dpkg-deb(1)


NAME

   dpkg-deb - Debian package archive (.deb) manipulation tool

SYNOPSIS

   dpkg-deb [option...] command

DESCRIPTION

   dpkg-deb packs, unpacks and provides information about Debian archives.

   Use dpkg to install and remove packages from your system.

   You  can also invoke dpkg-deb by calling dpkg with whatever options you
   want to pass to dpkg-deb. dpkg will spot that you wanted  dpkg-deb  and
   run it for you.

   For  most commands taking an input archive argument, the archive can be
   read from standard input if the archive name is given as a single minus
   character  (-); otherwise lack of support will be documented in their
   respective command description.

COMMANDS

   -b, --build directory [archive|directory]
          Creates a debian archive from  the  filesystem  tree  stored  in
          directory.  directory  must  have  a  DEBIAN subdirectory, which
          contains the control information files such as the control  file
          itself.  This  directory will not appear in the binary package's
          filesystem archive, but instead the files in it will be  put  in
          the binary package's control information area.

          Unless  you specify --nocheck, dpkg-deb will read DEBIAN/control
          and parse it. It will check the file for syntax errors and other
          problems,  and  display  the  name  of  the binary package being
          built.   dpkg-deb  will  also  check  the  permissions  of   the
          maintainer  scripts  and other files found in the DEBIAN control
          information directory.

          If no archive is specified then dpkg-deb will write the  package
          into the file directory.deb.

          If  the  archive  to  be  created  already  exists  it  will  be
          overwritten.

          If the second argument is a directory then dpkg-deb  will  write
          to  the file package_version_arch.deb, or package_version.deb if
          no Architecture field is present in the  package  control  file.
          When  a  target  directory is specified, rather than a file, the
          --nocheck option may not be used (since dpkg-deb needs  to  read
          and  parse  the package control file to determine which filename
          to use).

   -I, --info archive [control-file-name...]
          Provides information about a binary package archive.

          If no control-file-names are specified  then  it  will  print  a
          summary  of  the  contents of the package as well as its control
          file.

          If any control-file-names are specified then dpkg-deb will print
          them  in the order they were specified; if any of the components
          weren't present it will print an error message to  stderr  about
          each one and exit with status 2.

   -W, --show archive
          Provides  information  about  a  binary  package  archive in the
          format specified  by  the  --showformat  argument.  The  default
          format  displays  the  package's  name  and version on one line,
          separated by a tabulator.

   -f, --field archive [control-field-name...]
          Extracts control file information from a binary package archive.

          If no control-field-names are specified then it will  print  the
          whole control file.

          If any are specified then dpkg-deb will print their contents, in
          the order in which they appear in the control file. If more than
          one  control-field-name  is specified then dpkg-deb will precede
          each with its field name (and a colon and space).

          No errors are reported for fields requested but not found.

   -c, --contents archive
          Lists the contents of the filesystem tree archive portion of the
          package   archive.  It  is  currently  produced  in  the  format
          generated by tar's verbose listing.

   -x, --extract archive directory
          Extracts the filesystem tree from a  package  archive  into  the
          specified directory.

          Note  that  extracting  a package to the root directory will not
          result in a correct installation! Use dpkg to install packages.

          directory (but not its parents) will be  created  if  necessary,
          and  its  permissions  modified  to  match  the  contents of the
          package.

   -X, --vextract archive directory
          Is like --extract  (-x)  with  --verbose  (-v)  which  prints  a
          listing of the files extracted as it goes.

   -R, --raw-extract archive directory
          Extracts  the  filesystem  tree  from  a  package archive into a
          specified directory, and the control information  files  into  a
          DEBIAN  subdirectory  of  the  specified  directory  (since dpkg
          1.16.1).

          The target directory (but not its parents) will  be  created  if
          necessary.

          The  input archive is not (currently) processed sequentially, so
          reading it from standard input (-) is not supported.

   --ctrl-tarfile archive
          Extracts the control data from a binary package and sends it  to
          standard  output  in  tar  format (since dpkg 1.17.14). Together
          with tar(1) this can be used to  extract  a  particular  control
          file  from  a package archive.  The input archive will always be
          processed sequentially.

   --fsys-tarfile archive
          Extracts the filesystem tree data  from  a  binary  package  and
          sends  it to standard output in tar format. Together with tar(1)
          this can be used to extract a particular  file  from  a  package
          archive.    The   input   archive   will   always  be  processed
          sequentially.

   -e, --control archive [directory]
          Extracts the control information files from  a  package  archive
          into the specified directory.

          If  no  directory is specified then a subdirectory DEBIAN in the
          current directory is used.

          The target directory (but not its parents) will  be  created  if
          necessary.

   -?, --help
          Show the usage message and exit.

   --version
          Show the version and exit.

OPTIONS

   --showformat=format
          This  option  is used to specify the format of the output --show
          will produce. The format is a string that  will  be  output  for
          each package listed.

          The  string  may  reference any status field using the "${field-
          name}" form, a list of the valid fields can be  easily  produced
          using  -I  on  the  same  package. A complete explanation of the
          formatting  options  (including  escape  sequences   and   field
          tabbing)  can  be  found  in the explanation of the --showformat
          option in dpkg-query(1).

          The default for this field is "${Package}\t${Version}\n".

   -zcompress-level
          Specify  which  compression  level  to  use  on  the  compressor
          backend,  when  building  a  package  (default is 9 for gzip and
          bzip2, 6 for xz and lzma).  The accepted values are 0-9 with:  0
          being  mapped  to compressor none for gzip and 0 mapped to 1 for
          bzip2. Before dpkg 1.16.2 level 0 was equivalent  to  compressor
          none for all compressors.

   -Scompress-strategy
          Specify  which  compression  strategy  to  use on the compressor
          backend, when building a package (since  dpkg  1.16.2).  Allowed
          values  are none (since dpkg 1.16.4), filtered, huffman, rle and
          fixed for gzip (since dpkg 1.17.0) and extreme for xz.

   -Zcompress-type
          Specify which compression type to use when building  a  package.
          Allowed   values   are  gzip,  xz  (since  dpkg  1.15.6),  bzip2
          (deprecated), lzma (since dpkg  1.14.0;  deprecated),  and  none
          (default is xz).

   --uniform-compression
          Specify  that the same compression parameters should be used for
          all archive members (i.e. control.tar and data.tar;  since  dpkg
          1.17.6).   Otherwise  only  the  data.tar  member will use those
          parameters. The only supported compression types allowed  to  be
          uniformly used are none, gzip and xz.

   --deb-format=format
          Set  the  archive  format version used when building (since dpkg
          1.17.0).  Allowed  values  are  2.0  for  the  new  format,  and
          0.939000 for the old one (default is 2.0).

          The old archive format is less easily parsed by non-Debian tools
          and is now obsolete; its only use is when building  packages  to
          be  parsed  by  versions  of  dpkg older than 0.93.76 (September
          1995), which was released as i386 a.out only.

   --new  This is a legacy alias for --deb-format=2.0.

   --old  This is a legacy alias for --deb-format=0.939000.

   --nocheck
          Inhibits  dpkg-deb  --build's  usual  checks  on  the   proposed
          contents  of  an archive. You can build any archive you want, no
          matter how broken, this way.

   -v, --verbose
          Enables verbose output (since dpkg 1.16.1).  This currently only
          affects --extract making it behave like --vextract.

   -D, --debug
          Enables debugging output. This is not very interesting.

EXIT STATUS

   0      The requested action was successfully performed.

   2      Fatal  or unrecoverable error due to invalid command-line usage,
          or interactions  with  the  system,  such  as  accesses  to  the
          database, memory allocations, etc.

ENVIRONMENT

   TMPDIR If set, dpkg-deb will use it as the directory in which to create
          temporary files and directories.

   SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
          If set, it will be used as the timestamp (as seconds  since  the
          epoch)  in  the  deb(5)'s  ar(5) container and used to clamp the
          mtime in the tar(5) file entries.

NOTES

   Do not attempt to use just dpkg-deb to install software! You  must  use
   dpkg  proper  to ensure that all the files are correctly placed and the
   package's scripts run and its status and contents recorded.

BUGS

   dpkg-deb -I package1.deb package2.deb does the wrong thing.

   There is no authentication on .deb files; in fact, there isn't  even  a
   straightforward   checksum.   (Higher  level  tools  like  APT  support
   authenticating .deb packages retrieved from  a  given  repository,  and
   most  packages  nowadays  provide  an  md5sum control file generated by
   debian/rules. Though this is not directly supported by the lower  level
   tools.)

SEE ALSO

   deb(5), deb-control(5), dpkg(1), dselect(1).





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