Jtdcftul

The apt-file command can do this for you from the command line. I use it frequently when building packages from source. For files provided by packages that are already installed on your system, apt-cache is another choice.

To install apt-file, do:

sudo apt-get install apt-file

Then, you need to update it's database:

apt-file update

And, finally, search the file:

$ apt-file find kwallet.h

kdelibs5-dev: /usr/include/kwallet.h

libkf5wallet-dev: /usr/include/KF5/KWallet/kwallet.h

However a much friendlier way is to use the Ubuntu Packages Search website. They have an option to "search the contents of packages" for a specific filename.

There's also apt-file for looking up files in packages that aren't installed. For example:

apt-file list packagename

You can search the contents of packages included in the various Ubuntu releases on the Ubuntu Packages website. Look under the heading "Search the contents of packages".

For example, here are the search results for libnss3.so in lucid (10.04):

http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?searchon=contents&keywords=libnss3.so&mode=exactfilename&suite=lucid&arch=any

You mean, which package and not which application. The application is your package manager, e.g. Software Center.

Using dpkg:

dpkg -S /usr/lib/tracker/tracker-store

dpkg -S tracker-extract

dpkg -S tracker-miner-fs

Example

% dpkg -S /usr/lib/tracker/tracker-store

tracker: /usr/lib/tracker/tracker-store

Using apt-file:

apt-file search /usr/lib/tracker/tracker-store

or also possible:

apt-file search --regex /tracker-extract$

apt-file search --regex /tracker-miner-fs$

Example

% apt-file search /usr/lib/tracker/tracker-store

tracker: /usr/lib/tracker/tracker-store

Or online here, in the section Search the contents of packages.

Example

I was trying to track down what installed which on my system. After a little work I created apt-whatprovides

#!/bin/sh

#apt-whatprovides ver. 201801010101 Copyright alexx, MIT Licence

#rdfa:deps="[realpath,apt-file,grep,which,sh,echo]"



BINARY=$(realpath $(which $@))

PACKAGE=$(apt-file search $BINARY|grep -E ":s*${BINARY}$")

echo ${PACKAGE%:*}

Though for most THINGs you can just use

apt-file search $(realpath $(which THING))|grep 'THING$'

This is an extension to Alexx Roche's excellent answer. I tried to make an edit to that answer, but it got rejected (though not by Alexx)

I was trying to track down what installed which on my system. After a little work I created /usr/local/bin/apt-whatprovides

#!/bin/sh

#apt-whatprovides ver. 201801010101 Copyright alexx, MIT Licence

#rdfa:deps="[realpath,apt-file,grep,which,sh,echo]"



BINARY="$(realpath $(which $@) 2>/dev/null)"

[ -z "$BINARY" ] && BINARY="$@"

echo Searching for $BINARY

PACKAGE="$(apt-file search $BINARY|grep -E ":.*[^-.a-zA-Z0-9]${BINARY}$")"

echo "${PACKAGE}"

Though for most THINGs that are installed you can just use:

apt-file search $(realpath $(which THING)) | grep 'THING$'

For THINGs that are not installed, you can use:

apt-file search THING | grep '/THING$'

The apt-whatprovides script works for files that are and are not on your system. For example, my system lacked dig but had ping so this it what resulted:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ apt-whatprovides ping

Searching for /bin/ping

inetutils-ping: /bin/ping

iputils-ping: /bin/ping



pi@raspberrypi:~ $ apt-whatprovides dig

Searching for dig

dnsutils: /usr/bin/dig

epic4: /usr/share/epic4/script/dig

epic4-help: /usr/share/epic4/help/8_Scripts/dig

knot-dnsutils: /usr/bin/dig

Notice that Searching for is a complete path for ping (installed) and just the binary name for dig not installed. This helped me discover that I needed to install dnsutils without needing to go search https://packages.ubuntu.com/#search_contents

One reason you might have to do this is if you are compiling software which there already is an ubuntu package, you can run apt-get build-dep $PACKAGENAME. That will install all packages you need to compile $PACKAGENAME.