NAME¶
dpkg-deb - Debian package archive (.deb) manipulation tool
SYNOPSIS¶
dpkg-deb [
option...]
command
DESCRIPTION¶
dpkg-deb packs, unpacks and provides information about Debian archives.
Use
dpkg to install and remove packages from your system.
You can also invoke
dpkg-deb by calling
dpkg with whatever options
you want to pass to
dpkg-deb.
dpkg will spot that you wanted
dpkg-deb and run it for you.
COMMANDS¶
- -b, --build directory
[archive|directory]
- Creates a debian archive from the filesystem tree stored in
directory. directory must have a DEBIAN subdirectory,
which contains the control information files such as the control file
itself. This directory will not appear in the binary package's
filesystem archive, but instead the files in it will be put in the binary
package's control information area.
Unless you specify --nocheck, dpkg-deb will read
DEBIAN/control and parse it. It will check it for syntax errors and
other problems, and display the name of the binary package being built.
dpkg-deb will also check the permissions of the maintainer scripts
and other files found in the DEBIAN control information directory.
If no archive is specified then dpkg-deb will write the
package into the file directory.deb.
If the archive to be created already exists it will be overwritten.
If the second argument is a directory then dpkg-deb will write to the
file package_version_arch.deb,
or package_version.deb if no
Architecture field is present in the package control file. When a
target directory is specified, rather than a file, the --nocheck
option may not be used (since dpkg-deb needs to read and parse the
package control file to determine which filename to use).
- -I, --info archive
[control-file-name...]
- Provides information about a binary package archive.
If no control-file-names are specified then it will print a summary
of the contents of the package as well as its control file.
If any control-file-names are specified then dpkg-deb will
print them in the order they were specified; if any of the components
weren't present it will print an error message to stderr about each one
and exit with status 2.
- -W, --show archive
- Provides information about a binary package archive in the
format specified by the --showformat argument. The default format
displays the package's name and version on one line, separated by a
tabulator.
- -f, --field archive
[control-field-name...]
- Extracts control file information from a binary package
archive.
If no control-file-fields are specified then it will print the whole
control file.
If any are specified then dpkg-deb will print their contents, in the
order in which they appear in the control file. If more than one
control-file-field is specified then dpkg-deb will precede
each with its field name (and a colon and space).
No errors are reported for fields requested but not found.
- -c, --contents archive
- Lists the contents of the filesystem tree archive portion
of the package archive. It is currently produced in the format generated
by tar's verbose listing.
- -x, --extract archive directory
- Extracts the filesystem tree from a package archive into
the specified directory.
Note that extracting a package to the root directory will not result
in a correct installation! Use dpkg to install packages.
directory (but not its parents) will be created if necessary, and its
permissions modified to match the contents of the package.
- -X, --vextract archive directory
- Is like --extract (-x) with --verbose
(-v) which prints a listing of the files extracted as it goes.
- -R, --raw-extract archive
directory
- Extracts the filesystem tree from a package archive into a
specified directory, and the control information files into a DEBIAN
subdirectory of the specified directory.
The target directory (but not its parents) will be created if
necessary.
- --fsys-tarfile archive
- Extracts the filesystem tree data from a binary package and
sends it to standard output in tar format. Together with
tar(1) this can be used to extract a particular file from a package
archive. The input archive will always be processed sequentially.
- -e, --control archive
[directory]
- Extracts the control information files from a package
archive into the specified directory.
If no directory is specified then a subdirectory DEBIAN in the
current directory is used.
The target directory (but not its parents) will be created if
necessary.
- -?, --help
- Show the usage message and exit.
- --version
- Show the version and exit.
OPTIONS¶
- --showformat=format
- This option is used to specify the format of the output
--show will produce. The format is a string that will be output for
each package listed.
The string may reference any status field using the "${
field-name}" form, a list of the valid fields can be easily
produced using -I on the same package. A complete explanation of
the formatting options (including escape sequences and field tabbing) can
be found in the explanation of the --showformat option in
dpkg-query(1).
The default for this field is "${Package}\t${Version}\n".
- -zcompress-level
- Specify which compression level to use on the compressor
backend, when building a package (default is 9 for gzip and bzip2, 6 for
xz and lzma). The accepted values are 0-9 with: 0 being mapped to
compressor none for gzip and 0 mapped to 1 for bzip2. Before dpkg 1.16.2
level 0 was equivalent to compressor none for all compressors.
- -Scompress-strategy
- Specify which compression strategy to use on the compressor
backend, when building a package (since dpkg 1.16.2). Allowed values are
none (since dpkg 1.16.4) and extreme for xz.
- -Zcompress-type
- Specify which compression type to use when building a
package. Allowed values are gzip, xz, bzip2,
lzma, and none (default is gzip).
- --new
- Ensures that dpkg-deb builds a `new' format archive.
This is the default.
- --old
- Forces dpkg-deb to build an `old' format archive.
This old archive format is less easily parsed by non-Debian tools and is
now obsolete; its only use is when building packages to be parsed by
versions of dpkg older than 0.93.76 (September 1995), which was released
as i386 a.out only.
- --nocheck
- Inhibits dpkg-deb --build's usual checks on the
proposed contents of an archive. You can build any archive you want, no
matter how broken, this way.
- -v, --verbose
- Enables verbose output. This currently only affects
--extract making it behave like --vextract.
- -D, --debug
- Enables debugging output. This is not very
interesting.
ENVIRONMENT¶
- TMPDIR
- If set, dpkg-deb will use it as the directory in
which to create temporary files and directories.
BUGS¶
dpkg-deb -I package1.deb package2.deb does
the wrong thing.
There is no authentication on
.deb files; in fact, there isn't even a
straightforward checksum. (Higher level tools like APT support authenticating
.deb packages retrieved from a given repository, and most packages
nowadays provide an md5sum control file generated by debian/rules. Though this
is not directly supported by the lower level tools.)
Do not attempt to use just
dpkg-deb to install software! You must use
dpkg proper to ensure that all the files are correctly placed and the
package's scripts run and its status and contents recorded.
SEE ALSO¶
deb(5),
deb-control(5),
dpkg(1),
dselect(1).