How to Find Which Package a File Belongs to in Debian/Ubuntu

Occasionally I need to figure out which Debian package some file comes from (e.g. because I want to remove a redundant package or find related packages). There are a couple of ways to do this in Debian, with the simplest being the following:

$ dpkg -S /usr/bin/ag
silversearcher-ag: /usr/bin/ag
$ dpkg -S /usr/bin/gcc
gcc: /usr/bin/gcc

dpkg is a built-in command, so it’s always around. -S stands for --search:

-S, --search filename-search-pattern...
Search for a filename from installed packages.

Note, that it’s best to use absolute paths if you want to get a concrete package as the result. Observe the difference here:

$ dpkg -S /bin/ls
coreutils: /bin/ls
$ dpkg -S bin/ls
kmod: /sbin/lsmod
pciutils: /usr/bin/lspci
util-linux: /bin/lsblk
util-linux: /usr/bin/lsns
usbutils: /usr/bin/lsusb
e2fsprogs: /usr/bin/lsattr
util-linux: /usr/bin/lsmem
util-linux: /usr/bin/lslogins
initramfs-tools-core: /usr/bin/lsinitramfs
util-linux: /usr/bin/lsipc
kmod: /bin/lsmod
util-linux: /usr/bin/lslocks
gnupg-utils: /usr/bin/lspgpot
lsof: /usr/bin/lsof
coreutils: /bin/ls
util-linux: /usr/bin/lscpu
klibc-utils: /usr/lib/klibc/bin/ls
lshw: /usr/bin/lshw
lsb-release: /usr/bin/lsb_release

Here you can stop reading, as 99% of the time that’s probably the best option for you. Still, there’s one more way to approach the problem, namely by using apt-file. You’ll need to install apt-file and initialize its database first:

$ sudo apt install apt-file
$ sudo apt-file update

Using apt-file is quite simple:

$ apt-file search /usr/bin/gcc
gcc: /usr/bin/gcc
gcc: /usr/bin/gcc-ar
gcc: /usr/bin/gcc-nm
gcc: /usr/bin/gcc-ranlib
gcc-10: /usr/bin/gcc-10
gcc-10: /usr/bin/gcc-ar-10
gcc-10: /usr/bin/gcc-nm-10
gcc-10: /usr/bin/gcc-ranlib-10
gcc-7: /usr/bin/gcc-7
gcc-7: /usr/bin/gcc-ar-7
gcc-7: /usr/bin/gcc-nm-7
gcc-7: /usr/bin/gcc-ranlib-7
gcc-8: /usr/bin/gcc-8
gcc-8: /usr/bin/gcc-ar-8
gcc-8: /usr/bin/gcc-nm-8
gcc-8: /usr/bin/gcc-ranlib-8
gcc-9: /usr/bin/gcc-9
gcc-9: /usr/bin/gcc-ar-9
gcc-9: /usr/bin/gcc-nm-9
gcc-9: /usr/bin/gcc-ranlib-9
gcc-opt: /usr/bin/gcc-3.3
gcc-opt: /usr/bin/gcc-3.4
gcc-opt: /usr/bin/gcc-4.0
gcc-python3-dbg-plugin: /usr/bin/gcc-with-python3_dbg
gcc-python3-plugin: /usr/bin/gcc-with-python3
gccbrig: /usr/bin/gccbrig
gccbrig-10: /usr/bin/gccbrig-10
gccbrig-7: /usr/bin/gccbrig-7
gccbrig-8: /usr/bin/gccbrig-8
gccbrig-9: /usr/bin/gccbrig-9
gccgo: /usr/bin/gccgo
gccgo-10: /usr/bin/gccgo-10
gccgo-7: /usr/bin/gccgo-7
gccgo-8: /usr/bin/gccgo-8
gccgo-9: /usr/bin/gccgo-9
pentium-builder: /usr/bin/gcc
xutils-dev: /usr/bin/gccmakedep

As you can see by default it provides all possible matches from its database. One advantage that apt-file has over dpkg is that it will search through all available packages as opposed to all installed packages. That might be handy sometimes when you know you need to have some file installed, but you don’t know which package contains it. Admittedly, I didn’t know about apt-file until very recently myself, which is part of the reason I’ve decided to put together this short article.¹

That’s all I have for you today. Keep hacking!

1. When I write about something I just learned, the likelihood of retaining the new knowledge increases significantly. Still, nothing beats applying the new knowledge in practice all the time. ↩