1dpkg-scanpackages(1) dpkg utilities dpkg-scanpackages(1)
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6 dpkg-scanpackages - create Packages index files
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9 dpkg-scanpackages [options] binary-dir [override-file [path-prefix]] >
10 Packages
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13 dpkg-scanpackages sorts through a tree of Debian binary packages and
14 creates a Packages file, used by apt(8), dselect(1), etc, to tell the
15 user what packages are available for installation. These Packages files
16 are the same as those found on Debian archive sites and CD-ROMs. You
17 might use dpkg-scanpackages yourself if making a directory of local
18 packages to install on a cluster of machines.
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20 Note: If you want to access the generated Packages file with apt you
21 will probably need to compress the file with bzip2(1) (generating a
22 Packages.bz2 file) or gzip(1) (generatinc a Packages.gz file). apt
23 ignores uncompressed Packages files except on local access (i.e.
24 file:// sources).
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26 binarydir is the name of the tree of the binary packages to process
27 (for example, contrib/binary-i386). It is best to make this relative
28 to the root of the Debian archive, because every Filename field in the
29 new Packages file will start with this string.
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31 overridefile is the name of a file to read which contains information
32 about how the package fits into the distribution (it can be a com‐
33 pressed file); see deb-override(5).
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35 pathprefix is an optional string to be prepended to the Filename
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38 If more than one version of a package is found only the newest one is
39 included in the output. If they have the same version and only differ
40 in architecture only the first one found is used.
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43 -t, --type type
44 Scan for *.type packages, instead of *.deb.
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46 -u, --udeb
47 Obsolete alias for -tudeb.
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49 -e, --extra-override file
50 Scan file to find supplementary overrides (the file can be com‐
51 pressed). See deb-extra-override(5) for more information on its
52 format.
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54 -a, --arch arch
55 Use a pattern consisting of *_all.deb and *_arch.deb instead of
56 scanning for all debs,
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58 -m, --multiversion
59 Include all found packages in the output.
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61 -M, --medium id-string
62 Add an X-Medium field containing the value id-string. This field
63 is required if you want to generate Packages.cd files for use by
64 the multicd access method of dselect.
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66 -h, --help
67 Show the usage message and exit.
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69 --version
70 Show the version and exit.
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73 dpkg-scanpackages outputs the usual self-explanatory errors. It also
74 warns about packages that are in the wrong subdirectory, are dupli‐
75 cated, have a Filename field in their control file, are missing from
76 the override file, or have maintainer substitutions which do not take
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80 dpkg(1), dselect(1), deb-override(5), deb-extra-override(5), dpkg-scan‐
81 sources(1).
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85Debian Project 2009-10-01 dpkg-scanpackages(1)