dpkg-deb - Debian package archive (.deb) manipulation tool
dpkg-deb [
option...]
command
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.
-
-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.
-
--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, 3 for
zstd). The accepted values are compressor specific. For gzip, from 0-9
with 0 being mapped to compressor none. For xz from 0-9. For zstd from
0-22, with levels from 20 to 22 enabling its ultra mode. 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),
zstd (since dpkg 1.21.18) 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, xz and zstd.
The --no-uniform-compression option disables uniform compression
(since dpkg 1.19.0). Uniform compression is the default (since dpkg
1.19.0).
-
--threads-max=threads
- Sets the maximum number of threads allowed for compressors
that support multi-threaded operations (since dpkg 1.21.9).
- --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.
- 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.
- DPKG_DEB_THREADS_MAX
- Sets the maximum number of threads allowed for compressors
that support multi-threaded operations (since dpkg 1.21.9).
The --threads-max option overrides this value.
- DPKG_DEB_COMPRESSOR_TYPE
- Sets the compressor type to use (since dpkg 1.21.10).
The -Z option overrides this value.
- DPKG_DEB_COMPRESSOR_LEVEL
- Sets the compressor level to use (since dpkg 1.21.10).
The -z option overrides this value.
- 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.
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.
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.)
/usr/share/doc/dpkg/spec/rootless-builds.txt,
deb(5),
deb-control(5),
dpkg(1),
dselect(1).