BEN(1)
======
:doctype: manpage


NAME
----
ben - transition tracker manager


SYNOPSIS
--------
*ben* 'FRONTEND' ['OPTIONS']

*ben* [-h|-help|--help]


DESCRIPTION
-----------
The ben(1) command is a set of utilities written in OCaml. It provides
a full featured transition tracker to follow the evolution of a set of
packages in the Debian’s archive. All frontends share a common list of
options described below.


OPTIONS
-------
*--dry-run*::
    Dry run

*--quiet|-q*::
    Quiet mode

*--verbose*::
    Verbose mode

*--mirror uri*::
    Package mirror to use

*--mirror-binaries uri*::
    Package mirror to use for binaries

*--mirror-sources uri*::
    Package mirror to use for sources

*--areas a,…*::
    Areas to consider (comma separated)

*--archs a,…*::
    Architectures to consider (comma separated)

*--suite a*::
    Suite

*--cache-dir d*::
    Path to cache dir

*--cache-file|-C f*::
    Specify the name of the cache file

*--use-cache*::
    Use cache whenever possible

*--config|-c c*::
    Config file

*--more-binary-keys l*::
    Comma separated list of further relevant binary keys

*--more-source-keys l*::
    Comma separated list of further relevant source keys

*--preferred-compression-format f*::
    Preferred compression format (Default: Gzip)

FRONTENDS
---------
*download*::
    has no command-line options, except the shared ones. It downloads
    all Sources.gz files and all Packages.gz files for selected
    architectures and areas.

*query*::
    This utility is pretty much like grep-dctrl(1). Given a list of
    Packages or Sources files, it performs a query and outputs the
    result.

*monitor*::
    The frontend monitor builds a monitor page for a transition that
    is described by few criteria (the list of affected packages, a
    description of good package and the description of a broken
    package).

*tracker*::
    This frontend uses the monitor to generate a summary page about
    all known transitions. An example of such summary can be found at
    <http://release.debian.org/transitions/>.

For more information about ben's frontends, please refer to the
reference manual.


AUTHOR
------
Ben was originally written by Stéphane Glondu.


RESOURCES
---------
Main web site: <http://ben.debian.net/>
