PKG_ADD(1)              NetBSD General Commands Manual              PKG_ADD(1)

NAME
     pkg_add -- a utility for installing and upgrading software package dis-
     tributions

SYNOPSIS
     pkg_add [-AfILnRuVv] [-K pkg_dbdir] [-m machine] [-p prefix]
             [-s verification-type] [-t template] [-W viewbase] [-w view]
             [[ftp|http]://[user[:password]@]host[:port]][/path/]pkg-name ...

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, configura-
     tions, installation instructions and/or other files.  pkg_add can recur-
     sively 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 pro-
     vide 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 over-
             rides 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 exe-
             cute 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 sig-
             nature 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 signa-
             tory 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 directo-
             ries 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 per-
             formed.  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 installa-
             tion.  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/pack-
     ages/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 trans-
     fers, 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:

           1.   A check is made to determine if the package or another version
                of it is already recorded as installed.  If it is, installa-
                tion 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 success-
                ful, 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 pack-
                age was not installed, and restores the +REQUIRED_BY file
                afterwards.

           2.   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 ter-
                minated.

           3.   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.

           4.   A search is made for any @option directives which control how
                the package is added to the system.  The only currently imple-
                mented 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).

           5.   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.

           6.   The package build information from +BUILD_INFO is then checked
                for USE_ABI_DEPENDS=NO (or IGNORE_RECOMMENDED).  If the pack-
                age was built with ABI dependency recommendations ignored, a
                warning will be issued.

           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 actions needed before the package is
                              installed.

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

           8.   It is used as a guide for moving (or copying, as necessary)
                files from the staging area into their final locations.

           9.   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.

           10.  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).

           11.  If the package is a depoted package, then add it to the
                default view.

           12.  The staging area is deleted and the program terminates.

           13.  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-charac-
     ter.)  If you do this, consider installing and using the
     security/audit-packages package and running it after every pkg_add.

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 brack-
     eted 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.

NetBSD 4.0                      August 23, 2007                     NetBSD 4.0

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