dpkg-scanpackages(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | ENVIRONMENT | DIAGNOSTICS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

dpkg-scanpackages(1)           dpkg suite           dpkg-scanpackages(1)

NAME         top

       dpkg-scanpackages - create Packages index files

SYNOPSIS         top

       dpkg-scanpackages [option...] binary-path [override-file [path-
       prefix]] > Packages

DESCRIPTION         top

       dpkg-scanpackages sorts through a tree of Debian binary packages
       and creates a Packages file, used by apt(8), dselect(1), etc, to
       tell the user what packages are available for installation.
       These Packages files are the same as those found on Debian
       archive sites and media discs.  You might use dpkg-scanpackages
       yourself if making a directory of local packages to install on a
       cluster of machines.

       Note: If you want to access the generated Packages file with
       apt(8) you will probably need to compress the file with xz(1)
       (generating a Packages.xz file), bzip2(1) (generating a
       Packages.bz2 file) or gzip(1) (generating a Packages.gz file).
       apt(8) ignores uncompressed Packages files except on local access
       (i.e.  file:// sources).

       binary-path is the name of the tree of the binary packages to
       process (for example, contrib/binary-i386).  It is best to make
       this relative to the root of the Debian archive, because every
       Filename field in the new Packages file will start with this
       string.

       override-file is the name of a file to read which contains
       information about how the package fits into the distribution (the
       file can be compressed since dpkg 1.15.5); see deb-override(5).

       path-prefix is an optional string to be prepended to the Filename
       fields.

       If more than one version of a package is found only the newest
       one is included in the output.  If they have the same version and
       only differ in architecture only the first one found is used.

OPTIONS         top

       -t, --type type
           Scan for *.type packages, instead of *.deb.

       -e, --extra-override file
           Scan file to find supplementary overrides (the file can be
           compressed since dpkg 1.15.5).  See deb-extra-override(5) for
           more information on its format.

       -a, --arch arch
           Use a pattern consisting of *_all.deb and *_arch.deb instead
           of scanning for all debs.

       -h, --hash hash-list
           Only generate file hashes for the comma-specified list
           specified (since dpkg 1.17.14).  The default is to generate
           all currently supported hashes.  Supported values: md5, sha1,
           sha256.

       -m, --multiversion
           Include all found packages in the output.

       -M, --medium id-string
           Add an X-Medium field containing the value id-string (since
           dpkg 1.15.5).  This field is required if you want to generate
           Packages.cd files for use by the media access method of
           dselect.

       -?, --help
           Show the usage message and exit.

       --version
           Show the version and exit.

ENVIRONMENT         top

       DPKG_COLORS
           Sets the color mode (since dpkg 1.18.5).  The currently
           accepted values are: auto (default), always and never.

       DPKG_NLS
           If set, it will be used to decide whether to activate Native
           Language Support, also known as internationalization (or
           i18n) support (since dpkg 1.19.0).  The accepted values are:
           0 and 1 (default).

DIAGNOSTICS         top

       dpkg-scanpackages outputs the usual self-explanatory errors.  It
       also warns about packages that are in the wrong subdirectory, are
       duplicated, have a Filename field in their control file, are
       missing from the override file, or have maintainer substitutions
       which do not take effect.

SEE ALSO         top

       dpkg(1), dselect(1), deb-override(5), deb-extra-override(5),
       dpkg-scansources(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 2024-06-14.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2024-05-21.)  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

1.22.6-77-g86fe7               2024-03-10           dpkg-scanpackages(1)

Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-scansources(1)dselect(1)deb-extra-override(5)deb-override(5)