APT-RPM configuration options

This is an attempt to document, or at least list all APT-RPM configuration options. It's likely to be incomplete and inaccurate but still the most complete list there is...

APT
Architecture The main architecture of the system, automatically set.
DistroVersion Value used for substituting $(VERSION) variables in sources.list. Automatically determined from APT::DistroVerPkg if set.
DistroVerPkg Package whose version is to be used for setting APT::DistroVersion
Build-Essential List of packages that are needed for building packages.
Ignore-Hold Ignore package holds. Currently not effective on RPM systems.
Remove-Depends When removing packages, remove ununsed dependencies as well.
Clean-Installed Clean installed packages from local cache automatically??
Default-Release Controls the policy engine defaults. Only usable with properly set up native apt repositories.
Immediate-Configure Doesn't have effect on RPM systems
Force-LoopBreak Allow temporarily removing essential packages to complete install/upgrade process. Dangerous and should never be needed.
Cache-Limit Maximum allowed size of the memory mapped package cache. Apt sets it to 8*1024*1024*option value.
Arguments Internal option used for enabling installing arbitrary local rpm packages.
APT::Get
Print-URIs Instead of downloading files, print their URI's only.
Download-only Only download packages, do not install/upgrade.
Simulate A dry-run operation to see if upgrade/install/etc operation would succeed and what it would do. Known to be buggy in many cases, eg giving false conflicts.
Check-Only Only check if the given operation would do something and abort without proceeding.
Assume-Yes Assume "yes" in all normal prompts.
Force-Yes Assume "yes" in all prompts, safe or not.
Trivial-Only Similar to Assume-Yes but only assume "yes" for trivial opterations. Eg removals are never trivial and large updates are not trivial either.
Show-Versions Only affects output: show versions of updated/installed/removed packages.
Show-Upgraded Only affects output: show summary of updated packages.
Remove If set to false, abort any operation requiring package removals.
Download If set to false prevent any downloads from occurring.
Fix-Missing Attempt to compensate if some packages fail to download by recalculating dependencies without the missing packages.
Purge Doesn't affect RPM systems??
Only-Source ??
List-Cleanup Clean out old package lists except in partial update.
No-List-Cleanup Don't perform list cleanup.
Archive-Cleanup Clean out package archives from local cache.
Reinstall Enable reinstallation of packages. Automatically set in reinstall mode.
Compile Should a newly fetched source package be built as well.
Arch-Only ??
Fix-Broken Attempt to fix any broken dependencies by installing/removing packages.
APT::Cache
Important If set to true, only report unmet hard dependencies in "apt-cache unmet" operation.
RecurseDepends Show recursive package dependencies on apt-cache operations.
Installed Controls detail level of depends and whatdepends operations??
GivenOnly Affects output of apt-cache dotty and xvcg operations??
ShowFull If set to true, show full package records on search results, otherwise show just package name and summary.
NamesOnly If set to true, only search package names (not contents)
AllVersions If set to true, show all available versions of a package, otherwise only show candidate version.
Generate If set to true, automatically generate package cache if it doesn't exist. Normally enabled always.
APT::Shell
ShowUpgradable Controls showing upgradable packages in package listing.
ShowInstalled Controls showing installed packages in package listing.
ShowVersion Controls showing version information in package listing.
ShowSummary Controls showing summary in package listing.
APT::CDROM
ID Used to identify vendor CD-ROM's??
NoMount Don't mount/umount CD-ROM automatically.
Rename Rename a recognized CD-ROM.
NoAct If enabled, don't add entries to sources.list or database.
Fast "Fast mode" - if enabled don't check pacakge files
Thorough If enabled perform through scanning of CD-ROM for package files.
APT::Post-Install
Clean Clean all packages from local cache.
AutoClean Clean packages which can no longer be downloaded from the local cache.
APT::GPG
Pubring
Acquire
DistroID Unused??
Queue-Mode Queue-Mode can be one of host or access which determines how APT parallelizes outgoing connections. host means that one connection per target host will be opened, access means that one connection per URI type will be opened.
Verbose Verbose output, only really useful for debugging problems with file retrieval.
Retries How many times to retry retrieving an item before giving up
Source-Symlinks If enabled use symlinking instead of copying package files around if possible.
Acquire::http
User-Agent Sets the user agent string of the http retriever method.
Proxy Proxy to be used for http retrieving.
No-Cache Tell proxy not to use cached response under any circumstances.
No-Store Tell proxy not to store requests made by APT.
Max-Age Only sent for package indexes, tells the proxy to refresh it's cached object if older than given number of seconds.
TimeOut Timeout value in seconds.
Pipeline-Depth Controls how many outstanding requests APT should send (0-5).
Acquire::ftp
Proxy Default ftp proxy to use.
ProxyLogin Proxy login script, needed with ftp proxies.
Proxy::Passive Control use of passive/active ftp mode for proxies.
Passive Control use of passive/active ftp mode.
ForceExtended Force use of EPSV and EPRT commands on IPv4 connections.
Timeout Timeout value in seconds.
Acquire::rsh
Timeout Timeout value in seconds.
Options Extra options to be passed to rsh/ssh
Acquire::CDROM
Copy Copy packages to system disk before installation.
Copy-All Copy all packages to system disk before starting installation.
Mount Mount path of CD-ROM's
Acquire::file
ComprExtension Not used in lorg releases
Dir
Bin Default binary path (/bin or /usr/bin)
Etc Default configuration root directory (/etc)
Locale Default locale path (/usr/share/locale)
State "state" data directory root (/var/lib/apt)
Dir::State
lists Directory where package index lists are downloaded to.
cdroms Directory where CD-ROM "database" is kept (??)
prefetch Directory where packages are prefetched to from CD-ROM's (??)
Dir::Cache
archives Local cache of downloaded packages, normally /var/cache/apt/archives
pkgcache Apt's memory mapped package cache location, normally /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin
srcpkgcache Apt's memory mapped source package cache location, normally /var/cache/apt/srccache.bin
Dir::Etc
sourceslist Location of main sources.list file, normally /etc/apt/sources.list
sourceparts Directory of additional sourcelist entries, normally /etc/apt/sources.list.d
vendorlist Location of main vendor gpg fingerprint list, normally /etc/apt/vendors.list
main Location of main configuration file apt.conf, normally /etc/apt/apt.conf
parts Directory of additional configuration files, normally /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/
preferences Location of the pinning configuration file, normally /etc/apt/preferences
rpmpriorities Location of rpm priority information file, normally /etc/apt/rpmpriorities.
translatelist ??
translateparts ??
Dir::Bin
methods Directory where apt's helper methods are located, typically /usr/lib/apt.
rpm Location of rpm binary.
scripts Directory where Lua scripts are located, by default /usr/share/apt/scripts.
gzip Location on gzip binary.
bzip2 Location of bzip2 binary.
gpg Location of gpg binary.
RPM
Hold List of packages to put hold from upgrading.
OldPackage Automatically set when downgrading packages, an internal option really.
NoDeps If set, don't run rpmlib dependency check before final transaction.
Order If set to true, use rpmlib installation ordering, otherwise use apt's own installation ordering.
RuntimeDeps If set to true, support runtime probe dependencies of rpm >= 4.4.3. Causes rebuilding of the cache on each run and thus is very expensive option.
Install-Options List of rpm options to be used when performing package installations and upgrades.
Erase-Options List of rpm options to be used when performing package removals.
Options List of rpm options to be used on both install and remove operations.
RootDir Alternate root directory for installations.
PM Used to control how rpm transactions are done, either using internal rpmlib implementation or call external rpm binary. Allowed values "internal" and "external", internal is default.
Interactive Affects install progress reporting, internal option mostly.
Ignore A list of packages to completely ignore from all processing.
Allow-Duplicated List of packages that are allowed to have several versions simultaneously installed, eg the kernel.
Fake-Provides Inject fake "provides" into apt's dependency cache. Can be used to fake otherwise missing dependencies. Don't use.
Architecture Force the architecture used in rpm version comparisons to something else than reported by the system itself.
Pre-Invoke List of scripts to run before running rpm transaction.
Pre-Install-Pkgs List of scripts to run after Pre-Invoke scripts, additionally list of installed package files are passed through stdin to the scripts.
Post-Invoke List of scripts to run after rpm transaction has completed.
Run-Directory Which directory to run rpm from (normally /), only efective with external PM
FlushSTDIN Whether stdin should be flushed before forking rpm, only effective with external PM
RPM::Source
Build-Command The command to be used for building source packages.
Install-Command The command to be used to install source packages
Build-Options Additional options to be passed to the build-command when building packages.
Debug
pkgProblemResolver Debug package upgrade/remove/keep decision making
pkgPolicy Debug apt policy (pinning) behavior
pkgAcquire Debug package/list acquirer
pkgAcquire::Worker Debug package/list acquirer worker behavior
pkgOrderList Debug package ordering decision making (?)
pkgRPMPM Debug options passed to rpm at install/upgrade/remove
pkgPackageManager Debug generic package manager class (?)
pkgRemoveDepends Debug package removal logic when -D is used.
Acquire::cdrom Debug cdrom "download" method
Acquire::Ftp Debug ftp download method
Acquire::Http Debug http download method
BuildDeps Debug build-dep operation
NoLocking Don't perform cache locking.
pkgInitConfig Dump the configuration after initialization - except it doesn't seem to work :)
aptcdrom Verbose reporting of CD-ROM scanning.

Last updated 08.08.2010