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dpkg-scanpackages(1) — dpkg suite

📛 NAME

dpkg-scanpackages — create Packages index files

🚀 Quick Reference

Use Case	Command	Description
📝 Generate Packages file	dpkg-scanpackages binary-path override-file > Packages	Scans a binary package tree and creates a Packages index file.
📦 Scan specific package type	dpkg-scanpackages -t udeb binary-path	Scan for *.udeb packages instead of *.deb.
📚 Include all versions	dpkg-scanpackages -m binary-path	Include all found packages in the output, not just the latest version.
🔑 Generate specific hashes	dpkg-scanpackages -h md5,sha256 binary-path	Only generate specified file hashes (md5, sha1, sha256).

📝 SYNOPSIS

dpkg-scanpackages [option...] binary-path [override-file [path-prefix]] > Packages

📖 DESCRIPTION

dpkg-scanpackages sorts through a tree of Debian binary packages and creates a Packages file, used by apt(8), dselect(1), etc, to tell the user what packages are available for installation. These Packages files are the same as those found on Debian archive sites and CD-ROMs. You might use dpkg-scanpackages yourself if making a directory of local packages to install on a cluster of machines.

Note: If you want to access the generated Packages file with apt(8) you will probably need to compress the file with xz(1) (generating a Packages.xz file), bzip2(1) (generating a Packages.bz2 file) or gzip(1) (generating a Packages.gz file). apt(8) ignores uncompressed Packages files except on local access (i.e. file:// sources).

binary-path is the name of the tree of the binary packages to process (for example, contrib/binary-i386). It is best to make this relative to the root of the Debian archive, because every Filename field in the new Packages file will start with this string.

override-file is the name of a file to read which contains information about how the package fits into the distribution (the file can be compressed since dpkg 1.15.5); see deb-override(5).

path-prefix is an optional string to be prepended to the Filename fields.

If more than one version of a package is found only the newest one is included in the output. If they have the same version and only differ in architecture only the first one found is used.

⚙️ OPTIONS

📦 -t, --type type

Scan for *.type packages, instead of *.deb.

📄 -e, --extra-override file

Scan file to find supplementary overrides (the file can be compressed since dpkg 1.15.5). See deb-extra-override(5) for more information on its format.

🏗️ -a, --arch arch

Use a pattern consisting of *_all.deb and *_arch.deb instead of scanning for all debs.

🔑 -h, --hash hash-list

Only generate file hashes for the comma-specified list specified (since dpkg 1.17.14). The default is to generate all currently supported hashes. Supported values: md5, sha1, sha256.

📚 -m, --multiversion

Include all found packages in the output.

💿 -M, --medium id-string

Add an X-Medium field containing the value id-string (since dpkg 1.15.5). This field is required if you want to generate Packages.cd files for use by the multicd access method of dselect.

❓ -?, --help

Show the usage message and exit.

ℹ️ --version

Show the version and exit.

🌳 ENVIRONMENT

🎨 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).

🩺 DIAGNOSTICS

dpkg-scanpackages outputs the usual self-explanatory errors. It also warns about packages that are in the wrong subdirectory, are duplicated, have a Filename field in their control file, are missing from the override file, or have maintainer substitutions which do not take effect.

📚 SEE ALSO

• dpkg(1)
• dselect(1)
• deb-override(5)
• deb-extra-override(5)
• dpkg-scansources(1)

1.21.1 2025-09-09 dpkg-scanpackages(1)

dpkg-scanpackages(1) — dpkg suite 📛 NAME 🚀 Quick Reference 📝 SYNOPSIS 📖 DESCRIPTION ⚙️ OPTIONS 🌳 ENVIRONMENT 🩺 DIAGNOSTICS 📚 SEE ALSO