forktracer.conf (5)

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/forktracer.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 current 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.

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 configuration.

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 stable version releases, because the default configuration is created dynamically based on the current situation.

/etc/apt/forktracer.conf

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

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