Provided by: dpkg-dev_1.22.6ubuntu6.1_all bug

NAME

       deb-control - Debian binary package control file format

SYNOPSIS

       DEBIAN/control

DESCRIPTION

       Each Debian binary package contains a control file in its control member, and its deb822(5) format is a
       subset of the debian/control template source control file in Debian source packages, see
       deb-src-control(5).

       This file contains a number of fields.  Each field begins with a tag, such as Package or Version (case
       insensitive), followed by a colon, and the body of the field (case sensitive unless stated otherwise).
       Fields are delimited only by field tags.  In other words, field text may be multiple lines in length, but
       the installation tools will generally join lines when processing the body of the field (except in the
       case of the Description field, see below).

FIELDS

       Package: package-name (required)
           The value of this field determines the package name, and is used to generate file names by most
           installation tools.

       Package-Type: deb|udeb|type
           This field defines the type of the package.  udeb is for size-constrained packages used by the debian
           installer.  deb is the default value, it is assumed if the field is absent.  More types might be
           added in the future.

       Version: version-string (required)
           Typically, this is the original package's version number in whatever form the program's author uses.
           It may also include a Debian revision number (for non-native packages).  The exact format and sorting
           algorithm are described in deb-version(7).

       Maintainer: fullname-email (recommended)
           Should be in the format “Joe Bloggs <jbloggs@foo.com>”, and is typically the person who created the
           package, as opposed to the author of the software that was packaged.

       Description: short-description (recommended)
        long-description
           The format for the package description is a short brief summary on the first line (after the
           Description field).  The following lines should be used as a longer, more detailed description.  Each
           line of the long description must be preceded by a space, and blank lines in the long description
           must contain a single ‘.’ following the preceding space.

       Section: section
           This is a general field that gives the package a category based on the software that it installs.
           Some common sections are utils, net, mail, text, x11, etc.

       Priority: priority
           Sets the importance of this package in relation to the system as a whole.  Common priorities are
           required, standard, optional, extra, etc.

       The Section and Priority fields usually have a defined set of accepted values based on the specific
       distribution policy.

       Installed-Size: size
           The approximate total size of the package's installed files, in KiB units.  The algorithm to compute
           the size is described in deb-substvars(5).

       Protected: yes|no
           This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes.  It denotes a package that is required
           mostly for proper booting of the system or used for custom system-local meta-packages.  dpkg(1) or
           any other installation tool will not allow a Protected package to be removed (at least not without
           using one of the force options).

           Supported since dpkg 1.20.1.

       Essential: yes|no
           This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes.  It denotes a package that is required for
           the packaging system, for proper operation of the system in general or during boot (although the
           latter should be converted to Protected field instead).  dpkg(1) or any other installation tool will
           not allow an Essential package to be removed (at least not without using one of the force options).

       Build-Essential: yes|no
           This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes, and is commonly injected by the archive
           software.  It denotes a package that is required when building other packages.

       Architecture: arch|all (required)
           The architecture specifies which type of hardware this package was compiled for.  Common
           architectures are amd64, armel, i386, powerpc, etc.  Note that the all value is meant for packages
           that are architecture independent.  Some examples of this are shell and Perl scripts, and
           documentation.

       Origin: name
           The name of the distribution this package is originating from.

       Bugs: url
           The url of the bug tracking system for this package.  The current used format is bts-type://bts-
           address, like debbugs://bugs.debian.org.

       Homepage: url
           The upstream project home page url.

       Tag: tag-list
           List of tags describing the qualities of the package.  The description and list of supported tags can
           be found in the debtags package.

       Multi-Arch: no|same|foreign|allowed
           This field is used to indicate how this package should behave on a multi-arch installations.

           no  This value is the default when the field is omitted, in which case adding the field with an
               explicit no value is generally not needed.

           same
               This package is co-installable with itself, but it must not be used to satisfy the dependency of
               any package of a different architecture from itself.

           foreign
               This package is not co-installable with itself, but should be allowed to satisfy a non-arch-
               qualified dependency of a package of a different arch from itself (if a dependency has an
               explicit arch-qualifier then the value foreign is ignored).

           allowed
               This allows reverse-dependencies to indicate in their Depends field that they accept this package
               from a foreign architecture by qualifying the package name with :any, but has no effect
               otherwise.

       Source: source-name [(source-version)]
           The name of the source package that this binary package came from, if it is different than the name
           of the package itself.  If the source version differs from the binary version, then the source-name
           will be followed by a source-version in parenthesis.  This can happen for example on a binary-only
           non-maintainer upload, or when setting a different binary version via «dpkg-gencontrol -v».

       Subarchitecture: value
       Kernel-Version: value
       Installer-Menu-Item: value
           These fields are used by the debian-installer and are usually not needed.  For more details about
           them, see
           <https://salsa.debian.org/installer-team/debian-installer/-/raw/master/doc/devel/modules.txt>.

       Depends: package-list
           List of packages that are required for this package to provide a non-trivial amount of functionality.
           The package maintenance software will not allow a package to be installed if the packages listed in
           its Depends field aren't installed (at least not without using the force options).  In an
           installation, the postinst scripts of packages listed in Depends fields are run before those of the
           packages which depend on them.  On the opposite, in a removal, the prerm script of a package is run
           before those of the packages listed in its Depends field.

       Pre-Depends: package-list
           List of packages that must be installed and configured before this one can be installed.  This is
           usually used in the case where this package requires another package for running its preinst script.

       Recommends: package-list
           Lists packages that would be found together with this one in all but unusual installations.  The
           package maintenance software will warn the user if they install a package without those listed in its
           Recommends field.

       Suggests: package-list
           Lists packages that are related to this one and can perhaps enhance its usefulness, but without which
           installing this package is perfectly reasonable.

       The syntax of Depends, Pre-Depends, Recommends and Suggests fields is a list of groups of alternative
       packages.  Each group is a list of packages separated by vertical bar (or “pipe”) symbols, ‘|’.  The
       groups are separated by commas.  Commas are to be read as “AND”, and pipes as “OR”, with pipes binding
       more tightly.  Each package name is optionally followed by an architecture qualifier appended after a
       colon ‘:’, optionally followed by a version number specification in parentheses.

       An architecture qualifier name can be a real Debian architecture name (since dpkg 1.16.5) or any (since
       dpkg 1.16.2).  If omitted, the default is the current binary package architecture.  A real Debian
       architecture name will match exactly that architecture for that package name, any will match any
       architecture for that package name if the package has been marked as Multi-Arch: allowed.

       A version number may start with a ‘>>’, in which case any later version will match, and may specify or
       omit the Debian packaging revision (separated by a hyphen).  Accepted version relationships are ‘>>’ for
       greater than, ‘<<’ for less than, ‘>=’ for greater than or equal to, ‘<=’ for less than or equal to, and
       ‘=’ for equal to.

       Breaks: package-list
           Lists packages that this one breaks, for example by exposing bugs when the named packages rely on
           this one.  The package maintenance software will not allow broken packages to be configured;
           generally the resolution is to upgrade the packages named in a Breaks field.

       Conflicts: package-list
           Lists packages that conflict with this one, for example by containing files with the same names.  The
           package maintenance software will not allow conflicting packages to be installed at the same time.
           Two conflicting packages should each include a Conflicts line mentioning the other.

       Replaces: package-list
           List of packages files from which this one replaces.  This is used for allowing this package to
           overwrite the files of another package and is usually used with the Conflicts field to force removal
           of the other package, if this one also has the same files as the conflicted package.

       The syntax of Breaks, Conflicts and Replaces is a list of package names, separated by commas (and
       optional whitespace).  In the Breaks and Conflicts fields, the comma should be read as “OR”.  An optional
       architecture qualifier can also be appended to the package name with the same syntax as above, but the
       default is any instead of the binary package architecture.  An optional version can also be given with
       the same syntax as above for the Breaks, Conflicts and Replaces fields.

       Enhances: package-list
           This is a list of packages that this one enhances.  It is similar to Suggests but in the opposite
           direction.

       Provides: package-list
           This is a list of virtual packages that this one provides.  Usually this is used in the case of
           several packages all providing the same service.  For example, sendmail and exim can serve as a mail
           server, so they provide a common package (“mail-transport-agent”) on which other packages can depend.
           This will allow sendmail or exim to serve as a valid option to satisfy the dependency.  This prevents
           the packages that depend on a mail server from having to know the package names for all of them, and
           using ‘|’ to separate the list.

       The syntax of Provides is a list of package names, separated by commas (and optional whitespace).  An
       optional architecture qualifier can also be appended to the package name with the same syntax as above.
       If omitted, the default is the current binary package architecture.  An optional exact (equal to) version
       can also be given with the same syntax as above (honored since dpkg 1.17.11).

       Built-Using: package-list
           This dependency field lists extra source packages that were used during the build of this binary
           package, for license compliance purposes.  This is an indication to the archive maintenance software
           that these extra source packages must be kept whilst this binary package is maintained.  This field
           must be a comma-separated list of source package names with strict ‘=’ version relationships enclosed
           within parenthesis.  Note that the archive maintenance software is likely to refuse to accept an
           upload which declares a Built-Using relationship which cannot be satisfied within the archive.

       Static-Built-Using: package-list
           This dependency field lists extra source packages that were used during the build of this binary
           package, for static building purposes (for example linking against static libraries, builds for
           source-centered languages such as Go or Rust, usage of header-only C/C++ libraries, injecting data
           blobs into code, etc.).  This is useful to track whether this package might need to be rebuilt when
           source packages listed here have been updated, for example due to security updates.  This field must
           be a comma-separated list of source package names with strict ‘=’ version relationships enclosed
           within parenthesis.

           Supported since dpkg 1.21.3.

       Built-For-Profiles: profile-list (obsolete)
           This field used to specify a whitespace separated list of build profiles that this binary packages
           was built with (since dpkg 1.17.2 until 1.18.18).  The information previously found in this field can
           now be found in the .buildinfo file, which supersedes it.

       Auto-Built-Package: reason-list
           This field specifies a whitespace separated list of reasons why this package was auto-generated.
           Binary packages marked with this field will not appear in the debian/control template source control
           file.  The only currently used reason is debug-symbols.

       Build-Ids: elf-build-id-list
           This field specifies a whitespace separated list of ELF build-ids.  These are unique identifiers for
           semantically identical ELF objects, for each of these within the package.

           The format or the way to compute each build-id is not defined by design.

EXAMPLE

        Package: grep
        Essential: yes
        Priority: required
        Section: base
        Maintainer: Wichert Akkerman <wakkerma@debian.org>
        Architecture: sparc
        Version: 2.4-1
        Pre-Depends: libc6 (>= 2.0.105)
        Provides: rgrep
        Conflicts: rgrep
        Description: GNU grep, egrep and fgrep.
         The GNU family of grep utilities may be the "fastest grep in the west".
         GNU grep is based on a fast lazy-state deterministic matcher (about
         twice as fast as stock Unix egrep) hybridized with a Boyer-Moore-Gosper
         search for a fixed string that eliminates impossible text from being
         considered by the full regexp matcher without necessarily having to
         look at every character. The result is typically many times faster
         than Unix grep or egrep. (Regular expressions containing backreferencing
         will run more slowly, however).

BUGS

       The Build-Ids field uses a rather generic name out of its original context within an ELF object, which
       serves a very specific purpose and executable format.

SEE ALSO

       deb822(5), deb-src-control(5), deb(5), deb-version(7), debtags(1), dpkg(1), dpkg-deb(1).