Provided by: dpkg_1.19.0.5ubuntu2.4_amd64 bug

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.

       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.

COMMANDS

       -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 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  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  control information
              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 --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-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 control information files into a DEBIAN subdirectory of the specified directory
              (since dpkg 1.16.1).

              The target directory (but not its parents) will be created if necessary.

              The  input  archive  is  not (currently) processed sequentially, so reading it from
              standard input («-») is not supported.

       --ctrl-tarfile archive
              Extracts the control data from a binary package and sends it to standard output  in
              tar format (since dpkg 1.17.14). Together with tar(1) this can be used to extract a
              particular control file from a package archive.  The input archive will  always  be
              processed sequentially.

       --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, 6 for xz and 19 for zstd).  The accepted values are
              0-9  with:  0 being mapped to compressor none for gzip.  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),
              filtered, huffman, rle and fixed for gzip (since dpkg 1.17.0) and extreme for xz.

       -Zcompress-type
              Specify which compression type to use when building a package.  Allowed values  are
              gzip, xz (since dpkg 1.15.6), and none (default is xz).

       --[no-]uniform-compression
              Specify that the same compression parameters should be used for all archive members
              (i.e. control.tar and data.tar; since dpkg 1.17.6).  Otherwise  only  the  data.tar
              member  will  use those parameters. The only supported compression types allowed to
              be uniformly used are none,  gzip  and  xz.   The  --no-uniform-compression  option
              disables  uniform  compression  (since  dpkg  1.19.0).   Uniform compression is the
              default (since dpkg 1.19.0).

       --root-owner-group
              Set the owner and group for each entry in the filesystem tree data to root with  id
              0 (since dpkg 1.19.0).

              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.

       --deb-format=format
              Set  the  archive  format  version used when building (since dpkg 1.17.0).  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.

       --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 (since dpkg 1.16.1).  This currently only affects --extract
              making it behave like --vextract.

       -D, --debug
              Enables debugging output. This is not very interesting.

EXIT STATUS

       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.

ENVIRONMENT

       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.

NOTES

       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.

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.)

SEE ALSO

       deb(5), deb-control(5), dpkg(1), dselect(1).