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 located in /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 seperate files that end with sources.list file.

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
       are:

          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 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
          deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian dists/stable-updates/

URI SPECIFICATION

       The currently recognized URI types are cdrom, file, http, and ftp.

       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. No password authentication is
          possible, prior arrangements with RSA keys or rhosts must have been
          made. Access to files on the remote uses standard find and dd
          commands to perform the file transfers from the remote.

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

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

          deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian stable 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

       [1]APT bug page. 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
          Author.

       APT team
          Author.

REFERENCES

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



Linux                          29 February 2004                SOURCES.LIST(5)