FORKTRACER.CONF(5)						File Formats Manual						FORKTRACER.CONF(5)

NAME

       forktracer.conf - apt-forktracer configuration file

DESCRIPTION

       apt-forktracer  reports "non-standard" packages which are installed in the system.  The configuration files let you ignore (skip reporting)
       some of them, provided they meet certain criteria.  The	program  reads	the  /etc/apt/forktracer.conf  file,  as  well	as  /etc/apt/fork-
       tracer.d/*.conf (skipping hidden files).

       A config file consists of any number of stanzas, separated with at least one empty lines.  A stanza has the following format:

	   Package: package
	   Accept-Origin: origin1
	   Track-Origin: origin2
	   Track-Version: version

       All these lines in a stanza are required, and they have the following meaning:

       package
	      the name of the package to which this stanza applies

       origin1
	      the  value  of  the Origin field of the source, from which a package should be ignored.  A package will be ignored, if its candidate
	      version comes from source1, and at the same time meets the condition given by the Track-* fields.  A special value * means,  that  a
	      package should be ignored regardless of the source of the candidate version.

       origin2
	      the  value  of  the Origin field of the source, from which the newest available version should be tracked.  A special value * means,
	      that a generally newest available version should be tracked, regardless of source.

       version
	      is the required version string available from the origin2 source.  Apart from a literal version string, the following special values
	      may be used: =candidate, which means the current candidate version, and =candidate-base, which means the base version (see below) of
	      the current candidate version.

       The above stanza would cause package to be skipped from program output, as long as its candidate version comes from  origin1,  and  at  the
       same time its newest version available from origin2 equals version.

       If  there  is more than one stanza for a given package, then it is omitted from the program output if at least one of them matches the cur-
       rent situation.

   Base version definition
       A base version is extracted from a given version by stripping from its end the shortest string starting with a tilde character. For example
       for version 1:1.2-3~4~5 the base version is 1:1.2-3~4.

   Default configuration
       If for a given package package there is no stanza in the configuration, then the program acts as if the following two stanzas existed:

	   Package: package
	   Accept-Origin: *
	   Track-Origin: distributor
	   Track-Version: =candidate

	   Package: package
	   Accept-Origin: *
	   Track-Origin: distributor
	   Track-Version: =candidate-base

       where  distributor  is  the  system  distributor's  identifier, as returned by lsb_release --id or by the DISTRIB_ID field in the /etc/lsb-
       release file.

EXAMPLES

   Unofficial package
       apt-forktracer reports packages which are not available from any official source, for example:

	   puppet-softwarelab (0.2) [SoftwareLab: 0.2 0.1]

       The following stanza makes it skip such packages:

	   Package: puppet-softwarelab
	   Accept-Origin: SoftwareLab
	   Track-Origin: *
	   Track-Version: =candidate

       If the puppet-softwarelab package will be "pinned" to "release o=Softwarelab", then such configuration will make apt-forktracer	report	if
       puppet-softwarelab appears in any source other than SoftwareLab in a version newer than the one available from it.

   Backport
       Installing a backport has a similar effect to installing an unofficial package:

	   spamc (3.2.3-0.volatile1) [Debian: 3.1.7-2] [volatile.debian.org: 3.2.3-0.volatile1]

       The following stanza will cause such package to be skipped:

	   Package: spamc
	   Accept-Origin: volatile.debian.org
	   Track-Origin: *
	   Track-Version: =candidate

       In  this  situation  a  small  official version string change (for example to 3.1.7-2etch1) will be silently ignored. Such configuration is
       therefore only suitable for cases where you trust the person providing the backport to carefully track changes in the  stable  edition  and
       make  sure  they  are incorporated in the backport they are distributing.  In other cases, you should probably use the following configura-
       tion.

   Own modifications
       Sometimes there is a situation where you make minor changes to a package, and you would like to know when a new official stable version	is
       released, so that you can update your modified version.

	   policyd-weight (0.1.14-beta-6etch2.0.sl.1) [Debian: 0.1.14-beta-6etch2] [SoftwareLab: 0.1.14-beta-6etch2.0.sl.1]

       The following configuration is useful in such cases:

	   Package: policyd-weight
	   Accept-Origin: SoftwareLab
	   Track-Origin: Debian
	   Track-Version: 0.1.14-beta-6etch2

       It  is  worth  mentioning,  that  if  you  apply  a  certain convention when numbering the modified version, then the Default configuration
       described before is sufficient.	In this case, if the modified version would have a version number such as 0.1.14-beta-6etch2~sl.1 then the
       above-mentioned stanza would be unnecessary.  What is more, there would be no need to keep any configuration up-to-date in case of new sta-
       ble version releases, because the default configuration is created dynamically based on the current situation.

FILES

       /etc/apt/forktracer.conf
       /etc/apt/forktracer.d/*.conf

SEE ALSO

       apt-cache(8), apt-forktracer(8), apt_preferences(5).

Debian Project							    2008-11-16							FORKTRACER.CONF(5)