apt-pkg/deb/dpkgpm.cc: make some variables constant and add foldmarkers
[ntk/apt.git] / doc / apt.conf.5.xml
CommitLineData
24f6490f
AL
1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
2<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
3 "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [
4
5<!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent">
6%aptent;
7
8]>
9
10<refentry>
5e80de29
AL
11
12 <refentryinfo>
13 &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
14 &apt-author.team;
be1b8568
EL
15 <author>
16 <firstname>Daniel</firstname>
17 <surname>Burrows</surname>
18 <contrib>Initial documentation of Debug::*.</contrib>
19 <email>dburrows@debian.org</email>
20 </author>
5e80de29
AL
21 &apt-email;
22 &apt-product;
23 <!-- The last update date -->
7f1bc985 24 <date>10 December 2008</date>
5e80de29 25 </refentryinfo>
24f6490f
AL
26
27 <refmeta>
28 <refentrytitle>apt.conf</refentrytitle>
29 <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
f0599b9c 30 <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
24f6490f
AL
31 </refmeta>
32
33 <!-- Man page title -->
34 <refnamediv>
35 <refname>apt.conf</refname>
36 <refpurpose>Configuration file for APT</refpurpose>
37 </refnamediv>
38
39 <refsect1><title>Description</title>
40 <para><filename>apt.conf</filename> is the main configuration file for the APT suite of
41 tools, all tools make use of the configuration file and a common command line
42 parser to provide a uniform environment. When an APT tool starts up it will
43 read the configuration specified by the <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar> environment
44 variable (if any) and then read the files in <literal>Dir::Etc::Parts</literal>
45 then read the main configuration file specified by
46 <literal>Dir::Etc::main</literal> then finally apply the
47 command line options to override the configuration directives, possibly
48 loading even more config files.</para>
49
50 <para>The configuration file is organized in a tree with options organized into
51 functional groups. option specification is given with a double colon
52 notation, for instance <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes</literal> is an option within
53 the APT tool group, for the Get tool. options do not inherit from their
54 parent groups.</para>
55
e3a1f08d 56 <para>Syntactically the configuration language is modeled after what the ISC tools
7f1bc985
EL
57 such as bind and dhcp use. Lines starting with
58 <literal>//</literal> are treated as comments (ignored), as well as all text
59 between <literal>/*</literal> and <literal>*/</literal>, just like C/C++ comments.
24f6490f
AL
60 Each line is of the form
61 <literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes "true";</literal> The trailing
62 semicolon is required and the quotes are optional. A new scope can be
63 opened with curly braces, like:</para>
64
65<informalexample><programlisting>
66APT {
67 Get {
68 Assume-Yes "true";
69 Fix-Broken "true";
70 };
71};
72</programlisting></informalexample>
73
74 <para>with newlines placed to make it more readable. Lists can be created by
d82cdf73 75 opening a scope and including a single string enclosed in quotes followed by a
24f6490f
AL
76 semicolon. Multiple entries can be included, each separated by a semicolon.</para>
77
78<informalexample><programlisting>
79DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt";};
80</programlisting></informalexample>
81
82 <para>In general the sample configuration file in
83 <filename>&docdir;examples/apt.conf</filename> &configureindex;
84 is a good guide for how it should look.</para>
85
fb3b7ef0
LB
86 <para>The names of the configuration items are not case-sensitive. So in the previous example
87 you could use <literal>dpkg::pre-install-pkgs</literal>.</para>
88
24f6490f
AL
89 <para>Two specials are allowed, <literal>#include</literal> and <literal>#clear</literal>
90 <literal>#include</literal> will include the given file, unless the filename
91 ends in a slash, then the whole directory is included.
d82cdf73 92 <literal>#clear</literal> is used to erase a part of the configuration tree. The
8bd02d8b 93 specified element and all its descendants are erased.</para>
24f6490f
AL
94
95 <para>All of the APT tools take a -o option which allows an arbitrary configuration
96 directive to be specified on the command line. The syntax is a full option
97 name (<literal>APT::Get::Assume-Yes</literal> for instance) followed by an equals
98 sign then the new value of the option. Lists can be appended too by adding
99 a trailing :: to the list name.</para>
100 </refsect1>
101
102 <refsect1><title>The APT Group</title>
103 <para>This group of options controls general APT behavior as well as holding the
104 options for all of the tools.</para>
105
106 <variablelist>
107 <varlistentry><term>Architecture</term>
108 <listitem><para>System Architecture; sets the architecture to use when fetching files and
109 parsing package lists. The internal default is the architecture apt was
110 compiled for.</para></listitem>
111 </varlistentry>
112
60a8f9c0
EL
113 <varlistentry><term>Default-Release</term>
114 <listitem><para>Default release to install packages from if more than one
efc487fb 115 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>
60a8f9c0
EL
116 </varlistentry>
117
24f6490f
AL
118 <varlistentry><term>Ignore-Hold</term>
119 <listitem><para>Ignore Held packages; This global option causes the problem resolver to
120 ignore held packages in its decision making.</para></listitem>
121 </varlistentry>
122
123 <varlistentry><term>Clean-Installed</term>
124 <listitem><para>Defaults to on. When turned on the autoclean feature will remove any packages
125 which can no longer be downloaded from the cache. If turned off then
126 packages that are locally installed are also excluded from cleaning - but
127 note that APT provides no direct means to reinstall them.</para></listitem>
128 </varlistentry>
129
130 <varlistentry><term>Immediate-Configure</term>
131 <listitem><para>Disable Immediate Configuration; This dangerous option disables some
132 of APT's ordering code to cause it to make fewer dpkg calls. Doing
133 so may be necessary on some extremely slow single user systems but
134 is very dangerous and may cause package install scripts to fail or worse.
135 Use at your own risk.</para></listitem>
136 </varlistentry>
137
138 <varlistentry><term>Force-LoopBreak</term>
139 <listitem><para>Never Enable this option unless you -really- know what you are doing. It
140 permits APT to temporarily remove an essential package to break a
141 Conflicts/Conflicts or Conflicts/Pre-Depend loop between two essential
142 packages. SUCH A LOOP SHOULD NEVER EXIST AND IS A GRAVE BUG. This option
143 will work if the essential packages are not tar, gzip, libc, dpkg, bash or
144 anything that those packages depend on.</para></listitem>
145 </varlistentry>
146
147 <varlistentry><term>Cache-Limit</term>
148 <listitem><para>APT uses a fixed size memory mapped cache file to store the 'available'
a04c23d7 149 information. This sets the size of that cache (in bytes).</para></listitem>
24f6490f
AL
150 </varlistentry>
151
152 <varlistentry><term>Build-Essential</term>
153 <listitem><para>Defines which package(s) are considered essential build dependencies.</para></listitem>
154 </varlistentry>
155
156 <varlistentry><term>Get</term>
157 <listitem><para>The Get subsection controls the &apt-get; tool, please see its
158 documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
159 </varlistentry>
160
161 <varlistentry><term>Cache</term>
162 <listitem><para>The Cache subsection controls the &apt-cache; tool, please see its
163 documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
164 </varlistentry>
165
166 <varlistentry><term>CDROM</term>
167 <listitem><para>The CDROM subsection controls the &apt-cdrom; tool, please see its
168 documentation for more information about the options here.</para></listitem>
169 </varlistentry>
170 </variablelist>
171 </refsect1>
172
173 <refsect1><title>The Acquire Group</title>
174 <para>The <literal>Acquire</literal> group of options controls the download of packages
175 and the URI handlers.
176
177 <variablelist>
0d70b055 178 <varlistentry><term>PDiffs</term>
d82cdf73 179 <listitem><para>Try to download deltas called <literal>PDiffs</literal> for
0d70b055
EL
180 Packages or Sources files instead of downloading whole ones. True
181 by default.</para></listitem>
182 </varlistentry>
183
24f6490f
AL
184 <varlistentry><term>Queue-Mode</term>
185 <listitem><para>Queuing mode; <literal>Queue-Mode</literal> can be one of <literal>host</literal> or
186 <literal>access</literal> which determines how APT parallelizes outgoing
187 connections. <literal>host</literal> means that one connection per target host
188 will be opened, <literal>access</literal> means that one connection per URI type
189 will be opened.</para></listitem>
190 </varlistentry>
191
192 <varlistentry><term>Retries</term>
193 <listitem><para>Number of retries to perform. If this is non-zero APT will retry failed
194 files the given number of times.</para></listitem>
195 </varlistentry>
196
197 <varlistentry><term>Source-Symlinks</term>
198 <listitem><para>Use symlinks for source archives. If set to true then source archives will
199 be symlinked when possible instead of copying. True is the default.</para></listitem>
200 </varlistentry>
201
202 <varlistentry><term>http</term>
203 <listitem><para>HTTP URIs; http::Proxy is the default http proxy to use. It is in the
204 standard form of <literal>http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/</literal>. Per
205 host proxies can also be specified by using the form
206 <literal>http::Proxy::&lt;host&gt;</literal> with the special keyword <literal>DIRECT</literal>
788a8f42
EL
207 meaning to use no proxies. If no one of the above settings is specified,
208 <envar>http_proxy</envar> environment variable
209 will be used.</para>
24f6490f
AL
210
211 <para>Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/1.1 compliant
212 proxy caches. <literal>No-Cache</literal> tells the proxy to not use its cached
213 response under any circumstances, <literal>Max-Age</literal> is sent only for
214 index files and tells the cache to refresh its object if it is older than
215 the given number of seconds. Debian updates its index files daily so the
216 default is 1 day. <literal>No-Store</literal> specifies that the cache should never
217 store this request, it is only set for archive files. This may be useful
218 to prevent polluting a proxy cache with very large .deb files. Note:
219 Squid 2.0.2 does not support any of these options.</para>
220
221 <para>The option <literal>timeout</literal> sets the timeout timer used by the method,
222 this applies to all things including connection timeout and data timeout.</para>
223
224 <para>One setting is provided to control the pipeline depth in cases where the
225 remote server is not RFC conforming or buggy (such as Squid 2.0.2)
226 <literal>Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth</literal> can be a value from 0 to 5
227 indicating how many outstanding requests APT should send. A value of
228 zero MUST be specified if the remote host does not properly linger
229 on TCP connections - otherwise data corruption will occur. Hosts which
230 require this are in violation of RFC 2068.</para></listitem>
231 </varlistentry>
232
370ad5e1
EL
233 <varlistentry><term>https</term>
234 <listitem><para>HTTPS URIs. Cache-control and proxy options are the same as for
235 <literal>http</literal> method.
236 <literal>Pipeline-Depth</literal> option is not supported yet.</para>
237
238 <para><literal>CaInfo</literal> suboption specifies place of file that
239 holds info about trusted certificates.
240 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::CaInfo</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
241 <literal>Verify-Peer</literal> boolean suboption determines whether verify
242 server's host certificate against trusted certificates or not.
243 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::Verify-Peer</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
244 <literal>Verify-Host</literal> boolean suboption determines whether verify
245 server's hostname or not.
246 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::Verify-Host</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
247 <literal>SslCert</literal> determines what certificate to use for client
248 authentication. <literal>&lt;host&gt;::SslCert</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
249 <literal>SslKey</literal> determines what private key to use for client
250 authentication. <literal>&lt;host&gt;::SslKey</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
251 <literal>SslForceVersion</literal> overrides default SSL version to use.
252 Can contain 'TLSv1' or 'SSLv3' string.
253 <literal>&lt;host&gt;::SslForceVersion</literal> is corresponding per-host option.
254 </para></listitem></varlistentry>
255
24f6490f 256 <varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
788a8f42
EL
257 <listitem><para>FTP URIs; ftp::Proxy is the default ftp proxy to use. It is in the
258 standard form of <literal>ftp://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/</literal>. Per
259 host proxies can also be specified by using the form
260 <literal>ftp::Proxy::&lt;host&gt;</literal> with the special keyword <literal>DIRECT</literal>
261 meaning to use no proxies. If no one of the above settings is specified,
262 <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable
263 will be used. To use a ftp
24f6490f
AL
264 proxy you will have to set the <literal>ftp::ProxyLogin</literal> script in the
265 configuration file. This entry specifies the commands to send to tell
266 the proxy server what to connect to. Please see
267 &configureindex; for an example of
e3a1f08d 268 how to do this. The substitution variables available are
24f6490f
AL
269 <literal>$(PROXY_USER)</literal> <literal>$(PROXY_PASS)</literal> <literal>$(SITE_USER)</literal>
270 <literal>$(SITE_PASS)</literal> <literal>$(SITE)</literal> and <literal>$(SITE_PORT)</literal>
271 Each is taken from it's respective URI component.</para>
272
273 <para>The option <literal>timeout</literal> sets the timeout timer used by the method,
274 this applies to all things including connection timeout and data timeout.</para>
275
276 <para>Several settings are provided to control passive mode. Generally it is
277 safe to leave passive mode on, it works in nearly every environment.
278 However some situations require that passive mode be disabled and port
279 mode ftp used instead. This can be done globally, for connections that
280 go through a proxy or for a specific host (See the sample config file
281 for examples).</para>
282
283 <para>It is possible to proxy FTP over HTTP by setting the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar>
284 environment variable to a http url - see the discussion of the http method
285 above for syntax. You cannot set this in the configuration file and it is
286 not recommended to use FTP over HTTP due to its low efficiency.</para>
287
288 <para>The setting <literal>ForceExtended</literal> controls the use of RFC2428
e3a1f08d 289 <literal>EPSV</literal> and <literal>EPRT</literal> commands. The default is false, which means
24f6490f
AL
290 these commands are only used if the control connection is IPv6. Setting this
291 to true forces their use even on IPv4 connections. Note that most FTP servers
292 do not support RFC2428.</para></listitem>
293 </varlistentry>
294
295 <varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
296 <listitem><para>CDROM URIs; the only setting for CDROM URIs is the mount point,
297 <literal>cdrom::Mount</literal> which must be the mount point for the CDROM drive
298 as specified in <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>. It is possible to provide
299 alternate mount and unmount commands if your mount point cannot be listed
300 in the fstab (such as an SMB mount and old mount packages). The syntax
301 is to put <literallayout>"/cdrom/"::Mount "foo";</literallayout> within
302 the cdrom block. It is important to have the trailing slash. Unmount
303 commands can be specified using UMount.</para></listitem>
304 </varlistentry>
8a3642bd
MV
305
306 <varlistentry><term>gpgv</term>
307 <listitem><para>GPGV URIs; the only option for GPGV URIs is the option to pass additional parameters to gpgv.
308 <literal>gpgv::Options</literal> Additional options passed to gpgv.
309 </para></listitem>
310 </varlistentry>
311
e85b4cd5
DK
312 <varlistentry><term>CompressionTypes</term>
313 <listitem><para>List of compression types which are understood by the acquire methods.
314 Files like <filename>Packages</filename> can be available in various compression formats.
8bd02d8b
DK
315 Per default the acquire methods can decompress <command>bzip2</command>, <command>lzma</command>
316 and <command>gzip</command> compressed files, with this setting more formats can be added
317 on the fly or the used method can be changed. The syntax for this is:
e85b4cd5 318 <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::<replaceable>FileExtension</replaceable> "<replaceable>Methodname</replaceable>";</synopsis>
8bd02d8b
DK
319 </para><para>Also the <literal>Order</literal> subgroup can be used to define in which order
320 the acquire system will try to download the compressed files. The acquire system will try the first
321 and proceed with the next compression type in this list on error, so to prefer one over the other type
322 simple add the preferred type at first - not already added default types will be added at run time
323 to the end of the list, so e.g. <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order:: "gz";</synopsis> can
324 be used to prefer <command>gzip</command> compressed files over <command>bzip2</command> and <command>lzma</command>.
325 If <command>lzma</command> should be preferred over <command>gzip</command> and <command>bzip2</command> the
326 configure setting should look like this <synopsis>Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order { "lzma"; "gz"; };</synopsis>
327 It is not needed to add <literal>bz2</literal> explicit to the list as it will be added automatic.</para>
328 <para>Note that at run time the <literal>Dir::Bin::<replaceable>Methodname</replaceable></literal> will
e85b4cd5 329 be checked: If this setting exists the method will only be used if this file exists, e.g. for
8bd02d8b
DK
330 the bzip2 method (the inbuilt) setting is <literallayout>Dir::Bin::bzip2 "/bin/bzip2";</literallayout>
331 Note also that list entries specified on the commandline will be added at the end of the list
332 specified in the configuration files, but before the default entries. To prefer a type in this case
333 over the ones specified in in the configuration files you can set the option direct - not in list style.
334 This will not override the defined list, it will only prefix the list with this type.</para>
335 <para>While it is possible to add an empty compression type to the order list, but APT in its current
336 version doesn't understand it correctly and will display many warnings about not downloaded files -
337 these warnings are most of the time false negatives. Future versions will maybe include a way to
338 really prefer uncompressed files to support the usage of local mirrors.</para></listitem>
e85b4cd5 339 </varlistentry>
24f6490f
AL
340 </variablelist>
341 </para>
342 </refsect1>
343
344 <refsect1><title>Directories</title>
345
346 <para>The <literal>Dir::State</literal> section has directories that pertain to local
347 state information. <literal>lists</literal> is the directory to place downloaded
348 package lists in and <literal>status</literal> is the name of the dpkg status file.
349 <literal>preferences</literal> is the name of the APT preferences file.
350 <literal>Dir::State</literal> contains the default directory to prefix on all sub
351 items if they do not start with <filename>/</filename> or <filename>./</filename>.</para>
352
353 <para><literal>Dir::Cache</literal> contains locations pertaining to local cache
354 information, such as the two package caches <literal>srcpkgcache</literal> and
355 <literal>pkgcache</literal> as well as the location to place downloaded archives,
356 <literal>Dir::Cache::archives</literal>. Generation of caches can be turned off
357 by setting their names to be blank. This will slow down startup but
e3a1f08d 358 save disk space. It is probably preferred to turn off the pkgcache rather
24f6490f
AL
359 than the srcpkgcache. Like <literal>Dir::State</literal> the default
360 directory is contained in <literal>Dir::Cache</literal></para>
361
362 <para><literal>Dir::Etc</literal> contains the location of configuration files,
363 <literal>sourcelist</literal> gives the location of the sourcelist and
364 <literal>main</literal> is the default configuration file (setting has no effect,
365 unless it is done from the config file specified by
13e8426f 366 <envar>APT_CONFIG</envar>).</para>
24f6490f
AL
367
368 <para>The <literal>Dir::Parts</literal> setting reads in all the config fragments in
369 lexical order from the directory specified. After this is done then the
370 main config file is loaded.</para>
371
372 <para>Binary programs are pointed to by <literal>Dir::Bin</literal>. <literal>Dir::Bin::Methods</literal>
373 specifies the location of the method handlers and <literal>gzip</literal>,
e85b4cd5 374 <literal>bzip2</literal>, <literal>lzma</literal>,
24f6490f
AL
375 <literal>dpkg</literal>, <literal>apt-get</literal> <literal>dpkg-source</literal>
376 <literal>dpkg-buildpackage</literal> and <literal>apt-cache</literal> specify the location
377 of the respective programs.</para>
db2cca11
OS
378
379 <para>
380 The configuration item <literal>RootDir</literal> has a special
381 meaning. If set, all paths in <literal>Dir::</literal> will be
382 relative to <literal>RootDir</literal>, <emphasis>even paths that
383 are specified absolutely</emphasis>. So, for instance, if
384 <literal>RootDir</literal> is set to
385 <filename>/tmp/staging</filename> and
386 <literal>Dir::State::status</literal> is set to
387 <filename>/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>, then the status file
388 will be looked up in
389 <filename>/tmp/staging/var/lib/dpkg/status</filename>.
390 </para>
24f6490f
AL
391 </refsect1>
392
393 <refsect1><title>APT in DSelect</title>
394 <para>
395 When APT is used as a &dselect; method several configuration directives
396 control the default behaviour. These are in the <literal>DSelect</literal> section.</para>
397
398 <variablelist>
399 <varlistentry><term>Clean</term>
400 <listitem><para>Cache Clean mode; this value may be one of always, prompt, auto,
401 pre-auto and never. always and prompt will remove all packages from
402 the cache after upgrading, prompt (the default) does so conditionally.
403 auto removes only those packages which are no longer downloadable
404 (replaced with a new version for instance). pre-auto performs this
405 action before downloading new packages.</para></listitem>
406 </varlistentry>
407
408 <varlistentry><term>options</term>
409 <listitem><para>The contents of this variable is passed to &apt-get; as command line
410 options when it is run for the install phase.</para></listitem>
411 </varlistentry>
412
413 <varlistentry><term>Updateoptions</term>
414 <listitem><para>The contents of this variable is passed to &apt-get; as command line
415 options when it is run for the update phase.</para></listitem>
416 </varlistentry>
417
418 <varlistentry><term>PromptAfterUpdate</term>
419 <listitem><para>If true the [U]pdate operation in &dselect; will always prompt to continue.
420 The default is to prompt only on error.</para></listitem>
421 </varlistentry>
422 </variablelist>
423 </refsect1>
424
425 <refsect1><title>How APT calls dpkg</title>
426 <para>Several configuration directives control how APT invokes &dpkg;. These are
427 in the <literal>DPkg</literal> section.</para>
428
429 <variablelist>
430 <varlistentry><term>options</term>
431 <listitem><para>This is a list of options to pass to dpkg. The options must be specified
432 using the list notation and each list item is passed as a single argument
433 to &dpkg;.</para></listitem>
434 </varlistentry>
435
436 <varlistentry><term>Pre-Invoke</term><term>Post-Invoke</term>
437 <listitem><para>This is a list of shell commands to run before/after invoking &dpkg;.
438 Like <literal>options</literal> this must be specified in list notation. The
439 commands are invoked in order using <filename>/bin/sh</filename>, should any
440 fail APT will abort.</para></listitem>
441 </varlistentry>
442
443 <varlistentry><term>Pre-Install-Pkgs</term>
444 <listitem><para>This is a list of shell commands to run before invoking dpkg. Like
445 <literal>options</literal> this must be specified in list notation. The commands
446 are invoked in order using <filename>/bin/sh</filename>, should any fail APT
447 will abort. APT will pass to the commands on standard input the
448 filenames of all .deb files it is going to install, one per line.</para>
449
450 <para>Version 2 of this protocol dumps more information, including the
451 protocol version, the APT configuration space and the packages, files
452 and versions being changed. Version 2 is enabled by setting
453 <literal>DPkg::Tools::options::cmd::Version</literal> to 2. <literal>cmd</literal> is a
454 command given to <literal>Pre-Install-Pkgs</literal>.</para></listitem>
455 </varlistentry>
456
457 <varlistentry><term>Run-Directory</term>
458 <listitem><para>APT chdirs to this directory before invoking dpkg, the default is
459 <filename>/</filename>.</para></listitem>
460 </varlistentry>
461
462 <varlistentry><term>Build-options</term>
463 <listitem><para>These options are passed to &dpkg-buildpackage; when compiling packages,
464 the default is to disable signing and produce all binaries.</para></listitem>
465 </varlistentry>
466 </variablelist>
467 </refsect1>
468
0224daf2
EL
469 <refsect1>
470 <title>Periodic and Archives options</title>
471 <para><literal>APT::Periodic</literal> and <literal>APT::Archives</literal>
472 groups of options configure behavior of apt periodic updates, which is
473 done by <literal>/etc/cron.daily/apt</literal> script. See header of
474 this script for the brief documentation of these options.
475 </para>
476 </refsect1>
477
be1b8568
EL
478 <refsect1>
479 <title>Debug options</title>
480 <para>
481 Enabling options in the <literal>Debug::</literal> section will
482 cause debugging information to be sent to the standard error
483 stream of the program utilizing the <literal>apt</literal>
484 libraries, or enable special program modes that are primarily
485 useful for debugging the behavior of <literal>apt</literal>.
486 Most of these options are not interesting to a normal user, but a
487 few may be:
488
489 <itemizedlist>
490 <listitem>
491 <para>
492 <literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal> enables output
493 about the decisions made by
494 <literal>dist-upgrade, upgrade, install, remove, purge</literal>.
495 </para>
496 </listitem>
497
498 <listitem>
499 <para>
500 <literal>Debug::NoLocking</literal> disables all file
501 locking. This can be used to run some operations (for
502 instance, <literal>apt-get -s install</literal>) as a
503 non-root user.
504 </para>
505 </listitem>
506
507 <listitem>
508 <para>
509 <literal>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</literal> prints out the actual
510 command line each time that <literal>apt</literal> invokes
511 &dpkg;.
512 </para>
513 </listitem>
514
515 <listitem>
516 <para>
517 <literal>Debug::IdentCdrom</literal> disables the inclusion
518 of statfs data in CDROM IDs. <!-- TODO: provide a
519 motivating example, except I haven't a clue why you'd want
520 to do this. -->
521 </para>
522 </listitem>
523 </itemizedlist>
8a3642bd 524 </para>
be1b8568
EL
525
526 <para>
527 A full list of debugging options to apt follows.
528 </para>
529
530 <variablelist>
531 <varlistentry>
532 <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::cdrom</literal></term>
533
534 <listitem>
535 <para>
536 Print information related to accessing
537 <literal>cdrom://</literal> sources.
538 </para>
539 </listitem>
540 </varlistentry>
541
542 <varlistentry>
543 <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::ftp</literal></term>
544
545 <listitem>
546 <para>
547 Print information related to downloading packages using
548 FTP.
549 </para>
550 </listitem>
551 </varlistentry>
552
553 <varlistentry>
554 <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::http</literal></term>
555
556 <listitem>
557 <para>
558 Print information related to downloading packages using
559 HTTP.
560 </para>
561 </listitem>
562 </varlistentry>
563
564 <varlistentry>
565 <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::https</literal></term>
566
567 <listitem>
568 <para>
569 Print information related to downloading packages using
570 HTTPS.
571 </para>
572 </listitem>
573 </varlistentry>
574
575 <varlistentry>
576 <term><literal>Debug::Acquire::gpgv</literal></term>
577
578 <listitem>
579 <para>
580 Print information related to verifying cryptographic
581 signatures using <literal>gpg</literal>.
582 </para>
583 </listitem>
584 </varlistentry>
585
586 <varlistentry>
587 <term><literal>Debug::aptcdrom</literal></term>
588
589 <listitem>
590 <para>
591 Output information about the process of accessing
592 collections of packages stored on CD-ROMs.
593 </para>
594 </listitem>
595 </varlistentry>
596
597 <varlistentry>
598 <term><literal>Debug::BuildDeps</literal></term>
599 <listitem>
600 <para>
601 Describes the process of resolving build-dependencies in
602 &apt-get;.
603 </para>
604 </listitem>
605 </varlistentry>
606
607 <varlistentry>
608 <term><literal>Debug::Hashes</literal></term>
609 <listitem>
610 <para>
611 Output each cryptographic hash that is generated by the
612 <literal>apt</literal> libraries.
613 </para>
614 </listitem>
615 </varlistentry>
616
617 <varlistentry>
618 <term><literal>Debug::IdentCDROM</literal></term>
619 <listitem>
620 <para>
621 Do not include information from <literal>statfs</literal>,
622 namely the number of used and free blocks on the CD-ROM
623 filesystem, when generating an ID for a CD-ROM.
624 </para>
625 </listitem>
626 </varlistentry>
627
628 <varlistentry>
629 <term><literal>Debug::NoLocking</literal></term>
630 <listitem>
631 <para>
632 Disable all file locking. For instance, this will allow
633 two instances of <quote><literal>apt-get
634 update</literal></quote> to run at the same time.
635 </para>
636 </listitem>
637 </varlistentry>
638
639 <varlistentry>
640 <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire</literal></term>
641
642 <listitem>
643 <para>
644 Log when items are added to or removed from the global
645 download queue.
646 </para>
647 </listitem>
648 </varlistentry>
649
650 <varlistentry>
651 <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::Auth</literal></term>
652 <listitem>
653 <para>
654 Output status messages and errors related to verifying
655 checksums and cryptographic signatures of downloaded files.
656 </para>
657 </listitem>
658 </varlistentry>
659
660 <varlistentry>
661 <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::Diffs</literal></term>
662 <listitem>
663 <para>
664 Output information about downloading and applying package
665 index list diffs, and errors relating to package index list
666 diffs.
667 </para>
668 </listitem>
669 </varlistentry>
670
671 <varlistentry>
672 <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::RRed</literal></term>
673
674 <listitem>
675 <para>
676 Output information related to patching apt package lists
677 when downloading index diffs instead of full indices.
678 </para>
679 </listitem>
680 </varlistentry>
681
682 <varlistentry>
683 <term><literal>Debug::pkgAcquire::Worker</literal></term>
684
685 <listitem>
686 <para>
687 Log all interactions with the sub-processes that actually
688 perform downloads.
689 </para>
690 </listitem>
691 </varlistentry>
692
693 <varlistentry>
694 <term><literal>Debug::pkgAutoRemove</literal></term>
695
696 <listitem>
697 <para>
698 Log events related to the automatically-installed status of
699 packages and to the removal of unused packages.
700 </para>
701 </listitem>
702 </varlistentry>
703
704 <varlistentry>
705 <term><literal>Debug::pkgDepCache::AutoInstall</literal></term>
706 <listitem>
707 <para>
708 Generate debug messages describing which packages are being
709 automatically installed to resolve dependencies. This
710 corresponds to the initial auto-install pass performed in,
711 e.g., <literal>apt-get install</literal>, and not to the
712 full <literal>apt</literal> dependency resolver; see
713 <literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal> for that.
714 </para>
715 </listitem>
716 </varlistentry>
717
af29ffb4
MV
718 <varlistentry>
719 <term><literal>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</literal></term>
720 <listitem>
721 <para>
722 Generate debug messages describing which package is marked
723 as keep/install/remove while the ProblemResolver does his work.
724 Each addition or deletion may trigger additional actions;
725 they are shown indented two additional space under the original entry.
726 The format for each line is <literal>MarkKeep</literal>,
727 <literal>MarkDelete</literal> or <literal>MarkInstall</literal> followed by
728 <literal>package-name &lt;a.b.c -&gt; d.e.f | x.y.z&gt; (section)</literal>
729 where <literal>a.b.c</literal> is the current version of the package,
730 <literal>d.e.f</literal> is the version considered for installation and
731 <literal>x.y.z</literal> is a newer version, but not considered for installation
732 (because of a low pin score). The later two can be omitted if there is none or if
733 it is the same version as the installed.
734 <literal>section</literal> is the name of the section the package appears in.
735 </para>
736 </listitem>
737 </varlistentry>
738
be1b8568
EL
739 <!-- Question: why doesn't this do anything? The code says it should. -->
740 <varlistentry>
741 <term><literal>Debug::pkgInitConfig</literal></term>
742 <listitem>
743 <para>
d82cdf73 744 Dump the default configuration to standard error on
be1b8568
EL
745 startup.
746 </para>
747 </listitem>
748 </varlistentry>
749
750 <varlistentry>
751 <term><literal>Debug::pkgDPkgPM</literal></term>
752 <listitem>
753 <para>
754 When invoking &dpkg;, output the precise command line with
755 which it is being invoked, with arguments separated by a
756 single space character.
757 </para>
758 </listitem>
759 </varlistentry>
760
761 <varlistentry>
762 <term><literal>Debug::pkgDPkgProgressReporting</literal></term>
763 <listitem>
764 <para>
765 Output all the data received from &dpkg; on the status file
766 descriptor and any errors encountered while parsing it.
767 </para>
768 </listitem>
769 </varlistentry>
770
771 <varlistentry>
772 <term><literal>Debug::pkgOrderList</literal></term>
773
774 <listitem>
775 <para>
776 Generate a trace of the algorithm that decides the order in
777 which <literal>apt</literal> should pass packages to
778 &dpkg;.
779 </para>
780 </listitem>
781 </varlistentry>
782
783 <varlistentry>
784 <term><literal>Debug::pkgPackageManager</literal></term>
785
786 <listitem>
787 <para>
788 Output status messages tracing the steps performed when
789 invoking &dpkg;.
790 </para>
791 </listitem>
792 </varlistentry>
793
794 <varlistentry>
795 <term><literal>Debug::pkgPolicy</literal></term>
796
797 <listitem>
798 <para>
799 Output the priority of each package list on startup.
800 </para>
801 </listitem>
802 </varlistentry>
803
804 <varlistentry>
805 <term><literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver</literal></term>
806
807 <listitem>
808 <para>
809 Trace the execution of the dependency resolver (this
810 applies only to what happens when a complex dependency
811 problem is encountered).
812 </para>
813 </listitem>
814 </varlistentry>
815
8b4894fe
MV
816 <varlistentry>
817 <term><literal>Debug::pkgProblemResolver::ShowScores</literal></term>
818 <listitem>
819 <para>
820 Display a list of all installed packages with their calculated score
821 used by the pkgProblemResolver. The description of the package
822 is the same as described in <literal>Debug::pkgDepCache::Marker</literal>
823 </para>
824 </listitem>
825 </varlistentry>
826
be1b8568
EL
827 <varlistentry>
828 <term><literal>Debug::sourceList</literal></term>
829
830 <listitem>
831 <para>
832 Print information about the vendors read from
833 <filename>/etc/apt/vendors.list</filename>.
834 </para>
835 </listitem>
836 </varlistentry>
837
d82cdf73
MV
838<!-- 2009/07/11 Currently used nowhere. The corresponding code
839is commented.
be1b8568
EL
840 <varlistentry>
841 <term><literal>Debug::Vendor</literal></term>
842
843 <listitem>
844 <para>
845 Print information about each vendor.
846 </para>
847 </listitem>
848 </varlistentry>
d82cdf73 849-->
be1b8568 850 </variablelist>
24f6490f
AL
851 </refsect1>
852
853 <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
640c5d94
MZ
854 <para>&configureindex; is a
855 configuration file showing example values for all possible
24f6490f
AL
856 options.</para>
857 </refsect1>
858
859 <refsect1><title>Files</title>
6e2525a1 860 <variablelist>
1221c3a3 861 &file-aptconf;
6e2525a1 862 </variablelist>
24f6490f
AL
863 </refsect1>
864
865 <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
866 <para>&apt-cache;, &apt-config;<!-- ? reading apt.conf -->, &apt-preferences;.</para>
867 </refsect1>
868
869 &manbugs;
24f6490f
AL
870
871</refentry>
872