deb-control(5) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FIELDS | EXAMPLE | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

deb-control(5)                 dpkg suite                 deb-control(5)

NAME         top

       deb-control - Debian binary package control file format

SYNOPSIS         top

       DEBIAN/control

DESCRIPTION         top

       Each Debian binary package contains a control file in its control
       member, and its deb822(5) format is a subset of the
       debian/control template source control file in Debian source
       packages, see deb-src-control(5).

       This file 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 (case sensitive unless stated
       otherwise).  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         top

       Package: package-name (required)
           The value of this field determines the package name, and is
           used to generate file names by most installation tools.

       Package-Type: deb|udeb|type
           This field defines the type of the package.  udeb is for
           size-constrained packages used by the debian installer.  deb
           is the default value, it is assumed if the field is absent.
           More types might be added in the future.

       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(7).

       Maintainer: fullname-email (recommended)
           Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@foo.com>”, 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.  The algorithm to compute the size is described
           in deb-substvars(5).

       Protected: yes|no
           This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes.  It
           denotes a package that is required mostly for proper booting
           of the system or used for custom system-local meta-packages.
           dpkg(1) or any other installation tool will not allow a
           Protected package to be removed (at least not without using
           one of the force options).

           Supported since dpkg 1.20.1.

       Essential: yes|no
           This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes.  It
           denotes a package that is required for the packaging system,
           for proper operation of the system in general or during boot
           (although the latter should be converted to Protected field
           instead).  dpkg(1) 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 (required)
           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: no|same|foreign|allowed
           This field is used to indicate how this package should behave
           on a multi-arch installations.

           no  This value is the default when the field is omitted, in
               which case adding the field with an explicit no value is
               generally not needed.

           same
               This 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.

           foreign
               This 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).

           allowed
               This allows reverse-dependencies to indicate in their
               Depends field that they accept this package from a
               foreign architecture by qualifying the package name with
               :any, but has no effect otherwise.

       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.  For more details about them, see
           <https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/debian-installer/-/raw/master/doc/devel/modules.txt>.

       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.

       Enhances: package-list
           This is a list of packages that this one enhances.  It is
           similar to Suggests but in the opposite direction.

       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 dependency field lists extra source packages that were
           used during the build of this binary package, for license
           compliance purposes.  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 comma-separated list of source package names with
           strict ‘=’ version relationships enclosed within parenthesis.
           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.

       Static-Built-Using: package-list
           This dependency field lists extra source packages that were
           used during the build of this binary package, for static
           building purposes (for example linking against static
           libraries, builds for source-centered languages such as Go or
           Rust, usage of header-only C/C++ libraries, injecting data
           blobs into code, etc.).  This is useful to track whether this
           package might need to be rebuilt when source packages listed
           here have been updated, for example due to security updates.
           This field must be a comma-separated list of source package
           names with strict ‘=’ version relationships enclosed within
           parenthesis.

           Supported since dpkg 1.21.3.

       Built-For-Profiles: profile-list (obsolete)
           This field used to specify a whitespace separated list of
           build profiles that this binary packages was built with
           (since dpkg 1.17.2 until 1.18.18).  The information
           previously found in this field can now be found in the
           .buildinfo file, which supersedes it.

       Auto-Built-Package: reason-list
           This field specifies a whitespace separated list of reasons
           why this package was auto-generated.  Binary packages marked
           with this field will not appear in the debian/control
           template source control file.  The only currently used reason
           is debug-symbols.

       Build-Ids: elf-build-id-list
           This field specifies a whitespace separated list of ELF
           build-ids. These are unique identifiers for semantically
           identical ELF objects, for each of these within the package.

           The format or the way to compute each build-id is not defined
           by design.

EXAMPLE         top

        Package: grep
        Essential: yes
        Priority: required
        Section: base
        Maintainer: Wichert Akkerman <wakkerma@debian.org>
        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).

BUGS         top

       The Build-Ids field uses a rather generic name out of its
       original context within an ELF object, which serves a very
       specific purpose and executable format.

SEE ALSO         top

       deb822(5), deb-src-control(5), deb(5), deb-version(7),
       debtags(1), dpkg(1), dpkg-deb(1).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the dpkg (Debian Package Manager) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=dpkg⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository ⟨git
       clone https://git.dpkg.org/git/dpkg/dpkg.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2023-12-18.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

1.22.2-1-gf1f96                2023-12-18                 deb-control(5)

Pages that refer to this page: dpkg(1)dpkg-deb(1)dpkg-gencontrol(1)dpkg-name(1)dpkg-parsechangelog(1)dpkg-split(1)deb(5)deb-old(5)deb-shlibs(5)deb-src-control(5)deb-version(7)