Ubuntu Manpage: dpkg-deb - Debian package archive (.deb) manipulation tool

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

       DPKG_COLORS
              Sets  the  color  mode  (since  dpkg  1.18.5).  The currently accepted values are: auto (default),
              always and never.

       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.)