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NAME

       sources.list - Package resource list for APT

DESCRIPTION

       The package resource list is used to locate archives of the package
       distribution system in use on the system. At this time, this manual
       page documents only the packaging system used by the Debian GNU/Linux
       system. This control file is /etc/apt/sources.list.

       The source list is designed to support any number of active sources and
       a variety of source media. The file lists one source per line, with the
       most preferred source listed first. The format of each line is: type
       uri args The first item, type determines the format for args.  uri is a
       Universal Resource Identifier (URI), which is a superset of the more
       specific and well-known Universal Resource Locator, or URL. The rest of
       the line can be marked as a comment by using a #.

SOURCES.LIST.D

       The /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory provides a way to add
       sources.list entries in separate files. The format is the same as for
       the regular sources.list file. File names need to end with .list and
       may only contain letters (a-z and A-Z), digits (0-9), underscore (_),
       hyphen (-) and period (.) characters. Otherwise they will be silently
       ignored.

THE DEB AND DEB-SRC TYPES

       The deb type describes a typical two-level Debian archive,
       distribution/component. Typically, distribution is generally one of
       stable unstable or testing while component is one of main contrib
       non-free or non-us. The deb-src type describes a debian distribution's
       source code in the same form as the deb type. A deb-src line is
       required to fetch source indexes.

       The format for a sources.list entry using the deb and deb-src types is:

           deb uri distribution [component1] [component2] [...]

       The URI for the deb type must specify the base of the Debian
       distribution, from which APT will find the information it needs.
       distribution can specify an exact path, in which case the components
       must be omitted and distribution must end with a slash (/). This is
       useful for when the case only a particular sub-section of the archive
       denoted by the URI is of interest. If distribution does not specify an
       exact path, at least one component must be present.

       distribution may also contain a variable, $(ARCH) which expands to the
       Debian architecture (i386, m68k, powerpc, ...) used on the system. This
       permits architecture-independent sources.list files to be used. In
       general this is only of interest when specifying an exact path, APT
       will automatically generate a URI with the current architecture
       otherwise.

       Since only one distribution can be specified per line it may be
       necessary to have multiple lines for the same URI, if a subset of all
       available distributions or components at that location is desired. APT
       will sort the URI list after it has generated a complete set
       internally, and will collapse multiple references to the same Internet
       host, for instance, into a single connection, so that it does not
       inefficiently establish an FTP connection, close it, do something else,
       and then re-establish a connection to that same host. This feature is
       useful for accessing busy FTP sites with limits on the number of
       simultaneous anonymous users. APT also parallelizes connections to
       different hosts to more effectively deal with sites with low bandwidth.

       It is important to list sources in order of preference, with the most
       preferred source listed first. Typically this will result in sorting by
       speed from fastest to slowest (CD-ROM followed by hosts on a local
       network, followed by distant Internet hosts, for example).

       Some examples:

           deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian lenny main contrib non-free
           deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free

URI SPECIFICATION

       The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, ftp, copy,
       ssh, rsh.

       file
           The file scheme allows an arbitrary directory in the file system to
           be considered an archive. This is useful for NFS mounts and local
           mirrors or archives.

       cdrom
           The cdrom scheme allows APT to use a local CDROM drive with media
           swapping. Use the apt-cdrom(8) program to create cdrom entries in
           the source list.

       http
           The http scheme specifies an HTTP server for the archive. If an
           environment variable http_proxy is set with the format
           http://server:port/, the proxy server specified in http_proxy will
           be used. Users of authenticated HTTP/1.1 proxies may use a string
           of the format http://user:pass@server:port/. Note that this is an
           insecure method of authentication.

       ftp
           The ftp scheme specifies an FTP server for the archive. APT's FTP
           behavior is highly configurable; for more information see the
           apt.conf(5) manual page. Please note that a ftp proxy can be
           specified by using the ftp_proxy environment variable. It is
           possible to specify a http proxy (http proxy servers often
           understand ftp urls) using this method and ONLY this method. ftp
           proxies using http specified in the configuration file will be
           ignored.

       copy
           The copy scheme is identical to the file scheme except that
           packages are copied into the cache directory instead of used
           directly at their location. This is useful for people using a zip
           disk to copy files around with APT.

       rsh, ssh
           The rsh/ssh method invokes rsh/ssh to connect to a remote host as a
           given user and access the files. It is a good idea to do prior
           arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts. Access to files on the remote
           uses standard find and dd commands to perform the file transfers
           from the remote.

       more recognizable URI types
           APT can be extended with more methods shipped in other optional
           packages which should follow the nameing scheme
           apt-transport-method. The APT team e.g. maintains also the
           apt-transport-https package which provides access methods for
           https-URIs with features similar to the http method, but other
           methods for using e.g. debtorrent are also available, see apt-
           transport-debtorrent(1).

EXAMPLES

       Uses the archive stored locally (or NFS mounted) at /home/jason/debian
       for stable/main, stable/contrib, and stable/non-free.

           deb file:/home/jason/debian stable main contrib non-free

       As above, except this uses the unstable (development) distribution.

           deb file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free

       Source line for the above

           deb-src file:/home/jason/debian unstable main contrib non-free

       Uses HTTP to access the archive at archive.debian.org, and uses only
       the hamm/main area.

           deb http://archive.debian.org/debian-archive hamm main

       Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
       directory, and uses only the lenny/contrib area.

           deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian lenny contrib

       Uses FTP to access the archive at ftp.debian.org, under the debian
       directory, and uses only the unstable/contrib area. If this line
       appears as well as the one in the previous example in sources.list a
       single FTP session will be used for both resource lines.

           deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable contrib

       Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
       debian-non-US directory.

           deb http://nonus.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free

       Uses HTTP to access the archive at nonus.debian.org, under the
       debian-non-US directory, and uses only files found under
       unstable/binary-i386 on i386 machines, unstable/binary-m68k on m68k,
       and so forth for other supported architectures. [Note this example only
       illustrates how to use the substitution variable; non-us is no longer
       structured like this]

           deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US unstable/binary-$(ARCH)/

SEE ALSO

       apt-cache(8) apt.conf(5)

BUGS

       APT bug page[1]. If you wish to report a bug in APT, please see
       /usr/share/doc/debian/bug-reporting.txt or the reportbug(1) command.

AUTHORS

       Jason Gunthorpe

       APT team

NOTES

        1. APT bug page
           http://bugs.debian.org/src:apt