[ntk/apt.git] / doc / sources.list.5.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE refentry PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
  "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [

<!ENTITY % aptent SYSTEM "apt.ent">
%aptent;

<!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent">
%aptverbatiment;

]>

<refentry>

 <refentryinfo>
   &apt-author.jgunthorpe;
   &apt-author.team;
   &apt-email;
   &apt-product;
   <!-- The last update date -->
   <date>29 February 2004</date>
 </refentryinfo>
 
 <refmeta>
   <refentrytitle>sources.list</refentrytitle>
   <manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
   <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
 </refmeta>
 
 <!-- Man page title -->
 <refnamediv>
    <refname>sources.list</refname>
    <refpurpose>Package resource list for APT</refpurpose>
 </refnamediv>
 
 <refsect1><title>Description</title>
   <para>The package resource list is used to locate archives of the package
   distribution system in use on the system. At this time, this manual page
   documents only the packaging system used by the Debian GNU/Linux system.
   This control file is <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename>.</para>

   <para>The source list is designed to support any number of active sources and a
   variety of source media. The file lists one source per line, with the
   most preferred source listed first. The format of each line is:
   <literal>type uri args</literal> The first item, <literal>type</literal>
   determines the format for <literal>args</literal>. <literal>uri</literal> is
   a Universal Resource Identifier 
   (URI), which is a superset of the more specific and well-known Universal
   Resource Locator, or URL. The rest of the line can be marked as a comment 
   by using a #.</para>
 </refsect1>
 
 <refsect1><title>sources.list.d</title>
   <para>The <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list.d</filename> directory provides
   a way to add sources.list entries in separate files.
   The format is the same as for the regular <filename>sources.list</filename> file.
   File names need to end with
   <filename>.list</filename> and may only contain letters (a-z and A-Z),
   digits (0-9), underscore (_), hyphen (-) and period (.) characters.
   Otherwise they will be silently ignored.</para>
 </refsect1>

 <refsect1><title>The deb and deb-src types</title>
   <para>The <literal>deb</literal> type describes a typical two-level Debian
   archive, <filename>distribution/component</filename>. Typically,
   <literal>distribution</literal> is generally one of
   <literal>stable</literal> <literal>unstable</literal> or 
   <literal>testing</literal> while component is one of <literal>main</literal> 
   <literal>contrib</literal> <literal>non-free</literal> or
   <literal>non-us</literal>. The 
   <literal>deb-src</literal> type describes a debian distribution's source
   code in the same form as the <literal>deb</literal> type.
   A <literal>deb-src</literal> line is required to fetch source indexes.</para>


   <para>The format for a <filename>sources.list</filename> entry using the
   <literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types is:</para>

   <literallayout>deb uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>

   <para>The URI for the <literal>deb</literal> type must specify the base of the
   Debian distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs. 
   <literal>distribution</literal> can specify an exact path, in which case the 
   components must be omitted and <literal>distribution</literal> must end with
   a slash (/). This is useful for when the case only a particular sub-section of the 
   archive denoted by the URI is of interest.
   If <literal>distribution</literal> does not specify an exact path, at least
   one <literal>component</literal> must be present.</para>

   <para><literal>distribution</literal> may also contain a variable, 
   <literal>$(ARCH)</literal>
   which expands to the Debian architecture (i386, m68k, powerpc, ...)
   used on the system. This permits architecture-independent
   <filename>sources.list</filename> files to be used. In general this is only
   of interest when specifying an exact path, <literal>APT</literal> will
   automatically generate a URI with the current architecture otherwise.</para>

   <para>Since only one distribution can be specified per line it may be necessary
   to have multiple lines for the same URI, if a subset of all available
   distributions or components at that location is desired.
   APT will sort the URI list after it has generated a complete set 
   internally, and will collapse multiple references to the same Internet 
   host, for instance, into a single connection, so that it does not 
   inefficiently establish an FTP connection, close it, do something else, 
   and then re-establish a connection to that same host. This feature is 
   useful for accessing busy FTP sites with limits on the number of 
   simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to 
   different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.</para>

   <para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
   preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
   by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
   network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>

   <para>Some examples:</para>
   <literallayout>
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ &stable-codename;/updates main contrib non-free
   </literallayout>

 </refsect1>

 <refsect1><title>URI specification</title>

   <para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
   ssh, rsh.
   <variablelist>
    <varlistentry><term>file</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
    considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
    archives.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>
    
    <varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
    swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
    source list.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry><term>http</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
    variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format 
    http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
    <envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
    HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
    http://user:pass@server:port/.
    Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
    is highly configurable; for more information see the
    &apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
    by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
    to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
    using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
    the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry><term>copy</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
    copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
    This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>
    
    <varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
    <listitem><para>
    The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
	as a given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
	arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts.
    Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
    <command>dd</command> 
    commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>

    <varlistentry><term>more recognizable URI types</term>
    <listitem><para>
    APT can be extended with more methods shipped in other optional packages which should
    follow the nameing scheme <literal>apt-transport-<replaceable>method</replaceable></literal>.
    The APT team e.g. maintains also the <literal>apt-transport-https</literal> package which
    provides access methods for https-URIs with features similar to the http method, but other
    methods for using e.g. debtorrent are also available, see <citerefentry>
    <refentrytitle><filename>apt-transport-debtorrent</filename></refentrytitle>
    <manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
    </para></listitem>
    </varlistentry>
  </variablelist>
 </para>
 </refsect1>
 
 <refsect1><title>Examples</title>
   <para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
   for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
   <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>

   <para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
   <literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>

   <para>Source line for the above</para>
   <literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>

   <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
   the hamm/main area.</para>
   <literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>

   <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
   directory, and uses only the &stable-codename;/contrib area.</para>
   <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; contrib</literallayout>

   <para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
   directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
   well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>
   a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
   <literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>

   <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
    debian-non-US directory.</para>
   <literallayout>deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free</literallayout>

   <para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
   debian-non-US directory, and uses only files found under
   <filename>unstable/binary-i386</filename> on i386 machines, 
   <filename>unstable/binary-m68k</filename> on m68k, and so
   forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only 
   illustrates how to use the substitution variable; non-us is no longer 
   structured like this] 
   <literallayout>deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
   </para>
 </refsect1>
 
 <refsect1><title>See Also</title>
   <para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
   </para>
 </refsect1>

 &manbugs;
 
</refentry>
Commit	Line	Data
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
0c1a7101 DK	8	<!ENTITY % aptverbatiment SYSTEM "apt-verbatim.ent">
	9	%aptverbatiment;
	10
24f6490f AL	11	]>
	12
	13	<refentry>
5e80de29 AL	14
	15	<refentryinfo>
	16	&apt-author.jgunthorpe;
	17	&apt-author.team;
	18	&apt-email;
	19	&apt-product;
	20	<!-- The last update date -->
	21	<date>29 February 2004</date>
	22	</refentryinfo>
24f6490f AL	23
	24	<refmeta>
	25	<refentrytitle>sources.list</refentrytitle>
	26	<manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
f0599b9c	27	<refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
24f6490f AL	28	</refmeta>
	29
	30	<!-- Man page title -->
	31	<refnamediv>
	32	<refname>sources.list</refname>
	33	<refpurpose>Package resource list for APT</refpurpose>
	34	</refnamediv>
	35
	36	<refsect1><title>Description</title>
	37	<para>The package resource list is used to locate archives of the package
	38	distribution system in use on the system. At this time, this manual page
	39	documents only the packaging system used by the Debian GNU/Linux system.
5f4331c4	40	This control file is <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list</filename>.</para>
24f6490f AL	41
	42	<para>The source list is designed to support any number of active sources and a
	43	variety of source media. The file lists one source per line, with the
	44	most preferred source listed first. The format of each line is:
	45	<literal>type uri args</literal> The first item, <literal>type</literal>
5f4331c4	46	determines the format for <literal>args</literal>. <literal>uri</literal> is
24f6490f AL	47	a Universal Resource Identifier
	48	(URI), which is a superset of the more specific and well-known Universal
	49	Resource Locator, or URL. The rest of the line can be marked as a comment
	50	by using a #.</para>
	51	</refsect1>
	52
7e154433 MV	53	<refsect1><title>sources.list.d</title>
7e154433 MV	54	<para>The <filename>/etc/apt/sources.list.d</filename> directory provides
6823d85b EL	55	a way to add sources.list entries in separate files.
	56	The format is the same as for the regular <filename>sources.list</filename> file.
	57	File names need to end with
	58	<filename>.list</filename> and may only contain letters (a-z and A-Z),
	59	digits (0-9), underscore (_), hyphen (-) and period (.) characters.
	60	Otherwise they will be silently ignored.</para>
7e154433 MV	61	</refsect1>
7e154433 MV	62
24f6490f AL	63	<refsect1><title>The deb and deb-src types</title>
	64	<para>The <literal>deb</literal> type describes a typical two-level Debian
	65	archive, <filename>distribution/component</filename>. Typically,
	66	<literal>distribution</literal> is generally one of
	67	<literal>stable</literal> <literal>unstable</literal> or
	68	<literal>testing</literal> while component is one of <literal>main</literal>
	69	<literal>contrib</literal> <literal>non-free</literal> or
5f4331c4	70	<literal>non-us</literal>. The
24f6490f AL	71	<literal>deb-src</literal> type describes a debian distribution's source
	72	code in the same form as the <literal>deb</literal> type.
	73	A <literal>deb-src</literal> line is required to fetch source indexes.</para>
	74
	75
	76	<para>The format for a <filename>sources.list</filename> entry using the
5f4331c4	77	<literal>deb</literal> and <literal>deb-src</literal> types is:</para>
24f6490f AL	78
	79	<literallayout>deb uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]</literallayout>
	80
	81	<para>The URI for the <literal>deb</literal> type must specify the base of the
	82	Debian distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs.
	83	<literal>distribution</literal> can specify an exact path, in which case the
	84	components must be omitted and <literal>distribution</literal> must end with
5f4331c4	85	a slash (/). This is useful for when the case only a particular sub-section of the
24f6490f AL	86	archive denoted by the URI is of interest.
	87	If <literal>distribution</literal> does not specify an exact path, at least
	88	one <literal>component</literal> must be present.</para>
	89
	90	<para><literal>distribution</literal> may also contain a variable,
	91	<literal>$(ARCH)</literal>
	92	which expands to the Debian architecture (i386, m68k, powerpc, ...)
	93	used on the system. This permits architecture-independent
	94	<filename>sources.list</filename> files to be used. In general this is only
	95	of interest when specifying an exact path, <literal>APT</literal> will
	96	automatically generate a URI with the current architecture otherwise.</para>
	97
	98	<para>Since only one distribution can be specified per line it may be necessary
	99	to have multiple lines for the same URI, if a subset of all available
	100	distributions or components at that location is desired.
	101	APT will sort the URI list after it has generated a complete set
	102	internally, and will collapse multiple references to the same Internet
	103	host, for instance, into a single connection, so that it does not
	104	inefficiently establish an FTP connection, close it, do something else,
	105	and then re-establish a connection to that same host. This feature is
	106	useful for accessing busy FTP sites with limits on the number of
	107	simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to
	108	different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.</para>
	109
	110	<para>It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
	111	preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting
	112	by speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
	113	network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).</para>
	114
	115	<para>Some examples:</para>
	116	<literallayout>
e1dd65c9 DK	117	deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; main contrib non-free
e1dd65c9 DK	118	deb http://security.debian.org/ &stable-codename;/updates main contrib non-free
24f6490f AL	119	</literallayout>
	120
	121	</refsect1>
	122
	123	<refsect1><title>URI specification</title>
	124
c06b16a9 EL	125	<para>The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
c06b16a9 EL	126	ssh, rsh.
24f6490f AL	127	<variablelist>
	128	<varlistentry><term>file</term>
	129	<listitem><para>
	130	The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to be
	131	considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local mirrors or
	132	archives.</para></listitem>
	133	</varlistentry>
	134
	135	<varlistentry><term>cdrom</term>
	136	<listitem><para>
	137	The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
	138	swapping. Use the &apt-cdrom; program to create cdrom entries in the
	139	source list.</para></listitem>
	140	</varlistentry>
	141
	142	<varlistentry><term>http</term>
	143	<listitem><para>
	144	The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an environment
	145	variable <envar>http_proxy</envar> is set with the format
	146	http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in
	147	<envar>http_proxy</envar> will be used. Users of authenticated
	148	HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string of the format
5f4331c4	149	http://user:pass@server:port/.
24f6490f AL	150	Note that this is an insecure method of authentication.</para></listitem>
	151	</varlistentry>
	152
	153	<varlistentry><term>ftp</term>
	154	<listitem><para>
	155	The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP behavior
	156	is highly configurable; for more information see the
	157	&apt-conf; manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be specified
	158	by using the <envar>ftp_proxy</envar> environment variable. It is possible
	159	to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often understand ftp urls)
	160	using this method and ONLY this method. ftp proxies using http specified in
	161	the configuration file will be ignored.</para></listitem>
	162	</varlistentry>
	163
	164	<varlistentry><term>copy</term>
	165	<listitem><para>
	166	The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that packages are
	167	copied into the cache directory instead of used directly at their location.
	168	This is useful for people using a zip disk to copy files around with APT.</para></listitem>
	169	</varlistentry>
	170
	171	<varlistentry><term>rsh</term><term>ssh</term>
	172	<listitem><para>
	173	The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host
b2d941c5 EL	174	as a given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
b2d941c5 EL	175	arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts.
24f6490f AL	176	Access to files on the remote uses standard <command>find</command> and
	177	<command>dd</command>
	178	commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.</para></listitem>
	179	</varlistentry>
71bba383	180
f1243317	181	<varlistentry><term>more recognizable URI types</term>
71bba383 DK	182	<listitem><para>
	183	APT can be extended with more methods shipped in other optional packages which should
	184	follow the nameing scheme <literal>apt-transport-<replaceable>method</replaceable></literal>.
f1243317	185	The APT team e.g. maintains also the <literal>apt-transport-https</literal> package which
46e39c8e	186	provides access methods for https-URIs with features similar to the http method, but other
71bba383 DK	187	methods for using e.g. debtorrent are also available, see <citerefentry>
	188	<refentrytitle><filename>apt-transport-debtorrent</filename></refentrytitle>
	189	<manvolnum>1</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
	190	</para></listitem>
	191	</varlistentry>
24f6490f AL	192	</variablelist>
	193	</para>
	194	</refsect1>
	195
	196	<refsect1><title>Examples</title>
	197	<para>Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
	198	for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.</para>
	199	<literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
	200
	201	<para>As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.</para>
	202	<literallayout>deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
	203
	204	<para>Source line for the above</para>
	205	<literallayout>deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free</literallayout>
	206
	207	<para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
	208	the hamm/main area.</para>
	209	<literallayout>deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main</literallayout>
	210
	211	<para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
e1dd65c9 DK	212	directory, and uses only the &stable-codename;/contrib area.</para>
e1dd65c9 DK	213	<literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian &stable-codename; contrib</literallayout>
24f6490f AL	214
	215	<para>Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
	216	directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line appears as
5f4331c4	217	well as the one in the previous example in <filename>sources.list</filename>
24f6490f AL	218	a single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.</para>
	219	<literallayout>deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib</literallayout>
	220
	221	<para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
	222	debian-non-US directory.</para>
	223	<literallayout>deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free</literallayout>
	224
	225	<para>Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
	226	debian-non-US directory, and uses only files found under
6db56565	227	<filename>unstable/binary-i386</filename> on i386 machines,
24f6490f AL	228	<filename>unstable/binary-m68k</filename> on m68k, and so
	229	forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
	230	illustrates how to use the substitution variable; non-us is no longer
	231	structured like this]
	232	<literallayout>deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/</literallayout>
	233	</para>
	234	</refsect1>
	235
	236	<refsect1><title>See Also</title>
5e80de29	237	<para>&apt-cache; &apt-conf;
24f6490f AL	238	</para>
	239	</refsect1>
	240
	241	&manbugs;
24f6490f AL	242
	243	</refentry>
	244