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PKG_ADD(1)		  BSD General Commands Manual		    PKG_ADD(1)

NAME
     pkg_add — a utility for installing software package distributions

SYNOPSIS
     pkg_add [-viInfFrRMSK] [-t template] [-p prefix] [-P prefix]
	     [-C chrootdir] 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 pro‐
     vide 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, --verbose
	     Turn on verbose output.

     -K, --keep
	     Keep any downloaded package in PKGDIR if it is defined or in cur‐
	     rent directory by default.

     -i, --no-deps
	     Install the package without fetching and installing dependencies.

     -I, --no-script
	     If any installation scripts (pre-install or post-install) exist
	     for a given package, do not execute them.

     -n, --dry-run
	     Do not actually install a package, just report the steps that
	     would be taken if it was.

     -R, --no-record
	     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, --remote
	     Use the remote fetching feature.  This will determine the appro‐
	     priate objformat and release and then fetch and install the pack‐
	     age.

     -f, --force
	     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.

     -F	     Already installed packages are not an error.

     -p, --prefix 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).	 If
	     the -p flag appears after any -P flag on the command line, it
	     overrides its effect, causing pkg_add not to use the given prefix
	     recursively.

     -P prefix
	     Does the same as the -p option, except that the given prefix is
	     also used recursively for the dependency packages, if any.	 If
	     the -P flag appears after any -p flag on the command line, it
	     overrides its effect, causing pkg_add to use the given prefix
	     recursively.

     -t, --template 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.

     -M, --master
	     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 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 struc‐
	     ture before acting on its contents.

     -S, --slave
	     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.

     -C, --chroot chrootdir
	     Before doing any operations, chroot(2) to the chrootdir directory
	     so that all package files, and the package database, are
	     installed to chrootdir.  Note that chrootdir needs to be a fairly
	     complete file system, including everything normally needed by
	     pkg_add to run.  This flag was added to help support operations
	     done by sysinstall(8) and is not expected to be useful for much
	     else.  Be careful that chrootdir is properly configured and can‐
	     not be modified by normal users, versions of commands like
	     fetch(1) may be run inside chrootdir as a side effect.

     One or more pkg-name arguments may be specified, each being either a file
     containing the package (these usually end with a “.tbz” 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/ports/packages/shells/bash-1.14.7.tbz).
     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
     The pkg_add utility extracts each package's “packing list” into a special
     staging directory (see ENVIRONMENT), parses it, 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 is already recorded as
	  installed.  If it is, installation is terminated.

     2.	  A check is made to determine if the package conflicts (from
	  @conflicts directives, see pkg_create(1)) with an already installed
	  package.  If it is, installation is terminated.

     3.	  Scan all the package dependencies (from @pkgdep directives, see
	  pkg_create(1)) are read from the packing list.  If any of these
	  required packages is 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.

     4.	  Search for any @option directives which control how the package is
	  added to the system.	At the time of this writing, the only cur‐
	  rently 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.

     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 a requirements script +REQUIRE exists for the package (see the -r
	  flag of pkg_create(1)), then execute it with the following argu‐
	  ments:

		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).

     7.	  If a pre-install script +INSTALL exists for the package, it is then
	  executed with the following arguments:

		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)).

     8.	  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 copy‐
	  ing, as necessary) files from the staging area into their final
	  locations.

     9.	  If an mtree file +MTREE_DIRS exists for the package (see the -m flag
	  of pkg_create(1)), then mtree(8) is invoked as:

		mtree -U -f +MTREE_DIRS -d -e -p prefix

	  where prefix is either the prefix specified with the -p or -P flag
	  or, if neither flag was specified, the name of the first directory
	  named by a @cwd directive within this package.

     10.  If a post-install script +POST-INSTALL exists for the package, it is
	  then executed with the following arguments:

		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 maintenance
	  viewpoint.

     11.  After installation is complete, a copy of the description (+DESC),
	  comment (+COMMENT), pre-install script (+INSTALL), post-install
	  script (+POST-INSTALL), deinstall script (+DEINSTALL), post-dein‐
	  stall script (+POST-DEINSTALL), requirements script (+REQUIRE), dis‐
	  play (+DISPLAY), mtree (+MTREE_DIRS), and packing list (+CONTENTS)
	  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).

     12.  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 and -P options 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 or -P flags to pkg_add.

ENVIRONMENT
     The value of the PKG_PATH is used if a given package cannot 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, default location is /var/db/pkg.

     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 directo‐
     ries 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).

     The environment variable PKGDIR specifies an alternative location to save
     downloaded packages to when -K option is used.

FILES
     /var/tmp	  Temporary directory for creating the staging area, if envi‐
		  ronmental 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 creat‐
		  ing 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_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 brack‐
     eted 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.

BSD				January 4, 2009				   BSD
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