Open Source Software

deb(5)



NAME

   deb - Debian binary package format

SYNOPSIS

   filename.deb

DESCRIPTION

   The  .deb  format  is  the  Debian  binary  package  file format. It is
   understood since dpkg 0.93.76, and is generated by default  since  dpkg
   1.2.0 and 1.1.1elf (i386/ELF builds).

   The format described here is used since Debian 0.93; details of the old
   format are described in deb-old(5).

FORMAT

   The file is an ar archive with a magic  value  of  !<arch>.   Only  the
   common  ar  archive  format  is  supported,  with  no  long  file  name
   extensions, but with file names containing an optional trailing  slash,
   which limits their length to 15 characters (from the 16 allowed).  File
   sizes are limited to 10  ASCII  decimal  digits,  allowing  for  up  to
   approximately 9536.74 MiB member files.

   The  tar archives currently allowed are, the old-style (v7) format, the
   pre-POSIX ustar format, a subset of the GNU format (only the new  style
   long  pathnames and long linknames, supported since dpkg 1.4.1.17), and
   the POSIX ustar  format  (long  names  supported  since  dpkg  1.15.0).
   Unrecognized  tar  typeflags  are  considered an error.  Each tar entry
   size inside a tar archive is limited to 11 ASCII octal digits, allowing
   for up to 8 GiB tar entries.

   The first member is named debian-binary and contains a series of lines,
   separated by newlines. Currently only one line is present,  the  format
   version number, 2.0 at the time this manual page was written.  Programs
   which read new-format archives should be prepared for the minor  number
   to be increased and new lines to be present, and should ignore these if
   this is the case.

   If the major number has changed, an incompatible change has  been  made
   and  the program should stop. If it has not, then the program should be
   able to safely continue, unless it encounters an unexpected  member  in
   the archive (except at the end), as described below.

   The  second  required member is named control.tar.  It is a tar archive
   containing the  package  control  information,  either  not  compressed
   (supported  since  dpkg  1.17.6),  or  compressed  with  gzip (with .gz
   extension) or xz (with .xz extension, supported  since  1.17.6),  as  a
   series  of  plain  files,  of  which  the file control is mandatory and
   contains  the  core  control  information.  The  control  tarball   may
   optionally contain an entry for '.', the current directory.

   The  third,  last  required  member is named data.tar.  It contains the
   filesystem as a tar archive, either  not  compressed  (supported  since
   dpkg  1.10.24),  or compressed with gzip (with .gz extension), xz (with
   .xz  extension,  supported  since  dpkg  1.15.6),  bzip2   (with   .bz2
   extension, supported since dpkg 1.10.24) or lzma (with .lzma extension,
   supported since dpkg 1.13.25).

   These members must occur in this exact order.  Current  implementations
   should  ignore  any additional members after data.tar.  Further members
   may be defined in the future, and (if possible) will  be  placed  after
   these  three. Any additional members that may need to be inserted after
   debian-binary and before control.tar or data.tar and  which  should  be
   safely  ignored  by  older  programs,  will have names starting with an
   underscore, '_'.

   Those new members which won't be able to  be  safely  ignored  will  be
   inserted  before data.tar with names starting with something other than
   underscores, or will (more likely) cause the major version number to be
   increased.

MEDIA TYPE

   Current
   application/vnd.debian.binary-package

   Deprecated
   application/x-debian-package
   application/x-deb

SEE ALSO

   deb-old(5), dpkg-deb(1), deb-control(5).



Free and Open Source Software


Free Software Video

Useful Programs

Free Online Courses

Open Opportunity

Open Business