptor and any errors encountered while parsing it.
1116 <term><option>Debug::pkgOrderList</option></term>
1120 Generate a trace of the algorithm that decides the order in
1121 which <literal>apt</literal> should pass packages to
1128 <term><option>Debug::pkgPackageManager</option></term>
1132 Output status messages tracing the steps performed when
1139 <term><option>Debug::pkgPolicy</option></term>
1143 Output the priority of each package list on startup.
1149 <term><option>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</option></term>
1153 Trace the execution of the dependency resolver (this
1154 applies only to what happens when a complex dependency
1155 problem is encountered).
1161 <term><option>Debug::pkgProblemResolver::ShowScores</option></term>
1164 Display a list of all installed packages with their calculated score
1165 used by the pkgProblemResolver. The description of the package
1166 is the same as described in <literal>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</literal>
1172 <term><option>Debug::sourceList</option></term>
1176 Print information about the vendors read from
1177 <filename>/etc/apt/vendors.list</filename>.
1183 <term><option>Debug::RunScripts</option></term>
1186 Display the external commands that are called by apt hooks.
1187 This includes e.g. the config options
1188 <literal>DPkg::{Pre,Post}-Invoke</literal> or
1189 <literal>APT::Update::{Pre,Post}-Invoke</literal>.
1194 <!-- 2009/07/11 Currently used nowhere. The corresponding code
1197 <term><literal>Debug::Vendor</literal></term>
1201 Print information about each vendor.
1210 <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
1211 <para>&configureindex; is a
1212 configuration file showing example values for all possible
1216 <refsect1><title>Files</title>
1222 <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
1223 <para>&apt-cache;, &apt-config;<!-- ? reading apt.conf -->, &apt-preferences;.</para>