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.
Essential: yes
|no
This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes
.
It denotes a package that is required for proper operation
of the system. Dpkg 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
(recommended)
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. See
/usr/share/doc/debian-installer/devel/modules.txt from the
debian-installer
package for more details about them.
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 field lists extra source packages that were used
during the build of this binary package. 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 list of
source package names with strict '=
' version
relationships. 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.
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 master 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.