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📜 NAME

dpkg-genbuildinfo — generate Debian .buildinfo files

🚀 Quick Reference

Use Case	Command	Description
📦 Generate default .buildinfo	dpkg-genbuildinfo	Reads built source tree, generates build info file
🏗️ Specify build type	dpkg-genbuildinfo --build=type	Set build type: any, all, source, binary, full
📄 Use custom control file	dpkg-genbuildinfo -c debian/control	Read main source control info from custom path
📝 Output to stdout	dpkg-genbuildinfo -O	Print buildinfo to standard output (or -O filename)
🐧 Always include kernel version	dpkg-genbuildinfo --always-include-kernel	Force Build-Kernel-Version field output
📁 Always include build path	dpkg-genbuildinfo --always-include-path	Force Build-Path field output
🔇 Suppress messages	dpkg-genbuildinfo -q	Quiet mode — suppress informative stderr messages
❓ Show help	dpkg-genbuildinfo --help	Display usage message and exit

🔧 SYNOPSIS

dpkg-genbuildinfo [option...]

📖 DESCRIPTION

dpkg-genbuildinfo reads information from an unpacked and built Debian source tree and from the files it has generated and generates a Debian control file describing the build environment and the build artifacts (.buildinfo file).

⏱️ This command was introduced in dpkg 1.18.11.

⚙️ OPTIONS

--build=type
📌 Specifies the build type from a comma-separated list of components.

The allowed values are:

• any — Generate build information including unqualified build dependencies (Build-Depends) and architecture specific build dependencies (Build-Depends-Arch).
• all — Generate build information including unqualified build dependencies (Build-Depends) and architecture independent build dependencies (Build-Depends-Indep).
• source — Effectively ignored; generate build information with just the unqualified build dependencies (Build-Depends).
• binary — Generate build information with all three types of build dependencies. This is an alias for any,all.
• full — Generate build information with all three types of build dependencies. This is an alias for any,all,source, and the same as the default case when no build option is specified.

-ccontrolfile
📄 Specifies the main source control file to read information from. The default is debian/control.

-lchangelog-file
📜 Specifies the changelog file to read information from. The default is debian/changelog.

-ffiles-list-file
📋 Specifies where is the list of files that have been produced by the build, rather than using debian/files.

-Fchangelog-format
📄 Specifies the format of the changelog. See dpkg-parsechangelog(1) for information about alternative formats.

-O[filename]
🖨️ Print the buildinfo file to standard output (or filename if specified) rather than to dir/source-name_binary-version_arch.buildinfo (where dir is .. by default or upload-files-dir if -u was used).

-uupload-files-dir
📂 Look for the files to be uploaded in upload-files-dir rather than .. (dpkg-genbuildinfo needs to find these files so that it can include their sizes and checksums in the .buildinfo file).

--always-include-kernel
🐧 By default, the Build-Kernel-Version field will not be written out.

Specify this option (since dpkg 1.19.0) to always write a Build-Kernel-Version field when generating the .buildinfo.

--always-include-path
📁 By default, the Build-Path field will only be written if the current directory starts with an allowed pattern.

On Debian and derivatives the pattern matches on /build/ at the start of the pathname.

Specify this option to always write a Build-Path field when generating the .buildinfo.

--admindir=dir
🗄️ Change the location of the dpkg database. The default location is /var/lib/dpkg.

-q
🔇 dpkg-genbuildinfo might produce informative messages on standard error. -q suppresses these messages.

-?, --help
❓ Show the usage message and exit.

--version
ℹ️ Show the version and exit.

🌍 ENVIRONMENT

DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
🔧 This variable can be used to enable or disable various features that affect the information included in the .buildinfo file, via the buildinfo option (since dpkg 1.18.19). This option contains a comma-separated list of features, prefixed with the '+' or '-' modifiers, to denote whether to enable or disable them. The special feature "all" can be used to enable or disable all other features. The feature "path" controls whether to unconditionally include the Build-Path field.

DPKG_COLORS
🎨 Sets the color mode (since dpkg 1.18.5). The currently accepted values are: auto (default), always and never.

DPKG_NLS
🌐 If set, it will be used to decide whether to activate Native Language Support, also known as internationalization (or i18n) support (since dpkg 1.19.0). The accepted values are: 0 and 1 (default).

📁 FILES

debian/files
📋 The list of generated files. dpkg-genbuildinfo reads the data here when producing a .buildinfo file.

📚 SEE ALSO

deb-buildinfo(5)

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💡 Generated from dpkg 1.21.1 (2025-09-09)

📜 NAME 🚀 Quick Reference 🔧 SYNOPSIS 📖 DESCRIPTION ⚙️ OPTIONS 🌍 ENVIRONMENT 📁 FILES 📚 SEE ALSO