559

I want to know where I can find my installed application when I installed it on Ubuntu using package manager.

I installed RabbitMQ and ran locate rabbitmq which gave me following result:

/home/anupamg/.m2/repository/com/rabbitmq
/home/anupamg/.m2/repository/com/rabbitmq/amqp-client
/home/anupamg/.m2/repository/com/rabbitmq/amqp-client/1.7.2
/home/anupamg/.m2/repository/com/rabbitmq/amqp-client/1.7.2/_maven.repositories
/home/anupamg/.m2/repository/com/rabbitmq/amqp-client/1.7.2/amqp-client-1.7.2.jar
/home/anupamg/.m2/repository/com/rabbitmq/amqp-client/1.7.2/amqp-client-1.7.2.jar.lastUpdated
/home/anupamg/.m2/repository/com/rabbitmq/amqp-client/1.7.2/amqp-client-1.7.2.jar.sha1
/home/anupamg/.m2/repository/com/rabbitmq/amqp-client/1.7.2/amqp-client-1.7.2.pom
/home/anupamg/.m2/repository/com/rabbitmq/amqp-client/1.7.2/amqp-client-1.7.2.pom.lastUpdated
/home/anupamg/.m2/repository/com/rabbitmq/amqp-client/1.7.2/amqp-client-1.7.2.pom.sha1
/home/anupamg/Downloads/rabbitmq-server-generic-unix-2.4.0.tar.gz
7
  • What application? Some are accesible through commandline, others get an pretty icon in the application menu. Be more specific.
    – Ragnar123
    Mar 29, 2011 at 9:59
  • Do you want to know where the executables and config files reside or do you want to execute it and don't know how?
    – das_weezul
    Mar 29, 2011 at 10:02
  • ok!!! i actually want to know that as in windows if i install application i can see it in program files similarly in ubuntu where to locate the installed application...I just installed RabbitMq and want to know where it is residing i need to configur its run.sh file
    – Anupam Gupta
    Mar 29, 2011 at 10:03
  • @ das_weezul :- yes I want to know all things which are done to my box when i click install from synaptic package manager ...i am a newbie on ubuntu... so any links are welcomed
    – Anupam Gupta
    Mar 29, 2011 at 10:06
  • 1
    One of the answers suggests the following dpkg-query -c <package_name.deb> You cannot do that to a deb file. I suspect the poster meant to use dpkg-deb with the same params dpkg-deb -c <filename.deb> Which lists the files as expected.
    – gazhay
    Oct 17, 2014 at 14:17

6 Answers 6

839

To see all the files the package installed onto your system, do this:

dpkg-query -L <package_name>

To see the files a .deb file will install

dpkg-deb -c <package_name.deb>

To see the files contained in a package NOT installed, do this once (if you haven't installed apt-file already:

sudo apt-get install apt-file
sudo apt-file update

then

apt-file list <package_name>

See this question for more

4
  • 4
    As gazhay commented above, dpkg-query -c foo.deb fails. But dpkg-deb -c foo.deb works. Apr 30, 2015 at 20:54
  • 10
    Updating apt-file is pain.
    – sjsam
    May 30, 2016 at 7:23
  • 2
    Note that dpkg -L doesn't take into account files that may have been excluded with --path-exclude=. It will list them even though they were not installed.
    – Steve
    Sep 15, 2016 at 23:13
  • Is there a way to check this online? Jan 26 at 21:54
41

dpkg -L <package_name> might be the best for your immediate problem, but you might like to read the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, which describes where different types of files live in the filesystem.

It is not definitive; it is just a descriptive account of the way things "mostly" are.

More specific to Ubuntu is the Ubuntu Server Guide, which will describe everything in enough detail. (So many of the other guides gloss over too many of the details, but this should be better.)

0
23

if you just want a single installed package, you can find the package name

$ apt-cache search rabbitmq
...
librabbitmq-dev
...

then use dpkg --listfiles

$ dpkg --listfiles librabbitmq-dev
/usr/lib/x86-64/librabbit... 
. . . 
2
  • might depend on the version but i had to use dpkg -L <package>
    – JimB
    Jun 30, 2017 at 18:28
  • 2
    dpkg -L works only on installed packages.
    – kenorb
    Jan 14, 2019 at 20:44
19

The answer given by @Gilles is very useful (actually, the answer was improved over time).

Furthermore, I have a tip for the ones that don't want to install any auxiliary package (like the apt-file):

  • Go to http://packages.ubuntu.com/;
  • Go to the Search package directories session;
  • Insert your package name in the Keyword field and select Only show exact matches;
  • Select your distribution and click in the Search button.
  • Select the desirable package in the next screen;
  • In the end of page, click in the list of files link next to your architecture name;
  • The next page will show the list of files of your package.

As an example: http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/amd64/multipath-tools/filelist

2
  • 5
    curl -s https://packages.ubuntu.com/$(lsb_release -cs)/$(dpkg --print-architecture)/<<PACKAGE NAME>>/filelist | sed '1,/pfilelist/d;/<\/div>/,$d' :-) Aug 28, 2018 at 23:57
  • Hah! Thanks for the tip. I was using dpkg -L on a metapackage and surprised that there were so few files in it (and baffled why I had literally thousands of files that I knew that belonged to that package). When I went to the Ubuntu packages directory, I immediately figured out that there were way more files beyond those in the metapackage... Apr 1, 2020 at 19:15
4

Here's one way to do it for packages you don't have installed yet. Just change "autoconf" below for the package you are trying to get the list of files for:

mkdir tmp
cd tmp
apt-get download autoconf
ar x *.deb
tar tf data.*
cd ..
rm -r tmp
1
1

Use the synaptic-package-manager:

enter image description here

Assuming that we'd like to locate the files of the autotools-dev package, under 'Quick filter' enter autotools-dev to locate it. The autotools-dev package appears automatically. Select it by clicking on it and then press 'Properties'. In the appearing dialog, select the tab 'Installed Files'.

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