PKG_ADD(1)

NAME
pkg_add - a utility for installing software package distributions

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

DESCRIPTION
The pkg_add command is used to extract packages that have been previously created with the pkg_create(1) command.

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 -M flag 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, +POST-INSTALL, +DEINSTALL, +POST-DEINSTALL, +REQUIRE or +MTREE_DIRS 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 [pkg-name ...]
    The named packages are installed. 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 PKG_PATH.

-v  Turn on verbose output.

-I  If a installation scripts (pre-install or post-install) exist for a given package, do not execute them.

-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!

-r  Use the remote fetching feature. This will determine the appropriate objformat and release and then fetch and install the package.

-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 directory 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* directory 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 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.

-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), reading in the packing list, and then dumping it (prefaced by the current staging area) to stdout where it may be filtered 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 stdin. The complete packing list is also read from stdin, and the contents then acted on as normal.

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 site. Thus you may extract files directly from their anonymous ftp locations (e.g. pkg_add ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/packages/shells/bash-1.14.4.tgz). Note: 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 is fairly simple. It extracts each package's "packing list" into a special staging directory, parses it, and then runs through the following sequence to fully extract the contents:

1.  Check if the package is already recorded as installed. If so, terminate installation.

2.  Scan all the package dependencies (from @pkgdep directives, see pkg_create(1)) and make sure each one is met. If not, try and find the missing dependencies' packages and auto-install them; if they can't be found the installation is terminated.

3.  Search for any @option directives which control how the package is added to the system. At the time of this writing, the only currently implemented option is @option extract-in-place which will cause the package to be extracted directly into its prefix directory without moving through a staging area in /tmp.

4.  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.

5.  If the package contains a require file (see pkg_create(1)), then execute it with the following arguments:
    pkg-name INSTALL

    where pkg-name is the name of the package in question and the INSTALL keyword denotes this as an installation requirements check (useful if you want to have one script serving multiple functions).

6.  If a pre-install script exists for the package, it is then executed with the following arguments:
    script pkg-name PRE-INSTALL

    where pkg-name is the name of the package in question and PRE-INSTALL is a keyword denoting this as the preinstallation phase.

    Note: The PRE-INSTALL keyword will not appear if separate scripts for pre-install and post-install are given during package creation time (using the -i and -I flags to pkg_create(1)).

7.  If @option extract-in-place is not used, then the packing list (this is the +CONTENTS file) is now used as a guide for moving (or copying, as necessary) files from the staging area into their final locations.

8.  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.

9.  If a post-install script exists for the package, it is then executed as
    script pkg-name POST-INSTALL

    where pkg-name is the name of the package in question and POST-INSTALL is a keyword denoting this as the post-installation phase.

    Note: The POST-INSTALL keyword will not appear if separate scripts for pre-install and post-install are given during package creation time (using the -i and -I flags to pkg_create(1)).

    Reasoning behind passing keywords such as POST-INSTALL and PRE-INSTALL is that this allows you to write a single install script that does both “before and after” actions. But, separating the functionality is more advantageous and easier from a maintainence viewpoint.

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 the environment variable PKG_DBDIR is set, this overrides the /var/db/pkg/ path shown above).

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

All the 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
The value of the PKG_PATH is used if a given package can't be found. The environment variable should be a series of entries 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.

The environment variable PKG_DBDIR specifies an alternative location for the installed package database.

The environment variables PKG_TMPDIR and TMPDIR, in that order, are taken to name temporary directories where pkg_add will attempt to create its staging area in. If these variables are not present or if the directories named lack sufficient space, then pkg_add will use the first of /var/tmp, /tmp or /usr/tmp with sufficient space.

The environment variable PACKAGEROOT specifies an alternate location for pkg_add to fetch from. The fetch URL is built using this environment variable and the automatic directory logic that pkg_add uses when the -r option is invoked. An example setting would be "ftp://ftp3.FreeBSD.org".

The environment variable PACKAGESITE specifies an alternate location for pkg_add to fetch from. This variable subverts the automatic directory logic that pkg_add uses when the -r option is invoked. Thus it should be a complete URL to the remote package file(s).

FILES
/var/tmp
    Temporary directory for creating the staging area, if environmental variables PKG_TMPDIR or TMPDIR do not point to a suitable directory.
/tmp
    Next choice if /var/tmp does not exist or has insufficient space.
/usr/tmp
    Last choice if /var/tmp and /tmp are not suitable for creating the staging area.
/var/db/pkg
    Default location of the installed package database.

SEE ALSO
pkg_create(1), pkg_delete(1), pkg_info(1), pkg_update(1), pkg_version(1), mktemp(3), sysconf(3), mtree(8)

AUTHORS
Jordan Hubbard

CONTRIBUTORS
John Kohl <jtk@rational.com>

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 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)).

Sure to be others.