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 <!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent">
   9 %aptverbatiment;
  10
  11 ]>
  12
  13 <refentry>
  14
  15  <refentryinfo>
  16    &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
  17    &apt-author.team;
  18    &apt-email;
  19    &apt-product;
  20    <!-- The last update date -->
  21    <date>29 February 2004</date>
  22  </refentryinfo>
  23
  24  <refmeta>
  25    <refentrytitle>sources.list</refentrytitle>
  26    <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
  27    <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
  28  </refmeta>
  29
  30  <!-- Man page title -->
  31  <refnamediv>
  32     <refname>sources.list</refname>
  33     <refpurpose>Package resource list for APT</refpurpose>
  34  </refnamediv>
  35
  36  <refsect1><title>Description</title>
  37    <para>The package resource list is used to locate archives of the package
  38    distribution system in use on the system. At this time, this manual page
  39    documents only the packaging system used by the Debian GNU/Linux system.
  40    This control file is <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename>.</para>
  41
  42    <para>The source list is designed to support any number of active sources and a
  43    variety of source media. The file lists one source per line, with the
  44    most preferred source listed first. The format of each line is:
  45    <literal>type uri args</literal> The first item, <literal>type</literal>
  46    determines the format for <literal>args</literal>. <literal>uri</literal> is
  47    a Universal Resource Identifier
  48    (URI), which is a superset of the more specific and well-known Universal
  49    Resource Locator, or URL. The rest of the line can be marked as a comment
  50    by using a #.</para>
  51  </refsect1>
  52
  53  <refsect1><title>sources.list.d</title>
  54    <para>The <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list.d</filename> directory provides
  55    a way to add sources.list entries in separate files.
  56    The format is the same as for the regular <filename>sources.list</filename> file.
  57    File names need to end with
  58    <filename>.list</filename> and may only contain letters (a-z and A-Z),
  59    digits (0-9), underscore (_), hyphen (-) and period (.) characters.
  60    Otherwise they will be silently ignored.</para>
  61  </refsect1>
  62
  63  <refsect1><title>The deb and deb-src types</title>
  64    <para>The <literal>deb</literal> type describes a typical two-level Debian
  65    archive, <filename>distribution/component</filename>. Typically,
  66    <literal>distribution</literal> is generally one of
  67    <literal>stable</literal> <literal>unstable</literal> or
  68    <literal>testing</literal> while component is one of <literal>main</literal>
  69    <literal>contrib</literal> <literal>non-free</literal> or
  70    <literal>non-us</literal>. The
  71    <literal>deb-src</literal> type describes a debian distribution's source
  72    code in the same form as the <literal>deb</literal> type.
  73    A <literal>deb-src</literal> line is required to fetch source indexes.</para>
  74
  75
  76    <para>The format for a <filename>sources.list</filename> entry using the
  77    <literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types is:</para>
  78
  79    <literallayout>deb uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>
  80
  81    <para>The URI for the <literal>deb</literal> type must specify the base of the
  82    Debian distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs.
  83    <literal>distribution</literal> can specify an exact path, in which case the
  84    components must be omitted and <literal>distribution</literal> must end with
  85    a slash (/). This is useful for when the case only a particular sub-section of the
  86    archive denoted by the URI is of interest.
  87    If <literal>distribution</literal> does not specify an exact path, at least
  88    one <literal>component</literal> must be present.</para>
  89
  90    <para><literal>distribution</literal> may also contain a variable,
  91    <literal>$(ARCH)</literal>
  92    which expands to the Debian architecture (i386, m68k, powerpc, ...)
  93    used on the system. This permits architecture-independent
  94    <filename>sources.list</filename> files to be used. In general this is only
  95    of interest when specifying an exact path, <literal>APT</literal> will
  96    automatically generate a URI with the current architecture otherwise.</para>
  97
  98    <para>Since only one distribution can be specified per line it may be necessary
  99    to have multiple lines for the same URI, if a subset of all available
 100    distributions or components at that location is desired.
 101    APT will sort the URI list after it has generated a complete set
 102    internally, and will collapse multiple references to the same Internet
 103    host, for instance, into a single connection, so that it does not
 104    inefficiently establish an FTP connection, close it, do something else,
 105    and then re-establish a connection to that same host. This feature is
 106    useful for accessing busy FTP sites with limits on the number of
 107    simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to
 108    different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.</para>
 109
 110    <para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
 111    preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
 112    by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
 113    network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>
 114
 115    <para>Some examples:</para>
 116    <literallayout>
 117 deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main contrib non-free
 118 deb http://security.debian.org/ &stable-codename;/updates main contrib non-free
 119    </literallayout>
 120
 121  </refsect1>
 122
 123  <refsect1><title>URI specification</title>
 124
 125    <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
 126    ssh, rsh.
 127    <variablelist>
 128     <varlistentry><term>file</term>
 129     <listitem><para>
 130     The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
 131     considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
 132     archives.</para></listitem>
 133     </varlistentry>
 134
 135     <varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
 136     <listitem><para>
 137     The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
 138     swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
 139     source list.</para></listitem>
 140     </varlistentry>
 141
 142     <varlistentry><term>http</term>
 143     <listitem><para>
 144     The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
 145     variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format
 146     http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
 147     <envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
 148     HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
 149     http://user:pass@server:port/.
 150     Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
 151     </varlistentry>
 152
 153     <varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
 154     <listitem><para>
 155     The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
 156     is highly configurable; for more information see the
 157     &apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
 158     by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
 159     to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
 160     using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
 161     the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
 162     </varlistentry>
 163
 164     <varlistentry><term>copy</term>
 165     <listitem><para>
 166     The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
 167     copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
 168     This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
 169     </varlistentry>
 170
 171     <varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
 172     <listitem><para>
 173     The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
 174         as a given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
 175         arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts.
 176     Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
 177     <command>dd</command>
 178     commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
 179     </varlistentry>
 180
 181     <varlistentry><term>more recognizable URI types</term>
 182     <listitem><para>
 183     APT can be extended with more methods shipped in other optional packages which should
 184     follow the nameing scheme <literal>apt-transport-<replaceable>method</replaceable></literal>.
 185     The APT team e.g. maintains also the <literal>apt-transport-https</literal> package which
 186     provides access methods for https-URIs with features similar to the http method, but other
 187     methods for using e.g. debtorrent are also available, see <citerefentry>
 188     <refentrytitle><filename>apt-transport-debtorrent</filename></refentrytitle>
 189     <manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
 190     </para></listitem>
 191     </varlistentry>
 192   </variablelist>
 193  </para>
 194  </refsect1>
 195
 196  <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
 197    <para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
 198    for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
 199    <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 200
 201    <para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
 202    <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 203
 204    <para>Source line for the above</para>
 205    <literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 206
 207    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
 208    the hamm/main area.</para>
 209    <literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>
 210
 211    <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
 212    directory, and uses only the &stable-codename;/contrib area.</para>
 213    <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; contrib</literallayout>
 214
 215    <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
 216    directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
 217    well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>
 218    a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
 219    <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>
 220
 221    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
 222     debian-non-US directory.</para>
 223    <literallayout>deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free</literallayout>
 224
 225    <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
 226    debian-non-US directory, and uses only files found under
 227    <filename>unstable/binary-i386</filename> on i386 machines,
 228    <filename>unstable/binary-m68k</filename> on m68k, and so
 229    forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
 230    illustrates how to use the substitution variable; non-us is no longer
 231    structured like this]
 232    <literallayout>deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
 233    </para>
 234  </refsect1>
 235
 236  <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
 237    <para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
 238    </para>
 239  </refsect1>
 240
 241  &manbugs;
 242
 243 </refentry>
 244