<!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent">
%aptent;
+<!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent">
+%aptverbatiment;
+
]>
<refentry>
<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>sources.list</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
+ <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>
<!-- Man page title -->
<para>The package resource list is used to locate archives of the package
distribution system in use on the system. At this time, this manual page
documents only the packaging system used by the Debian GNU/Linux system.
- This control file is located in <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename></para>
+ This control file is <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename>.</para>
<para>The source list is designed to support any number of active sources and a
variety of source media. The file lists one source per line, with the
most preferred source listed first. The format of each line is:
<literal>type uri args</literal> The first item, <literal>type</literal>
- determines the format for <literal>args</literal> <literal>uri</literal> is
+ determines the format for <literal>args</literal>. <literal>uri</literal> is
a Universal Resource Identifier
(URI), which is a superset of the more specific and well-known Universal
Resource Locator, or URL. The rest of the line can be marked as a comment
<refsect1><title>sources.list.d</title>
<para>The <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list.d</filename> directory provides
- a way to add sources.list entries in seperate files that end with
- <literal>.list</literal>. The format is the same as for the regular
- <filename>sources.list</filename> file. </para>
+ a way to add sources.list entries in separate files.
+ The format is the same as for the regular <filename>sources.list</filename> file.
+ File names need to end with
+ <filename>.list</filename> and may only contain letters (a-z and A-Z),
+ digits (0-9), underscore (_), hyphen (-) 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>
</refsect1>
<refsect1><title>The deb and deb-src types</title>
<para>The <literal>deb</literal> type describes a typical two-level Debian
archive, <filename>distribution/component</filename>. Typically,
- <literal>distribution</literal> is generally one of
- <literal>stable</literal> <literal>unstable</literal> or
- <literal>testing</literal> while component is one of <literal>main</literal>
- <literal>contrib</literal> <literal>non-free</literal> or
- <literal>non-us</literal> The
+ <literal>distribution</literal> is generally an archivename like
+ <literal>stable</literal> or <literal>testing</literal> or a codename like
+ <literal>&stable-codename;</literal> or <literal>&testing-codename;</literal>
+ while component is one of <literal>main</literal> <literal>contrib</literal> or
+ <literal>non-free</literal>. The
<literal>deb-src</literal> type describes a debian distribution's source
code in the same form as the <literal>deb</literal> type.
A <literal>deb-src</literal> line is required to fetch source indexes.</para>
<para>The format for a <filename>sources.list</filename> entry using the
- <literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types are:</para>
+ <literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types is:</para>
- <literallayout>deb uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>
+ <literallayout>deb [ options ] uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>
<para>The URI for the <literal>deb</literal> type must specify the base of the
Debian distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs.
<literal>distribution</literal> can specify an exact path, in which case the
components must be omitted and <literal>distribution</literal> must end with
- a slash (/). This is useful for when only a particular sub-section of the
+ a slash (/). This is useful for when the case only a particular sub-section of the
archive denoted by the URI is of interest.
If <literal>distribution</literal> does not specify an exact path, at least
one <literal>component</literal> must be present.</para>
simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to
different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.</para>
+ <para><literal>options</literal> is always optional and needs to be surounded by
+ square brackets. It can consist of multiple settings in the form
+ <literal><replaceable>setting</replaceable>=<replaceable>value</replaceable></literal>.
+ Multiple settings are separated by spaces. The following settings are supported by APT,
+ note through that unsupported settings will be ignored silently:
+ <itemizedlist><listitem><para><literal>arch=<replaceable>arch1</replaceable>,<replaceable>arch2</replaceable>,…</literal>
+ can be used to specify for which architectures packages information should
+ be downloaded. If this option is not set all architectures defined by the
+ <literal>APT::Architectures</literal> option will be downloaded.</para>
+ </listitem></itemizedlist></para>
+
<para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
<para>Some examples:</para>
<literallayout>
-deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
-deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian dists/stable-updates/
+deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main contrib non-free
+deb http://security.debian.org/ &stable-codename;/updates main contrib non-free
</literallayout>
</refsect1>
<refsect1><title>URI specification</title>
- <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, and ftp.
+ <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
+ ssh, rsh.
<variablelist>
<varlistentry><term>file</term>
<listitem><para>
http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
<envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
- http://user:pass@server:port/
+ http://user:pass@server:port/.
Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
<listitem><para>
The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
- as a given user and access the files. No password authentication is
- possible, prior arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts must have been made.
+ as a given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
+ arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts.
Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
<command>dd</command>
commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry><term>more recognizable URI types</term>
+ <listitem><para>
+ APT can be extended with more methods shipped in other optional packages which should
+ follow the nameing scheme <literal>apt-transport-<replaceable>method</replaceable></literal>.
+ The APT team e.g. maintains also the <literal>apt-transport-https</literal> package which
+ provides access methods for https-URIs with features similar to the http method, but other
+ methods for using e.g. debtorrent are also available, see <citerefentry>
+ <refentrytitle><filename>apt-transport-debtorrent</filename></refentrytitle>
+ <manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</refsect1>
<para>Source line for the above</para>
<literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
+ <para>The first line gets package information for the architectures in <literal>APT::Architectures</literal>
+ while the second always retrieves <literal>amd64</literal> and <literal>armel</literal>.</para>
+ <literallayout>deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main
+deb [ arch=amd64,armel ] http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main</literallayout>
+
<para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
the hamm/main area.</para>
<literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>
<para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
- directory, and uses only the stable/contrib area.</para>
- <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian stable contrib</literallayout>
+ directory, and uses only the &stable-codename;/contrib area.</para>
+ <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; contrib</literallayout>
<para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
- well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>.
+ well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>
a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
<literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>
- <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
- debian-non-US directory.</para>
- <literallayout>deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free</literallayout>
-
- <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
- debian-non-US directory, and uses only files found under
- <filename>unstable/binary-i3866</filename> on i386 machines,
- <filename>unstable/binary-m68k</filename> on m68k, and so
- forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
- illustrates how to use the substitution variable; non-us is no longer
- structured like this]
- <literallayout>deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
+ <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at ftp.tlh.debian.org, under the
+ universe directory, and uses only files found under
+ <filename>unstable/binary-i386</filename> on i386 machines,
+ <filename>unstable/binary-amd64</filename> on amd64, and so
+ forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
+ illustrates how to use the substitution variable; official debian
+ archives are not structured like this]
+ <literallayout>deb http://ftp.tlh.debian.org/universe unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
</para>
</refsect1>
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