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This article explains how quickly you can learn to install, remove, update and search software packages using apt-get and apt-cache commands from the command line. This article provides some useful commands that will help you to handle package management in Debian/Ubuntu based systems.

What is apt-get?

The apt-get utility is a powerful and free package management command line program, that is used to work with Ubuntu’s APT (Advanced Packaging Tool) library to perform installation of new software packages, removing existing software packages, upgrading of existing software packages and even used to upgrading the entire operating system.

What is apt-cache?

The apt-cache command line tool is used for searching apt software package cache. In simple words, this tool is used to search software packages, collects information of packages and also used to search for what available packages are ready for installation on Debian or Ubuntu based systems.

1. How Do I List All Available Packages?

To list all the available packages, type the following command.

$ apt-cache pkgnames

esseract-ocr-epo
pipenightdreams
mumudvb
tbb-examples
libsvm-java
libmrpt-hmtslam0.9
libboost-timer1.50-dev
kcm-touchpad
g++-4.5-multilib
...

2. How Do I Find Out Package Name and Description of Software?

$ apt-cache search vsftpd

vsftpd - lightweight, efficient FTP server written for security
ccze - A robust, modular log coloriser
ftpd - File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server
yasat - simple stupid audit tool

To find and list down all the packages starting with ‘vsftpd‘, you could use the following command.

$ apt-cache pkgnames vsftpd

vsttpd

3. How Do I Check Package Information?

For example, if you would like to check information of package along with it short description say (version number, check sums, size, installed size, category etc). Use ‘show‘ sub command as shown below.

$ apt-cache show netcat

Package: netcat
Priority: optional
Section: universe/net
Installed-Size: 30
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Original-Maintainer: Ruben Molina <rmolina@udea.edu.co>
Architecture: all
Version: 1.10-40
Depends: netcat-traditional (>= 1.10-39)
Filename: pool/universe/n/netcat/netcat_1.10-40_all.deb
Size: 3340
MD5sum: 37c303f02b260481fa4fc9fb8b2c1004
SHA1: 0371a3950d6967480985aa014fbb6fb898bcea3a
SHA256: eeecb4c93f03f455d2c3f57b0a1e83b54dbeced0918ae563784e86a37bcc16c9
Description-en: TCP/IP swiss army knife -- transitional package
 This is a "dummy" package that depends on lenny's default version of
 netcat, to ease upgrades. It may be safely removed.
Description-md5: 1353f8c1d079348417c2180319bdde09
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Origin: Ubuntu

4. How Do I Check Dependencies for Specific Packages?

Use the ‘showpkg‘ sub command to check the dependencies for particular software packages. whether those dependencies packages are installed or not. For example, use the ‘showpkg‘ command along with package-name.

$ apt-cache showpkg vsftpd

Package: vsftpd
Versions: 
2.3.5-3ubuntu1 (/var/lib/apt/lists/in.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_main_binary-i386_Packages)
 Description Language: 
                 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/in.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_main_binary-i386_Packages
                  MD5: 81386f72ac91a5ea48f8db0b023f3f9b
 Description Language: en
                 File: /var/lib/apt/lists/in.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_main_i18n_Translation-en
                  MD5: 81386f72ac91a5ea48f8db0b023f3f9b

Reverse Depends: 
  ubumirror,vsftpd
  harden-servers,vsftpd
Dependencies: 
2.3.5-3ubuntu1 - debconf (18 0.5) debconf-2.0 (0 (null)) upstart-job (0 (null)) libc6 (2 2.15) libcap2 (2 2.10) libpam0g (2 0.99.7.1) libssl1.0.0 (2 1.0.0) libwrap0 (2 7.6-4~) adduser (0 (null)) libpam-modules (0 (null)) netbase (0 (null)) logrotate (0 (null)) ftp-server (0 (null)) ftp-server (0 (null)) 
Provides: 
2.3.5-3ubuntu1 - ftp-server 
Reverse Provides:

Lire la suite…

Source: nixCraft

Both Debian and Ubuntu Linux provides a number of package management tools. This article summaries package management command along with it usage and examples for you.

• apt-get : APT is acronym for Advanced Package Tool. It supports installing packages over internet using ftp or http protocols. You can also upgrade all packages in a single operations, which makes it even more attractive.
• dpkg : Debian packaging tool which can be use to install, query, uninstall packages.

Gui tools: You can also try GUI based or high level interface to the Debian GNU/Linux package system. Following list summaries them:

• aptitude: It is a text-based interface to the Debian GNU/Linux package system.
• synaptic: GUI front end for APT

Red hat Linux package names generally end in .rpm, similarly Debian package names end in .deb, for example:

apache_1.3.31-6_i386.deb

Where,

1. apache : Package name
2. 1.3.31-6 : Version number
3. i386 : Hardware Platform on which this package will run (i386 == intel x86 based system)
4. .deb : Extension that suggest it is a Debian package

Remember, whenever I refer .deb file it signifies complete file name, and whenever I refer package name it must be first part of .deb file. For example, when I refer to a package sudo it means sudo only and not the .deb file i.e. sudo_1.6.7p5-2_i386.deb. You can find out debian package name with the following command:

apt-cache search {package-name}
apt-cache search apache

Finally, most of the actions listed in this post are written with the assumption that they will be executed by the root user running the bash or any other modern shell. Lire la suite…

If you want to create a system that is similar to a different system you have already set up, it can be difficult to remember each and every package you had installed.This method works best when you are exporting to and importing from the same distribution and, specifically, the same releasefor example, exporting from Ubuntu Dapper to Ubuntu Dapper or ubuntu edgy to ubuntu edgy.

Ubuntu uses the APT package management system which handles installed packages and their dependencies. If we can get a list of currently installed packages you can very easily duplicate exactly what you have installed now on your new machine. Below is a command you can use to export a list of your installed packages.

sudo dpkg --get-selections | grep '[[:space:]]install$='| awk '{print $1}' > installedpackages
Now you should end up with a file called “installedpackages” which consists of a long list of every package your currently have installed.

The next step would be to tell the clone machine to install each of those packages. You’ll have to copy that file to the clone machine (via network, usb drive, email, etc) and also make sure to duplicate the /etc/apt/sources.list file. Without the same access to repositories it may not be able to find the packages.

To tell your system to use the previously exported package list use the following command (after making sure to also clone your /etc/apt/sources.list file).

Update the source list using the following command

sudo aptitude update

Import the package list using the following command

cat installedpackages | xargs sudo aptitude install

When you want to restore your packages that you’ve backup-ed with :

sudo dpkg --get_selections > selections.txt

And when you restore them with:

dpkg --set-selections < selections.txt

And the result is a whole bunch of warnings like “warning: package blabla not in database….”

Then theres a easy fix:

$ sudo apt-get install dselect
$ sudo dselect 
 -> Update
 -> Install

Dupliquer un système consiste à installer, sur une machine, exactement les mêmes paquets que sur une autre. La technique n’a rien de nouveau en soi, mais il est toujours bon de la rappeler. Sous les dérivés de Debian, “dpkg” permet d’effectuer cette opération rapidement.

Sur la machine à dupliquer, exporter la liste des paquets installés :

# dpkg --get-selections > lstpkg.dpkg

Sur la machine à installer, commencez par poser un système minimal (installation via le CD-Rom “businesscard” sans sélectionner aucun groupe de paquets). Copiez la liste des paquets exportée depuis la machine à dupliquer et importez la dans le gestionnaire de paquets local :

# dpkg --set-selections < lstpkg.dpkg

puis lancez l’installation des paquets ainsi sélectionnés :

# apt-get dselect-upgrade

Note 1 : si vous souhaitez des machines réellement identique, commencez par copier “/etc/passwd” et “/etc/group” de la machine à dupliquer sur la machine cible afin que les programmes installés utilisent les mêmes UIDs et GIDs (exemple : bind, apache, etc…).

Note 2 : Lors de la sauvegarde des configurations de serveurs, conserver un export de la liste des paquets installés sur chacun d’eux peut faire gagner beaucoup de temps en cas de problème…

Source: admin-linux.fr