NAME

       dpkg-repack - put an unpacked .deb file back together

SYNOPSIS

       dpkg-repack [option...] package-name...

DESCRIPTION

       dpkg-repack creates a .deb file out of a Debian package that has already been installed on
       your system.

       If any changes have been made to the package while it was unpacked (ie, conffiles files in
       /etc  modified),  the new package will inherit the changes. (There are exceptions to this,
       including changes to configuration files that are not conffiles, including  those  managed
       by ucf.)

       This  utility  can  make  it  easy  to  copy  packages from one computer to another, or to
       recreate packages that are installed on your system, but no longer available elsewhere.

       Note: dpkg-repack will place the created package in the current directory.

OPTIONS

       --root=dir
              Take package from filesystem rooted on dir. This is useful  if,  for  example,  you
              have  another  computer  nfs  mounted  on  /mnt,  then  you  can use --root=/mnt to
              reassemble packages from that computer.

       --arch=architecture
              Make the package be for a specific architecture.  dpkg-repack might not be able  to
              tell  if  an  installed  package is architecture all or is specific to the system's
              architecture, in case it lacks the Architecture field.  If  you  know  the  package
              architecture,  you  can  use  this  option  to  force  dpkg-repack to use the right
              architecture.

       -d, --deb-option=option
              Pass option as build argument to dpkg-deb.  This option can be  specified  multiple
              times.

       --generate
              Generate  a  temporary  directory  suitable for building a package from, but do not
              actually create the package. This is useful if you want to move files around in the
              package  before building it. The package can be built from this temporary directory
              by running "dpkg-deb --build dir ." as root (or by using fakroot -u), where dir  is
              the generated directory.

       package-name
              The name of the package to attempt to repack. Multiple packages can be listed.

BUGS

       There  is a tricky situation that can occur if you dpkg-repack a package that has modified
       conffiles. The modified conffiles are packed up. Now if you install the  package,  dpkg(1)
       does  not  realize that the conffiles in it are modified. So if you later upgrade to a new
       version of the package, dpkg(1) will believe that the old  (repacked)  package  has  older
       conffiles  than the new version, and will silently replace the conffiles with those in the
       package you are upgrading to.

       While dpkg-repack can be run under fakeroot(1) and will work most of the time, fakeroot -u
       must be used if any of the files to be repacked are owned by non-root users. Otherwise the
       package will have them owned  by  root.   dpkg-repack  will  warn  if  you  run  it  under
       fakeroot(1) without the -u flag.

SEE ALSO

       dpkg(1), dpkg-deb(1), fakeroot(1).

AUTHOR

       Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>