Provided by: dpkg-dev_1.18.4ubuntu1.7_all 
NAME
deb-control - Debian packages' master control file format
SYNOPSIS
control
DESCRIPTION
Each Debian package contains the master control file, which contains a number of fields, or comments when
the line starts with ‘#’. Each field begins with a tag, such as Package or Version (case insensitive),
followed by a colon, and the body of the field. 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.
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(5).
Maintainer: fullname-email (required)
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 (required)
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.
In Debian, the Section and Priority fields have a defined set of accepted values based on the Policy
Manual. A list of these values can be obtained from the latest version of the debian-policy package.
Essential: yes|no
This field is usually only needed when the answer is yes. It denotes a package that is required
for proper operation of the system. Dpkg 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
The architecture specifies which type of hardware this package was compiled for. Common
architectures are amd64, armel, i386, powerpc, etc. Note that the all option 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: same|foreign|allowed|no
This field is used to indicate how this package should behave on a multi-arch installations. The
value same means that the 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. The value foreign
means that the 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). The value allowed allows reverse-
dependencies to indicate in their Depends field that they accept a package from a foreign
architecture by qualifying the package name with :any, but has no effect otherwise. The value no
is the default when the field is omitted, in which case adding the field with an explicit no value
is generally not needed.
Source: source-name
The name of the source package that this binary package came from, if different than the name of
the package itself.
Subarchitecture: value
Kernel-Version: value
Installer-Menu-Item: value
These fields are used by the debian-installer and are usually not needed. See
/usr/share/doc/debian-installer/devel/modules.txt from the debian-installer package for more
details about them.
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.
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 field lists extra source packages that were used during the build of this binary package.
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 list of source package names
with strict ‘=’ version relationships. 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.
EXAMPLE
# Comment
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).
SEE ALSO
deb(5), deb-version(5), debtags(1), dpkg(1), dpkg-deb(1).