Provided by: apt_1.6.17_amd64 
NAME
apt-secure - Archive authentication support for APT
DESCRIPTION
Starting with version 0.6, APT contains code that does signature checking of the Release file for all
repositories. This ensures that data like packages in the archive can't be modified by people who have no
access to the Release file signing key. Starting with version 1.1 APT requires repositories to provide
recent authentication information for unimpeded usage of the repository. Since version 1.5 changes in the
information contained in the Release file about the repository need to be confirmed before APT continues
to apply updates from this repository.
Note: All APT-based package management front-ends like apt-get(8), aptitude(8) and synaptic(8) support
this authentication feature, so this manpage uses APT to refer to them all for simplicity only.
UNSIGNED REPOSITORIES
If an archive has an unsigned Release file or no Release file at all current APT versions will refuse to
download data from them by default in update operations and even if forced to download front-ends like
apt-get(8) will require explicit confirmation if an installation request includes a package from such an
unauthenticated archive.
You can force all APT clients to raise only warnings by setting the configuration option
Acquire::AllowInsecureRepositories to true. Individual repositories can also be allowed to be insecure
via the sources.list(5) option allow-insecure=yes. Note that insecure repositories are strongly
discouraged and all options to force apt to continue supporting them will eventually be removed. Users
also have the Trusted option available to disable even the warnings, but be sure to understand the
implications as detailed in sources.list(5).
A repository which previously was authenticated but would loose this state in an update operation raises
an error in all APT clients irrespective of the option to allow or forbid usage of insecure repositories.
The error can be overcome by additionally setting Acquire::AllowDowngradeToInsecureRepositories to true
or for Individual repositories with the sources.list(5) option allow-downgrade-to-insecure=yes.
SIGNED REPOSITORIES
The chain of trust from an APT archive to the end user is made up of several steps. apt-secure is the
last step in this chain; trusting an archive does not mean that you trust its packages not to contain
malicious code, but means that you trust the archive maintainer. It's the archive maintainer's
responsibility to ensure that the archive's integrity is preserved.
apt-secure does not review signatures at a package level. If you require tools to do this you should look
at debsig-verify and debsign (provided in the debsig-verify and devscripts packages respectively).
The chain of trust in Debian starts (e.g.) when a maintainer uploads a new package or a new version of a
package to the Debian archive. In order to become effective, this upload needs to be signed by a key
contained in one of the Debian package maintainer keyrings (available in the debian-keyring package).
Maintainers' keys are signed by other maintainers following pre-established procedures to ensure the
identity of the key holder. Similar procedures exist in all Debian-based distributions.
Once the uploaded package is verified and included in the archive, the maintainer signature is stripped
off, and checksums of the package are computed and put in the Packages file. The checksums of all of the
Packages files are then computed and put into the Release file. The Release file is then signed by the
archive key for this Ubuntu release, and distributed alongside the packages and the Packages files on
Ubuntu mirrors. The keys are in the Ubuntu archive keyring available in the ubuntu-keyring package.
End users can check the signature of the Release file, extract a checksum of a package from it and
compare it with the checksum of the package they downloaded by hand - or rely on APT doing this
automatically.
Notice that this is distinct from checking signatures on a per package basis. It is designed to prevent
two possible attacks:
• Network "man in the middle" attacks. Without signature checking, malicious agents can introduce
themselves into the package download process and provide malicious software either by controlling a
network element (router, switch, etc.) or by redirecting traffic to a rogue server (through ARP or
DNS spoofing attacks).
• Mirror network compromise. Without signature checking, a malicious agent can compromise a mirror host
and modify the files in it to propagate malicious software to all users downloading packages from
that host.
However, it does not defend against a compromise of the master server itself (which signs the packages)
or against a compromise of the key used to sign the Release files. In any case, this mechanism can
complement a per-package signature.
INFORMATION CHANGES
A Release file contains beside the checksums for the files in the repository also general information
about the repository like the origin, codename or version number of the release.
This information is shown in various places so a repository owner should always ensure correctness.
Further more user configuration like apt_preferences(5) can depend and make use of this information.
Since version 1.5 the user must therefore explicitly confirm changes to signal that the user is
sufficiently prepared e.g. for the new major release of the distribution shipped in the repository (as
e.g. indicated by the codename).
USER CONFIGURATION
apt-key is the program that manages the list of keys used by APT to trust repositories. It can be used to
add or remove keys as well as list the trusted keys. Limiting which key(s) are able to sign which archive
is possible via the Signed-By in sources.list(5).
Note that a default installation already contains all keys to securely acquire packages from the default
repositories, so fiddling with apt-key is only needed if third-party repositories are added.
In order to add a new key you need to first download it (you should make sure you are using a trusted
communication channel when retrieving it), add it with apt-key and then run apt-get update so that apt
can download and verify the InRelease or Release.gpg files from the archives you have configured.
REPOSITORY CONFIGURATION
If you want to provide archive signatures in an archive under your maintenance you have to:
• Create a toplevel Release file, if it does not exist already. You can do this by running
apt-ftparchive release (provided in apt-utils).
• Sign it. You can do this by running gpg --clearsign -o InRelease Release and gpg -abs -o Release.gpg
Release.
• Publish the key fingerprint, so that your users will know what key they need to import in order to
authenticate the files in the archive. It is best to ship your key in its own keyring package like
Ubuntu does with ubuntu-keyring to be able to distribute updates and key transitions automatically
later.
• Provide instructions on how to add your archive and key. If your users can't acquire your key
securely the chain of trust described above is broken. How you can help users add your key depends on
your archive and target audience ranging from having your keyring package included in another archive
users already have configured (like the default repositories of their distribution) to leveraging the
web of trust.
Whenever the contents of the archive change (new packages are added or removed) the archive maintainer
has to follow the first two steps outlined above.
SEE ALSO
apt.conf(5), apt-get(8), sources.list(5), apt-key(8), apt-ftparchive(1), debsign(1), debsig-verify(1), gpg(1) For more background information you might want to review the Debian Security Infrastructure[1] chapter of the Securing Debian Manual (also available in the harden-doc package) and the Strong Distribution HOWTO[2] by V. Alex Brennen.
BUGS
APT bug page[3]. If you wish to report a bug in APT, please see /usr/share/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt
or the reportbug(1) command.
AUTHOR
APT was written by the APT team <apt@packages.debian.org>.
MANPAGE AUTHORS
This man-page is based on the work of Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña, Isaac Jones, Colin Walters, Florian
Weimer and Michael Vogt.
AUTHORS
Jason Gunthorpe
APT team
NOTES
1. Debian Security Infrastructure
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-howto/ch7
2. Strong Distribution HOWTO
http://www.cryptnet.net/fdp/crypto/strong_distro.html
3. APT bug page
http://bugs.debian.org/src:apt