pacman

Name

pacman — Arch Linux Package Manager

Synopsis

pacman <operation> [options] [packages]

DESCRIPTION

pacman is a package management utility that tracks installed packages on a Linux system. It features dependency support, package groups, install and uninstall hooks, and the ability to sync your local machine with a remote ftp server to automatically upgrade packages. pacman packages are a zipped tar format.

Since version 3.0.0, pacman has been the frontend to libalpm, the "Arch Linux Package Management" library. This library allows alternative front ends to be written (for instance, a GUI front end).

OPERATIONS

-A, --add (deprecated): Add a package to the system. Either a URL or file path can be specified. The package will be uncompressed into the installa- tion root and the database will be updated. The package will not be installed if another version is already installed. NOTE: please use --upgrade in place of this option.
-F, --freshen: This is like --upgrade except it will only upgrade packages already installed on the system.
-Q, --query: Query the package database. This operation allows you to view installed packages and their files, as well as meta-information about individual packages (dependencies, conflicts, install date, build date, size). This can be run against the local pack- age database or can be used on individual .tar.gz packages. See QUERY OPTIONS below.
-R, --remove: Remove a package from the system. Files belonging to the speci- fied package will be deleted, and the database will be updated. Most configuration files will be saved with a .pacsave extension unless the --nosave option is used. See REMOVE OPTIONS below.
-S, --sync: Synchronize packages. Packages are installed directly from the ftp servers, including all dependencies required to run the packages. For example, pacman -S qt will download and install qt and all the packages it depends on. You can also use pacman -Su to upgrade all packages that are out of date. See SYNC OPTIONS below.
-U, --upgrade: Upgrade or add a package to the system. Either a URL or file path can be specified. This is a "remove-then-add" process. See HANDLING CONFIG FILES for an explanation on how pacman takes care of config files.
-V, --version: Display version and exit.
-h, --help: Display syntax for the given operation. If no operation was supplied then the general syntax is shown.

OPTIONS

--ask number: Pre-specify answers to questions. It is doubtful whether this option even works, so I would not recommend using it. TODO: doc- ument this more, as I have no idea how it works or when you would use it, or if we should just dump it.
-b, --dbpath path: Specify an alternative database location (default is "/var/lib/pacman/"). This should not be used unless you know what you are doing.
-d, --nodeps: Skips all dependency checks. Normally, pacman will always check a package's dependency fields to ensure that all dependencies are installed and there are no package conflicts in the system.
-f, --force: Bypass file conflict checks and overwrite conflicting files. If the package that is about to be installed contains files that are already installed, this option will cause all those files to be overwritten. This option should be used with care, ideally not at all.
-r, --root path: Specify an alternative installation root (default is "/"). This should not be used as a way to install software into /usr/local instead of /usr. This option is used if you want to install a package on a temporary mounted partition which is "owned" by another system. By using this option you not only specify where the software should be installed, but you also specify which package database and cache location to use.
-v, --verbose: Output more status messages, such as the Root and DBPath.
--cachedir dir: Specify an alternative package cache location (default is "/var/cache/pacman/pkg/"). This should not be used unless you know what you are doing.
--config filepath: Specify an alternate configuration file.
--noconfirm: Bypass any and all "Are you sure?" messages. It's not a good idea to do this unless you want to run pacman from a script.
--noprogressbar: Do not show a progress bar when downloading files. This can be useful for scripts that call pacman and capture the output.
--noscriptlet: Display all packages that are members of a named group. If not name is specified, list all grouped packages.

QUERY OPTIONS

-c, --changelog: View the ChangeLog of a package. Not every package will provide one but it will be shown if avail- able.
-e, --orphans: List all packages that were pulled in by a previously installed package but no longer required by any installed package.
-g, --groups: Display all packages that are members of a named group. If not name is specified, list all grouped packages.
-i, --info: Display information on a given package. The -p option can be used if querying a package file instead of the local database.
-l, --list: List all files owned by a given package. Multiple packages can be specified on the command line.
-m, --foreign: List all packages that were not found in the sync database(s). Typically these are packages that were downloaded manually and installed with --upgrade.
-o, --owns file: Search for the package that owns file.
-p, --file: Signifies that the package supplied on the command line is a file and not an entry in the database. The file will be decom- pressed and queried. This is useful in combination with --info and --list.
-s, --search regexp: This will search each locally-installed package for names or descriptions that matche regexp.
-u, --upgrades: Lists all packages that are out of date on the local system. This option works best if the sync database is refreshed using -Sy.

REMOVE OPTIONS

-c, --cascade: Remove all target packages, as well as all packages that depend on one or more target packages. This operation is recursive.
-k, --keep: Removes the database entry only. Leaves all files in place.
-n, --nosave: Instructs pacman to ignore file backup designations. Normally, when a file is removed from the system the database is checked to see if the file should be renamed with a .pacsave extension.
-s, --recursive: Remove each target specified including all dependencies, provided that (A) they are not required by other packages; and (B) they were not explicitly installed by the user. This option is analo- gous to a backwards --sync operation.

SYNC OPTIONS

-c, --clean: Remove old packages from the cache to free up disk space. When pacman downloads packages, it saves them in /var/cache/pacman/pkg. Use one --clean switch to remove old packages; use two to remove all packages from the cache.
-e, --dependsonly: Install all dependencies of a package, but not the specified package itself. This is pretty use- less and we're not sure why it even exists.
-g, --groups: Display all the members for each package group specified. If no group names are provided, all groups will be listed; pass the flag twice to view all groups and their members.
-i, --info: Display dependency and other information for a given package. This will search through all repositories for a matching pack- age.
-l, --list: List all packages in the specified repositories. Multiple repos- itories can be specified on the command line.
-p, --print-uris: Print out URIs for each package that will be installed, includ- ing any dependencies yet to be installed. These can be piped to a file and downloaded at a later time, using a program like wget.
-s, --search regexp: This will search each package in the sync databases for names or descriptions that match regexp.
-u, --sysupgrade: Upgrades all packages that are out of date. Each currently- installed package will be examined and upgraded if a newer pack- age exists. A report of all packages to upgrade will be pre- sented and the operation will not proceed without user confirma- tion. Dependencies are automatically resolved at this level and will be installed/upgraded if necessary.
-w, --downloadonly: Retrieve all packages from the server, but do not install/upgrade anything.
-y, --refresh: Download a fresh copy of the master package list from the server(s) defined in pacman.conf. This should typically be used each time you use --sysupgrade or -u. Passing two --refresh or -y flags will force a refresh of all package lists even if they are thought to be up to date.
--ignore package: Directs pacman to ignore upgrades of package even if there is one available.

HANDLING CONFIG FILES

pacman uses the same logic as rpm to determine action against files that are designated to be backed up. During an upgrade, 3 md5 hashes

original=X, current=Y, new=X: Both package versions contain the exact same file, but the one on the filesystem has been modified. Leave the current file in place.
original=X, current=Y, new=Y: The new file is identical to the current file. Install the new file.
original=X, current=Y, new=Z: All three files are different, so install the new file with a .pacnew extension and warn the user. The user must then manually merge any necessary changes into the original file.

CONFIGURATION

See pacman.conf(5) for more details on configuring pacman using the pacman.conf file.

BUGS

Bugs? You must be kidding, there are no bugs in this software. But if we happen to be wrong, send us an email with as much detail as possible to <pacman-dev@archlinux.org>.

AUTHORS

Judd Vinet <jvinet@zeroflux.org>
Aurelien Foret <aurelien@archlinux.org>
Aaron Griffin <aaron@archlinux.org>
Dan McGee <dan@archlinux.org>

See the AUTHORS file for additional contributors.