DEBCONF-COMMUNICATE(1)

💖 DEBCONF-COMMUNICATE 💖

okay bestie, so this is the manual page for debconf-communicate — it's a lil command that lets you talk to debconf live, straight from your terminal, no maintainer script required ✨

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🎀 NAME 🎀

debconf-communicate — communicate with debconf 💬

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

echo commands | debconf-communicate [options] [package]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so like, debconf-communicate lets you chat with debconf on the fly, right from the command line, no cap. 💅

the package argument is the name of the package you're pretending to be while you're talking to debconf — like cosplay but for config management, main character energy fr fr 👑

and ngl, you can totally omit it if you're feeling lazy. no judgement 🫶

it reads commands from stdin, in the same form that the debconf protocol uses. for the full tea on what commands exist and how to use them, go peek at the debconf specification 📖

the commands get executed in sequence, one after another, and the textual return code of each one gets printed out to standard output 🌈

oh and — the return value of this whole program? it's the numeric return code of the last executed command. so the last one is the one that counts, periodt 💅

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🦋 EXAMPLE 🦋

echo get debconf/frontend | debconf-communicate

this one prints out the value of the debconf/frontend question ✨ iconic behaviour tbh

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💀 WARNING 💀

bestie. listen to me. this program should NEVER be used from a maintainer script of a package that uses debconf!! 🚫 like, absolutely not, do not do it, i am begging 🙈

it may however be useful in debugging 🧚 lowkey its whole vibe honestly

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• debconf-loadtemplate(1) 🌸

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💜 AUTHOR 💜

Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> 👑

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! this lil beauty came out on 2026-02-16, and it's part of the Debconf manual set 💖 go forth and communicate, you absolute legend 🦋✨🎀