doc/apt.conf.5.yo

   1 mailto(apt@packages.debian.org)
   2 manpage(apt.conf)(5)(5 Dec 1998)(apt)()
   3 manpagename(apt.conf)(configuration file for APT)
   4
   5 manpagedescription()
   6 bf(apt.conf) is the main configuration file for the APT suite of
   7 tools, all tools make use of the configuration file and a common command line
   8 parser to provide a uniform environment. When an APT tool starts up it will
   9 read bf(/etc/apt/apt.conf), then read the configuration specified by the
  10 bf($APT_CONFIG) environment variable and then finally apply the command line
  11 options to override the configuration directives, possibly loading more
  12 config files.
  13
  14 The configuration file is organized in a tree with options organized into
  15 functional groups. Option specification is given with a double colon
  16 notation, for instance em(APT::Get::Assume-Yes) is an option within the
  17 APT tool group, for the Get tool. Options do not inherit from their parent
  18 groups.
  19
  20 Syntacticly the configuration language is modeled after what the ISC tools
  21 such as bind and dhcp use. Each line is of the form
  22 quote(APT::Get::Assume-Yes "true";) The trailing semicolon is required and
  23 the quotes are optional. A new em(scope) can be opened with curly braces,
  24 like:
  25 verb(APT {
  26   Get {
  27     Assume-Yes "true";
  28     Fix-Broken "true";
  29   };
  30 };
  31 )
  32 with newlines placed to make
  33 it more readable. Lists can be created by opening a scope an including a
  34 single word enclosed in quotes followed by a semicolon.
  35 In general the sample configuration file in
  36 em(/usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf) is a good guide for how it should look.
  37
  38 All of the APT tools take a -o option which allows an arbitary configuration
  39 directive to be specified on the command line. The syntax is a full option
  40 name (APT::Get::Assume-Yes for instance) followed by an equals sign then the
  41 new value of the option. Lists can be appended too by adding a trailing ::
  42 to the list name.
  43
  44 manpagesection(The APT Group)
  45 This group of options controls general APT behavoir as well as holding the
  46 options for all of the tools.
  47
  48 startdit()
  49 dit(bf(Architecture))
  50 System Architecture; sets the architecture to use when fetching files and
  51 parsing package lists. The internal default is the architecture apt was
  52 compiled for.
  53
  54 dit(bf(Ignore-Hold))
  55 Ignore Held packages; This global options causes the problem resolver to
  56 ignore held packages in its decision making.
  57
  58 dit(bf(Immediate-Configure))
  59 Disable Immedate Configuration; This dangerous option disables some
  60 of APT's ordering code to cause it to make fewer dpkg calls. Doing
  61 so may be necessary on some extremely slow single user systems but
  62 is very dangerous and may cause package install scripts to fail or worse.
  63 Use at your own risk.
  64
  65 dit(bf(Force-LoopBreak))
  66 Never Enable this option unless you -really- know what you are doing. It
  67 permits APT to temporarily remove an essential package to break a
  68 Conflicts/Conflicts or Conflicts/Pre-Depend loop between two essential
  69 packages. SUCH A LOOP SHOULD NEVER EXIST AND IS A GRAVE BUG. This option will
  70 work if the essential packages are not tar, gzip, libc, bash or anything that
  71 those packages depend on.
  72
  73 dit(bf(Get))
  74 The Get subsection controls the bf(apt-get(8)) tool, please see its
  75 documentation for more information about the options here.
  76
  77 dit(bf(Cache))
  78 The Cache subsection controls the bf(apt-cache(8)) tool, please see its
  79 documentation for more information about the options here.
  80
  81 dit(bf(CDROM))
  82 The CDROM subsection controls the bf(apt-cdrom(8)) tool, please see its
  83 documentation for more information about the options here.
  84
  85 enddit()
  86
  87 manpagesection(The Acquire Group)
  88 The bf(Acquire) group of options controls the download of packages and the
  89 URI handlers.
  90
  91 startdit()
  92 dit(bf(Queue-Mode))
  93 Queuing mode; bf(Queue-Mode) can be one of bf(host) or bf(access) which
  94 determins how APT parallelizes outgoing connections. bf(host) means that
  95 one connection per target host will be opened, bf(access) means that one
  96 connection per URI type will be opened.
  97
  98 dit(bf(Retries))
  99 Number of retries to perform. If this is non-zero apt will retry failed
 100 files the given number of times.
 101
 102 dit(bf(Acquire::Source-Symlinks))
 103 Use symlinks for source archives. If set to true then source archives will
 104 be symlinked when possible instead of copying. True is the default
 105
 106 dit(bf(http))
 107 HTTP URIs; http::Proxy is the default http proxy to use. It is in the standard
 108 form of em(http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/). Per host proxies can also
 109 be specified by using the form http::Proxy::<host> with the special keyword
 110 em(DIRECT) meaning to use no proxies. The em($http_proxy) environment variable
 111 will override all settings.
 112
 113 Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/1.1 complient proxy
 114 caches. bf(No-Cache) tells the proxy to not used its cached response under
 115 any circumstances, bf(Max-Age) is sent only for index files and tells the
 116 cache to refresh its object if it is older than the given number of seconds.
 117 Debian updates its index files daily so the default is 1 day. bf(No-Store)
 118 specifies that the cache should never store this request, it is only
 119 set for archive files. This may be usefull to prevent polluting a proxy cache
 120 with very large .deb files. Note: Squid 2.0.2 does not support any of
 121 these options.
 122
 123 One setting is provided to control the pipeline depth in cases where the
 124 remote server is not RFC conforming or buggy (such as Squid 2.0.2)
 125 Acquire::http::Pipeline-Depth can be a value from 0 to 5 indicating how many
 126 outstanding requests APT should send.
 127
 128 dit(bf(ftp))
 129 FTP URis; ftp::Proxy is the default proxy server to use. It is in the
 130 standard form of em(http://[[user][:pass]@]host[:port]/) and is overriden
 131 by the ftp_proxy environment variable. To use a ftp proxy you will have to
 132 set the ftp::ProxyLogin script in the configuration file. This entry
 133 specifies the commands to send to tell the proxy server what to connect
 134 to. Please see em(/usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf) for an example of how
 135 to do this. The subsitution variables available are $(PROXY_USER),
 136 $(PROXY_PASS), $(SITE_USER), $(SITE_PASS), $(SITE), and $(SITE_PORT).
 137 Each is taken from it's respective URI component.
 138
 139 Several settings are provided to control passive mode. Generally it is safe
 140 to leave passive mode on, it works in nearly every environment. However some
 141 situations require that passive mode be disabled and port mode ftp used
 142 instead. This can be done globally, for connections that go through a proxy
 143 or for a specific host (See the sample config file for examples)
 144
 145 dit(bf(cdrom))
 146 CDROM URIs; the only setting for CDROM URIs is the mount point, cdrom::Mount
 147 which must be the mount point for the CDROM drive as specified in /etc/fstab.
 148 It is possible to provide alternate mount and unmount commands if your
 149 mount point cannot be listed in the fstab (such as an SMB mount). The syntax
 150 is to put "/cdrom/"::Mount "foo"; within the cdrom block. It is important to
 151 have the trailing slash. Unmount commands can be specified using UMount.
 152
 153 enddit()
 154
 155 manpagesection(Directories)
 156 The bf(Dir::State) section has directories that pertain to local state
 157 information. bf(lists) is the directory to place downloaded package lists
 158 in and bf(status) is the name of the dpkg status file. bf(Dir::State)
 159 contains the default directory to prefix on all sub items if they do not
 160 start with em(/) or em(./). bf(xstatus) and bf(userstatus) are for future
 161 use.
 162
 163 bf(Dir::Cache) contains locations pertaining to local cache information, such
 164 as the two package caches bf(srcpkgcache) and bf(pkgcache) as well as the
 165 location to place downloaded archives, bf(Dir::Cache::archives). Like
 166 bf(Dir::State) the default directory is contained in bf(Dir::Cache)
 167
 168 bf(Dir::Etc) contains the location of configuration files, bf(sourcelist)
 169 gives the location of the sourcelist and bf(main) is the default configuration
 170 file (setting has no effect)
 171
 172 Binary programs are pointed to by bf(Dir::Bin). bf(methods) specifies the
 173 location of the method handlers and bf(gzip), bf(dpkg), bf(apt-get),
 174 bf(dpkg-source), bf(dpkg-buildpackage) and
 175 bf(apt-cache) specify the location of the respective programs.
 176
 177 manpagesection(APT in DSelect)
 178 When APT is used as a bf(dselect(8)) method several configuration directives
 179 control the default behavoir. These are in the bf(DSelect) section.
 180
 181 startdit()
 182 dit(bf(Clean))
 183 Cache Clean mode; this value may be one of always, auto, prompt and never.
 184 always will remove all archives after they have been downloaded while auto
 185 will only remove things that are no longer downloadable (replaced with a new
 186 version for instance)
 187
 188 dit(bf(Options))
 189 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 190 options when it is run for the install phase.
 191
 192 dit(bf(UpdateOptions))
 193 The contents of this variable is passed to bf(apt-get(8)) as command line
 194 options when it is run for the update phase.
 195
 196 dit(bf(PromptAfterUpdate))
 197 If true the [U]pdate operation in dselect will always prompt to continue.
 198 The default is to prompt only on error.
 199 enddit()
 200
 201 manpagesection(How APT calls DPkg)
 202 Several configuration directives control how APT invokes dpkg. These are in
 203 the bf(DPkg) section.
 204
 205 startdit()
 206 dit(bf(Options))
 207 This is a list of options to pass to dpkg. The options must be specified
 208 using the list notation and each list item is passed as a single arugment
 209 to dpkg.
 210
 211 dit(bf(Pre-Invoke), bf(Post-Invoke))
 212 This is a list of shell commands to run before/after invoking dpkg. Like
 213 bf(Options) this must be specified in list notation. The commands
 214 are invoked in order using /bin/sh, should any fail APT will abort.
 215
 216 dit(bf(BPre-Install-Pkgs))
 217 This is a list of shell commands to run before invoking dpkg. Like
 218 bf(Options) this must be specified in list notation. The commands
 219 are invoked in order using /bin/sh, should any fail APT will abort.
 220 Apt will pass to the commands on standard input the filenames of all
 221 .deb files it is going to install, one per line.
 222
 223 dit(bf(Run-Directory))
 224 APT chdirs to this directory before invoking dpkg, the default is /.
 225
 226 dit(bf(Build-Options))
 227 These options are passed to dpkg-buildpackage when compiling packages,
 228 the default is to disable signing and produce all binaries.
 229
 230 enddit()
 231
 232 manpagesection(Debug Options)
 233 Most of the options in the bf(debug) section are not interesting to the
 234 normal user, however bf(Debug::pkgProblemResolver) shows interesting
 235 output about the decisions dist-upgrade makes. bf(Debug::NoLocking)
 236 disables file locking so apt can do some operations as non-root and
 237 bf(Debug::pkgDPkgPM) will print out the command line for each dpkg
 238 invokation. bf(Debug::IdentCdrom) will disable the inclusion of statfs
 239 data in CDROM IDs.
 240
 241 manpagesection(EXAMPLES)
 242 bf(/usr/doc/apt/examples/apt.conf) contains a sample configuration file
 243 showing the default values for all possible options.
 244
 245 manpagesection(FILES)
 246 /etc/apt/apt.conf
 247
 248 manpageseealso()
 249 apt-cache (8),
 250 apt-get (8)
 251
 252 manpagebugs()
 253 See http://bugs.debian.org/apt.  If you wish to report a
 254 bug in bf(apt-get), please see bf(/usr/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt)
 255 or the bf(bug(1)) command.
 256
 257 manpageauthor()
 258 apt-get was written by the APT team <apt@packages.debian.org>.