<!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent">
%aptent;
+<!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent">
+%aptverbatiment;
+
]>
<refentry>
&apt-author.jgunthorpe;
&apt-author.team;
<author>
- <firstname>Daniel</firstname>
- <surname>Burrows</surname>
+ &apt-name.dburrows;
<contrib>Initial documentation of Debug::*.</contrib>
<email>dburrows@debian.org</email>
</author>
&apt-email;
&apt-product;
<!-- The last update date -->
- <date>10 December 2008</date>
+ <date>2012-05-21T00:00:00Z</date>
</refentryinfo>
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>apt.conf</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
+ <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>
<!-- Man page title -->
</refnamediv>
<refsect1><title>Description</title>
- <para><filename>apt.conf</filename> is the main configuration file for the APT suite of
- tools, all tools make use of the configuration file and a common command line
- parser to provide a uniform environment. When an APT tool starts up it will
- read the configuration specified by the <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar> environment
- variable (if any) and then read the files in <literal>Dir::Etc::Parts</literal>
- then read the main configuration file specified by
- <literal>Dir::Etc::main</literal> then finally apply the
- command line options to override the configuration directives, possibly
- loading even more config files.</para>
-
+ <para><filename>apt.conf</filename> is the main configuration file for
+ the APT suite of tools, but by far not the only place changes to options
+ can be made. All tools therefore share the configuration files and also
+ use a common command line parser to provide a uniform environment.</para>
+ <orderedlist>
+ <para>When an APT tool starts up it will read the configuration files
+ in the following order:</para>
+ <listitem><para>the file specified by the <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar>
+ environment variable (if any)</para></listitem>
+ <listitem><para>all files in <literal>Dir::Etc::Parts</literal> in
+ alphanumeric ascending order which have either no or "<literal>conf</literal>"
+ as filename extension and which only contain alphanumeric,
+ hyphen (-), underscore (_) and period (.) characters.
+ Otherwise APT will print a notice that it has ignored a file if the file
+ doesn't match a pattern in the <literal>Dir::Ignore-Files-Silently</literal>
+ configuration list - in this case it will be silently ignored.</para></listitem>
+ <listitem><para>the main configuration file specified by
+ <literal>Dir::Etc::main</literal></para></listitem>
+ <listitem><para>the command line options are applied to override the
+ configuration directives or to load even more configuration files.</para></listitem>
+ </orderedlist>
+ </refsect1>
+ <refsect1><title>Syntax</title>
<para>The configuration file is organized in a tree with options organized into
- functional groups. option specification is given with a double colon
+ functional groups. Option specification is given with a double colon
notation, for instance <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes</literal> is an option within
- the APT tool group, for the Get tool. options do not inherit from their
+ the APT tool group, for the Get tool. Options do not inherit from their
parent groups.</para>
<para>Syntactically the configuration language is modeled after what the ISC tools
<literal>//</literal> are treated as comments (ignored), as well as all text
between <literal>/*</literal> and <literal>*/</literal>, just like C/C++ comments.
Each line is of the form
- <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes "true";</literal> The trailing
- semicolon is required and the quotes are optional. A new scope can be
- opened with curly braces, like:</para>
+ <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes "true";</literal>. The trailing
+ semicolon and the quotes are required. The value must be on one line, and
+ there is no kind of string concatenation. It must not include inside quotes.
+ The behavior of the backslash "\" and escaped characters inside a value is
+ undefined and it should not be used. An option name may include
+ alphanumerical characters and the "/-:._+" characters. A new scope can
+ be opened with curly braces, like:</para>
<informalexample><programlisting>
APT {
</programlisting></informalexample>
<para>with newlines placed to make it more readable. Lists can be created by
- opening a scope and including a single word enclosed in quotes followed by a
+ opening a scope and including a single string enclosed in quotes followed by a
semicolon. Multiple entries can be included, each separated by a semicolon.</para>
<informalexample><programlisting>
<para>The names of the configuration items are not case-sensitive. So in the previous example
you could use <literal>dpkg::pre-install-pkgs</literal>.</para>
- <para>Two specials are allowed, <literal>#include</literal> and <literal>#clear</literal>
+ <para>Names for the configuration items are optional if a list is defined as it can be see in
+ the <literal>DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs</literal> example above. If you don't specify a name a
+ new entry will simply add a new option to the list. If you specify a name you can override
+ the option as every other option by reassigning a new value to the option.</para>
+
+ <para>Two specials are allowed, <literal>#include</literal> (which is deprecated
+ and not supported by alternative implementations) and <literal>#clear</literal>:
<literal>#include</literal> will include the given file, unless the filename
ends in a slash, then the whole directory is included.
- <literal>#clear</literal> is used to erase a list of names.</para>
+ <literal>#clear</literal> is used to erase a part of the configuration tree. The
+ specified element and all its descendants are erased.
+ (Note that these lines also need to end with a semicolon.)</para>
+
+ <para>The #clear command is the only way to delete a list or a complete scope.
+ Reopening a scope or the ::-style described below will <emphasis>not</emphasis>
+ override previously written entries. Only options can be overridden by addressing a new
+ value to it - lists and scopes can't be overridden, only cleared.</para>
<para>All of the APT tools take a -o option which allows an arbitrary configuration
directive to be specified on the command line. The syntax is a full option
name (<literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes</literal> for instance) followed by an equals
- sign then the new value of the option. Lists can be appended too by adding
- a trailing :: to the list name.</para>
+ sign then the new value of the option. To append a new element to a list, add a
+ trailing :: to the name of the list. (As you might suspect: The scope syntax can't
+ be used on the command line.)</para>
+
+ <para>Note that you can use :: only for appending one item per line to a list and
+ that you should not use it in combination with the scope syntax.
+ (The scope syntax implicit insert ::) Using both syntaxes together will trigger a bug
+ which some users unfortunately depend on: An option with the unusual name "<literal>::</literal>"
+ which acts like every other option with a name. These introduces many problems
+ including that a user who writes multiple lines in this <emphasis>wrong</emphasis> syntax in
+ the hope to append to a list will gain the opposite as only the last assignment for this option
+ "<literal>::</literal>" will be used. Upcoming APT versions will raise errors and
+ will stop working if they encounter this misuse, so please correct such statements now
+ as long as APT doesn't complain explicit about them.</para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1><title>The APT Group</title>
options for all of the tools.</para>
<variablelist>
- <varlistentry><term>Architecture</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Architecture</option></term>
<listitem><para>System Architecture; sets the architecture to use when fetching files and
parsing package lists. The internal default is the architecture apt was
compiled for.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>Default-Release</term>
- <listitem><para>Default release to install packages from if more than one
- version available. Contains release name, codename or release version. Examples: 'stable', 'testing', 'unstable', 'lenny', 'squeeze', '4.0', '5.0*'. See also &apt-preferences;.</para></listitem>
+
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Architectures</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>All Architectures the system supports. Processors implementing the
+ <literal>amd64</literal> (also called <literal>x86-64</literal>) instruction set are
+ e.g. also able to execute binaries compiled for the <literal>i386</literal>
+ (<literal>x86</literal>) instruction set; This list is use when fetching files and
+ parsing package lists. The internal default is always the native architecture (<literal>APT::Architecture</literal>)
+ and all foreign architectures it can retrieve by calling <command>dpkg --print-foreign-architectures</command>.
+ </para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
-
- <varlistentry><term>Ignore-Hold</term>
+
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Default-Release</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Default release to install packages from if more than one
+ version available. Contains release name, codename or release version. Examples: 'stable', 'testing',
+ 'unstable', '&stable-codename;', '&testing-codename;', '4.0', '5.0*'. See also &apt-preferences;.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Ignore-Hold</option></term>
<listitem><para>Ignore Held packages; This global option causes the problem resolver to
ignore held packages in its decision making.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Clean-Installed</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Clean-Installed</option></term>
<listitem><para>Defaults to on. When turned on the autoclean feature will remove any packages
which can no longer be downloaded from the cache. If turned off then
packages that are locally installed are also excluded from cleaning - but
note that APT provides no direct means to reinstall them.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Immediate-Configure</term>
- <listitem><para>Disable Immediate Configuration; This dangerous option disables some
- of APT's ordering code to cause it to make fewer dpkg calls. Doing
- so may be necessary on some extremely slow single user systems but
- is very dangerous and may cause package install scripts to fail or worse.
- Use at your own risk.</para></listitem>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Immediate-Configure</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Defaults to on which will cause APT to install essential and important packages
+ as fast as possible in the install/upgrade operation. This is done to limit the effect of a failing
+ &dpkg; call: If this option is disabled APT does treat an important package in the same way as
+ an extra package: Between the unpacking of the important package A and his configuration can then
+ be many other unpack or configuration calls, e.g. for package B which has no relation to A, but
+ causes the dpkg call to fail (e.g. because maintainer script of package B generates an error) which results
+ in a system state in which package A is unpacked but unconfigured - each package depending on A is now no
+ longer guaranteed to work as their dependency on A is not longer satisfied. The immediate configuration marker
+ is also applied to all dependencies which can generate a problem if the dependencies e.g. form a circle
+ as a dependency with the immediate flag is comparable with a Pre-Dependency. So in theory it is possible
+ that APT encounters a situation in which it is unable to perform immediate configuration, errors out and
+ refers to this option so the user can deactivate the immediate configuration temporarily to be able to perform
+ an install/upgrade again. Note the use of the word "theory" here as this problem was only encountered by now
+ in real world a few times in non-stable distribution versions and was caused by wrong dependencies of the package
+ in question or by a system in an already broken state, so you should not blindly disable this option as
+ the mentioned scenario above is not the only problem immediate configuration can help to prevent in the first place.
+ Before a big operation like <literal>dist-upgrade</literal> is run with this option disabled it should be tried to
+ explicitly <literal>install</literal> the package APT is unable to configure immediately, but please make sure to
+ report your problem also to your distribution and to the APT team with the buglink below so they can work on
+ improving or correcting the upgrade process.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Force-LoopBreak</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Force-LoopBreak</option></term>
<listitem><para>Never Enable this option unless you -really- know what you are doing. It
permits APT to temporarily remove an essential package to break a
Conflicts/Conflicts or Conflicts/Pre-Depend loop between two essential
anything that those packages depend on.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Cache-Limit</term>
- <listitem><para>APT uses a fixed size memory mapped cache file to store the 'available'
- information. This sets the size of that cache (in bytes).</para></listitem>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Cache-Start</option></term><term><option>Cache-Grow</option></term><term><option>Cache-Limit</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>APT uses since version 0.7.26 a resizable memory mapped cache file to store the 'available'
+ information. <literal>Cache-Start</literal> acts as a hint to which size the Cache will grow
+ and is therefore the amount of memory APT will request at startup. The default value is
+ 20971520 bytes (~20 MB). Note that this amount of space needs to be available for APT
+ otherwise it will likely fail ungracefully, so for memory restricted devices this value should
+ be lowered while on systems with a lot of configured sources it should be increased.
+ <literal>Cache-Grow</literal> defines in bytes with the default of 1048576 (~1 MB) how much
+ the Cache size will be increased in the event the space defined by <literal>Cache-Start</literal>
+ is not enough. These value will be applied again and again until either the cache is big
+ enough to store all information or the size of the cache reaches the <literal>Cache-Limit</literal>.
+ The default of <literal>Cache-Limit</literal> is 0 which stands for no limit.
+ If <literal>Cache-Grow</literal> is set to 0 the automatic grow of the cache is disabled.
+ </para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Build-Essential</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Build-Essential</option></term>
<listitem><para>Defines which package(s) are considered essential build dependencies.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Get</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Get</option></term>
<listitem><para>The Get subsection controls the &apt-get; tool, please see its
documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Cache</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Cache</option></term>
<listitem><para>The Cache subsection controls the &apt-cache; tool, please see its
documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>CDROM</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>CDROM</option></term>
<listitem><para>The CDROM subsection controls the &apt-cdrom; tool, please see its
documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
and the URI handlers.
<variablelist>
- <varlistentry><term>PDiffs</term>
- <listitem><para>Try do download deltas called <literal>PDiffs</literal> for
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Check-Valid-Until</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Security related option defaulting to true as an
+ expiring validation for a Release file prevents longtime replay attacks
+ and can e.g. also help users to identify no longer updated mirrors -
+ but the feature depends on the correctness of the time on the user system.
+ Archive maintainers are encouraged to create Release files with the
+ <literal>Valid-Until</literal> header, but if they don't or a stricter value
+ is volitional the following <literal>Max-ValidTime</literal> option can be used.
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Max-ValidTime</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Seconds the Release file should be considered valid after
+ it was created (indicated by the <literal>Date</literal> header).
+ If the Release file itself includes a <literal>Valid-Until</literal> header
+ the earlier date of the two is used as the expiration date.
+ The default value is <literal>0</literal> which stands for "for ever valid".
+ Archive specific settings can be made by appending the label of the archive
+ to the option name.
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Min-ValidTime</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Minimum of seconds the Release file should be considered
+ valid after it was created (indicated by the <literal>Date</literal> header).
+ Use this if you need to use a seldomly updated (local) mirror of a more
+ regular updated archive with a <literal>Valid-Until</literal> header
+ instead of completely disabling the expiration date checking.
+ Archive specific settings can and should be used by appending the label of
+ the archive to the option name.
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry><term><option>PDiffs</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Try to download deltas called <literal>PDiffs</literal> for
Packages or Sources files instead of downloading whole ones. True
- by default.</para></listitem>
+ by default.</para>
+ <para>Two sub-options to limit the use of PDiffs are also available:
+ With <literal>FileLimit</literal> can be specified how many PDiff files
+ are downloaded at most to update a file. <literal>SizeLimit</literal>
+ on the other hand is the maximum percentage of the size of all patches
+ compared to the size of the targeted file. If one of these limits is
+ exceeded the complete file is downloaded instead of the patches.
+ </para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Queue-Mode</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Queue-Mode</option></term>
<listitem><para>Queuing mode; <literal>Queue-Mode</literal> can be one of <literal>host</literal> or
<literal>access</literal> which determines how APT parallelizes outgoing
connections. <literal>host</literal> means that one connection per target host
will be opened.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Retries</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Retries</option></term>
<listitem><para>Number of retries to perform. If this is non-zero APT will retry failed
files the given number of times.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Source-Symlinks</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Source-Symlinks</option></term>
<listitem><para>Use symlinks for source archives. If set to true then source archives will
be symlinked when possible instead of copying. True is the default.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>http</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>http</option></term>
<listitem><para>HTTP URIs; http::Proxy is the default http proxy to use. It is in the
standard form of <literal>http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/</literal>. Per
host proxies can also be specified by using the form
<literal>http::Proxy::<host></literal> with the special keyword <literal>DIRECT</literal>
- meaning to use no proxies. The <envar>http_proxy</envar> environment variable
- will override all settings.</para>
+ meaning to use no proxies. If no one of the above settings is specified,
+ <envar>http_proxy</envar> environment variable
+ will be used.</para>
<para>Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/1.1 compliant
proxy caches. <literal>No-Cache</literal> tells the proxy to not use its cached
<para>The option <literal>timeout</literal> sets the timeout timer used by the method,
this applies to all things including connection timeout and data timeout.</para>
- <para>One setting is provided to control the pipeline depth in cases where the
- remote server is not RFC conforming or buggy (such as Squid 2.0.2)
- <literal>Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth</literal> can be a value from 0 to 5
- indicating how many outstanding requests APT should send. A value of
- zero MUST be specified if the remote host does not properly linger
- on TCP connections - otherwise data corruption will occur. Hosts which
- require this are in violation of RFC 2068.</para></listitem>
+ <para>The setting <literal>Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth</literal> can be used to
+ enabled HTTP pipeling (RFC 2616 section 8.1.2.2) which can be beneficial e.g. on
+ high-latency connections. It specifies how many requests are send in a pipeline.
+ Previous APT versions had a default of 10 for this setting, but the default value
+ is now 0 (= disabled) to avoid problems with the ever-growing amount of webservers
+ and proxies which choose to not conform to the HTTP/1.1 specification.</para>
+
+ <para><literal>Acquire::http::AllowRedirect</literal> controls if APT will follow
+ redirects, which is enabled by default.</para>
+
+ <para>The used bandwidth can be limited with <literal>Acquire::http::Dl-Limit</literal>
+ which accepts integer values in kilobyte. The default value is 0 which deactivates
+ the limit and tries uses as much as possible of the bandwidth (Note that this option implicit
+ deactivates the download from multiple servers at the same time.)</para>
+
+ <para><literal>Acquire::http::User-Agent</literal> can be used to set a different
+ User-Agent for the http download method as some proxies allow access for clients
+ only if the client uses a known identifier.</para>
+ </listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>https</term>
- <listitem><para>HTTPS URIs. Cache-control and proxy options are the same as for
- <literal>http</literal> method.
- <literal>Pipeline-Depth</literal> option is not supported yet.</para>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>https</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>HTTPS URIs. Cache-control, Timeout, AllowRedirect, Dl-Limit and
+ proxy options are the same as for <literal>http</literal> method and will also
+ default to the options from the <literal>http</literal> method if they are not
+ explicitly set for https. <literal>Pipeline-Depth</literal> option is not
+ supported yet.</para>
<para><literal>CaInfo</literal> suboption specifies place of file that
holds info about trusted certificates.
<literal><host>::SslForceVersion</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
</para></listitem></varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
- <listitem><para>FTP URIs; ftp::Proxy is the default proxy server to use. It is in the
- standard form of <literal>ftp://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/</literal> and is
- overridden by the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. To use a ftp
+ <varlistentry><term><option>ftp</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>FTP URIs; ftp::Proxy is the default ftp proxy to use. It is in the
+ standard form of <literal>ftp://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/</literal>. Per
+ host proxies can also be specified by using the form
+ <literal>ftp::Proxy::<host></literal> with the special keyword <literal>DIRECT</literal>
+ meaning to use no proxies. If no one of the above settings is specified,
+ <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable
+ will be used. To use a ftp
proxy you will have to set the <literal>ftp::ProxyLogin</literal> script in the
configuration file. This entry specifies the commands to send to tell
the proxy server what to connect to. Please see
do not support RFC2428.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>cdrom</option></term>
<listitem><para>CDROM URIs; the only setting for CDROM URIs is the mount point,
<literal>cdrom::Mount</literal> which must be the mount point for the CDROM drive
as specified in <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>. It is possible to provide
alternate mount and unmount commands if your mount point cannot be listed
in the fstab (such as an SMB mount and old mount packages). The syntax
- is to put <literallayout>"/cdrom/"::Mount "foo";</literallayout> within
+ is to put <literallayout>/cdrom/::Mount "foo";</literallayout> within
the cdrom block. It is important to have the trailing slash. Unmount
commands can be specified using UMount.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>gpgv</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>gpgv</option></term>
<listitem><para>GPGV URIs; the only option for GPGV URIs is the option to pass additional parameters to gpgv.
<literal>gpgv::Options</literal> Additional options passed to gpgv.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>CompressionTypes</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>List of compression types which are understood by the acquire methods.
+ Files like <filename>Packages</filename> can be available in various compression formats.
+ Per default the acquire methods can decompress <command>bzip2</command>, <command>lzma</command>
+ and <command>gzip</command> compressed files, with this setting more formats can be added
+ on the fly or the used method can be changed. The syntax for this is:
+ <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::<replaceable>FileExtension</replaceable> "<replaceable>Methodname</replaceable>";</synopsis>
+ </para><para>Also the <literal>Order</literal> subgroup can be used to define in which order
+ the acquire system will try to download the compressed files. The acquire system will try the first
+ and proceed with the next compression type in this list on error, so to prefer one over the other type
+ simple add the preferred type at first - not already added default types will be added at run time
+ to the end of the list, so e.g. <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order:: "gz";</synopsis> can
+ be used to prefer <command>gzip</command> compressed files over <command>bzip2</command> and <command>lzma</command>.
+ If <command>lzma</command> should be preferred over <command>gzip</command> and <command>bzip2</command> the
+ configure setting should look like this <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order { "lzma"; "gz"; };</synopsis>
+ It is not needed to add <literal>bz2</literal> explicit to the list as it will be added automatic.</para>
+ <para>Note that at run time the <literal>Dir::Bin::<replaceable>Methodname</replaceable></literal> will
+ be checked: If this setting exists the method will only be used if this file exists, e.g. for
+ the bzip2 method (the inbuilt) setting is: <literallayout>Dir::Bin::bzip2 "/bin/bzip2";</literallayout>
+ Note also that list entries specified on the command line will be added at the end of the list
+ specified in the configuration files, but before the default entries. To prefer a type in this case
+ over the ones specified in the configuration files you can set the option direct - not in list style.
+ This will not override the defined list, it will only prefix the list with this type.</para>
+ <para>The special type <literal>uncompressed</literal> can be used to give uncompressed files a
+ preference, but note that most archives don't provide uncompressed files so this is mostly only
+ useable for local mirrors.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry><term><option>GzipIndexes</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>
+ When downloading <literal>gzip</literal> compressed indexes (Packages, Sources, or
+ Translations), keep them gzip compressed locally instead of unpacking
+ them. This saves quite a lot of disk space at the expense of more CPU
+ requirements when building the local package caches. False by default.
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Languages</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>The Languages subsection controls which <filename>Translation</filename> files are downloaded
+ and in which order APT tries to display the Description-Translations. APT will try to display the first
+ available Description in the Language which is listed at first. Languages can be defined with their
+ short or long Languagecodes. Note that not all archives provide <filename>Translation</filename>
+ files for every Language - especially the long Languagecodes are rare, so please
+ inform you which ones are available before you set here impossible values.</para>
+ <para>The default list includes "environment" and "en". "<literal>environment</literal>" has a special meaning here:
+ It will be replaced at runtime with the languagecodes extracted from the <literal>LC_MESSAGES</literal> environment variable.
+ It will also ensure that these codes are not included twice in the list. If <literal>LC_MESSAGES</literal>
+ is set to "C" only the <filename>Translation-en</filename> file (if available) will be used.
+ To force apt to use no Translation file use the setting <literal>Acquire::Languages=none</literal>. "<literal>none</literal>"
+ is another special meaning code which will stop the search for a fitting <filename>Translation</filename> file.
+ This can be used by the system administrator to let APT know that it should download also this files without
+ actually use them if the environment doesn't specify this languages. So the following example configuration will
+ result in the order "en, de" in an english and in "de, en" in a german localization. Note that "fr" is downloaded,
+ but not used if APT is not used in a french localization, in such an environment the order would be "fr, de, en".
+ <programlisting>Acquire::Languages { "environment"; "de"; "en"; "none"; "fr"; };</programlisting></para>
+ <para>Note: To prevent problems resulting from APT being executed in different environments
+ (e.g. by different users or by other programs) all Translation files which are found in
+ <filename>/var/lib/apt/lists/</filename> will be added to the end of the list
+ (after an implicit "<literal>none</literal>").</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
</variablelist>
</para>
</refsect1>
<para>The <literal>Dir::State</literal> section has directories that pertain to local
state information. <literal>lists</literal> is the directory to place downloaded
package lists in and <literal>status</literal> is the name of the dpkg status file.
- <literal>preferences</literal> is the name of the APT preferences file.
+ <literal>preferences</literal> is the name of the APT <filename>preferences</filename> file.
<literal>Dir::State</literal> contains the default directory to prefix on all sub
items if they do not start with <filename>/</filename> or <filename>./</filename>.</para>
<para>Binary programs are pointed to by <literal>Dir::Bin</literal>. <literal>Dir::Bin::Methods</literal>
specifies the location of the method handlers and <literal>gzip</literal>,
+ <literal>bzip2</literal>, <literal>lzma</literal>,
<literal>dpkg</literal>, <literal>apt-get</literal> <literal>dpkg-source</literal>
<literal>dpkg-buildpackage</literal> and <literal>apt-cache</literal> specify the location
of the respective programs.</para>
will be looked up in
<filename>/tmp/staging/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>.
</para>
+
+ <para>
+ The <literal>Ignore-Files-Silently</literal> list can be used to specify
+ which files APT should silently ignore while parsing the files in the
+ fragment directories. Per default a file which end with <literal>.disabled</literal>,
+ <literal>~</literal>, <literal>.bak</literal> or <literal>.dpkg-[a-z]+</literal>
+ is silently ignored. As seen in the last default value these patterns can use regular
+ expression syntax.
+ </para>
</refsect1>
<refsect1><title>APT in DSelect</title>
control the default behaviour. These are in the <literal>DSelect</literal> section.</para>
<variablelist>
- <varlistentry><term>Clean</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Clean</option></term>
<listitem><para>Cache Clean mode; this value may be one of always, prompt, auto,
pre-auto and never. always and prompt will remove all packages from
the cache after upgrading, prompt (the default) does so conditionally.
action before downloading new packages.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>options</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>options</option></term>
<listitem><para>The contents of this variable is passed to &apt-get; as command line
options when it is run for the install phase.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Updateoptions</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Updateoptions</option></term>
<listitem><para>The contents of this variable is passed to &apt-get; as command line
options when it is run for the update phase.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>PromptAfterUpdate</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>PromptAfterUpdate</option></term>
<listitem><para>If true the [U]pdate operation in &dselect; will always prompt to continue.
The default is to prompt only on error.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
in the <literal>DPkg</literal> section.</para>
<variablelist>
- <varlistentry><term>options</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>options</option></term>
<listitem><para>This is a list of options to pass to dpkg. The options must be specified
using the list notation and each list item is passed as a single argument
to &dpkg;.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Pre-Invoke</term><term>Post-Invoke</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Pre-Invoke</option></term><term><option>Post-Invoke</option></term>
<listitem><para>This is a list of shell commands to run before/after invoking &dpkg;.
Like <literal>options</literal> this must be specified in list notation. The
commands are invoked in order using <filename>/bin/sh</filename>, should any
fail APT will abort.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Pre-Install-Pkgs</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Pre-Install-Pkgs</option></term>
<listitem><para>This is a list of shell commands to run before invoking dpkg. Like
<literal>options</literal> this must be specified in list notation. The commands
are invoked in order using <filename>/bin/sh</filename>, should any fail APT
command given to <literal>Pre-Install-Pkgs</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Run-Directory</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Run-Directory</option></term>
<listitem><para>APT chdirs to this directory before invoking dpkg, the default is
<filename>/</filename>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
- <varlistentry><term>Build-options</term>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>Build-options</option></term>
<listitem><para>These options are passed to &dpkg-buildpackage; when compiling packages,
the default is to disable signing and produce all binaries.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
+
+ <refsect2><title>dpkg trigger usage (and related options)</title>
+ <para>APT can call dpkg in a way so it can make aggressive use of triggers over
+ multiple calls of dpkg. Without further options dpkg will use triggers only in between his
+ own run. Activating these options can therefore decrease the time needed to perform the
+ install / upgrade. Note that it is intended to activate these options per default in the
+ future, but as it changes the way APT calling dpkg drastically it needs a lot more testing.
+ <emphasis>These options are therefore currently experimental and should not be used in
+ productive environments.</emphasis> Also it breaks the progress reporting so all frontends will
+ currently stay around half (or more) of the time in the 100% state while it actually configures
+ all packages.</para>
+ <para>Note that it is not guaranteed that APT will support these options or that these options will
+ not cause (big) trouble in the future. If you have understand the current risks and problems with
+ these options, but are brave enough to help testing them create a new configuration file and test a
+ combination of options. Please report any bugs, problems and improvements you encounter and make sure
+ to note which options you have used in your reports. Asking dpkg for help could also be useful for
+ debugging proposes, see e.g. <command>dpkg --audit</command>. A defensive option combination would be
+<literallayout>DPkg::NoTriggers "true";
+PackageManager::Configure "smart";
+DPkg::ConfigurePending "true";
+DPkg::TriggersPending "true";</literallayout></para>
+
+ <variablelist>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::NoTriggers</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Add the no triggers flag to all dpkg calls (except the ConfigurePending call).
+ See &dpkg; if you are interested in what this actually means. In short: dpkg will not run the
+ triggers when this flag is present unless it is explicitly called to do so in an extra call.
+ Note that this option exists (undocumented) also in older apt versions with a slightly different
+ meaning: Previously these option only append --no-triggers to the configure calls to dpkg -
+ now apt will add these flag also to the unpack and remove calls.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>PackageManager::Configure</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Valid values are "<literal>all</literal>", "<literal>smart</literal>" and "<literal>no</literal>".
+ "<literal>all</literal>" is the default value and causes APT to configure all packages explicit.
+ The "<literal>smart</literal>" way is it to configure only packages which need to be configured before
+ another package can be unpacked (Pre-Depends) and let the rest configure by dpkg with a call generated
+ by the next option. "<literal>no</literal>" on the other hand will not configure anything and totally
+ rely on dpkg for configuration (which will at the moment fail if a Pre-Depends is encountered).
+ Setting this option to another than the all value will implicitly activate also the next option per
+ default as otherwise the system could end in an unconfigured status which could be unbootable!
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::ConfigurePending</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>If this option is set apt will call <command>dpkg --configure --pending</command>
+ to let dpkg handle all required configurations and triggers. This option is activated automatic
+ per default if the previous option is not set to <literal>all</literal>, but deactivating could be useful
+ if you want to run APT multiple times in a row - e.g. in an installer. In these sceneries you could
+ deactivate this option in all but the last run.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>DPkg::TriggersPending</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Useful for <literal>smart</literal> configuration as a package which has pending
+ triggers is not considered as <literal>installed</literal> and dpkg treats them as <literal>unpacked</literal>
+ currently which is a dealbreaker for Pre-Dependencies (see debbugs #526774). Note that this will
+ process all triggers, not only the triggers needed to configure this package.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>PackageManager::UnpackAll</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>As the configuration can be deferred to be done at the end by dpkg it can be
+ tried to order the unpack series only by critical needs, e.g. by Pre-Depends. Default is true
+ and therefore the "old" method of ordering in various steps by everything. While both method
+ were present in earlier APT versions the <literal>OrderCritical</literal> method was unused, so
+ this method is very experimental and needs further improvements before becoming really useful.
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term><option>OrderList::Score::Immediate</option></term>
+ <listitem><para>Essential packages (and there dependencies) should be configured immediately
+ after unpacking. It will be a good idea to do this quite early in the upgrade process as these
+ these configure calls require currently also <literal>DPkg::TriggersPending</literal> which
+ will run quite a few triggers (which maybe not needed). Essentials get per default a high score
+ but the immediate flag is relatively low (a package which has a Pre-Depends is higher rated).
+ These option and the others in the same group can be used to change the scoring. The following
+ example shows the settings with there default values.
+ <literallayout>OrderList::Score {
+ Delete 500;
+ Essential 200;
+ Immediate 10;
+ PreDepends 50;
+};</literallayout>
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ </variablelist>
+ </refsect2>
</refsect1>
<refsect1>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::cdrom</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::Acquire::cdrom</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::ftp</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::Acquire::ftp</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::http</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::Acquire::http</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::https</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::Acquire::https</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::gpgv</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::Acquire::gpgv</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::aptcdrom</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::aptcdrom</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::BuildDeps</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::BuildDeps</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Describes the process of resolving build-dependencies in
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::Hashes</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::Hashes</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Output each cryptographic hash that is generated by the
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::IdentCDROM</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::IdentCDROM</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Do not include information from <literal>statfs</literal>,
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::NoLocking</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::NoLocking</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Disable all file locking. For instance, this will allow
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::Auth</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Auth</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Output status messages and errors related to verifying
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::Diffs</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Diffs</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Output information about downloading and applying package
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::RRed</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::RRed</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::Worker</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgAcquire::Worker</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgAutoRemove</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgAutoRemove</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgDepCache::AutoInstall</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgDepCache::AutoInstall</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Generate debug messages describing which packages are being
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Generate debug messages describing which package is marked
<!-- Question: why doesn't this do anything? The code says it should. -->
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgInitConfig</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgInitConfig</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
- Dump the default configuration to standard output on
+ Dump the default configuration to standard error on
startup.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
When invoking &dpkg;, output the precise command line with
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgDPkgProgressReporting</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgDPkgProgressReporting</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Output all the data received from &dpkg; on the status file
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgOrderList</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgOrderList</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgPackageManager</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgPackageManager</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgPolicy</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgPolicy</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver::ShowScores</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::pkgProblemResolver::ShowScores</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Display a list of all installed packages with their calculated score
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
- <term><literal>Debug::sourceList</literal></term>
+ <term><option>Debug::sourceList</option></term>
<listitem>
<para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
+<!-- 2009/07/11 Currently used nowhere. The corresponding code
+is commented.
<varlistentry>
<term><literal>Debug::Vendor</literal></term>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
+-->
+
</variablelist>
</refsect1>
</refsect1>
<refsect1><title>Files</title>
- <para><filename>/etc/apt/apt.conf</filename></para>
+ <variablelist>
+ &file-aptconf;
+ </variablelist>
</refsect1>
<refsect1><title>See Also</title>
projects / apt.git / blobdiff