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HTML rendering created 2026-09-09 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS | OPTIONS | EXIT STATUS | ENVIRONMENT | NOTES | SECURITY | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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dpkg-deb(1) dpkg suite dpkg-deb(1)
dpkg-deb - Debian package archive (.deb) manipulation tool
dpkg-deb [option...] command
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.
For most commands taking an input archive argument, the archive
can be read from standard input if the archive name is given as a
single minus character («-»); otherwise lack of support will be
documented in their respective command description.
-b, --build binary-directory [archive|directory]
Creates a debian archive from the filesystem tree stored in
binary-directory. binary-directory must have a DEBIAN
subdirectory, which contains the package metadata files such
as the binary package control file. 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 --no-check, dpkg-deb will read
DEBIAN/control and parse it. It will check the file 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 package metadata directory.
If no archive is specified then dpkg-deb will write the
package into the file binary-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 directory/package_version_arch.deb. When a target
directory is specified, rather than a file, the --no-check
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-field-names 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-field-name 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 package metadata files into a
DEBIAN subdirectory of the specified directory.
The target directory (but not its parents) will be created if
necessary.
The input archive is not processed sequentially, so reading it
from standard input («-») is not supported.
Supported since dpkg 1.16.1.
--ctrl-tarfile archive
Extracts the control 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 control file from a
package archive.
The input archive might be processed non-sequentially if
possible, and will fall back to be processed sequentially at
the cost of fewer robustness or security checks.
Supported since dpkg 1.17.14.
--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 might be processed non-sequentially if
possible, and will fall back to be processed sequentially at
the cost of fewer robustness or security checks.
-e, --control archive [directory]
Extracts the package metadata 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.
--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”.
-z, --compression-level=compress-level
Specify which compression level to use on the compressor
backend, when building a package (default is 9 for gzip, 6 for
xz, 3 for zstd). The accepted values are compressor specific.
For gzip, from 0-9 with 0 being mapped to compressor none.
For xz from 0-9. For zstd from 0-22, with levels from 20 to
22 enabling its ultra mode. Before dpkg 1.16.2 level 0 was
equivalent to compressor none for all compressors.
Support for long option since dpkg 1.22.9.
-S, --compression-strategy=compress-strategy
Specify which compression strategy to use on the compressor
backend, when building a package. Allowed values are none
(since dpkg 1.16.4), filtered, huffman, rle and fixed for gzip
(since dpkg 1.17.0) and extreme for xz.
Support for short option since dpkg 1.16.2. Support for long
option since dpkg 1.22.9.
-Z, --compression=compress-type
Specify which compression type to use when building a package.
Allowed values are gzip, xz (since dpkg 1.15.6), zstd (since
dpkg 1.21.18) and none (default is xz).
Support for long option since dpkg 1.22.9.
--uniform-compression
Specify that the same compression parameters should be used
for all archive members (i.e. control.tar and data.tar).
The only supported compression types allowed to be uniformly
used are none, gzip, xz and zstd.
Uniform compression is the default (since dpkg 1.19.0).
Supported since dpkg 1.17.6.
--no-uniform-compression
Specify that only the data.tar archive member will use the
compression parameters specified. The control.tar archive
member will use gzip in its default compression parameters.
Supported since dpkg 1.19.0.
--threads-max=threads
Sets the maximum number of threads allowed for compressors
that support multi-threaded operations.
Supported since dpkg 1.21.9.
--root-owner-group
Set the owner and group for each entry in the filesystem tree
data to root with id 0.
Note: This option can be useful for rootless builds (see
rootless-builds.txt), but should not be used when the entries
have an owner or group that is not root. Support for these
will be added later in the form of a meta manifest.
Supported since dpkg 1.19.0.
--deb-format=format
Set the archive format version used when building. Allowed
values are 2.0 for the new format, and 0.939000 for the old
one (default is 2.0).
The 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.
Supported since dpkg 1.17.0.
--no-check
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.
Supported since dpkg 1.22.12.
--nocheck
This is an alias for --no-check.
-v, --verbose
Enables verbose output. This currently only affects --extract
making it behave like --vextract.
Supported since dpkg 1.16.1.
-D, --debug
Enables debugging output. This is not very interesting.
0 The requested action was successfully performed.
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.
DPKG_DEB_THREADS_MAX
Sets the maximum number of threads allowed for compressors
that support multi-threaded operations.
The --threads-max option overrides this value.
Supported since dpkg 1.21.9.
DPKG_DEB_COMPRESSOR_TYPE
Sets the compressor type to use.
The -Z option overrides this value.
Supported since dpkg 1.21.10.
DPKG_DEB_COMPRESSOR_LEVEL
Sets the compressor level to use.
The -z option overrides this value.
Supported since dpkg 1.21.10.
DPKG_COLORS
Sets the color mode. The currently accepted values are: auto
(default), always and never.
Supported since dpkg 1.18.5.
DPKG_NLS
If set, it will be used to decide whether to activate Native
Language Support, also known as internationalization (or i18n)
support. The accepted values are: 0 and 1 (default).
Supported since dpkg 1.22.7.
DPKG_PATH_PASSWD
Sets the pathname for the system passwd file. This path is
relative to the --root directory. The default is /etc/passwd.
Supported since dpkg 1.22.16.
DPKG_PATH_GROUP
Sets the pathname for the system group file. This path is
relative to the --root directory. The default is /etc/group.
Supported since dpkg 1.22.16.
TMPDIR
If set, dpkg-deb will use it as the directory in which to
create temporary files and directories.
SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH
If set, it will be used as the timestamp (as seconds since the
epoch) in the deb(5)'s ar(5) container and used to clamp the
mtime in the tar(5) file entries.
Supported since dpkg 1.18.8.
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.
Examining untrusted package archives or extracting them into
staging directories should be considered a security boundary, and
any breakage of that boundary stemming from these operations
should be considered a security vulnerability. But handling
untrusted package archives should not be done lightly, as the
surface area includes any compression library supported, in
addition to the archive formats and control files themselves.
Performing these operations over untrusted data as root is
strongly discouraged.
Building package archives should only be performed over trusted
data.
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.)
/usr/local/share/doc/dpkg/spec/rootless-builds.txt, deb(5),
deb-control(5), dpkg(1), dselect(1).
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 2026-08-03. (At
that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
the repository was 2026-08-01.) 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
1.23.7-216-gff7e9 2026-03-07 dpkg-deb(1)
Pages that refer to this page: dh_builddeb(1), dpkg(1), dpkg-name(1), dpkg-split(1), deb(5), deb-conffiles(5), deb-control(5), deb-md5sums(5), deb-old(5), deb-src-rules(5)
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HTML rendering created 2026-09-09 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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