is a software utility for performing system-wide configuration tasks on
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
operating systems. It is developed for the
Debian
Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading on ...
, and is closely integrated with Debian's package management system,
dpkg.
When
packages are being installed, asks the user questions which determine the contents of the system-wide configuration files associated with that package. After package installation, it is possible to go back and change the configuration of a package by using the
''dpkg-reconfigure'' program, or another program such as
Synaptic.
The design of allows for
front-ends for answering configuration questions to be added in a modular way, and there exist several, such as one for
dialog, one for
readline, one that uses a
text editor
A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be u ...
, one for
KDE, one for
GNOME,
The GNOME Journal: Simplified Package Management in Ubuntu Hoary
/ref> a Python front-end API, etc.
The original implementation of is in Perl
Perl is a family of two High-level programming language, high-level, General-purpose programming language, general-purpose, Interpreter (computing), interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it ...
. During the development of Debian-Installer, a new implementation in C was developed, which is named '. The new implementation is currently only used in the installer, but is intended to eventually replace the original entirely. Both implementations make use of the same protocol for communication between the front-end and the client code (""); this is a simple line-based protocol similar to common Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...
protocols.
does not physically configure any packages, but asks the user certain configuration questions stored in the file, under the direction of the package's maintainer scripts (, , etc.). Typically, the script uses to ask questions, while applies configuration changes to the unpacked package in reaction to the answers; however, this can vary due to technical requirements. The user's answers to the configuration questions asked by are cached in 's database.
References
External links
Maintainer's web site
Man Page
{{Perl
Dpkg
Debian
Unix configuration utilities
Ubuntu