deb-control(5)
NAME
deb-control - Debian binary packages' master control file format
SYNOPSIS
control
DESCRIPTION
Each Debian binary package contains the master control file, which contains a number of fields. Each field begins with a tag, such as Package or Version (case insensitive), followed by a colon, and the body of the field. Fields are delimited only by field tags. In other words, field text may be multiple lines in length, but the installation tools will generally join lines when processing the body of the field (except in the case of the Description field, see below).
FIELDS
Package: package-name (required)
The value of this field determines the package name, and is used
to generate file names by most installation tools.
Version: version-string (required)
Typically, this is the original package's version number in
whatever form the program's author uses. It may also include a
Debian revision number (for non-native packages). The exact
format and sorting algorithm are described in deb-version(5).
Maintainer: fullname-email (recommended)
Should be in the format "Joe Bloggs <[email protected]>", and is
typically the person who created the package, as opposed to the
author of the software that was packaged.
Description: short-description (recommended)
long-description
The format for the package description is a short brief summary
on the first line (after the Description field). The following
lines should be used as a longer, more detailed description.
Each line of the long description must be preceded by a space,
and blank lines in the long description must contain a single
'.' following the preceding space.
Section: section
This is a general field that gives the package a category based
on the software that it installs. Some common sections are
utils, net, mail, text, x11, etc.
Priority: priority
Sets the importance of this package in relation to the system as
a whole. Common priorities are required, standard, optional,
extra, etc.
The Section and Priority fields usually have a defined set of accepted
values based on the specific distribution policy.
Installed-Size: size
The approximate total size of the package's installed files, in
KiB units.
Essential: yes|no
This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes. It
denotes a package that is required for proper operation of the
system. Dpkg or any other installation tool will not allow an
Essential package to be removed (at least not without using one
of the force options).
Build-Essential: yes|no
This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes, and is
commonly injected by the archive software. It denotes a package
that is required when building other packages.
Architecture: arch|all (recommended)
The architecture specifies which type of hardware this package
was compiled for. Common architectures are amd64, armel, i386,
powerpc, etc. Note that the all value is meant for packages
that are architecture independent. Some examples of this are
shell and Perl scripts, and documentation.
Origin: name
The name of the distribution this package is originating from.
Bugs: url
The url of the bug tracking system for this package. The current
used format is bts-type://bts-address, like
debbugs://bugs.debian.org.
Homepage: url
The upstream project home page url.
Tag: tag-list
List of tags describing the qualities of the package. The
description and list of supported tags can be found in the
debtags package.
Multi-Arch: same|foreign|allowed|no
This field is used to indicate how this package should behave on
a multi-arch installations. The value same means that the
package is co-installable with itself, but it must not be used
to satisfy the dependency of any package of a different
architecture from itself. The value foreign means that the
package is not co-installable with itself, but should be allowed
to satisfy a non-arch-qualified dependency of a package of a
different arch from itself (if a dependency has an explicit
arch-qualifier then the value foreign is ignored). The value
allowed allows reverse-dependencies to indicate in their Depends
field that they accept a package from a foreign architecture by
qualifying the package name with :any, but has no effect
otherwise. The value no is the default when the field is
omitted, in which case adding the field with an explicit no
value is generally not needed.
Source: source-name [(source-version)]
The name of the source package that this binary package came
from, if it is different than the name of the package itself.
If the source version differs from the binary version, then the
source-name will be followed by a source-version in parenthesis.
This can happen for example on a binary-only non-maintainer
upload, or when setting a different binary version via
dpkg-gencontrol -v.
Subarchitecture: value
Kernel-Version: value
Installer-Menu-Item: value
These fields are used by the debian-installer and are usually
not needed. See
/usr/share/doc/debian-installer/devel/modules.txt from the
debian-installer package for more details about them.
Depends: package-list
List of packages that are required for this package to provide a
non-trivial amount of functionality. The package maintenance
software will not allow a package to be installed if the
packages listed in its Depends field aren't installed (at least
not without using the force options). In an installation, the
postinst scripts of packages listed in Depends fields are run
before those of the packages which depend on them. On the
opposite, in a removal, the prerm script of a package is run
before those of the packages listed in its Depends field.
Pre-Depends: package-list
List of packages that must be installed and configured before
this one can be installed. This is usually used in the case
where this package requires another package for running its
preinst script.
Recommends: package-list
Lists packages that would be found together with this one in all
but unusual installations. The package maintenance software will
warn the user if they install a package without those listed in
its Recommends field.
Suggests: package-list
Lists packages that are related to this one and can perhaps
enhance its usefulness, but without which installing this
package is perfectly reasonable.
The syntax of Depends, Pre-Depends, Recommends and Suggests fields is a
list of groups of alternative packages. Each group is a list of
packages separated by vertical bar (or "pipe") symbols, '|'. The
groups are separated by commas. Commas are to be read as "AND", and
pipes as "OR", with pipes binding more tightly. Each package name is
optionally followed by an architecture qualifier appended after a colon
':', optionally followed by a version number specification in
parentheses.
An architecture qualifier name can be a real Debian architecture name
(since dpkg 1.16.5) or any (since dpkg 1.16.2). If omitted, the
default is the current binary package architecture. A real Debian
architecture name will match exactly that architecture for that package
name, any will match any architecture for that package name if the
package has been marked as Multi-Arch: allowed.
A version number may start with a '>>', in which case any later version
will match, and may specify or omit the Debian packaging revision
(separated by a hyphen). Accepted version relationships are '>>' for
greater than, '<<' for less than, '>=' for greater than or equal to,
'<=' for less than or equal to, and '=' for equal to.
Breaks: package-list
Lists packages that this one breaks, for example by exposing
bugs when the named packages rely on this one. The package
maintenance software will not allow broken packages to be
configured; generally the resolution is to upgrade the packages
named in a Breaks field.
Conflicts: package-list
Lists packages that conflict with this one, for example by
containing files with the same names. The package maintenance
software will not allow conflicting packages to be installed at
the same time. Two conflicting packages should each include a
Conflicts line mentioning the other.
Replaces: package-list
List of packages files from which this one replaces. This is
used for allowing this package to overwrite the files of another
package and is usually used with the Conflicts field to force
removal of the other package, if this one also has the same
files as the conflicted package.
The syntax of Breaks, Conflicts and Replaces is a list of package
names, separated by commas (and optional whitespace). In the Breaks
and Conflicts fields, the comma should be read as "OR". An optional
architecture qualifier can also be appended to the package name with
the same syntax as above, but the default is any instead of the binary
package architecture. An optional version can also be given with the
same syntax as above for the Breaks, Conflicts and Replaces fields.
Provides: package-list
This is a list of virtual packages that this one provides.
Usually this is used in the case of several packages all
providing the same service. For example, sendmail and exim can
serve as a mail server, so they provide a common package
("mail-transport-agent") on which other packages can depend.
This will allow sendmail or exim to serve as a valid option to
satisfy the dependency. This prevents the packages that depend
on a mail server from having to know the package names for all
of them, and using '|' to separate the list.
The syntax of Provides is a list of package names, separated by commas
(and optional whitespace). An optional architecture qualifier can also
be appended to the package name with the same syntax as above. If
omitted, the default is the current binary package architecture. An
optional exact (equal to) version can also be given with the same
syntax as above (honored since dpkg 1.17.11).
Built-Using: package-list
This field lists extra source packages that were used during the
build of this binary package. This is an indication to the
archive maintenance software that these extra source packages
must be kept whilst this binary package is maintained. This
field must be a list of source package names with strict '='
version relationships. Note that the archive maintenance
software is likely to refuse to accept an upload which declares
a Built-Using relationship which cannot be satisfied within the
archive.
Built-For-Profiles: profile-list
This field specifies a whitespace separated list of build
profiles that this binary packages was built with.
EXAMPLE
# Comment Package: grep Essential: yes Priority: required Section: base Maintainer: Wichert Akkerman <[email protected]> Architecture: sparc Version: 2.4-1 Pre-Depends: libc6 (>= 2.0.105) Provides: rgrep Conflicts: rgrep Description: GNU grep, egrep and fgrep. The GNU family of grep utilities may be the "fastest grep in the west". GNU grep is based on a fast lazy-state deterministic matcher (about twice as fast as stock Unix egrep) hybridized with a Boyer-Moore-Gosper search for a fixed string that eliminates impossible text from being considered by the full regexp matcher without necessarily having to look at every character. The result is typically many times faster than Unix grep or egrep. (Regular expressions containing backreferencing will run more slowly, however).
SEE ALSO
deb(5), deb-version(5), debtags(1), dpkg(1), dpkg-deb(1).
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