Manual Page Search Parameters
PKG_ADD(1) General Commands Manual PKG_ADD(1)

pkg_add — install or update software packages

pkg_add [-acIimnqrsUuVvxz] [-A arch] [-B pkg-destdir] [-D name[=value]] [-L localbase] [-l file] [-P type] [pkg-name ...]

The pkg_add command is used to install or update packages(7) created from the ports(7) tree.

: System distribution files, e.g., base71.tgz, comp71.tgz, are packages and may not be installed using pkg_add.

By default, pkg_add rejects unsigned packages unless they come from a trusted source (TRUSTED_PKG_PATH) or option -D unsigned is used.

If a package is signed:

pkg_add can be used to

pkg_add relies on the file system information being consistent. In case of a system crash, /var/db/pkg may become corrupted. Use pkg_check(8) to repair things.

Details of packing-list internals are documented in pkg_create(1).

pkg_add will syslog(3) installations and updates by default.

Each package name may be specified as a filename (which normally consists of the package name itself plus the “.tgz” suffix) or a URL referring to FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, or SCP locations. If the given package names are not found in the current working directory, pkg_add will search for them in each directory (local or remote) named by the TRUSTED_PKG_PATH environment variable, then the PKG_PATH environment variable. The special url ‘installpath’ refers to the contents of installurl(5). If neither TRUSTED_PKG_PATH nor PKG_PATH are defined, pkg_add will use ‘./:installpath’ as a default.

pkg_add also understands ‘stems’, that is, package names without any version specification. For instance, with ‘pkg_add kdelibs’, pkg_add will look in the current directory (or the PKG_PATH) for a kdelibs package.

pkg_add may ask questions in interactive mode, or error out otherwise. Interactive mode is the default on a tty, see options -I/i.

For instance ‘pkg_add vim’ is ambiguous as it matches vim-*-no_x11, vim-*-gtk3, and a few other flavors.

To avoid ambiguities, pkg_add supports ‘stems with flavors’, that is, a stem separated from flavors with a double dash. For instance, the previous ambiguity could be resolved by using ‘pkg_add vim--no_x11’ (matches only the no_x11 flavor) or ‘pkg_add vim--gtk3’ (matches only the gtk3 flavor).

There is also an ambiguity related to ports with multiple branches. For instance ‘pkg_add python’ is ambiguous, as there are several versions of python in the ports tree. So is ‘pkg_add postfix’. The special form ‘pkgname%branch’ can be used to restrict matches to a branch matching the pkgpath(7).

The above ambiguities can be resolved using ‘pkg_add postfix%stable’ and ‘pkg_add python%3.9’, respectively.

All paths recognize certain special sequences, which are expanded as follows:

%a
The package architecture as returned by arch(1) -s.
%v
The operating system version in the format “digit dot digit”.
%c
Expands to the string "snapshots" when running a -current or -beta kernel, or if the command line option -D snap | snapshot is specified. Otherwise, %c expands to %v, which selects a release version.
%m
The full mirror path, "/pub/OpenBSD/%c/packages/%a/".

If the resulting path contains "%c/packages" and %c is not "snapshots", then a second directory is also searched, which is constructed by replacing "packages" with "packages-stable".

The following examples are valid:

pkg_add -v http://ftp.openbsd.org/%m/rsync--
pkg_add -v http://ftp.openbsd.org/%m/m4
pkg_add -v scp://login@host/usr/ports/packages/%a/all/tcl%8.5

If the environment variable PKG_CACHE is set to a directory name, every package retrieved from a distant location will also be copied here.

If the environment variable DEBUG_PKG_CACHE is set to a directory name, debug packages matching installed/updated packages will be downloaded to that directory (this is to avoid ‘shearing’, as later on, you might wish to debug software, but the snapshots will have moved on and the debug packages no longer match your installation). This only applies to debug packages that are not currently installed/updated.

Some packages may depend on other packages. When resolving dependencies pkg_add will first look at already installed packages, then match dependencies with the list of packages left to install, then ask the user's opinion in interactive mode, then install default packages that satisfy the dependencies.

: Since pkg_add 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 packages. Be sure the specified package(s) are from trusted sources.

The options are as follows:

arch
Assume arch as current machine architecture for any package tests.
Automated package installation; do not record packages as installed manually.
Force already installed packages to be tagged as installed automatically.
pkg-destdir
Set pkg-destdir as the prefix to prepend to any object extracted from the package.
While replacing packages, delete extra configuration file in the old package, mentioned as
@extra file
in the packing-list.
name[=value]
Force installation of the package. name is a keyword that states what failsafe should be waived. Recognized keywords include:

Do not trim older p* variants of packages for updates.
Architecture recorded in package may not match.
Verify checksums before deleting or tying old files.
By default, if dependencies are too strict, pkg_add will merge updates together to make sure everything stays in sync. -Ddontmerge disables that behavior.
By default, pkg_add will try to find new files in old packages by comparing the stored sha256, and tie the entries together to avoid extracting files needlessly. -Ddonttie disables that behavior.
Don't filter out package versions older than what's currently installed.
In update mode, reinstall an existing package with the same update signature.
Install even if not running as root.
Attempt to repair installed packages with missing registration data.
External scripts may fail.
List of trusted signers, separated by commas. Corresponds to list of public keys under /etc/signify we want to trust. Defaults to any key matching ‘*pkg’.
|
Force ‘%c’ and ‘%m’ to expand to ‘snapshots’, even on a release kernel.
Allow the installation of unsigned packages without warnings/errors. But see TRUSTED_PKG_PATH, which is more discriminating.
Force update even if dependencies no longer match.
Force non-interactive mode. Default is to be interactive when run from a tty.
Force interactive mode, even if not run from a tty. pkg_add may ask questions to the user if faced with difficult decisions.
localbase
Install a package under localbase. By default, localbase equals /usr/local, and specifying it is not necessary. However, packages can be created using a different localbase (see pkg_create(1)), and those packages can only be installed by using the same localbase. See bsd.port.mk(5) for a description of LOCALBASE.
file
Installs packages from the raw output of pkg_info(1), as saved in file. Generally, to reproduce an installation from machine to machine, use pkg_info -mz >installed_list on the source machine and pkg_add -l installed_list on the destination machine.
Causes pkg_add to always display the progress meter in cases it would not do so by default.
Don't actually install a package, just report the steps that would be taken if it was. Will still copy packages to PKG_CACHE if applicable.
ftp
Check that package can be distributed on ftp.
Do not bother with checksums for configuration files.
Replace existing packages.
Don't actually install packages, skip as many steps as needed and report only the disk size changes that would happen. Similar to -n, except it also skips fetching full packages and stops at getting the information it needs.
Update dependencies if required before installing the new package(s).
Update the given installed pkgname(s), and anything it depends upon. If no pkgname is given, pkg_add will update all installed packages. This relies on PKG_PATH to figure out the new package names.
Displays the number of packages done/total number of packages.
Turn on verbose output. Several -v turn on more verbose output. By default, pkg_add is almost completely silent, but it reacts to keyboard status requests (see stty(1)). -v turns on basic messages, -vv adds relevant system operations, -vvv shows most internal computations apart from individual file/directory additions, -vvvv also shows dependencies adjustments, and -vvvvv shows everything.
Disable progress meter.
Fuzzy package addition: pkg_add will do its best to match package names passed on the command line, even if the versions don't match and it will proceed even if some packages can't be found.

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.

pkg_add differentiates between packages specified on the command line, and packages installed automatically because of inter-dependencies: the first kind will be tagged as ‘installed manually’. The -a option is used internally by the ports(7) infrastructure and dpb(1) to handle dependencies.

It is also possible to tweak the ‘installed manually’ status of a package after the fact. Running pkg_add on an already installed package will tag it as ‘installed manually’, even if it was already there as a dependency of something else, and doubling the -a option will remove the ‘installed manually’ tag from installed packages.

pkg_info(1) can be used to show only manually-installed packages, and pkg_delete(1) can be used to remove dependencies when they are no longer needed.

pkg_add deals with ‘updatesets’ internally. An updateset is a collection of old package(s) to delete, and new package(s) to install, as an atomic operation. Under normal circumstances, an updateset contains at most one old package and one new package, but some situations may require pkg_add to perform several installations/deletions at once.

For each new package in an updateset, pkg_add extracts the package's “packing information” (the packing-list and description mostly) into a special staging directory under /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 is already recorded as installed. If it is, the installation is terminated.
  2. A check is made to determine if the package conflicts (from @conflict directives; see pkg_create(1)) with a package already recorded as installed. In non-replacement mode, its installation is terminated.
  3. For packages tagged with architecture constraints, pkg_add verifies that the current machine architecture agrees with the constraints.
  4. All package dependencies (from @depend and @wantlib directives; see pkg_create(1)) are read from the packing-list. If any of these dependencies are not currently fulfilled, an attempt is made to find a package that meets them and install it, looking first in the current updateset, then in the list of packages to install passed to pkg_add; if no adequate package can be found and installed, the installation is terminated.
  5. pkg_add checks for collisions with installed file names, read-only file systems, and enough space to store files.
  6. The packing-list is used as a guide for extracting files from the package into their final locations.
  7. After installation is complete, a copy of all package files such as the packing-list, extra messages, or the description file is made into /var/db/pkg/<pkg-name> for subsequent possible use by pkg_delete(1) and pkg_info(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).
  8. Finally, the staging area is deleted and the program terminates.

Note that it is safe to interrupt pkg_add through SIGINT, SIGHUP, and other signals, as it will safely record an interrupted install as partial-<pkgname>[.n].

When replacing packages, the procedure is slightly different.

  1. A check is made to determine if a similar package is already installed. If so, its full update signature is computed, which contains all the necessary dependency information along with the actual package version. If that signature is identical to that of the new package, no replacement is performed (unless -D installed is specified).
  2. A check is made to determine what old package(s) the new package(s) should replace, using conflicts. pkg_add will attempt to update those packages. If they update to the new package(s), nothing needs to be done. If they're part of the list of updatesets to install, the corresponding updatesets will be merged. Otherwise, pkg_add will add them to the current updateset, and rerun update to find suitable updates to those packages.
  3. A check is made to determine whether the old packages will be deleted without issue, and whether the new packages will install correctly. This includes verifying that the new package still matches dependencies (unless -D updatedepends).
  4. Shared libraries deserve special treatment: each shared library from the old packages that does no longer exist in the new packages, but that is required from a wantlib of another package is kept along in a stub package named .libs-<pkgname>.
  5. pkg_add uses sha256 checksums to avoid extracting too much: if a file from an old package didn't change, it will be reused verbatim, and the extraction will often finish early.
  6. The new packages are extracted to the filesystem, using temporary filenames of the form pkg.XXXXXXX if necessary to avoid conflicts with the old packages. The packing-list is amended to record these names as @temp annotations, in cases the installation fails.
  7. The old packages are deleted as usual, except that some packages may still depend on them. Note also that @unexec-delete commands are not executed.
  8. The new packages are installed as usual, except that the files are already present and only need to be renamed. Note also that @exec-add commands are not executed.
  9. Dependencies from the old packages are adjusted to point to the correct new package.

To update packages in -u mode, pkg_add performs the following steps.

  1. Each package name is reduced to its stem, and every package name with matching stem available through PKG_PATH is considered as an update candidate.
  2. pkg_add searches for a ‘quirks’ package first, which may contain exceptions to these rules. This special package contains global information, such as packages that can be deleted because they're now part of base, or stem changes.
  3. Version matching occurs: unless -D downgrade, only packages with newer versions will be considered as update candidates. Note that version matching is costly, thus PKG_PATH should point to a snapshot of packages for a given version of OpenBSD, similar to the organization on the FTP sites.
  4. Candidates are then matched according to their pkgpaths (see pkgpath(7) and pkg_create(1)) in order to weed out similar packages with distinct options.
  5. The update signature of the candidate is compared to the signature of the already installed package: identical signatures mean no update needed.
  6. If several candidates are left, pkg_add will ask the user in interactive mode, and not perform the update in non-interactive mode.
  7. Once a suitable update candidate has been found, pkg_add checks the package dependencies. If necessary, it will install or update them first. Once all dependencies are up to date, pkg_add will update the package.

If set, debug packages matching installed/updated packages will be downloaded to that directory as well.
Specifies whether ftp(1) should operate in “active” or “passive” mode. The default is “passive”.
Override use of ftp(1). Must point to a command that understands ${FETCH_CMD} -o - url.
If set, any package retrieved from a distant location will be copied to that directory as well.
If set, verify files checksums during deletion, exactly like -Dchecksum.
Where to register packages instead of /var/db/pkg.
If a given package name cannot be found, the directories named by PKG_PATH are searched. It should contain a series of entries separated by colons. Each entry consists of a directory name. URL schemes such as FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, or SCP are also appropriate. The current directory may be indicated implicitly by an empty directory name, or explicitly by a single period (‘./’). Special sequences ‘%a’, ‘%c’, ‘%m’, ‘%v’ will be expanded.
Temporary area where package information files will be extracted, instead of /tmp.
Same semantics as PKG_PATH, but it is searched before PKG_PATH and waives any kind of signature checking.

/etc/installurl
default mirror server for package download
/etc/signify/*-pkg.pub
public keys for package verification with signify(1)
/usr/local/
default file system to install packages in
/usr/local/share/doc/pkg-readmes/
OpenBSD-specific information about individual packages
/var/db/pkg/
database of installed packages(7)

ftp(1), pkg_create(1), pkg_delete(1), pkg_info(1), OpenBSD::Intro(3p), bsd.port.mk(5), installurl(5), package(5), pkg_check(8)

Jordan Hubbard
Initial design.

Marc Espie
Complete rewrite.
October 2, 2024 openbsd