bionic (5) forktracer.conf.5.gz

Provided by: apt-forktracer_0.5_all bug

NAME

       forktracer.conf - apt-forktracer configuration file

DESCRIPTION

       apt-forktracer  reports  "non-standard"  packages  which  are installed in the system.  The configuration
       files let you ignore (skip reporting) some of them, provided they meet  certain  criteria.   The  program
       reads the /etc/apt/forktracer.conf file, as well as /etc/apt/forktracer.d/*.conf (skipping hidden files).

       A  config  file consists of any number of stanzas, separated with at least one empty lines.  A stanza has
       the following format:

           Package: package
           Accept-Origin: origin1
           Track-Origin: origin2
           Track-Version: version

       All these lines in a stanza are required, and they have the following meaning:

       package
              the name of the package to which this stanza applies

       origin1
              the value of the Origin field of the source, from which a package should be  ignored.   A  package
              will  be  ignored,  if  its  candidate  version comes from source1, and at the same time meets the
              condition given by the Track-* fields.  A special value * means, that a package should be  ignored
              regardless of the source of the candidate version.

       origin2
              the  value  of  the  Origin field of the source, from which the newest available version should be
              tracked.  A special value * means, that a generally newest available version  should  be  tracked,
              regardless of source.

       version
              is  the  required  version string available from the origin2 source.  Apart from a literal version
              string, the following special values may be used: =candidate, which means  the  current  candidate
              version,  and  =candidate-base,  which means the base version (see below) of the current candidate
              version.

       The above stanza would cause package to be skipped from program output, as long as its candidate  version
       comes from origin1, and at the same time its newest version available from origin2 equals version.

       If  there  is  more than one stanza for a given package, then it is omitted from the program output if at
       least one of them matches the current situation.

   Base version definition
       A base version is extracted from a given version by stripping from its end the shortest  string  starting
       with a tilde character. For example for version 1:1.2-3~4~5 the base version is 1:1.2-3~4.

   Default configuration
       If  for  a given package package there is no stanza in the configuration, then the program acts as if the
       following two stanzas existed:

           Package: package
           Accept-Origin: *
           Track-Origin: distributor
           Track-Version: =candidate

           Package: package
           Accept-Origin: *
           Track-Origin: distributor
           Track-Version: =candidate-base

       where distributor is the system distributor's identifier, as returned  by  lsb_release  --id  or  by  the
       DISTRIB_ID field in the /etc/lsb-release file.

EXAMPLES

   Unofficial package
       apt-forktracer reports packages which are not available from any official source, for example:

           puppet-softwarelab (0.2) [SoftwareLab: 0.2 0.1]

       The following stanza makes it skip such packages:

           Package: puppet-softwarelab
           Accept-Origin: SoftwareLab
           Track-Origin: *
           Track-Version: =candidate

       If  the  puppet-softwarelab  package will be "pinned" to "release o=Softwarelab", then such configuration
       will make apt-forktracer report if puppet-softwarelab appears in any source other than SoftwareLab  in  a
       version newer than the one available from it.

   Backport
       Installing a backport has a similar effect to installing an unofficial package:

           spamc (3.2.3-0.volatile1) [Debian: 3.1.7-2] [volatile.debian.org: 3.2.3-0.volatile1]

       The following stanza will cause such package to be skipped:

           Package: spamc
           Accept-Origin: volatile.debian.org
           Track-Origin: *
           Track-Version: =candidate

       In  this  situation a small official version string change (for example to 3.1.7-2etch1) will be silently
       ignored. Such configuration is therefore only suitable for cases where you trust the person providing the
       backport  to  carefully  track  changes  in the stable edition and make sure they are incorporated in the
       backport they are distributing.  In other cases, you should probably use the following configuration.

   Own modifications
       Sometimes there is a situation where you make minor changes to a package, and you would like to know when
       a new official stable version is released, so that you can update your modified version.

           policyd-weight (0.1.14-beta-6etch2.0.sl.1) [Debian: 0.1.14-beta-6etch2] [SoftwareLab: 0.1.14-beta-6etch2.0.sl.1]

       The following configuration is useful in such cases:

           Package: policyd-weight
           Accept-Origin: SoftwareLab
           Track-Origin: Debian
           Track-Version: 0.1.14-beta-6etch2

       It  is worth mentioning, that if you apply a certain convention when numbering the modified version, then
       the Default configuration described before is sufficient.  In this case, if the  modified  version  would
       have  a  version  number  such  as  0.1.14-beta-6etch2~sl.1  then  the  above-mentioned  stanza  would be
       unnecessary.  What is more, there would be no need to keep any configuration up-to-date in  case  of  new
       stable  version  releases,  because the default configuration is created dynamically based on the current
       situation.

FILES

       /etc/apt/forktracer.conf
       /etc/apt/forktracer.d/*.conf

SEE ALSO

       apt-cache(8), apt-forktracer(8), apt_preferences(5).