Provided by: dpkg_1.18.4ubuntu1.7_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 directory [archive|directory]
              Creates a debian archive from the filesystem tree stored  in  directory.  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  it  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
              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
              package_version_arch.deb,  or  package_version.deb  if  no  Architecture  field  is
              present  in  the package control file. 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 ā€œ${field-name}ā€ 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 ā€œ${Package}\t${Version}\nā€.

       -zcompress-level
              Specify which compression level to use on the compressor backend, when  building  a
              package  (default is 9 for gzip and bzip2, 6 for xz and lzma).  The accepted values
              are 0-9 with: 0 being mapped to compressor none for gzip and  0  mapped  to  1  for
              bzip2.  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),  bzip2  (deprecated),  lzma  (since  dpkg 1.14.0;
              deprecated), and none (default is xz).

       --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.

       --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.

       --new  This is a legacy alias for --deb-format=2.0.

       --old  This is a legacy alias for --deb-format=0.939000.

       --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.

ENVIRONMENT

       TMPDIR If set, dpkg-deb will use it as the directory in which to  create  temporary  files
              and directories.

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).