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How do I get a list of files that were or will-be installed when I apt-get a package? Conversely, can I find what package(s) caused a particular file to be installed?

David Nehme
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6 Answers6

271

Note: in the following commands, a command beginning with 'root#' means it needs to be run as root.

To find which files were installed by a package, use dpkg -L:

$ dpkg -L $package

apt-file can tell you which files will be installed by a package before installing it:

root# apt-get install apt-file
root# apt-file update
$ apt-file list $package

Or if you have the package as a .deb file locally already, you can run dpkg on it:

$ dpkg --contents $package.deb

To find which package provides a file that is already on your system, use:

$ dpkg -S /path/to/file

To find which package provides a file that is not currently on your system, use apt-file again:

$ apt-file search /path/to/file
slm
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raphink
  • 13,027
7

Here is a function that should do it for you without the need to downloading the package to disk. This solution also doesn't require any third party programs (like apt-file) or anything outside of a minimum debian/ubuntu install.

# Function that gets the package layout of a remote package from 
# apt/apt-get/aptitude/synaptic/etc...
apt_list () 
{
    # Build array of packages 
    local packages=("$@");
    # Iterate package indexes up to the length of the array minus 1
    for pkg in $(seq 0 1 $((${#packages[@]}-1)));
    do
        # Pretty little separator in case you are examining the 
        # contents of multiple packages.
        echo -e "\n#### ${packages[$pkg]} ####\n";
        # Pipe steps (in order)
        # Print the url to the .deb package remote location from sources.list
        # delimit by single quotes and select only the url
        # pipe the url to xargs after a curl silent follow redirects 
        # insecure (no cert checking some may wish to take the -k off 
        # the curl command.
        # use dpkg -c to check the contents of the downloaded package in stdin
        # Use perl to remove dots after modification timestamp on sysroot
        apt-get download -o Dir::Cache::archives="./" --print-uris ${packages[$pkg]}\
        | awk -F\' '{print $2}' | xargs -I '{}' curl -skL '{}' |\
         dpkg-deb -c /dev/stdin | perl -ne 's,(:\d\d )[.]/,$1/,g;print';
        # Line break so the last package name doesn't wind up on same line as PS1
        echo;
    # end loop
    done
}

Then use apt_list <package name1> [package name 2]

e.g. apt_list curl wget

In regard to your second question you can use dpkg -S /path/to/isntalled/file or if you are trying to view the contents of an already downloaded/local .deb file with dpkg --contents </path/to/deb/file>. As for reverse checking files from packages where you don't know the name of the package that owns said file, a third party solution apt-file (a software package that indexes the contents of packages in your available repositories and allows you to search for a particular file among all available packages), is available. This is like yum provides on rhel based systems like CentOS) would be the best bet.

​​​​​​

linuxgeek
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5
dpkg -S /path/to/file/in/question

As far as I'm concerned, dpkg is the low-level tool that apt-get depends on.

Olaf
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3

Another option for those of you who using Linux Mint:

apt content <packageName>
folivore
  • 31
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2

The apt-file command needs to download a database that can be 100's of MB and take several minutes. If you're only interested in one or two packages, it's quicker to download the deb file(s) and view the contents using standard tools.

# change to a directory where you have write permission
cd /tmp

download the package's .deb file, e.g. for dbab


apt download dbab


print the files that will be installed by the package


dpkg -c dbab_1.5.8-1_all.deb

Furthermore, you can extract the control files from the package, and see what the scripts will do on installation or removal. Particularly, the post-install script may be of interest.

# this will extract the control files to a new dir, ctrl-files
dpkg -e dbab_1.5.8-1_all.deb ctrl-files

then they can be viewed, e.g.


more ctrl-files/postinst
SpinUp __ A Davis
  • 138
2

If you have installed dlocate, you can use dlocate -L the same way as dpkg -L. It works exactly the same in this case, but has a number of other options.

Karol
  • 333
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  • 9