deb-split(5) — Linux manual page

deb-split(5)                   dpkg suite                   deb-split(5)

NAME

       deb-split - Debian multi-part binary package format

SYNOPSIS

       filename.deb

DESCRIPTION

       The multi-part .deb format is used to split big packages into
       smaller pieces to ease transport in small media.

FORMAT

       The file is an ar archive with a magic value of !<arch>.  The
       file names might contain a trailing slash (since dpkg 1.15.6).

       The first member is named debian-split and contains a series of
       lines, separated by newlines.  Currently eight lines are present:

       •   The format version number, 2.1 at the time this manual page
           was written.

       •   The package name.

       •   The package version.

       •   The md5sum of the package.

       •   The total size of the package.

       •   The maximum part size.

       •   The current part number, followed by a slash and the total
           amount of parts (as in ‘1/10’).

       •   The package architecture (since dpkg 1.16.1).

       Programs which read multi-part archives should be prepared for
       the minor format version number to be increased and additional
       lines to be present, and should ignore these if this is the case.

       If the major format version number has changed, an incompatible
       change has been made and the program should stop.  If it has not,
       then the program should be able to safely continue, unless it
       encounters an unexpected member in the archive (except at the
       end), as described below.

       The second, last required member is named data.N, where N denotes
       the part number.  It contains the raw part data.

       These members must occur in this exact order.  Current
       implementations should ignore any additional members after
       data.N.  Further members may be defined in the future, and (if
       possible) will be placed after these two.

SEE ALSO

       deb(5), dpkg-split(1).

COLOPHON

       This page is part of the dpkg (Debian Package Manager) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Dpkg/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?src=dpkg⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository ⟨git
       clone https://git.dpkg.org/git/dpkg/dpkg.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2024-05-21.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

1.22.6-77-g86fe7               2024-03-10                   deb-split(5)

Pages that refer to this page: dpkg-split(1)

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