dpkg-deb(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COMMANDS | OPTIONS | EXIT STATUS | ENVIRONMENT | NOTES | SECURITY | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

dpkg-deb(1)                    dpkg suite                    dpkg-deb(1)

NAME         top

       dpkg-deb - Debian package archive (.deb) manipulation tool

SYNOPSIS         top

       dpkg-deb [option...] command

DESCRIPTION         top

       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.

COMMANDS         top

       -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.

OPTIONS         top

       --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.

EXIT STATUS         top

       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.

ENVIRONMENT         top

       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.

NOTES         top

       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.

SECURITY         top

       Examining untrusted package archives or extracting them into
       staging directories should be considered a security boundary, and
       any breakage of that boundary stemming from these operations
       should be considered a security vulnerability.  But handling
       untrusted package archives should not be done lightly, as the
       surface area includes any compression library supported, in
       addition to the archive formats and control files themselves.
       Performing these operations over untrusted data as root is
       strongly discouraged.

       Building package archives should only be performed over trusted
       data.

BUGS         top

       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.)

SEE ALSO         top

       /usr/local/share/doc/dpkg/spec/rootless-builds.txt, deb(5),
       deb-control(5), dpkg(1), dselect(1).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the dpkg (Debian Package Manager) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=dpkg⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository ⟨git
       clone https://git.dpkg.org/git/dpkg/dpkg.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2023-12-18.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

1.22.0-52-g1af0                2023-08-30                    dpkg-deb(1)

Pages that refer to this page: dh_builddeb(1)dpkg(1)dpkg-name(1)dpkg-split(1)deb(5)deb-conffiles(5)deb-control(5)deb-md5sums(5)deb-old(5)deb-src-rules(5)