dput - Man Page

dput supports two configuration file formats. The old-style configuration format was originally introduced by dput and is described in dput.cf(5). This manpage describes new-style configuration files only. All details are covered in in </usr/share/doc/dput-ng/html/reference/configs.html> which is available in the dput-ng-doc package.

Upload targets are configured using JSON as described in RFC 4627. In a nutshell, dput configuration allows insignificant whitespace before or after any type statement. Each upload profile is stored in its own file and is represented as a pair of curly brackets surrounding name/value pairs described below. Both, name and values are strings. A single colon separates the name from the value. A string begins and ends with quotation marks and may be escaped. Booleans are either true or false (mind these are not surrounded by quotation marks).

Some keys names are accepting lists as possible value. A list is represented as square brackets surrounding zero or more values, separated by commas.

dput reads, in order, these directories:

1. /usr/share/dput-ng/
2. /etc/dput.d/
3. ~/.dput.d/
4. The directory supplied via command line argument

Moreover, old-style configuration files are parsed and read. See Reading Traditional Configuration Files below. In general, packages are installing pre-defined defaults for popular upload targets to /usr/share/dput-ng/profiles/. System administrators who wish to override or create a new system-wide and shared target for many users may choose /etc/dput.d/profiles. Finally, local targets may be written to ~/.dput.d/profiles for personal upload targets.

Within each configuration directory, there may be another tier of configuration directories. There, these actual configuration directories may exist:

• metas/ define super-classes of upload profiles. They can define any name and value known to profiles (see below) which are shared across profiles.
• profiles/ define upload profiles. Files therein are looked-up by their name as HOST argument by dput. This is, where upload hosts are defined.

Moreover, these directories can exist and are documented here for the sake of completeness. However, users typically do not need to touch these unless you are developing or customizing existing plug-ins to dput or dcut

• hooks/ define entry hooks to checker functions which are registered for use with dput. See Hooks below.
• commands/ define entry hooks to command functions which are registered for use with dcut.
• interfaces/ define entry hooks to user interface functions which are registered for use with dput and dcut. They are responsible to retrieve data from the user.

By default all configuration file locations are parsed, and overlaid in a additive manner. This way both, entire profiles and actual settings within a profile is inherited from any parent location defining a key within the current scope. Details are explained in the Inheritance of Keys section.

Profiles are indexed as <profile name>.json within the profiles/ configuration directory. Every profile may define these keys. Optionally a profile called DEFAULT.json can be defined as a superset of all existing profiles. Any other profile will inherit values from this profile. For a finer grained control see meta keyword and META-CLASSES below.

Following is an example configuration for a local upload profile, named "localhost.json".

{
    "+hooks": [
        "lintian"
    ],
    "-hooks": [
        "gpg"
    ],
    "incoming": "~/incoming",
    "meta": "debian",
    "method": "local",
    "run_lintian": true
}

Supported keys are:

allow_dcut (boolean)

This defines if you are allowed to upload a dcut changes file to the queue to remove or move files. See dcut(1).

allow_unsigned_uploads (boolean)

This defines if you are allowed to upload files without a GnuPG signature to this host or not.

allowed_distributions (string)

A regular expression (of Python re module syntax) that the distribution field must match or dput will refuse the upload.

default_host_main (string)

This defines the default host for packages that are allowed to be uploaded to the main archive. This variable is used when guessing the host to upload to.

default_keyid (string)

This defines the default GPG key ID to be used to sign dcut commands. This option can be overridden by -k parameter.

full_upload_log (boolean)

This defines the verbosity of upload logs. When set to true, logs will include more details. This setting might be overridden on the command line and defaults to false.

fqdn (string)

This is the fully qualified domain name that dput will connect to as a target site.

distributions (string)

This defines a comma-separated list of distributions that this host accepts, used to guess the host to use when none is given on the command line.

hash (string)

The hash algorithm that should be used in calculating the checksum of the files before uploading them. Currently, dput accepts the following values for hash:

• sha1: Perform validation of the SHA-1 hash (default when omitted)
• sha256: Perform validation of the SHA-256 hash
• md5: Perform validation of the MD5 hash

hooks (list of string)

Defines a list of checkers which are running before or after the upload. See Hooks below.

interface (string)

Not supported yet. This is a known limitation.

incoming (string)

The directory that dput should upload files to. Most upload sites do not allow writes in the log-in directory. Specify a path here, to which dput should change the directory to, before starting to write files.

method (string)

Use the specified method to upload your package. Currently these alternatives are supported:

• ftp:: Use FTP to upload files
• http or https:: Use HTTP or HTTPS to upload files
• local:: Upload to a locally mounted location of the file system. Internally this calls install(1).
• scp:: Use scp to upload files (requires python-paramiko). This method is deprecated, use sftp instead when possible.
• sftp:: Use the sftp protocol (a secured file transfer via SSH, requires python-paramiko).
• dput-ng does not support rsync.

login (string)

Your login on the machine named before. A single asterisk (*) will cause the scp, sftp and uploaders to not supply a login name when calling trying to authenticate.

meta (list of string)

Specify a list of super classes from which the profile should inherit settings explicitly. This is different to the DEFAULT.json profile in such that this defines settings conditionally, and not for all profiles.

passive_ftp (boolean)

This option defines whether dput should use passive or active FTP for uploading a package to one of the upload queues. This name is only meaningful when method is set to ftp.

post_upload_command (string)

This option defines a command to be run by dput after a successful upload. The command is invoked via the shell and does not get passed any argument. See PROCESSORS for more sophisticated approaches which are integrated in the upload process.

pre_upload_command (string)

This option defines a command to be run by dput before an upload. The command is invoked via the shell and does not get passed any argument. See Hooks for more sophisticated approaches which are integrated in the upload process and can gracefully interrupt the upload process.

run_lintian (boolean)

This option defines if lintian should be run before the package will be uploaded or not. This setting is deprecated but works as a fallback to the corresponding HOOK. The Lintian hook allows much more fine grained control over the Lintian invocation.

As outlined initially, dput reads and parses traditional INI style configuration files. It’s format is documented in dput.cf(5). These files are deprecated, but for the time being read and parsed. We encourage the removal of these global and local configuration files entirely.

Having that said, when in place old-style configuration files will overrule new style files, to preserve a possibly modified legacy behavior. That means, in order configuration values are inherited and keys are successively overwritten in this order:

1. /etc/dput.d/profiles
2. /etc/dput.cf
3. ~/.dput.d/profiles
4. ~/.dput.cf

This means, old-style configuration files always take relative precedence when installed. Use them with caution.

By default, keys will override any previously defined value. However, as a special case, there are three operators (=, + and -) that may be prefixed to names to merge with existing inherited values. This is beneficial when a profile wishes to add or remove values from an existing key which accepts lists of values. This is mostly useful to hooks which may want to extend an existing profile key that is inheriting values via it’s meta-class or parent.

• The = operator is the default operator when no operator was explicitly provided. It overwrites any previous key.
• The + operator is additive. When set, it merges the supplied value(s) with any previous value
• The - operator is subtractive. When set, it removes the supplied value(s) from any previous value.

{
    "hooks": [
        "gpg",
        "lintian"
    ]
}

{
    "hooks": [
        "checksum",
    ]
}

{
    "-hooks": [
        "lintian"
    ]
    "meta": [
            "my-defaults"
    ]
}

Hooks are pre- or post-uupload checks, They are pluggable components running before or after the upload of a package. Whether they run before or after the upload is determined by the JSON definition of a hook. That is an implementation detail the user typically does not need to worry about.

/usr/share/dput-ng/
/etc/dput.d/
~/.dput.d/

dput-ng was originally written by Arno Töll <arno(a)debian.org> and Paul Richard I by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Debian and Ubuntu and of his other realms and territories King Head of the Fluxbox Window Manager Defender of the Faith Tagliamonte <paultag(a)debian.org>.

RFC 4627, /usr/share/doc/dput-ng/html/reference/, dput(1), dcut(1), dcut(1)

dcut(1), dirt(1), dput(1), dput.cf(5).