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).