PKG_ADD(1)                 OpenBSD Reference Manual                 PKG_ADD(1)

NAME
     pkg_add - install software package distributions



SYNOPSIS
     pkg_add [-vInfRMS] [-t template] [-p prefix] pkg-name [...]

DESCRIPTION
     The pkg_add command is used to extract packages that have been previously
     created with the pkg_create(1) command.  Selected packages containing
     pre-compiled applications from the /usr/ports tree can be found on the
     OpenBSD FTP site or on the official OpenBSD CD.  These packages are pro-
     vided as a convenience for quickly installing software that would other-
     wise need to be built manually.

     Package names may be specified as filenames (which normally consist of
     the package name itself plus the ``.tgz'' , ``.tar.gz'' , or ``.tar''
     suffix) or an FTP location in the form of an URL. For example, the fol-
     lowing is valid:

     pkg_add -v ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/2.6/packages/i386/m4-1.4.tgz

     If the given package names are not found in the current working directo-
     ry, pkg_add will search for them in each directory named by the PKG_PATH
     environment variable.  Specifying `-' as a package name causes pkg_add to
     read from the standard input.

     Alternativly, it is possible to add packages interactivly from within the
     ftp client.  For example, the following works:

             $ ftp ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/2.6/packages/i386
             250 CWD command successful
             ftp> ls m*
             227 Entering Passive Mode (129,128,5,191,164,73)
             150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for m*.
             m4-1.4.tgz
             metamail-2.7.tgz
             mh-6.8.4.tgz
             mm-1.0.12.tgz
             mpeg_lib-1.2.1.tgz
             mpeg_play-2.4.tgz
             mpg123-0.59q.tgz
             mutt-0.95.7i.tgz
             226 Transfer complete.
             ftp> get m4-1.4tgz "|pgk_add -v -"

     Warning: Since the pkg_add command may execute scripts or programs con-
     tained within a package file, your system may be susceptible to ``trojan
     horses'' or other subtle attacks from miscreants who create dangerous
     packages.  Be sure the specified package(s) are from trusted sources.

     The options are as follows:

     -v      Turn on verbose output.

     -I      If an installation script exists for a given package, do not exe-
             cute it.

     -n      Don't actually install a package, just report the steps that
             would be taken if it was.

     -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!

     -f      Force installation to proceed even if prerequisite packages are
             not installed or the requirements 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.

     -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 di-
             rectory settings are relative and which are absolute.  It is rare
             in any case to see more than one directory transition made, but
             when such does happen and you wish to have control over all di-
             rectory transitions, then you may then wish to look into the use
             of MASTER and SLAVE modes (see the -M and -S options).

     -t template
             Use template as the input to mkdtemp(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 mkdtemp(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 directo-
             ries for package file installation; often this is /usr.

     -M      Run in MASTER mode.  This is a very specialized mode for running
             pkg_add and is meant to be run in conjunction with SLAVE mode.
             When run in this mode, pkg_add does no work beyond extracting the
             package into a temporary staging area (see the -t option), read-
             ing in the packing list, and then dumping it (prefaced by the
             current staging area) to the standard output where it may be fil-
             tered by a program such as sed(1).  When used in conjunction with
             SLAVE mode, it allows you to make radical changes to the package
             structure before acting on its contents.

     -S      Run in SLAVE mode.  This is a very specialized mode for running
             pkg_add and is meant to be run in conjunction with MASTER mode.
             When run in this mode, pkg_add expects the release contents to be
             already extracted and waiting in the staging area, the location
             of which is read as a string from the standard input.  The com-
             plete packing list is also read from stdin, and the contents then
             acted on as normal.

     By default, when adding packages via FTP, the ftp(1) program operates in
     ``passive'' mode. If you wish to use active mode instead, set the FTPMODE
     environment variable to "active". If pkg_add consistently fails to fetch
     a package from a site known to work, it may be because the site does not
     support passive mode ftp correctly. This is very rare since pkg_add will
     try active mode ftp if the server refuses a passive mode connection.

   Technical details
     pkg_add extracts each package's ``packing list'' into a special staging
     directory in /tmp (or PKG_TMPDIR if set) and then runs through the fol-
     lowing sequence to fully extract the contents of the package:

     1.   A check is made to determine if the package is already recorded as
          installed.  If it is, installation is terminated.

     2.   A check is made to determine if the package conflicts (from @pkgcfl
          directives, see pkg_create(1))  with an already recorded as in-

          stalled package. If it is, installation is terminated.

     3.   All package dependencies (from @pkgdep directives, see
          pkg_create(1))  are read from the packing list.  If any of these re-
          quired packages are not currently installed, an attempt is made to
          find and install it; if the missing package cannot be found or in-
          stalled, the installation is terminated.

     4.   A search is made for any @option directives which control how the
          package is added to the system.  The only currently implemented op-
          tion is @option extract-in-place, which causes the package to be ex-
          tracted directly into its prefix directory rather than moving it
          through a staging area in /tmp.

     5.   If @option extract-in-place is enabled, the package is now extracted
          directly into its final location, otherwise it is extracted into the
          staging area.

     6.   If the package contains a require script (see pkg_create(1)),  it is
          executed with the following arguments:

          pkg-name      The name of the package being installed

          INSTALL       Keyword denoting to the script that it is to run an
                        installation requirements check (the keyword is useful
                        only to scripts which serve multiple functions).

          If the require script exits with a non-zero status code, the instal-
          lation is terminated.

     7.   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 ac-
                        tions needed before the package is installed.

          If the install script exits with a non-zero status code, the instal-
          lation is terminated.

     8.   If @option extract-in-place is not present in the packing list, then
          it is used as a guide for moving (or copying, as necessary) files
          from the staging area into their final locations.

     9.   If the package contains an mtreefile file (see pkg_create(1)),  then
          mtree is invoked as:

                mtree -u -f mtreefile -d -e -p prefix

          where prefix is either the prefix specified with the -p flag or, if
          no -p flag was specified, the name of the first directory named by a
          @cwd directive within this package.

     10.  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 ac-
                        tions needed after the package has been installed.

     11.  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 the environment vari-
          able PKG_DBDIR is set, this overrides the /var/db/pkg/ path shown
          above).

     12.  Finally, the staging area is deleted and the program terminates.

     The install and require scripts are 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.

ENVIRONMENT
     PKG_PATH   If a given package name cannot be found, the directories named
                by PKG_PATH are searched.  It should contain a series of en-
                tries separated by colons.  Each entry consists of a directory
                name. The current directory may be indicated implicitly by an
                empty directory name, or explicitly by a single period (`.').

     PKG_DBDIR  Where to register packages instead of /var/db/pkg.

SEE ALSO
     pkg_create(1),  pkg_delete(1),  pkg_info(1),  mkdtemp(3),  sysconf(3),
     mtree(8)

AUTHOR
     Jordan Hubbard
             Initial work and ongoing development.
     John Kohl
             NetBSD refinements.

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 brack-
     eted by @cwd directives in the contents file, and the link names are ex-
     tracted with a single tar(1) command (not split between invocations due
     to exec argument-space limitations; this depends on the value returned by
     sysconf(_SC_ARG_MAX)).

     Sure to be others.

OpenBSD 2.6                    November 25, 1994                             4