Find what package a file belongs to in Ubuntu/Debian?

Question

I frequently find myself missing a program, man page, or other file when working on my Ubuntu 8.04 system. Is there any simple way to look up what package contains a given file (whether it is installed already or not)? Maybe some obscure option for apt or dpkg?

Answer 1

apt-file search filename

or

apt-file search /path/to/file

To install apt-file, use:

sudo apt-get install apt-file

You will need to update its database before you can use it:

sudo apt-file update

Answer 2

(Debian/Ubuntu) Discover what package a file belongs to:

dpkg -S /usr/bin/ls

'dpkg -S' just matches the string you supply it, so just using 'ls' as an argument matches any file from any package that has 'ls' anywhere in the filename. So usually it's a good idea to use an absolute path. You can see in the second example that 12 thousand files that are known to dpkg match the bare string 'ls'.

Answer 3

packages.debian.org is what I always use to accomplish this task. It is superior over apt-file because it can find parts of filenames as well. It's also linked up to the main packages list which will list descriptions, bugs, etc. All in all a good website. Not as useful from the command line, but still quite useful.

For speed, I bookmarked the url:

http://packages.debian.org/search?searchon=contents&keywords=%s&mode=filename&suite=unstable&arch=any

in Firefox, and added "debfind" as a keyword (click "more" in the bookmark manager with it hilighted), so I can just type "debfind " and it will work. You can change 'suite' it from unstable to stable or testing if you like, for other versions of the distribution.

Answer 4

You can also use dlocate. From the man page;

$ dlocate [ PATTERN ]
List all records where either the package name or the filename matches PATTERN.

Answer 5

I found Wajig...

wajig whichpackage /path/to/file 

eg.

wajig whichpackage /etc/apt/sources.list

Wajig is a handy command line or console tool which wraps all the apt-get, dpkg goodness that you never wanted to learn. .

To install wajig use:

apt-get install wajig

That command 'whichpackage' itself depends on apt-file

you will still need to update its database before you can use it: - I don't know yet if wajig update whixh does an apt-get update also updates the file cache, but I expect it may.

sudo wajig update

sudo apt-file update

( and Super Cow, Easter egss ? ! )

Answer 6

Simmilar to jamuraa's answer for Debian, you can also go to http://packages.ubuntu.com/ for Ubuntu. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find the "Search the contents of packages" searchbox where you can enter the path of a file.

Answer 7

The command-not-found package gives you hints about potential commands and the name of the debian package. It works by typing the command in the bash shell and looking at its output.

For example if the command name is known:

zer@ivy:~ 10:45 $ zsh5
The program 'zsh5' is currently not installed.  To run 'zsh5' please ask
your administrator to install the package 'zsh'
zsh5: command not found

and if the command is not known, some guesses are applied:

zer@ivy:~ 09:46 $ zsh
No command 'zsh' found, did you mean:
 Command 'lsh' from package 'lsh-client' (main)
 Command 'osh' from package 'omake' (main)
 Command 'ysh' from package 'libyaml-shell-perl' (main)
 Command 'ssh' from package 'openssh-client' (main)
 Command 'vsh' from package 'crystalspace' (main)
 Command 'dsh' from package 'dsh' (main)
 Command 'ash' from package 'ash' (main)
 Command 'msh' from package 'nmh' (main)
 Command 'zssh' from package 'zssh' (main)
 Command 'qsh' from package 'gridengine-client' (main)
 Command 'sh' from package 'dash' (main)
 Command 'bsh' from package 'bsh' (main)
zsh: command not found