<!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent">
%aptent;
+<!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent">
+%aptverbatiment;
+
]>
<refentry>
<refentryinfo>
&apt-author.jgunthorpe;
&apt-author.team;
+ <author>
+ <firstname>Daniel</firstname>
+ <surname>Burrows</surname>
+ <contrib>Initial documentation of Debug::*.</contrib>
+ <email>dburrows@debian.org</email>
+ </author>
&apt-email;
&apt-product;
<!-- The last update date -->
- <date>29 February 2004</date>
+ <date>16 January 2010</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 no or "<literal>conf</literal>"
+ as filename extension and which only contain alphanumeric,
+ hyphen (-), underscore (_) and period (.) characters -
+ otherwise they 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>Syntacticly the configuration language is modeled after what the ISC tools
- such as bind and dhcp use. Lines starting with
- <literal>//</literal> are treated as comments (ignored).
+ <para>Syntactically the configuration language is modeled after what the ISC tools
+ such as bind and dhcp use. Lines starting with
+ <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>
<filename>&docdir;examples/apt.conf</filename> &configureindex;
is a good guide for how it should look.</para>
- <para>Two specials are allowed, <literal>#include</literal> and <literal>#clear</literal>
+ <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>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>
+ a trailing :: to the list name. (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 relay 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>
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', '&stable-codename;', '&testing-codename;', '4.0', '5.0*'. See also &apt-preferences;.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
<varlistentry><term>Ignore-Hold</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>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>
+ <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>
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>Cache-Start, Cache-Grow and Cache-Limit</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 these amount of space need to be available for APT
+ otherwise it will likely fail ungracefully, so for memory restricted devices these value should
+ be lowered while on systems with a lot of configured sources this might be increased.
+ <literal>Cache-Grow</literal> defines in byte 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>
and the URI handlers.
<variablelist>
+ <varlistentry><term>Check-Valid-Until</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>Max-ValidTime</term>
+ <listitem><para>Seconds the Release file should be considered valid after
+ it was created. The default is "for ever" (0) if the Release file of the
+ archive doesn't include a <literal>Valid-Until</literal> header.
+ If it does then this date is the default. The date from the Release file or
+ the date specified by the creation time of the Release file
+ (<literal>Date</literal> header) plus the seconds specified with this
+ options are used to check if the validation of a file has expired by using
+ the earlier date of the two. Archive specific settings can be made by
+ appending the label of the archive to the option name.
+ </para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry><term>PDiffs</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>
+ <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 patch a file. <literal>SizeLimit</literal>
+ on the other hand is the maximum precentage 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>
<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
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
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)
+ 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>
+ require this are in violation of RFC 2068.</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, 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>::CaInfo</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
+ <literal>Verify-Peer</literal> boolean suboption determines whether verify
+ server's host certificate against trusted certificates or not.
+ <literal><host>::Verify-Peer</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
+ <literal>Verify-Host</literal> boolean suboption determines whether verify
+ server's hostname or not.
+ <literal><host>::Verify-Host</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
+ <literal>SslCert</literal> determines what certificate to use for client
+ authentication. <literal><host>::SslCert</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
+ <literal>SslKey</literal> determines what private key to use for client
+ authentication. <literal><host>::SslKey</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
+ <literal>SslForceVersion</literal> overrides default SSL version to use.
+ Can contain 'TLSv1' or 'SSLv3' string.
+ <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
+ <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
&configureindex; for an example of
- how to do this. The subsitution variables available are
+ how to do this. The substitution variables available are
<literal>$(PROXY_USER)</literal> <literal>$(PROXY_PASS)</literal> <literal>$(SITE_USER)</literal>
<literal>$(SITE_PASS)</literal> <literal>$(SITE)</literal> and <literal>$(SITE_PORT)</literal>
Each is taken from it's respective URI component.</para>
not recommended to use FTP over HTTP due to its low efficiency.</para>
<para>The setting <literal>ForceExtended</literal> controls the use of RFC2428
- <literal>EPSV</literal> and <literal>EPRT</literal> commands. The defaut is false, which means
+ <literal>EPSV</literal> and <literal>EPRT</literal> commands. The default is false, which means
these commands are only used if the control connection is IPv6. Setting this
to true forces their use even on IPv4 connections. Note that most FTP servers
do not support RFC2428.</para></listitem>
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>
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry><term>CompressionTypes</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 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>While it is possible to add an empty compression type to the order list, but APT in its current
+ version doesn't understand it correctly and will display many warnings about not downloaded files -
+ these warnings are most of the time false negatives. Future versions will maybe include a way to
+ really prefer uncompressed files to support the usage of local mirrors.</para></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry><term>GzipIndexes</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>Languages</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></listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
</variablelist>
</para>
</refsect1>
<literal>pkgcache</literal> as well as the location to place downloaded archives,
<literal>Dir::Cache::archives</literal>. Generation of caches can be turned off
by setting their names to be blank. This will slow down startup but
- save disk space. It is probably prefered to turn off the pkgcache rather
+ save disk space. It is probably preferred to turn off the pkgcache rather
than the srcpkgcache. Like <literal>Dir::State</literal> the default
directory is contained in <literal>Dir::Cache</literal></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>
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
+ multiply 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>DPkg::NoTriggers</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>PackageManager::Configure</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>DPkg::ConfigurePending</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>DPkg::TriggersPending</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>PackageManager::UnpackAll</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>OrderList::Score::Immediate</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><title>Debug options</title>
- <para>Most of the options in the <literal>debug</literal> section are not interesting to
- the normal user, however <literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal> shows
- interesting output about the decisions dist-upgrade makes.
- <literal>Debug::NoLocking</literal> disables file locking so APT can do some
- operations as non-root and <literal>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</literal> will print out the
- command line for each dpkg invokation. <literal>Debug::IdentCdrom</literal> will
- disable the inclusion of statfs data in CDROM IDs.
- <literal>Debug::Acquire::gpgv</literal> Debugging of the gpgv method.
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>Periodic and Archives options</title>
+ <para><literal>APT::Periodic</literal> and <literal>APT::Archives</literal>
+ groups of options configure behavior of apt periodic updates, which is
+ done by <literal>/etc/cron.daily/apt</literal> script. See header of
+ this script for the brief documentation of these options.
</para>
</refsect1>
+
+ <refsect1>
+ <title>Debug options</title>
+ <para>
+ Enabling options in the <literal>Debug::</literal> section will
+ cause debugging information to be sent to the standard error
+ stream of the program utilizing the <literal>apt</literal>
+ libraries, or enable special program modes that are primarily
+ useful for debugging the behavior of <literal>apt</literal>.
+ Most of these options are not interesting to a normal user, but a
+ few may be:
+
+ <itemizedlist>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal> enables output
+ about the decisions made by
+ <literal>dist-upgrade, upgrade, install, remove, purge</literal>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <literal>Debug::NoLocking</literal> disables all file
+ locking. This can be used to run some operations (for
+ instance, <literal>apt-get -s install</literal>) as a
+ non-root user.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <literal>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</literal> prints out the actual
+ command line each time that <literal>apt</literal> invokes
+ &dpkg;.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ <literal>Debug::IdentCdrom</literal> disables the inclusion
+ of statfs data in CDROM IDs. <!-- TODO: provide a
+ motivating example, except I haven't a clue why you'd want
+ to do this. -->
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </itemizedlist>
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ A full list of debugging options to apt follows.
+ </para>
+
+ <variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::cdrom</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Print information related to accessing
+ <literal>cdrom://</literal> sources.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::ftp</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Print information related to downloading packages using
+ FTP.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::http</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Print information related to downloading packages using
+ HTTP.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::https</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Print information related to downloading packages using
+ HTTPS.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::gpgv</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Print information related to verifying cryptographic
+ signatures using <literal>gpg</literal>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::aptcdrom</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Output information about the process of accessing
+ collections of packages stored on CD-ROMs.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::BuildDeps</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Describes the process of resolving build-dependencies in
+ &apt-get;.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::Hashes</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Output each cryptographic hash that is generated by the
+ <literal>apt</literal> libraries.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::IdentCDROM</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Do not include information from <literal>statfs</literal>,
+ namely the number of used and free blocks on the CD-ROM
+ filesystem, when generating an ID for a CD-ROM.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::NoLocking</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Disable all file locking. For instance, this will allow
+ two instances of <quote><literal>apt-get
+ update</literal></quote> to run at the same time.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Log when items are added to or removed from the global
+ download queue.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::Auth</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Output status messages and errors related to verifying
+ checksums and cryptographic signatures of downloaded files.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::Diffs</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Output information about downloading and applying package
+ index list diffs, and errors relating to package index list
+ diffs.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::RRed</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Output information related to patching apt package lists
+ when downloading index diffs instead of full indices.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::Worker</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Log all interactions with the sub-processes that actually
+ perform downloads.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgAutoRemove</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Log events related to the automatically-installed status of
+ packages and to the removal of unused packages.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgDepCache::AutoInstall</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Generate debug messages describing which packages are being
+ automatically installed to resolve dependencies. This
+ corresponds to the initial auto-install pass performed in,
+ e.g., <literal>apt-get install</literal>, and not to the
+ full <literal>apt</literal> dependency resolver; see
+ <literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal> for that.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Generate debug messages describing which package is marked
+ as keep/install/remove while the ProblemResolver does his work.
+ Each addition or deletion may trigger additional actions;
+ they are shown indented two additional space under the original entry.
+ The format for each line is <literal>MarkKeep</literal>,
+ <literal>MarkDelete</literal> or <literal>MarkInstall</literal> followed by
+ <literal>package-name <a.b.c -> d.e.f | x.y.z> (section)</literal>
+ where <literal>a.b.c</literal> is the current version of the package,
+ <literal>d.e.f</literal> is the version considered for installation and
+ <literal>x.y.z</literal> is a newer version, but not considered for installation
+ (because of a low pin score). The later two can be omitted if there is none or if
+ it is the same version as the installed.
+ <literal>section</literal> is the name of the section the package appears in.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <!-- Question: why doesn't this do anything? The code says it should. -->
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgInitConfig</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Dump the default configuration to standard error on
+ startup.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ When invoking &dpkg;, output the precise command line with
+ which it is being invoked, with arguments separated by a
+ single space character.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgDPkgProgressReporting</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Output all the data received from &dpkg; on the status file
+ descriptor and any errors encountered while parsing it.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgOrderList</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Generate a trace of the algorithm that decides the order in
+ which <literal>apt</literal> should pass packages to
+ &dpkg;.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgPackageManager</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Output status messages tracing the steps performed when
+ invoking &dpkg;.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgPolicy</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Output the priority of each package list on startup.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Trace the execution of the dependency resolver (this
+ applies only to what happens when a complex dependency
+ problem is encountered).
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver::ShowScores</literal></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Display a list of all installed packages with their calculated score
+ used by the pkgProblemResolver. The description of the package
+ is the same as described in <literal>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</literal>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::sourceList</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Print information about the vendors read from
+ <filename>/etc/apt/vendors.list</filename>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+
+<!-- 2009/07/11 Currently used nowhere. The corresponding code
+is commented.
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><literal>Debug::Vendor</literal></term>
+
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Print information about each vendor.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+-->
+
+ </variablelist>
+ </refsect1>
<refsect1><title>Examples</title>
<para>&configureindex; is a
</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