Note: a little tip, when looking for the packer corresponding to a command or file, it’s advisable to put the absolute path to it, it can exclude some results and unnecessary rows in the result. This shows that the controller and tool “htpasswd” come with the packages apache2-dbg and apache2-utils. And the option “search” in apt-file retrieves the packet associated with a file or command. Note: command “htpasswd” supplied with apache2). If one wishes to know which package installed on another server for precise control, can just go on to that server with the following command: apt-file search /usr/bin/htpasswd It can in fact find, from a file selected, the package Debian associated with it. This shows that different files will be placed in / etc / default, but also in the / etc / fail2ban /, etc…Ī second interesting enough action can be performed with apt-file. Note: Apt-file gives us the files contained in the package Fail2ban. More simply, you can perform the following command to view the files contained in the Debian package fail2ban. With Apt-file, we will be able to view the files that will be deployed during the installation with apt-get install before the actual installation. For your information a Debian package is a set of files that contains config, script, information storage, etc… files placed in a package and ready to be deployed. The first rather practical thing we can do with apt-file is to list the files that are contained in a Debian package (.deb).

Now we can use apt-file and see what it is capable of! This is of course a command which we will reuse when we will update the file /etc/apt/sources.list Therefore apt-file will go read the file /etc/apt/sources.list and fill its cache (twenty megabytes for a basic Debian) to be ready for use. Note: we are updating the apt-file cache for future use: It will then prepare apt-file to be used in fulfilling its cache this requires a simple command line that I’ve mentioned below: apt-file update Here, we are going to see how to use it:įirst we will see the installation and preparation of apt-file: Apt-file is simply installed on Debian via deposits, it will capture the following command. Apt-file to explore the Debian packages: when one uses only the command line on Linux, there are tools to have in your pocket, so apt-file for exploring the Debian packages (.deb) and finds a package according to a file.

Debian packages list