merged from Luca Bruno

[apt.git] / doc / apt.conf.5.xml

diff --git a/doc/apt.conf.5.xml b/doc/apt.conf.5.xml
index 69e212243d7bf1b6aa75ba021710221d9a2b3b9e..db8dfa7ce1ac4bcbf96b52ff80f0ee2b0874f7b6 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/apt.conf.5.xml
+++ b/doc/apt.conf.5.xml
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@
    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
+   <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).
    Each line is of the form
@@ -75,6 +75,9 @@ DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt";};
    <filename>&docdir;examples/apt.conf</filename> &configureindex;
    is a good guide for how it should look.</para>
 
+   <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> 
    <literal>#include</literal> will include the given file, unless the filename
    ends in a slash, then the whole directory is included.  
@@ -214,7 +217,7 @@ DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt";};
      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>
@@ -235,7 +238,7 @@ DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt";};
      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>
@@ -276,7 +279,7 @@ DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt";};
    <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>
 
@@ -284,7 +287,7 @@ DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt";};
    <literal>sourcelist</literal> gives the location of the sourcelist and 
    <literal>main</literal> is the default configuration file (setting has no effect,
    unless it is done from the config file specified by 
-   <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar>.</para>
+   <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar>).</para>
 
    <para>The <literal>Dir::Parts</literal> setting reads in all the config fragments in 
    lexical order from the directory specified. After this is done then the
@@ -295,6 +298,19 @@ DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt";};
    <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>
+
+   <para>
+     The configuration item <literal>RootDir</literal> has a special
+     meaning.  If set, all paths in <literal>Dir::</literal> will be
+     relative to <literal>RootDir</literal>, <emphasis>even paths that
+     are specified absolutely</emphasis>.  So, for instance, if
+     <literal>RootDir</literal> is set to
+     <filename>/tmp/staging</filename> and
+     <literal>Dir::State::status</literal> is set to
+     <filename>/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>, then the status file
+     will be looked up in
+     <filename>/tmp/staging/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>.
+   </para>
  </refsect1>
  
  <refsect1><title>APT in DSelect</title>