NAME
pkg_add
- a utility for installing and upgrading software package distributions
SYNOPSIS
pkg_add
[-AfILnRuVv]
[-K pkg_dbdir]
[-m machine]
[-p prefix]
[-s verification-type]
[-t template]
[-W viewbase]
[-w view]
.nr is-request 0
DESCRIPTION
The
pkg_add
command is used to extract and upgrade packages that have been
previously created with the
pkg_create(1)
command.
Packages are prepared collections of pre-built binaries, documentation,
configurations, installation instructions and/or other files.
pkg_add
can recursively install other packages that the current package
depends on or requires from both local disk and via FTP or HTTP.
WARNING
Since the
pkg_add
command may execute scripts or programs contained within a package file,
your system may be susceptible to
``Trojan horses''
or other subtle
attacks from miscreants who create dangerous package files.
You are advised to verify the competence and identity of those who
provide installable package files.
For extra protection, use the digital signatures provided where possible
(see the
-s
option), or, failing that, use
tar(1)
to extract the package file, and inspect its contents and scripts
to ensure it poses no danger to your system's integrity.
Pay particular attention to any
+INSTALL
or
+DEINSTALL
files, and inspect the
+CONTENTS
file for
@cwd,
@mode
(check for setuid),
@dirrm,
@exec,
and
@unexec
directives, and/or use the
pkg_info(1)
command to examine the package file.
OPTIONS
The following command line arguments are supported:
- pkg-name[ ...
- ]
The named packages are installed.
pkg-name
may be either a URL or a local pathname,
a package name of "-" will cause
pkg_add
to read from stdin.
If the packages are not found in the current
working directory,
pkg_add
will search them in each directory named by the
PKG_PATH
environment variable.
Any dependencies required by the installed package will be searched
in the same location that the original package was installed from.
- -A
-
Mark package as installed automatically, as dependency of another
package.
You can use
pkg_admin set automatic=YES
to mark packages this way after installation, and
pkg_admin unset automatic
to remove the mark.
If you
pkg_add
a package without specifying
-A
after it had already been automatically installed, the mark is
removed.
- -f
-
Force installation to proceed even if prerequisite packages are not
installed or the install script fails.
Although
pkg_add
will still try to find and auto-install missing prerequisite packages,
a failure to find one will not be fatal.
This flag also overrides the fatal error when the operating system or
architecture the package was built on differ from that of the host.
- -I
-
If an installation script exists for a given package, do not execute it.
- -K pkg_dbdir
-
Set
pkg_dbdir
as the package database directory.
If this option isn't specified, then the package database directory is
taken from the value of the environment variable
PKG_DBDIR
if it's set, otherwise it defaults to
/var/db/pkg.
- -L
-
Don't add the package to any views after installation.
- -m
-
Override the machine architecture returned by uname with
machine.
- -n
-
Don't actually install a package, just report the steps that
would be taken if it was.
- -p prefix
-
Set
prefix
as the directory in which to extract files from a package.
If a package has set its default directory, it will be overridden
by this flag.
Note that only the first
@cwd
directive will be replaced, since
pkg_add
has no way of knowing which directory settings are relative and
which are absolute.
Only one directory transition is supported and the second one is expected to go
into
pkgdb.
- -R
-
Do not record the installation of a package.
This means that you cannot deinstall it later, so only use this option if
you know what you are doing!
- -s verification-type
-
Use a callout to an external program to verify the binary package
being installed against an existing detached signature file.
The signature file must reside in the same directory
as the binary package.
At the present time, the following verification types
are defined: none, gpg and pgp5.
The signature will be verified at install time, and the results
will be displayed.
If the signature type is anything other than none, the user will be asked if
pkg_add
should proceed to install the binary package.
The user must then take the decision whether to proceed or not, depending
upon the amount of trust that is placed in the signatory of the binary
package.
Please note that, at the current time, it is not possible to use
the verification feature when using
pkg_add
to add a binary package via a URL - the package, and the related
detached signature file, must be local
for the verification to work.
- -t template
-
Use
template
as the input to
mktemp(3)
when creating a
``staging area''.
By default, this is the string
/var/tmp/instmp.XXXXXX,
but it may be necessary to override it in the situation where
space in your
/var/tmp
directory is limited.
Be sure to leave some number of
`X'
characters for
mktemp(3)
to fill in with a unique ID.
You can get a performance boost by setting the staging area
template
to reside on the same disk partition as target directories for package
file installation; often this is
/usr.
- -u
-
If the package that's being installed is already installed, either
in the same or a different version, an update is performed.
If this is specified twice, then any dependant packages that are
too old will also be updated to fulfill the dependency.
See below for a more detailed description of the process.
- -V
-
Print version number and exit.
- -v
-
Turn on verbose output.
- -W viewbase
-
Set
viewbase
as the base directory for the managed views.
The default
viewbase
directory is set by
pkg_view(1).
This value also may be set from the
LOCALBASE
environment variable.
- -w view
-
Set the
view
to which packages should be added after installation.
The default
view
is set by
pkg_view(1).
This value also may be set from the
PKG_VIEW
environment variable.
One or more
pkg-name
arguments may be specified, each being either a file containing the
package (these usually ending with the
``.tgz''
suffix) or a
URL pointing at a file available on an ftp or web site.
Thus you may extract files directly from their anonymous ftp or WWW
locations (e.g.,
pkg_add
ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/i386/3.1_2007Q2/shells/bash-3.2.9.tgz
or
pkg_add
http://www.example.org/packages/screen-4.0.tbz).
Note: For ftp transfers, if you wish to use
passive mode
ftp in such transfers, set the variable
FTP_PASSIVE_MODE
to some value in your environment.
Otherwise, the more standard ACTIVE mode may be used.
If
pkg_add
consistently fails to fetch a package from a site known to work,
it may be because you have a firewall that demands the usage of
passive mode
ftp.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
pkg_add
extracts each package's
``packing list''
into a special staging directory in /var/tmp (or $PKG_TMPDIR if set)
and then runs through the following sequence to fully extract the contents
of the package:
-
A check is made to determine if the package or another version of it
is already recorded as installed.
If it is,
installation is terminated if the
-u
option is not given.
If the
-u
option is given, it's assumed the package should be replaced by the
new version instead.
Before doing so, all packages that depend on the
pkg being upgraded are checked if they also work with the new version.
If that test is successful, replacing is prepared by moving an existing
+REQUIRED_BY
file aside (if it exists), and running
pkg_delete(1)
on the installed package.
Installation then proceeds as if the package
was not installed, and restores the
+REQUIRED_BY
file afterwards.
-
A check is made to determine if the package conflicts (from
@pkgcfl
directives, see
pkg_create(1))
with an already recorded as installed package.
If it is, installation is terminated.
-
All package dependencies (from
@pkgdep
directives, see
pkg_create(1))
are read from the packing list.
If any of these required packages are not currently installed,
an attempt is made to find and install it;
if the missing package cannot be found or installed,
the installation is terminated.
If the
-u
option was specified twice, any required packages that are installed,
but which have a version number that is considered to be too old,
are also updated.
The dependant packages are found according to the normal
PKG_PATH
rules.
-
A search is made for any
@option
directives which control how the package is added to the system.
The only currently implemented option is
@option preserve,
which tells pkg_add to move any existing files out of the way,
preserving the previous contents (which are also resurrected on
pkg_delete, so caveat emptor).
-
The package build information is extracted from the
+BUILD_INFO
file and compared against the result of
uname(3).
If the operating system or architecture of the package differ from
that of the host, installation is aborted.
This behavior is overridable with the
-f
flag.
-
The package build information from
+BUILD_INFO
is then checked for
USE_ABI_DEPENDS=NO
(or
IGNORE_RECOMMENDED).
If the package was built with ABI dependency recommendations ignored,
a warning will be issued.
-
If the package contains an
install
script, it is executed with the following arguments:
- pkg-name
-
The name of the package being installed.
- PRE-INSTALL
-
Keyword denoting that the script is to perform any actions needed before
the package is installed.
If the
install
script exits with a non-zero status code, the installation is terminated.
-
It is used as a guide for moving (or copying, as necessary) files from
the staging area into their final locations.
-
If an
install
script exists for the package, it is executed with the following arguments:
- pkg_name
-
The name of the package being installed.
- POST-INSTALL
-
Keyword denoting that the script is to perform any actions needed
after the package has been installed.
-
After installation is complete, a copy of the packing list,
deinstall
script, description, and display files are copied into
/var/db/pkg/<pkg-name>
for subsequent possible use by
pkg_delete(1).
Any package dependencies are recorded in the other packages'
/var/db/pkg/<other-pkg>/+REQUIRED_BY
file
(if an alternate package database directory is specified, then it
overrides the
/var/db/pkg
path shown above).
-
If the package is a depoted package, then add it to the default view.
-
The staging area is deleted and the program terminates.
-
Finally, if we were upgrading a package, any
+REQUIRED_BY
file that was moved aside before upgrading was started is now moved
back into place.
The
install
script is called with the environment variable
PKG_PREFIX
set to the installation prefix (see the
-p
option above).
This allows a package author to write a script
that reliably performs some action on the directory where the package
is installed, even if the user might change it with the
-p
flag to
pkg_add.
The scripts are also called with the
PKG_METADATA_DIR
environment variable set to the location of the
+*
meta-data files, and with the
PKG_REFCOUNT_DBDIR
environment variable set to the location of the package reference counts
database directory.
ENVIRONMENT
LOCALBASE-
This is the location of the
viewbase
directory in which all the views are managed.
The default
viewbase
directory is
/usr/pkg.
PKG_DBDIR-
If the
-K
flag isn't given, then
PKG_DBDIR
is the location of the package database directory.
The default package database directory is
/var/db/pkg.
PKG_PATH-
The value of the
PKG_PATH
is used if a given package can't be found, it's usually set to
/usr/pkgsrc/packages/All.
The environment variable
should be a series of entries separated by semicolons.
Each entry consists of a directory name or URL.
The current directory may be indicated implicitly by an empty directory
name, or explicitly by a single period.
FTP URLs may not end with a slash.
PKG_REFCOUNT_DBDIR-
Location of the package reference counts database directory.
The default location is the path to the package database directory with
``.refcount''
appended to the path, e.g.
/var/db/pkg.refcount.
PKG_TMPDIR-
Staging directory for installing packages, defaults to /var/tmp.
Set to directory with lots of free disk if you run out of
space when installing a binary package.
PKG_VIEW-
The default view can be specified in the
PKG_VIEW
environment variable.
EXAMPLES
In all cases,
pkg_add
will try to install binary packages listed in dependencies list.
You can specify a compiled binary package explicitly on the command line.
# pkg_add /usr/pkgsrc/packages/All/tcsh-6.14.00.tgz
If you omit the version number,
pkg_add
will install the latest version available.
With
-v,
pkg_add
emits more messages to terminal.
# pkg_add -v /usr/pkgsrc/packages/All/unzip
You can grab a compiled binary package from remote location by specifying
a URL.
The URL can be put into an environment variable,
PKG_PATH.
# pkg_add -v ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/i386/3.1_2007Q2/All/firefox-2.0.0.4.tgz
# export PKG_PATH=ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/i386/3.1_2007Q2/All
# pkg_add -v firefox
Over time, as problems are found in packages, they will be moved
from the
All
subdirectory into the
vulnerable
subdirectory.
If you want to accept vulnerable packages by default
(and know what you are doing),
you can add the
vulnerable
directory to your
PKG_PATH
like this:
# export PKG_PATH="ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/i386/3.1_2007Q2/All/;ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/i386/3.1_2007Q2/vulnerable/"
(The quotes are needed because semicolon
(`;')
is a shell meta-character.)
If you do this, consider installing and using the
security/audit-packages
package and running it after every
.
SEE ALSO
pkg_admin(1),
pkg_create(1),
pkg_delete(1),
pkg_info(1),
tar(1),
mktemp(3),
sysconf(3),
pkgsrc(7)
AUTHORS
- Jordan Hubbard
-
Initial work and ongoing development.
- John Kohl
-
NetBSD
refinements.
- Hubert Feyrer
-
NetBSD
wildcard dependency processing, pkgdb, upgrading, etc.
- Thomas Klausner
-
HTTP support.
BUGS
Hard links between files in a distribution are only preserved if either
(1) the staging area is on the same file system as the target directory of
all the links to the file, or (2) all the links to the file are bracketed by
@cwd
directives in the contents file,
and
and the link names are extracted with a single
tar
command (not split between
invocations due to exec argument-space limitations--this depends on the
value returned by
sysconf(_SC_ARG_MAX)).
Package upgrading needs a lot more work to be really universal.
Sure to be others.