2.3. The main control information file: control

The most important control information file used by dpkg when it installs a package is control. It contains all the package’s “vital statistics”.

The binary package control files of packages built from Debian sources are made by a special tool, dpkg-gencontrol, which reads debian/control and debian/changelog to find the information it needs. See Source packages (from old Packaging Manual) for more details.

The fields in binary package control files are listed in Binary package control files – DEBIAN/control.

A description of the syntax of control files and the purpose of the fields is available in Control files and their fields.