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NAME | SYNOPSIS | WARNING | DESCRIPTION | INFORMATION ABOUT PACKAGES | ACTIONS | OPTIONS | EXIT STATUS | ENVIRONMENT | FILES | BUGS | EXAMPLES | ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONALITY | SEE ALSO | AUTHORS | COLOPHON |
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dpkg(1) dpkg suite dpkg(1)
dpkg - package manager for Debian
dpkg [option...] action
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.
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.
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 correctly unpacked and configured.
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).
unknown
The package selection is unknown. A package that is also
in a not-installed state, and with an ok flag will be
forgotten in the next database store.
Package flags
ok A package marked ok is in a known state, but might need
further processing.
reinstreq
A package marked reinstreq is broken and requires
reinstallation. These packages cannot be removed, unless
forced with option --force-remove-reinstreq.
-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 (since dpkg 1.14.17). 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 package...|-a|--pending
Remove an installed package. This removes everything
except conffiles and other data cleaned up by the postrm
script, which 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). If there is no DEBIAN/conffiles control file nor
DEBIAN/postrm script, this command is equivalent to
calling --purge. If -a or --pending is given instead of a
package name, then all packages unpacked, but marked to be
removed in file /usr/local/var/lib/dpkg/status, are
removed.
Removing of a package consists of the following steps:
1. Run prerm script
2. Remove the installed files
3. Run postrm script
-P, --purge package...|-a|--pending
Purge an installed or already removed package. This
removes everything, including conffiles, and anything else
cleaned up from postrm. If -a or --pending is given
instead of a package name, then all packages unpacked or
removed, but marked to be purged in file
/usr/local/var/lib/dpkg/status, are purged.
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.
Purging of a package consists of the following steps:
1. Remove the package, if not already removed. See
--remove for detailed information about how this is done.
2. Run postrm script.
-V, --verify [package-name...]
Verifies the integrity of package-name or all packages if
omitted, by comparing information from the files installed
by a package with the files metadata information stored in
the dpkg database (since dpkg 1.17.2). The origin of the
files metadata information in the database is the binary
packages themselves. That metadata gets collected at
package unpack time during the installation process.
Currently the only functional check performed is an md5sum
verification of the file contents against the stored value
in the files database. It will only get checked if the
database contains the file md5sum. To check for any
missing metadata in the database, the --audit command can
be used.
The output format is selectable with the --verify-format
option, which by default uses the rpm format, but that
might change in the future, and as such, programs parsing
this command output should be explicit about the format
they expect.
-C, --audit [package-name...]
Performs database sanity and consistency checks for
package-name or all packages if omitted (per package
checks since dpkg 1.17.10). For example, searches for
packages that have been installed only partially on your
system or that have missing, wrong or obsolete control
data or files. dpkg will suggest what to do with them to
get them fixed.
--update-avail [Packages-file]
--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». If the
Packages-file argument is missing or named «-» then it
will be read from standard input (since dpkg 1.17.7). dpkg
keeps its record of available packages in
/usr/local/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 (since dpkg 1.15.4), but
only those that do not contain user information such as
package selections.
--clear-avail
Erase the existing information about what packages are
available.
--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.
The available file needs to be up-to-date for this command
to be useful, otherwise unknown packages will be ignored
with a warning. See the --update-avail and --merge-avail
commands for more information.
--clear-selections
Set the requested state of every non-essential package to
deinstall (since dpkg 1.13.18). 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.
Note: This command makes use of both the available file
and the package selections.
--predep-package
Print a single package which is the target of one or more
relevant pre-dependencies and has itself no unsatisfied
pre-dependencies.
If such a package is present, output it as a Packages file
entry, which can be massaged as appropriate.
Note: This command makes use of both the available file
and the package selections.
Returns 0 when a package is printed, 1 when no suitable
package is available and 2 on error.
--add-architecture architecture
Add architecture to the list of architectures for which
packages can be installed without using
--force-architecture (since dpkg 1.16.2). The
architecture dpkg is built for (i.e. the output of
--print-architecture) is always part of that list.
--remove-architecture architecture
Remove architecture from the list of architectures for
which packages can be installed without using
--force-architecture (since dpkg 1.16.2). If the
architecture is currently in use in the database then the
operation will be refused, except if --force-architecture
is specified. The architecture dpkg is built for (i.e. the
output of --print-architecture) can never be removed from
that list.
--print-architecture
Print architecture of packages dpkg installs (for example,
“i386”).
--print-foreign-architectures
Print a newline-separated list of the extra architectures
dpkg is configured to allow packages to be installed for
(since dpkg 1.16.2).
--assert-feature
Asserts that dpkg supports the requested feature. Returns
0 if the feature is fully supported, 1 if the feature is
known but dpkg cannot provide support for it yet, and 2 if
the feature is unknown. The current list of assertable
features is:
support-predepends
Supports the Pre-Depends field (since dpkg 1.1.0).
working-epoch
Supports epochs in version strings (since dpkg
1.4.0.7).
long-filenames
Supports long filenames in deb(5) archives (since
dpkg 1.4.1.17).
multi-conrep
Supports multiple Conflicts and Replaces (since
dpkg 1.4.1.19).
multi-arch
Supports multi-arch fields and semantics (since
dpkg 1.16.2).
versioned-provides
Supports versioned Provides (since dpkg 1.17.11).
--validate-thing string
Validate that the thing string has a correct syntax (since
dpkg 1.18.16). Returns 0 if the string is valid, 1 if the
string is invalid but might be accepted in lax contexts,
and 2 if the string is invalid. The current list of
validatable things is:
pkgname
Validates the given package name (since dpkg
1.18.16).
trigname
Validates the given trigger name (since dpkg
1.18.16).
archname
Validates the given architecture name (since dpkg
1.18.16).
version
Validates the given version (since dpkg 1.18.16).
--compare-versions ver1 op ver2
Compare version numbers, where op is a binary operator.
dpkg returns true (0) if the specified condition is
satisfied, and false (1) 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: < << <= = >= >> >. The < and > operators are
obsolete and should not be used, due to confusing
semantics. To illustrate: 0.1 < 0.1 evaluates to true.
-?, --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 archive [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.
--ctrl-tarfile archive
Output the control tar-file contained in a Debian package.
--fsys-tarfile archive
Output 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
/usr/local/var/lib/dpkg/available. Users of APT-based frontends
should use apt-cache show package-name instead.
All options can be specified both on the command line and in the
dpkg configuration file /usr/local/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg or fragment
files (with names matching this shell pattern '[0-9a-zA-Z_-]*')
on the configuration directory /usr/local/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 hyphens)
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-oring
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. This
affects the Pre-Depends and Depends fields.
depends-version: Don't care about versions when checking
dependencies. This affects the Pre-Depends and Depends
fields.
breaks: Install, even if this would break another package
(since dpkg 1.14.6). This affects the Breaks field.
conflicts: Install, even if it conflicts with another
package. This is dangerous, for it will usually cause
overwriting of some files. This affects the Conflicts
field.
confmiss: Always install the missing conffile without
prompting. This is dangerous, since it means not
preserving a change (removing) made to the file.
confnew: If a conffile has been modified and the version
in the package did change, 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 and the version
in the package did change, 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 and the version
in the package did change, always choose the default
action without prompting. 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 (since dpkg 1.15.8).
If any of --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.
statoverride-add: Overwrite an existing stat override when
adding it (since dpkg 1.19.5).
statoverride-remove: Ignore a missing stat override when
removing it (since dpkg 1.19.5).
security-mac(*): Use platform-specific Mandatory Access
Controls (MAC) based security when installing files into
the filesystem (since dpkg 1.19.5). On Linux systems the
implementation uses SELinux.
unsafe-io: Do not perform safe I/O operations when
unpacking (since dpkg 1.15.8.6). 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.
script-chrootless: Run maintainer scripts without
chroot(2)ing into instdir even if the package does not
support this mode of operation (since dpkg 1.18.5).
Warning: This can destroy your host system, use with
extreme care.
architecture: Process even packages with wrong or no
architecture.
bad-version: Process even packages with wrong versions
(since dpkg 1.16.1).
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). This affects the
Pre-Depends, Depends and Breaks fields.
--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 --record-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
Set the administrative directory to directory. This
directory contains many files that give information about
status of installed or uninstalled packages, etc.
Defaults to «/usr/local/var/lib/dpkg».
--instdir=dir
Set the 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
Set the root directory to directory, which sets the
installation directory to «dir» and the administrative
directory to «dir/usr/local/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, purge, add-architecture and
remove-architecture dpkg actions (since dpkg 1.15.4;
add-architecture and remove-architecture actions since
dpkg 1.17.19). 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 (since dpkg 1.15.8).
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.
The filters are applied when unpacking the binary
packages, and as such only have knowledge of the type of
object currently being filtered (e.g. a normal file or a
directory) and have not visibility of what objects will
come next. Because these filters have side effects (in
contrast to find(1) filters), excluding an exact pathname
that happens to be a directory object like /usr/share/doc
will not have the desired result, and only that pathname
will be excluded (which could be automatically reincluded
if the code sees the need). Any subsequent files
contained within that directory will fail to unpack.
Hint: make sure the globs are not expanded by your shell.
--verify-format format-name
Sets the output format for the --verify command (since
dpkg 1.17.2).
The only currently supported output format is rpm, which
consists of a line for every path that failed any check.
The lines start with 9 characters to report each specific
check result, a ‘?’ implies the check could not be done
(lack of support, file permissions, etc), ‘.’ implies the
check passed, and an alphanumeric character implies a
specific check failed; the md5sum verification failure
(the file contents have changed) is denoted with a ‘5’ on
the third character. The line is followed by a space and
an attribute character (currently ‘c’ for conffiles),
another space and the pathname.
--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, to be
run via “sh -c” (since dpkg 1.16.0). 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 /usr/local/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 startup type command
For each dpkg invocation where type is archives
(with a command of unpack or install) or packages
(with a command of configure, triggers-only, remove
or purge).
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, configure, trigproc, disappear, remove or
purge.
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS conffile filename decision
For conffile changes where decision is either
install or keep.
--no-pager
Disables the use of any pager when showing information
(since dpkg 1.19.2).
--no-debsig
Do not try to verify package signatures.
--no-triggers
Do not run any triggers in this run (since dpkg 1.14.17),
but 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 (since dpkg 1.14.17).
0 The requested action was successfully performed. Or a
check or assertion command returned true.
1 A check or assertion command returned false.
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.
External environment
PATH This variable is expected to be defined in the environment
and point to the system paths where several required
programs are to be found. If it's not set or the programs
are not found, dpkg will abort.
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.
SHELL The program dpkg will execute when starting a new
interactive shell, or when spawning a command via a shell.
PAGER
DPKG_PAGER
The program dpkg will execute when running a pager, for
example when displaying the conffile differences. If
SHELL is not set, «sh» will be used instead. The
DPKG_PAGER overrides the PAGER environment variable (since
dpkg 1.19.2).
DPKG_COLORS
Sets the color mode (since dpkg 1.18.5). The currently
accepted values are: auto (default), always and never.
DPKG_FORCE
Sets the force flags (since dpkg 1.19.5). When this
variable is present, no built-in force defaults will be
applied. If the variable is present but empty, all force
flags will be disabled.
DPKG_FRONTEND_LOCKED
Set by a package manager frontend to notify dpkg that it
should not acquire the frontend lock (since dpkg 1.19.1).
Internal environment
LESS Defined by dpkg to “-FRSXMQ”, if not already set, when
spawning a pager (since dpkg 1.19.2). To change the
default behavior, this variable can be preset to some
other value including an empty string, or the PAGER or
DPKG_PAGER variables can be set to disable specific
options with «-+», for example DPKG_PAGER="less -+F".
DPKG_ROOT
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to
indicate which installation to act on (since dpkg 1.18.5).
The value is intended to be prepended to any path
maintainer scripts operate on. During normal operation,
this variable is empty. When installing packages into a
different instdir, dpkg normally invokes maintainer
scripts using chroot(2) and leaves this variable empty,
but if --force-script-chrootless is specified then the
chroot(2) call is skipped and instdir is non-empty.
DPKG_ADMINDIR
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to
indicate the dpkg administrative directory to use (since
dpkg 1.16.0). This variable is always set to the current
--admindir value.
DPKG_FORCE
Defined by dpkg on the subprocesses environment to all the
currently enabled force option names separated by commas
(since dpkg 1.19.5).
DPKG_SHELL_REASON
Defined by dpkg on the shell spawned on the conffile
prompt to examine the situation (since dpkg 1.15.6).
Current valid value: conffile-prompt.
DPKG_CONFFILE_OLD
Defined by dpkg on the shell spawned on the conffile
prompt to examine the situation (since dpkg 1.15.6).
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 (since dpkg 1.15.6).
Contains the path to the new conffile.
DPKG_HOOK_ACTION
Defined by dpkg on the shell spawned when executing a hook
action (since dpkg 1.15.4). Contains the current dpkg
action.
DPKG_RUNNING_VERSION
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to
the version of the currently running dpkg instance (since
dpkg 1.14.17).
DPKG_MAINTSCRIPT_PACKAGE
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to
the (non-arch-qualified) package name being handled (since
dpkg 1.14.17).
DPKG_MAINTSCRIPT_PACKAGE_REFCOUNT
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to
the package reference count, i.e. the number of package
instances with a state greater than not-installed (since
dpkg 1.17.2).
DPKG_MAINTSCRIPT_ARCH
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to
the architecture the package got built for (since dpkg
1.15.4).
DPKG_MAINTSCRIPT_NAME
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to
the name of the script running, one of preinst, postinst,
prerm or postrm (since dpkg 1.15.7).
DPKG_MAINTSCRIPT_DEBUG
Defined by dpkg on the maintainer script environment to a
value (‘0’ or ‘1’) noting whether debugging has been
requested (with the --debug option) for the maintainer
scripts (since dpkg 1.18.4).
/usr/local/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/[0-9a-zA-Z_-]*
Configuration fragment files (since dpkg 1.15.4).
/usr/local/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg
Configuration file with default options.
/usr/local/var/log/dpkg.log
Default log file (see /usr/local/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg 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.
/usr/local/var/lib/dpkg/available
List of available packages.
/usr/local/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 format and contents of a binary package are described in
deb(5).
--no-act usually gives less information than might be helpful.
To list installed packages related to the editor vi(1) (note that
dpkg-query does not load the available file anymore by default,
and the dpkg-query --load-avail option should be used instead for
that):
dpkg -l '*vi*'
To see the entries in /usr/local/var/lib/dpkg/available of two
packages:
dpkg --print-avail elvis vim | less
To search the listing of packages yourself:
less /usr/local/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 after
having updated the available file there with your package manager
frontend of choice (see https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/FAQ
for more details), for example:
apt-cache dumpavail | dpkg --merge-avail
or with dpkg 1.17.6 and earlier:
avail=`mktemp`
apt-cache dumpavail >"$avail"
dpkg --merge-avail "$avail"
rm "$avail"
you can install it 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 can be gained by installing any of the
following packages: apt, aptitude and debsums.
aptitude(1), apt(1), dselect(1), dpkg-deb(1), dpkg-query(1),
deb(5), deb-control(5), dpkg.cfg(5), and dpkg-reconfigure(8).
See /usr/local/share/doc/dpkg/THANKS for the list of people who
have contributed to dpkg.
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
⟨https://salsa.debian.org/dpkg-team/dpkg.git⟩ on 2020-12-18. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2020-11-26.) 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
1.19.6-2-g6e42d5 2019-03-25 dpkg(1)
Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-architecture(1), dpkg-deb(1), dpkg-divert(1), dpkg-name(1), dpkg-query(1), dpkg-scanpackages(1), dpkg-split(1), dpkg-statoverride(1), dpkg-trigger(1), dselect(1), deb-conffiles(5), deb-control(5), deb-postinst(5), deb-postrm(5), deb-preinst(5), deb-prerm(5), deb-substvars(5), deb-triggers(5), dpkg.cfg(5), deb-version(7)
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