DPKG-REPACK(1)                       General Commands Manual                       DPKG-REPACK(1)



NAME
       dpkg-repack - put an unpacked .deb file back together

SYNOPSIS
       dpkg-repack [--root=dir] [--arch=architecture] [--generate] packagename [packagename ...]

DESCRIPTION
       dpkg-repack creates a .deb file out of a Debian package that has already been installed on
       your system.

       If any changes have been made to the package while it was unpacked (ie, conffiles files in
       /etc  modified),  the new package will inherit the changes. (There are exceptions to this,
       including changes to configuration files that are not conffiles, including  those  managed
       by ucf.)

       This  utility can make it easy to copy packages from one computer to another, or to recre‐
       ate packages that are installed on your system, but no longer available elsewhere.

       Note: dpkg-repack will place the created package in the current directory.


OPTIONS
       --root=dir
              Take package from filesystem rooted on <dir>. This is useful if, for  example,  you
              have another computer nfs mounted on /mnt, then you can use --root=/mnt to reassem‐
              ble packages from that computer.


       --arch=architecture
              Make the package be for a specific architecture.  dpkg-repack might not be able  to
              tell  if  an  installed  package is architecture all or is specific to the system's
              architecture, in case it lacks the Architecture field.  If  you  know  the  package
              architecture,  you can use this option to force dpkg-repack to use the right archi‐
              tecture.


       --generate
              Generate a temporary directory suitable for building a package  from,  but  do  not
              actually create the package. This is useful if you want to move files around in the
              package before building it. The package can be built from this temporary  directory
              by running "dpkg-deb --build", passing it the generated directory.


       packagename
              The name of the package to attempt to repack. Multiple packages can be listed.


BUGS
       There  is a tricky situation that can occur if you dpkg-repack a package that has modified
       conffiles. The modified conffiles are packed up. Now if you install the package, dpkg does
       not  realize  that the conffiles in it are modified. So if you later upgrade to a new ver‐
       sion of the package, dpkg will believe that the old (repacked) package has older conffiles
       than  the  new  version, and will silently replace the conffiles with those in the package
       you are upgrading to.


       While dpkg-repack can be run under fakeroot and will work most of the  time,  fakeroot  -u
       must be used if any of the files to be repacked are owned by non-root users. Otherwise the
       package will have them owned by root.  dpkg-repack will warn if you run it under  fakeroot
       without the -u flag.


AUTHOR
       Joey Hess <joeyh AT debian.org>



DEBIAN                                   Debian Utilities                          DPKG-REPACK(1)