Extract deb package on Ubuntu / Debian Linux System

By
Nicole Veronica Rubhabha
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deb is a format and software packaging extension for the Linux distribution from Debian family and its derivatives. In this guide, we will explore how to extract a .deb package file. This is relevant to Software developers working on Debian related applications.

Debian applications are packaged as regular ar archives. A Debian package generally has three main files:

  • debian-binary: regular text file which stores the version of the deb package format.
  • control.tar.gz: This compressed file contains file md5sums and control directory for the deb package.
  • data.tar.xz: Contains all the installation files.

There are two common ways of unpacking a deb package.

Using ar command

You can also use the ar command with –x parameter. The ar command is provided by binutils package.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install binutils tree -y
wget https://dev.mysql.com/get/mysql-apt-config_0.8.13-1_all.deb
ar -x mysql-apt-config_0.8.13-1_all.deb

If you want more verbose output, add the -v argument like this:

$ ar -xv mysql-apt-config_0.8.13-1_all.deb
x - debian-binary
x - control.tar.xz
x - data.tar.xz

Confirm:

$ tree
.
├── control.tar.xz
├── data.tar.xz
├── debian-binary
└── mysql-apt-config_0.8.13-1_all.deb

0 directories, 4 files

Using dpkg command

If you’re running a Debian based system. you can use dpkg command to extract a .deb package. Let’s consider an example.

wget https://dev.mysql.com/get/mysql-apt-config_0.8.13-1_all.deb
mkdir extrated
dpkg -x mysql-apt-config_0.8.13-1_all.deb extrated

Confirm directory contents:

$ tree extrated/
extrated/
└── usr
    └── share
        └── doc
            └── mysql-apt-config
                ├── COPYING.gz
                ├── README
                ├── changelog.Debian.gz
                └── copyright

4 directories, 4 files

There you have it. You have successfully extracted a deb package.