apt-mark - Man Page

• Mark a package as automatically installed: sudo apt-mark auto package
• Hold a package at its current version and prevent updates to it: sudo apt-mark hold package
• Allow a package to be updated again: sudo apt-mark unhold package
• Show manually installed packages: apt-mark showmanual
• Show held packages that aren't being updated: apt-mark showhold

tldr.sh

apt-mark {-f=filename | {auto | manual} pkg...  | {showauto | showmanual} [pkg...] } | {-v | --version} | {-h | --help}

apt-mark {hold | unhold | install | remove | purge} pkg...  | {showhold | showinstall | showremove | showpurge} [pkg...]  

apt-mark can be used as a unified front-end to set various settings for a package, such as marking a package as being automatically/manually installed or changing dpkg selections such as hold, install, deinstall and purge which are respected e​.g​. by apt-get dselect-upgrade or aptitude​.

When you request that a package is installed, and as a result other packages are installed to satisfy its dependencies, the dependencies are marked as being automatically installed, while the package you installed explicitly is marked as manually installed​. Once an automatically installed package is no longer depended on by any manually installed package it is considered no longer needed and e​.g​. apt-get or aptitude will at least suggest removing them​.

auto

auto is used to mark a package as being automatically installed, which will cause the package to be removed when no more manually installed packages depend on this package​.

manual

manual is used to mark a package as being manually installed, which will prevent the package from being automatically removed if no other packages depend on it​.

minimize-manual

minimize-manual is used to mark (transitive) dependencies of metapackages as automatically installed​. This can be used after an installation for example, to minimize the number of manually installed packages; or continuously on systems managed by system configuration metapackages​.

showauto

showauto is used to print a list of automatically installed packages with each package on a new line​. All automatically installed packages will be listed if no package is given​. If packages are given only those which are automatically installed will be shown​.

showmanual

showmanual can be used in the same way as showauto except that it will print a list of manually installed packages instead​.

hold

hold is used to mark a package as held back, which will prevent the package from being automatically installed, upgraded or removed​.

unhold

unhold is used to cancel a previously set hold on a package to allow all actions again​.

showhold

showhold is used to print a list of packages on hold in the same way as for the other show commands​.

Some front-ends like apt-get dselect-upgrade can be used to apply previously scheduled changes to the install state of packages​. Such changes can be scheduled with the install, remove (also known as deinstall) and purge commands​. Packages with a specific selection can be displayed with showinstall, showremove and showpurge respectively​. More information about these so called dpkg selections can be found in dpkg(1)​.

-h,  --help

Show a short usage summary​.

-v,  --version

Show the program version​.

--audit

Show audit (and notice) messages​. This overrides the quiet option, but only for notice messages, not progress ones​.

-c,  --config-file

Configuration File; Specify a configuration file to use​. The program will read the default configuration file and then this configuration file​. If configuration settings need to be set before the default configuration files are parsed specify a file with the APT_CONFIG environment variable​. See apt.conf(5) for syntax information​.

-o,  --option

Set a Configuration Option; This will set an arbitrary configuration option​. The syntax is -o Foo::Bar=bar​. -o and --option can be used multiple times to set different options​.

--cli-version

Requests a specific CLI version​. This is a pattern that takes a MAJOR​.MINOR version​. You may omit the MINOR version, in which case the latest supported minor level will be used​.

Version tracks are presented as follows: The version 3​.2 has equivalent versions 0​.32, 1​.22, and 2​.12, implementing new features for their specified major versions​.

A special case is the X​.9 version pattern: A version like 2​.9 is followed by 3​.0, but 2​.10 follows directly on 2​.8; given that we use odd version numbers as development series (2​.9 is the 3​.0 development series)​.

This feature has been introduced in APT 3​.1​.10, and replaces the binary-specific configuration​. You may use the APT::Version to similar effect on older binaries, for example, use -o APT::Version=2 to make apt(8) behave like the 2​.x series​.

The default value is the current APT version for apt(8) and 0​.(10 * major + minor) for the classic commands​. The 0​.X series is soft-deprecated and the other commands will roll over to the 2​.x series in the future​.

--no-color,  --color

Turn colors on or off​. Colors are on by default on supported terminals for apt(8) and can also be disabled using the NO_COLOR or APT_NO_COLOR environment variables, or further configured by the APT::Color configuration option and scope, see apt.conf(5) for information on that​.

/var/lib/apt/extended_states

Status list of auto-installed packages​. Configuration Item: Dir::State::extended_states​.

apt-get(8), aptitude(8), apt.conf(5)

apt-mark returns zero on normal operation, non-zero on error​.

APT bug page​^[1]​. If you wish to report a bug in APT, please see /usr/share/doc/debian/bug-reporting​.txt or the reportbug(1) command​.

Mike O'Connor

APT team

1.

APT bug page
https://bugs.debian.org/src:apt

apt(8), cdist-type__apt_mark(7).