1deb-control(5) dpkg suite deb-control(5)
2
6 deb-control - Debian binary packages' master control file format
7
9 DEBIAN/control
10
12 Each Debian binary package contains a control file in its control
13 member, and its deb822(5) format is a subset of the master
14 debian/control file in Debian source packages, see deb-src-control(5).
15 This file contains a number of fields. Each field begins with a tag,
17 such as Package or Version (case insensitive), followed by a colon, and
18 the body of the field (case sensitive unless stated otherwise). Fields
19 are delimited only by field tags. In other words, field text may be
20 multiple lines in length, but the installation tools will generally
21 join lines when processing the body of the field (except in the case of
22 the Description field, see below).
23
25 Package: package-name (required)
26 The value of this field determines the package name, and is used to
27 generate file names by most installation tools.
28 Package-Type: deb|udeb|type
30 This field defines the type of the package. udeb is for size-
31 constrained packages used by the debian installer. deb is the
32 default value, it is assumed if the field is absent. More types
33 might be added in the future.
34 Version: version-string (required)
36 Typically, this is the original package's version number in
37 whatever form the program's author uses. It may also include a
38 Debian revision number (for non-native packages). The exact format
39 and sorting algorithm are described in deb-version(7).
40 Maintainer: fullname-email (recommended)
42 Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@foo.com>”, and is
43 typically the person who created the package, as opposed to the
44 author of the software that was packaged.
45 Description: short-description (recommended)
47 long-description
48 The format for the package description is a short brief summary on
49 the first line (after the Description field). The following lines
50 should be used as a longer, more detailed description. Each line of
51 the long description must be preceded by a space, and blank lines
52 in the long description must contain a single ‘.’ following the
53 preceding space.
54 Section: section
56 This is a general field that gives the package a category based on
57 the software that it installs. Some common sections are utils,
58 net, mail, text, x11, etc.
59 Priority: priority
61 Sets the importance of this package in relation to the system as a
62 whole. Common priorities are required, standard, optional, extra,
63 etc.
64 The Section and Priority fields usually have a defined set of accepted
66 values based on the specific distribution policy.
67 Installed-Size: size
69 The approximate total size of the package's installed files, in KiB
70 units. The algorithm to compute the size is described in
71 deb-substvars(5).
72 Protected: yes|no
74 This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes. It
75 denotes a package that is required mostly for proper booting of the
76 system or used for custom system-local meta-packages. dpkg(1) or
77 any other installation tool will not allow a Protected package to
78 be removed (at least not without using one of the force options).
79 Supported since dpkg 1.20.1.
81 Essential: yes|no
83 This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes. It
84 denotes a package that is required for the packaging system, for
85 proper operation of the system in general or during boot (although
86 the latter should be converted to Protected field instead).
87 dpkg(1) or any other installation tool will not allow an Essential
88 package to be removed (at least not without using one of the force
89 options).
90 Build-Essential: yes|no
92 This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes, and is
93 commonly injected by the archive software. It denotes a package
94 that is required when building other packages.
95 Architecture: arch|all (required)
97 The architecture specifies which type of hardware this package was
98 compiled for. Common architectures are amd64, armel, i386,
99 powerpc, etc. Note that the all value is meant for packages that
100 are architecture independent. Some examples of this are shell and
101 Perl scripts, and documentation.
102 Origin: name
104 The name of the distribution this package is originating from.
105 Bugs: url
107 The url of the bug tracking system for this package. The current
108 used format is bts-type://bts-address, like
109 debbugs://bugs.debian.org.
110 Homepage: url
112 The upstream project home page url.
113 Tag: tag-list
115 List of tags describing the qualities of the package. The
116 description and list of supported tags can be found in the debtags
117 package.
118 Multi-Arch: no|same|foreign|allowed
120 This field is used to indicate how this package should behave on a
121 multi-arch installations.
122 no This value is the default when the field is omitted, in which
124 case adding the field with an explicit no value is generally
125 not needed.
126 same
128 This package is co-installable with itself, but it must not be
129 used to satisfy the dependency of any package of a different
130 architecture from itself.
131 foreign
133 This package is not co-installable with itself, but should be
134 allowed to satisfy a non-arch-qualified dependency of a package
135 of a different arch from itself (if a dependency has an
136 explicit arch-qualifier then the value foreign is ignored).
137 allowed
139 This allows reverse-dependencies to indicate in their Depends
140 field that they accept this package from a foreign architecture
141 by qualifying the package name with :any, but has no effect
142 otherwise.
143 Source: source-name [(source-version)]
145 The name of the source package that this binary package came from,
146 if it is different than the name of the package itself. If the
147 source version differs from the binary version, then the source-
148 name will be followed by a source-version in parenthesis. This can
149 happen for example on a binary-only non-maintainer upload, or when
150 setting a different binary version via «dpkg-gencontrol -v».
151 Subarchitecture: value
153 Kernel-Version: value
154 Installer-Menu-Item: value
155 These fields are used by the debian-installer and are usually not
156 needed. See /usr/share/doc/debian-installer/devel/modules.txt from
157 the debian-installer package for more details about them.
158 Depends: package-list
160 List of packages that are required for this package to provide a
161 non-trivial amount of functionality. The package maintenance
162 software will not allow a package to be installed if the packages
163 listed in its Depends field aren't installed (at least not without
164 using the force options). In an installation, the postinst scripts
165 of packages listed in Depends fields are run before those of the
166 packages which depend on them. On the opposite, in a removal, the
167 prerm script of a package is run before those of the packages
168 listed in its Depends field.
169 Pre-Depends: package-list
171 List of packages that must be installed and configured before this
172 one can be installed. This is usually used in the case where this
173 package requires another package for running its preinst script.
174 Recommends: package-list
176 Lists packages that would be found together with this one in all
177 but unusual installations. The package maintenance software will
178 warn the user if they install a package without those listed in its
179 Recommends field.
180 Suggests: package-list
182 Lists packages that are related to this one and can perhaps enhance
183 its usefulness, but without which installing this package is
184 perfectly reasonable.
185 The syntax of Depends, Pre-Depends, Recommends and Suggests fields is a
187 list of groups of alternative packages. Each group is a list of
188 packages separated by vertical bar (or “pipe”) symbols, ‘|’. The
189 groups are separated by commas. Commas are to be read as “AND”, and
190 pipes as “OR”, with pipes binding more tightly. Each package name is
191 optionally followed by an architecture qualifier appended after a colon
192 ‘:’, optionally followed by a version number specification in
193 parentheses.
194 An architecture qualifier name can be a real Debian architecture name
196 (since dpkg 1.16.5) or any (since dpkg 1.16.2). If omitted, the
197 default is the current binary package architecture. A real Debian
198 architecture name will match exactly that architecture for that package
199 name, any will match any architecture for that package name if the
200 package has been marked as Multi-Arch: allowed.
201 A version number may start with a ‘>>’, in which case any later version
203 will match, and may specify or omit the Debian packaging revision
204 (separated by a hyphen). Accepted version relationships are ‘>>’ for
205 greater than, ‘<<’ for less than, ‘>=’ for greater than or equal to,
206 ‘<=’ for less than or equal to, and ‘=’ for equal to.
207 Breaks: package-list
209 Lists packages that this one breaks, for example by exposing bugs
210 when the named packages rely on this one. The package maintenance
211 software will not allow broken packages to be configured; generally
212 the resolution is to upgrade the packages named in a Breaks field.
213 Conflicts: package-list
215 Lists packages that conflict with this one, for example by
216 containing files with the same names. The package maintenance
217 software will not allow conflicting packages to be installed at the
218 same time. Two conflicting packages should each include a Conflicts
219 line mentioning the other.
220 Replaces: package-list
222 List of packages files from which this one replaces. This is used
223 for allowing this package to overwrite the files of another package
224 and is usually used with the Conflicts field to force removal of
225 the other package, if this one also has the same files as the
226 conflicted package.
227 The syntax of Breaks, Conflicts and Replaces is a list of package
229 names, separated by commas (and optional whitespace). In the Breaks
230 and Conflicts fields, the comma should be read as “OR”. An optional
231 architecture qualifier can also be appended to the package name with
232 the same syntax as above, but the default is any instead of the binary
233 package architecture. An optional version can also be given with the
234 same syntax as above for the Breaks, Conflicts and Replaces fields.
235 Enhances: package-list
237 This is a list of packages that this one enhances. It is similar
238 to Suggests but in the opposite direction.
239 Provides: package-list
241 This is a list of virtual packages that this one provides. Usually
242 this is used in the case of several packages all providing the same
243 service. For example, sendmail and exim can serve as a mail
244 server, so they provide a common package (“mail-transport-agent”)
245 on which other packages can depend. This will allow sendmail or
246 exim to serve as a valid option to satisfy the dependency. This
247 prevents the packages that depend on a mail server from having to
248 know the package names for all of them, and using ‘|’ to separate
249 the list.
250 The syntax of Provides is a list of package names, separated by commas
252 (and optional whitespace). An optional architecture qualifier can also
253 be appended to the package name with the same syntax as above. If
254 omitted, the default is the current binary package architecture. An
255 optional exact (equal to) version can also be given with the same
256 syntax as above (honored since dpkg 1.17.11).
257 Built-Using: package-list
259 This dependency field lists extra source packages that were used
260 during the build of this binary package, for license compliance
261 purposes. This is an indication to the archive maintenance
262 software that these extra source packages must be kept whilst this
263 binary package is maintained. This field must be a comma-separated
264 list of source package names with strict ‘=’ version relationships
265 enclosed within parenthesis. Note that the archive maintenance
266 software is likely to refuse to accept an upload which declares a
267 Built-Using relationship which cannot be satisfied within the
268 archive.
269 Static-Built-Using: package-list
271 This dependency field lists extra source packages that were used
272 during the build of this binary package, for static building
273 purposes (for example linking against static libraries, builds for
274 source-centered languages such as Go or Rust, usage of header-only
275 C/C++ libraries, injecting data blobs into code, etc.). This is
276 useful to track whether this package might need to be rebuilt when
277 source packages listed here have been updated, for example due to
278 security updates. This field must be a comma-separated list of
279 source package names with strict ‘=’ version relationships enclosed
280 within parenthesis.
281 Supported since dpkg 1.21.3.
283 Built-For-Profiles: profile-list (obsolete)
285 This field used to specify a whitespace separated list of build
286 profiles that this binary packages was built with (since dpkg
287 1.17.2 until 1.18.18). The information previously found in this
288 field can now be found in the .buildinfo file, which supersedes it.
289 Auto-Built-Package: reason-list
291 This field specifies a whitespace separated list of reasons why
292 this package was auto-generated. Binary packages marked with this
293 field will not appear in the debian/control master source control
294 file. The only currently used reason is debug-symbols.
295 Build-Ids: elf-build-id-list
297 This field specifies a whitespace separated list of ELF build-ids.
298 These are unique identifiers for semantically identical ELF
299 objects, for each of these within the package.
300 The format or the way to compute each build-id is not defined by
302 design.
303
305 Package: grep
306 Essential: yes
307 Priority: required
308 Section: base
309 Maintainer: Wichert Akkerman <wakkerma@debian.org>
310 Architecture: sparc
311 Version: 2.4-1
312 Pre-Depends: libc6 (>= 2.0.105)
313 Provides: rgrep
314 Conflicts: rgrep
315 Description: GNU grep, egrep and fgrep.
316 The GNU family of grep utilities may be the "fastest grep in the west".
317 GNU grep is based on a fast lazy-state deterministic matcher (about
318 twice as fast as stock Unix egrep) hybridized with a Boyer-Moore-Gosper
319 search for a fixed string that eliminates impossible text from being
320 considered by the full regexp matcher without necessarily having to
321 look at every character. The result is typically many times faster
322 than Unix grep or egrep. (Regular expressions containing backreferencing
323 will run more slowly, however).
324
326 The Build-Ids field uses a rather generic name out of its original
327 context within an ELF object, which serves a very specific purpose and
328 executable format.
329
331 deb822(5), deb-src-control(5), deb(5), deb-version(7), debtags(1),
332 dpkg(1), dpkg-deb(1).
3331.21.9 2022-07-01 deb-control(5)