1 .\" dpkg manual page - dpkg-scanpackages(1)
3 .\" Copyright © 1996 Michael Shields <shields@crosslink.net>
4 .\" Copyright © 2006 Frank Lichtenheld <djpig@debian.org>
5 .\" Copyright © 2007, 2009, 2011-2014 Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
6 .\" Copyright © 2009 Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
8 .\" This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
9 .\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
10 .\" the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
11 .\" (at your option) any later version.
13 .\" This is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
14 .\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
15 .\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
16 .\" GNU General Public License for more details.
18 .\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
19 .\" along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
21 .TH dpkg\-scanpackages 1 "%RELEASE_DATE%" "%VERSION%" "dpkg suite"
24 dpkg\-scanpackages \- create Packages index files
28 .RI [ option "...] " binary-path
36 sorts through a tree of Debian binary packages and creates a Packages
40 etc, to tell the user what packages are available for installation. These
41 Packages files are the same as those found on Debian archive sites
42 and CD-ROMs. You might use
44 yourself if making a directory of local packages to install on a cluster
48 If you want to access the generated Packages file with
50 you will probably need to compress the file with
52 (generating a Packages.xz file),
54 (generating a Packages.bz2 file) or
56 (generating a Packages.gz file). apt ignores uncompressed Packages
57 files except on local access (i.e.
62 is the name of the tree of the binary packages to process (for example,
63 .BR contrib/binary\-i386 ).
64 It is best to make this relative to the root of the Debian archive,
65 because every Filename field in the new Packages file will start with
69 is the name of a file to read which contains information about how the
70 package fits into the distribution (the file can be compressed
71 since dpkg 1.15.5); see
72 .BR deb\-override (5).
75 is an optional string to be prepended to the Filename fields.
77 If more than one version of a package is found only the newest one
78 is included in the output. If they have the same version and only
79 differ in architecture only the first one found is used.
83 .BR \-t ", " \-\-type " \fItype\fP"
84 Scan for *.\fItype\fP packages, instead of *.deb.
86 .BR \-e ", " \-\-extra\-override " \fIfile\fP"
87 Scan \fIfile\fP to find supplementary overrides (the file can be
88 compressed since dpkg 1.15.5).
90 .BR deb\-extra\-override (5)
91 for more information on its format.
93 .BR \-a ", " \-\-arch " \fIarch\fP"
94 Use a pattern consisting of \fI*_all.deb\fP and \fI*_arch.deb\fP instead of
95 scanning for all debs.
97 .BR \-h ", " \-\-hash " \fIhash-list\fP"
98 Only generate file hashes for the comma-specified list specified
100 The default is to generate all currently supported hashes.
101 Supported values: \fBmd5\fP, \fBsha1\fP, \fBsha256\fP.
103 .BR \-m ", " \-\-multiversion
104 Include all found packages in the output.
106 .BR \-M ", " \-\-medium " \fIid-string\fP"
107 Add an \fBX\-Medium\fP field containing the value \fIid-string\fP
109 This field is required if you want to generate \fBPackages.cd\fP files
110 for use by the multicd access method of dselect.
112 .BR \-? ", " \-\-help
113 Show the usage message and exit.
116 Show the version and exit.
119 .B dpkg\-scanpackages
120 outputs the usual self-explanatory errors. It also warns about packages
121 that are in the wrong subdirectory, are duplicated, have a Filename
122 field in their control file, are missing from the override file, or have
123 maintainer substitutions which do not take effect.
129 .BR deb\-override (5),
130 .BR deb\-extra\-override (5),
131 .BR dpkg\-scansources (1).