dpkg
Section: dpkg suite (1)
Updated: 2011-08-14
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NAME
dpkg - package manager for Debian
SYNOPSIS
dpkg
[
option...]
action
WARNING
This manual is intended for users wishing to understand
dpkg's
command line options and package states in more detail than that
provided by
dpkg --help.
It should not be used by package maintainers wishing to
understand how dpkg will install their packages. The
descriptions of what dpkg does when installing and removing
packages are particularly inadequate.
DESCRIPTION
dpkg is a tool to install, build, remove and manage
Debian packages. The primary and more user-friendly
front-end for
dpkg is
aptitude(1).
dpkg itself is
controlled entirely via command line parameters, which consist of exactly
one action and zero or more options. The action-parameter tells
dpkg
what to do and options control the behavior of the action in some way.
dpkg can also be used as a front-end to dpkg-deb(1) and
dpkg-query(1). The list of supported actions can be found later on
in the ACTIONS section. If any such action is encountered dpkg
just runs dpkg-deb or dpkg-query with the parameters given
to it, but no specific options are currently passed to them, to use
any such option the back-ends need to be called directly.
INFORMATION ABOUT PACKAGES
dpkg maintains some usable information about available
packages. The information is divided in three classes:
states,
selection states and
flags. These values are intended to
be changed mainly with
dselect.
PACKAGE STATES
- not-installed
-
The package is not installed on your system.
- config-files
-
Only the configuration files of the package exist on the system.
- half-installed
-
The installation of the package has been started, but not completed for
some reason.
- unpacked
-
The package is unpacked, but not configured.
- half-configured
-
The package is unpacked and configuration has been started, but not yet
completed for some reason.
- triggers-awaited
-
The package awaits trigger processing by another package.
- triggers-pending
-
The package has been triggered.
- installed
-
The package is unpacked and configured OK.
PACKAGE SELECTION STATES
- install
-
The package is selected for installation.
- hold
-
A package marked to be on hold is not handled by dpkg,
unless forced to do that with option --force-hold.
- deinstall
-
The package is selected for deinstallation (i.e. we want to remove all
files, except configuration files).
- purge
-
The package is selected to be purged (i.e. we want to remove everything
from system directories, even configuration files).
PACKAGE FLAGS
- reinst-required
-
A package marked reinst-required is broken and requires
reinstallation. These packages cannot be removed, unless forced with
option --force-remove-reinstreq.
ACTIONS
- -i, --install package-file...
-
Install the package. If --recursive or -R option is
specified, package-file must refer to a directory instead.
Installation consists of the following steps:
1. Extract the control files of the new package.
2. If another version of the same package was installed before
the new installation, execute prerm script of the old package.
3. Run preinst script, if provided by the package.
4. Unpack the new files, and at the same time back up the old
files, so that if something goes wrong, they can be restored.
5. If another version of the same package was installed before
the new installation, execute the postrm script of the old
package. Note that this script is executed after the preinst
script of the new package, because new files are written at the same
time old files are removed.
6. Configure the package. See --configure for detailed
information about how this is done.
- --unpack package-file...
-
Unpack the package, but don't configure it. If --recursive or
-R option is specified, package-file must refer to a
directory instead.
- --configure package...|-a|--pending
-
Configure a package which has been unpacked but not yet configured.
If -a or --pending is given instead of package,
all unpacked but unconfigured packages are configured.
To reconfigure a package which has already been configured, try the
dpkg-reconfigure(8)
command instead.
Configuring consists of the following steps:
1. Unpack the conffiles, and at the same time back up
the old conffiles, so that they can be restored if
something goes wrong.
2. Run postinst script, if provided by the package.
- --triggers-only package...|-a|--pending
-
Processes only triggers. All pending triggers will be processed. If package
names are supplied only those packages' triggers will be processed, exactly
once each where necessary. Use of this option may leave packages in the
improper triggers-awaited and triggers-pending states. This
can be fixed later by running: dpkg --configure --pending.
- -r, --remove, -P, --purge package...|-a|--pending
-
Remove an installed package. -r or --remove remove
everything except conffiles. This may avoid having to
reconfigure the package if it is reinstalled later. (Conffiles are configuration
files that are listed in the DEBIAN/conffiles control
file). -P or --purge removes everything, including
conffiles. If -a or --pending is given instead of a package
name, then all packages unpacked, but marked to be removed or purged
in file /var/lib/dpkg/status, are removed or purged,
respectively. Note: some configuration files might be unknown to
dpkg because they are created and handled separately through the
configuration scripts. In that case, dpkg won't remove them by
itself, but the package's postrm script (which is called by
dpkg), has to take care of their removal during purge. Of course,
this only applies to files in system directories, not configuration files
written to individual users' home directories.
Removing of a package consists of the following steps:
1. Run prerm script
2. Remove the installed files
3. Run postrm script
- --update-avail, --merge-avail Packages-file
-
Update dpkg's and dselect's idea of which packages are
available. With action --merge-avail, old information is
combined with information from Packages-file. With action
--update-avail, old information is replaced with the information
in the Packages-file. The Packages-file distributed with
Debian is simply named Packages. dpkg keeps its
record of available packages in /var/lib/dpkg/available.
A simpler one-shot command to retrieve and update the available
file is dselect update. Note that this file is mostly useless
if you don't use dselect but an APT-based frontend: APT has its
own system to keep track of available packages.
- -A, --record-avail package-file...
-
Update dpkg and dselect's idea of which packages are
available with information from the package package-file. If
--recursive or -R option is specified, package-file
must refer to a directory instead.
- --forget-old-unavail
-
Now obsolete and a no-op as dpkg will automatically forget
uninstalled unavailable packages.
- --clear-avail
-
Erase the existing information about what packages are available.
- -C, --audit
-
Searches for packages that have been installed only partially on your
system. dpkg will suggest what to do with them to get them
working.
- --get-selections [package-name-pattern...]
-
Get list of package selections, and write it to stdout. Without a pattern,
non-installed packages (i.e. those which have been previously purged)
will not be shown.
- --set-selections
-
Set package selections using file read from stdin. This file should be
in the format 'package state', where state is one of
install, hold, deinstall or purge. Blank lines
and comment lines beginning with '#' are also permitted.
- --clear-selections
-
Set the requested state of every non-essential package to deinstall.
This is intended to be used immediately before --set-selections, to
deinstall any packages not in list given to --set-selections.
- --yet-to-unpack
-
Searches for packages selected for installation, but which for some
reason still haven't been installed.
- --print-architecture
-
-
Print architecture of packages dpkg installs (for example, "i386").
- --foreign-architecture architecture
-
Add architecture to the list of architectures for which packages can be
installed without using --force-architecture, in addition to the
architecture dpkg is built for (i.e.: the output of
--print-architecture).
- --print-foreign-architectures
-
Print a space-separated list of the extra architectures dpkg is
configured to allow packages to be installed for.
- --compare-versions ver1 op ver2
-
Compare version numbers, where op is a binary operator. dpkg
returns success (zero result) if the specified condition is satisfied,
and failure (nonzero result) otherwise. There are
two groups of operators, which differ in how they treat an empty
ver1 or ver2. These treat an empty version as earlier than any
version: lt le eq ne ge gt. These treat an empty version as later
than any version: lt-nl le-nl ge-nl gt-nl. These are provided
only for compatibility with control file syntax: < << <= = >= >>
>.
- --command-fd n
-
Accept a series of commands on input file descriptor n. Note:
additional options set on the command line, and through this file descriptor,
are not reset for subsequent commands executed during the same run.
- --help
-
Display a brief help message.
- --force-help
-
Give help about the --force-thing options.
- -Dh, --debug=help
-
Give help about debugging options.
- --version
-
Display dpkg version information.
- dpkg-deb actions
-
See dpkg-deb(1) for more information about the following actions.
-b, --build directory [archive|directory]
Build a deb package.
-c, --contents archive
List contents of a deb package.
-e, --control filename [directory]
Extract control-information from a package.
-x, --extract archive directory
Extract the files contained by package.
-X, --vextract archive directory
Extract and display the filenames contained by a
package.
-f, --field archive [control-field...]
Display control field(s) of a package.
--fsys-tarfile archive
Display the filesystem tar-file contained by a
Debian package.
-I, --info archive [control-file...]
Show information about a package.
- dpkg-query actions
-
See dpkg-query(1) for more information about the following actions.
-l, --list package-name-pattern...
List packages matching given pattern.
-s, --status package-name...
Report status of specified package.
-L, --listfiles package-name...
List files installed to your system from package-name.
-S, --search filename-search-pattern...
Search for a filename from installed packages.
-p, --print-avail package-name...
Display details about package-name, as found in
/var/lib/dpkg/available. Users of APT-based frontends
should use apt-cache show package-name instead.
OPTIONS
All options can be specified both on the command line and in the
dpkg
configuration file
/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg or the files on the configuration
directory
/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/. Each line in the configuration
file is either an option (exactly the same as the command line option but
without leading dashes) or a comment (if it starts with a
#).
- --abort-after=number
-
Change after how many errors dpkg will abort. The default is 50.
- -B, --auto-deconfigure
-
When a package is removed, there is a possibility that another
installed package depended on the removed package. Specifying this
option will cause automatic deconfiguration of the package which
depended on the removed package.
- -Doctal, --debug=octal
-
Switch debugging on. octal is formed by bitwise-orring desired
values together from the list below (note that these values may change
in future releases). -Dh or --debug=help display these
debugging values.
Number Description
1 Generally helpful progress information
2 Invocation and status of maintainer scripts
10 Output for each file processed
100 Lots of output for each file processed
20 Output for each configuration file
200 Lots of output for each configuration file
40 Dependencies and conflicts
400 Lots of dependencies/conflicts output
10000 Trigger activation and processing
20000 Lots of output regarding triggers
40000 Silly amounts of output regarding triggers
1000 Lots of drivel about e.g. the dpkg/info dir
2000 Insane amounts of drivel
- --force-things, --no-force-things, --refuse-things
-
Force or refuse (no-force and refuse mean the same thing)
to do some things. things is a comma separated list of things
specified below. --force-help displays a message describing them.
Things marked with (*) are forced by default.
Warning: These options are mostly intended to be used by experts
only. Using them without fully understanding their effects may break
your whole system.
all:
Turns on (or off) all force options.
downgrade(*):
Install a package, even if newer version of it is already installed.
Warning: At present dpkg does not do any dependency
checking on downgrades and therefore will not warn you
if the downgrade breaks the dependency of some other
package. This can have serious side effects, downgrading
essential system components can even make your whole
system unusable. Use with care.
configure-any:
Configure also any unpacked but unconfigured packages on which the current
package depends.
hold:
Process packages even when marked "hold".
remove-reinstreq:
Remove a package, even if it's broken and marked to require
reinstallation. This may, for example, cause parts of the package to
remain on the system, which will then be forgotten by dpkg.
remove-essential:
Remove, even if the package is considered essential. Essential
packages contain mostly very basic Unix commands. Removing them might
cause the whole system to stop working, so use with caution.
depends:
Turn all dependency problems into warnings.
depends-version:
Don't care about versions when checking dependencies.
breaks:
Install, even if this would break another package.
conflicts:
Install, even if it conflicts with another package. This is dangerous,
for it will usually cause overwriting of some files.
confmiss:
Always install a missing conffile. This is dangerous,
since it means not preserving a change (removing) made to the
file.
confnew:
If a conffile has been modified always install the new version without
prompting, unless the --force-confdef is also specified, in
which case the default action is preferred.
confold:
If a conffile has been modified always keep the old version without
prompting, unless the --force-confdef is also specified, in
which case the default action is preferred.
confdef:
If a conffile has been modified always choose the default action. If
there is no default action it will stop to ask the user unless
--force-confnew or --force-confold is also been given, in
which case it will use that to decide the final action.
confask:
If a conffile has been modified always offer to replace it with the
version in the package, even if the version in the package did not
change. If any of --force-confmiss, --force-confnew,
--force-confold, or --force-confdef is also given,
it will be used to decide the final action.
overwrite:
Overwrite one package's file with another's file.
overwrite-dir
Overwrite one package's directory with another's file.
overwrite-diverted:
Overwrite a diverted file with an undiverted version.
unsafe-io:
Do not perform safe I/O operations when unpacking. Currently this
implies not performing file system syncs before file renames, which is
known to cause substantial performance degradation on some file systems,
unfortunately the ones that require the safe I/O on the first place due
to their unreliable behaviour causing zero-length files on abrupt
system crashes.
Note: For ext4, the main offender, consider using instead the
mount option nodelalloc, which will fix both the performance
degradation and the data safety issues, the latter by making the file
system not produce zero-length files on abrupt system crashes with
any software not doing syncs before atomic renames.
Warning: Using this option might improve performance at the cost of
losing data, use with care.
architecture:
Process even packages with wrong or no architecture.
bad-version:
Process even packages with wrong versions.
bad-path:
PATH is missing important programs, so problems are likely.
not-root:
Try to (de)install things even when not root.
bad-verify:
Install a package even if it fails authenticity check.
- --ignore-depends=package,...
-
Ignore dependency-checking for specified packages (actually, checking is
performed, but only warnings about conflicts are given, nothing else).
- --no-act, --dry-run, --simulate
-
Do everything which is supposed to be done, but don't write any
changes. This is used to see what would happen with the specified
action, without actually modifying anything.
Be sure to give --no-act before the action-parameter, or you might
end up with undesirable results. (e.g. dpkg --purge foo
--no-act will first purge package foo and then try to purge package
--no-act, even though you probably expected it to actually do nothing)
- -R, --recursive
-
Recursively handle all regular files matching pattern *.deb
found at specified directories and all of its subdirectories. This can
be used with -i, -A, --install, --unpack and
--avail actions.
- -G
-
Don't install a package if a newer version of the same package is already
installed. This is an alias of --refuse-downgrade.
- --admindir=dir
-
Change default administrative directory, which contains many files that
give information about status of installed or uninstalled packages, etc.
(Defaults to /var/lib/dpkg)
- --instdir=dir
-
Change default installation directory which refers to the directory where
packages are to be installed. instdir is also the directory passed
to chroot(2) before running package's installation scripts, which
means that the scripts see instdir as a root directory.
(Defaults to /)
- --root=dir
-
Changing root changes instdir to dir and admindir
to dir/var/lib/dpkg.
- -O, --selected-only
-
Only process the packages that are selected for installation. The
actual marking is done with dselect or by dpkg, when it
handles packages. For example, when a package is removed, it will
be marked selected for deinstallation.
- -E, --skip-same-version
-
Don't install the package if the same version of the package is already
installed.
--pre-invoke=command
--post-invoke=command
-
Set an invoke hook command to be run via ``sh -c'' before or
after the dpkg run for the unpack, configure, install,
triggers-only, remove and purge dpkg actions. This
option can be specified multiple times. The order the options are specified
is preserved, with the ones from the configuration files taking precedence.
The environment variable DPKG_HOOK_ACTION is set for the hooks to the
current dpkg action. Note: front-ends might call dpkg several times per
invocation, which might run the hooks more times than expected.
--path-exclude=glob-pattern
--path-include=glob-pattern
-
Set glob-pattern as a path filter, either by excluding or re-including
previously excluded paths matching the specified patterns during install.
Warning: take into account that depending on the excluded paths you
might completely break your system, use with caution.
The glob patterns use the same wildcards used in the shell, were '*' matches
any sequence of characters, including the empty string and also '/'. For
example, '/usr/*/READ*' matches '/usr/share/doc/package/README'.
As usual, '?' matches any single character (again, including '/'). And '['
starts a character class, which can contain a list of characters, ranges
and complementations. See glob(7) for detailed information about
globbing. Note: the current implementation might re-include more directories
and symlinks than needed, to be on the safe side and avoid possible unpack
failures, future work might fix this.
This can be used to remove all paths except some particular ones; a typical
case is:
--path-exclude=/usr/share/doc/*
--path-include=/usr/share/doc/*/copyright
to remove all documentation files except the copyright files.
These two options can be specified multiple times, and interleaved with
each other. Both are processed in the given order, with the last rule that
matches a file name making the decision.
- --status-fd n
-
Send machine-readable package status and progress information to file
descriptor n. This option can be specified multiple times. The
information is generally one record per line, in one of the following
forms:
-
- status: package: status
-
Package status changed; status is as in the status file.
- status: package : error : extended-error-message
-
An error occurred. Any possible newlines in extended-error-message
will be converted to spaces before output.
- status: file : conffile-prompt : 'real-old' 'real-new' useredited distedited
-
User is being asked a conffile question.
- processing: stage: package
-
Sent just before a processing stage starts. stage is one of
upgrade, install (both sent before unpacking),
configure, trigproc, disappear, remove, purge.
- --status-logger=command
-
Send machine-readable package status and progress information to the
shell command's standard input. This option can be specified
multiple times. The output format used is the same as in --status-fd.
- --log=
filename-
Log status change updates and actions to filename, instead of
the default /var/log/dpkg.log. If this option is given multiple
times, the last filename is used. Log messages are of the form
`YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS status state pkg installed-version'
for status change updates;
`YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS action pkg installed-version
available-version' for actions where action is one of
install, upgrade, remove, purge; and
`YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS conffile filename decision' for conffile
changes where decision is either install or keep.
- --no-debsig
-
Do not try to verify package signatures.
- --no-triggers
-
Do not run any triggers in this run (activations will still be recorded).
If used with --configure package or
--triggers-only package then the named package postinst
will still be run even if only a triggers run is needed. Use of this option
may leave packages in the improper triggers-awaited and
triggers-pending states. This can be fixed later by running:
dpkg --configure --pending.
- --triggers
-
Cancels a previous --no-triggers.
FILES
- /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg
-
Configuration file with default options.
- /var/log/dpkg.log
-
Default log file (see /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg(5) and option
--log).
The other files listed below are in their default directories, see option
--admindir to see how to change locations of these files.
- /var/lib/dpkg/available
-
List of available packages.
- /var/lib/dpkg/status
-
Statuses of available packages. This file contains information about
whether a package is marked for removing or not, whether it is
installed or not, etc. See section INFORMATION ABOUT PACKAGES
for more info.
The status file is backed up daily in /var/backups. It can be
useful if it's lost or corrupted due to filesystems troubles.
The following files are components of a binary package. See deb(5)
for more information about them:
- control
-
- conffiles
-
- preinst
-
- postinst
-
- prerm
-
- postrm
-
ENVIRONMENT
- HOME
-
If set, dpkg will use it as the directory from which to read the user
specific configuration file.
- TMPDIR
-
If set, dpkg will use it as the directory in which to create
temporary files and directories.
- PAGER
-
The program dpkg will execute when displaying the conffiles.
- SHELL
-
The program dpkg will execute when starting a new shell.
- COLUMNS
-
Sets the number of columns dpkg should use when displaying formatted
text. Currently only used by -l.
- DPKG_SHELL_REASON
-
Defined by dpkg on the shell spawned on the conffile prompt to
examine the situation. Current valid value: conffile-prompt.
- DPKG_CONFFILE_OLD
-
Defined by dpkg on the shell spawned on the conffile prompt to
examine the situation. Contains the path to the old conffile.
- DPKG_CONFFILE_NEW
-
Defined by dpkg on the shell spawned on the conffile prompt to
examine the situation. Contains the path to the new conffile.
- DPKG_RUNNING_VERSION
-
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to the
version of the currently running dpkg instance.
- DPKG_MAINTSCRIPT_PACKAGE
-
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to the
package name being handled.
- DPKG_MAINTSCRIPT_ARCH
-
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to the
architecture the package got built for.
- DPKG_MAINTSCRIPT_NAME
-
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to the
name of the script running (preinst, postinst, prerm, postrm).
EXAMPLES
To list packages related to the editor
vi(1):
dpkg -l '*vi*'
To see the entries in /var/lib/dpkg/available of two packages:
dpkg --print-avail elvis vim | less
To search the listing of packages yourself:
less /var/lib/dpkg/available
To remove an installed elvis package:
dpkg -r elvis
To install a package, you first need to find it in an archive or
CDROM. The "available" file shows that the vim package is in section
"editors":
cd /media/cdrom/pool/main/v/vim
dpkg -i vim_4.5-3.deb
To make a local copy of the package selection states:
dpkg --get-selections >myselections
You might transfer this file to another computer, and install it there
with:
dpkg --clear-selections
dpkg --set-selections <myselections
Note that this will not actually install or remove anything, but just
set the selection state on the requested packages. You will need some
other application to actually download and install the requested
packages. For example, run apt-get dselect-upgrade.
Ordinarily, you will find that dselect(1) provides a more
convenient way to modify the package selection states.
ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONALITY
Additional functionality can be gained by installing any of the
following packages:
apt,
aptitude and
debsums.
SEE ALSO
aptitude(1),
apt(1),
dselect(1),
dpkg-deb(1),
dpkg-query(1),
deb(5),
deb-control(5),
dpkg.cfg(5),
and
dpkg-reconfigure(8).
BUGS
--no-act usually gives less information than might be helpful.
AUTHORS
See
/usr/share/doc/dpkg/THANKS for the list of people who have
contributed to
dpkg.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- WARNING
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- INFORMATION ABOUT PACKAGES
-
- PACKAGE STATES
-
- PACKAGE SELECTION STATES
-
- PACKAGE FLAGS
-
- ACTIONS
-
- OPTIONS
-
- FILES
-
- ENVIRONMENT
-
- EXAMPLES
-
- ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONALITY
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- BUGS
-
- AUTHORS
-
for client
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