deb-control

deb-control(5) dpkg suite deb-control(5)

NAME

   deb-control - Debian binary package control file format

SYNOPSIS

   DEBIAN/control

DESCRIPTION

   Each Debian binary package contains a control file in its control member, and its deb822(5) format is a subset of the debian/control template source control file in Debian source
   packages, see deb-src-control(5).

   This file contains a number of fields.  Each field begins with a tag, such as Package or Version (case insensitive), followed by a colon, and the body of the field (case sensitive
   unless stated otherwise).  Fields are delimited only by field tags.  In other words, field text may be multiple lines in length, but the installation tools will generally join lines
   when processing the body of the field (except in the case of the Description field, see below).

FIELDS

   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.

       The accepted values are based on the specific distribution policy.

   Priority: priority
       Sets the importance of this package in relation to the system as a whole.  The known priorities are required, important, standard, optional, extra, and unknown, but  other  values
       can be used as well.

       How to apply these values depends on the specific distribution policy.

   Installed-Size: size
       The approximate total size of the package's installed files, in KiB units.  The algorithm to compute the size is described in deb-substvars(5).

   Protected: yes|no
       This  field  is  usually  only  needed when the answer is yes.  It denotes a package that is required mostly for proper booting of the system or used for custom system-local meta-
       packages.  dpkg(1) or any other installation tool will not allow a Protected package to be removed (at least not without using one of the force options).

       Supported since dpkg 1.20.1.

   Essential: yes|no
       This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes.  It denotes a package that is required for the packaging system, for proper operation of the system in general or  during
       boot  (although the latter should be converted to Protected field instead).  dpkg(1) 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 (required)
       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.      For     more      details      about      them,      see
       <https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/debian-installer/-/raw/master/doc/devel/modules.txt>.

   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  dependency  field  lists extra source packages that were used during the build of this binary package, for license compliance purposes.  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 comma-separated list  of  source  package  names
       with strict = version relationships enclosed within parenthesis.  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.

   Static-Built-Using: package-list
       This  dependency  field  lists  extra  source  packages  that  were  used during the build of this binary package, for static building purposes (for example linking against static
       libraries, builds for source-centered languages such as Go or Rust, usage of header-only C/C++ libraries, injecting data blobs into code, etc.).  This is useful to  track  whether
       this package might need to be rebuilt when source packages listed here have been updated, for example due to security updates.  This field must be a comma-separated list of source
       package names with strict = version relationships enclosed within parenthesis.

       Supported since dpkg 1.21.3.

   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
       template 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.

EXAMPLE

    Package: grep
    Essential: yes
    Priority: required
    Section: base
    Maintainer: Wichert Akkerman <wakkerma@debian.org>
    Architecture: sparc
    Version: 2.4-1
    Pre-Depends: libc6 (>= 2.0.105)
    Provides: rgrep
    Conflicts: rgrep
    Description: GNU grep, egrep and fgrep.
     The GNU family of grep utilities may be the "fastest grep in the west".
     GNU grep is based on a fast lazy-state deterministic matcher (about
     twice as fast as stock Unix egrep) hybridized with a Boyer-Moore-Gosper
     search for a fixed string that eliminates impossible text from being
     considered by the full regexp matcher without necessarily having to
     look at every character. The result is typically many times faster
     than Unix grep or egrep. (Regular expressions containing backreferencing
     will run more slowly, however).

BUGS

   The Build-Ids field uses a rather generic name out of its original context within an ELF object, which serves a very specific purpose and executable format.

SEE ALSO

   deb822(5), deb-src-control(5), deb(5), deb-version(7), debtags(1), dpkg(1), dpkg-deb(1).

1.22.21 2025-06-30 deb-control(5)