Listing and collecting the information and dependencies of a package

To demonstrate how simple it is to administer packages, let's explore a useful example where we install a package on Oracle Solaris 11.

How to do it…

First, we need to know which package we want to install. However, before installing any package, we need to confirm whether this package is already installed on the system by running the following command:

root@solaris11:~# pkg list nmap
pkg list: no packages matching 'nmap' installed

As we can see, the nmap package (scanning tool) isn't installed on Oracle Solaris 11; we can verify that this tool is available from the official source repository (solaris, according to the previous publisher list). Furthermore, before accomplishing this step, it's suggested that we rebuild repository indexes (mainly if you don't remember when a package was inserted or removed the last time) to speed up the lookup process later:

root@solaris11:~# pkg rebuild-index
PHASE                                       ITEMS
Building new search index                   847/847

It's time to search for the nmap package. We do this with the following command:

root@solaris11:~# pkg search nmap
INDEX           ACTION  VALUE                                   
                                                    PACKAGE
pkg.description set    Nmap is useful for inventorying the network, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. pkg:/diagnostic/nmap@5.51-0.175.1.0.0.24.0
basename        file    usr/bin/nmap                            
                                                    pkg:/diagnostic/nmap@5.51-0.175.1.0.0.24.0
pkg.fmri        set     solaris/diagnostic/nmap                 
                                                    pkg:/diagnostic/nmap@5.51-0.175.1.0.0.24.0
basename        dir     usr/share/nmap                          
                                                    pkg:/diagnostic/nmap@5.51-0.175.1.0.0.24.0

We can confirm that nmap is available and isn't installed on the system, but a bit more information about the package won't hurt us. An easy way to know whether the nmap package is installed or not is by executing the following command:

root@solaris11-1:~# pkg list -af nmap
NAME (PUBLISHER)              VERSION                    IFO
diagnostic/nmap               5.51-0.175.1.0.0.24.0      ---

If the last column (IFO) doesn't have an i flag, then we can verify that the package isn't installed. We can also obtain complementary information about nmap by typing the following command:

root@solaris11:~# pkg info -r nmap
Name: diagnostic/nmap
Summary: Network exploration tool and security / port scanner.
Description: Nmap is useful for inventorying the network, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime.
Category: System/Administration and Configuration
 State: Not installed
 Publisher: solaris
 Version: 5.51
 Build Release: 5.11
Branch: 0.175.1.0.0.24.0
Packaging Date: September  4, 2012 05:17:49 PM 
Size: 12.28 MB
FMRI: pkg://solaris/diagnostic/nmap@5.51,5.11-0.175.1.0.0.24.0:20120904T171749Z

This last command is important because we've collected valuable attributes about the nmap package, such as its state (Not installed) and size (12.28 MB). The -r option is necessary because it references a package in the repository from registered publishers. We can show Nmap's license agreement in the same way:

root@solaris11:~# pkg info -r --license nmap
Oracle elects to use only the GNU Lesser General Public License version
2.1 (LGPL)/GNU General Public License version 2 (GPL) for any software
where a choice of LGPL/GPL license versions are made available with the
language indicating that LGPLv2.1/GPLv2 or any later version may be
used, or where a choice of which version of the LGPL/GPL is applied is
unspecified. 
…..........

Sometimes, it's advisable to know which packages are required to install a specific package (such as nmap) before you are able to try it. We can verify this by executing the following command:

root@solaris11:~# pkg contents -r -o fmri,type -t depend nmap
FMRI                                                       TYPE
pkg:/library/pcre@8.21-0.175.1.0.0.23.0                             require
pkg:/library/python-2/pygobject-26@2.21.1-0.175.1.0.0.11.0   require
pkg:/library/python-2/pygtk2-26@2.17.0-0.175.1.0.0.19.0     require
pkg:/library/security/openssl@1.0.0.10-0.175.1.0.0.23.0      require
pkg:/runtime/lua@5.1.4-0.175.1.0.0.23.0                             require
pkg:/runtime/python-26@2.6.8-0.175.1.0.0.23.0                     require
pkg:/system/library/gcc-3-runtime@3.4.3-0.175.1.0.0.23.0         require
pkg:/system/library/libpcap@1.1.1-0.175.1.0.0.23.0                  require
pkg:/system/library/math@0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.19.0                   require
pkg:/system/library@0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.23.0                         require

We can also reach the same result by executing the following command:

root@solaris11:~# pkg contents -r -o action.raw -t depend nmap
ACTION.RAW
depend fmri=pkg:/library/python-2/pygobject-26@2.21.1-0.175.1.0.0.11.0 type=require
depend fmri=pkg:/system/library/gcc-3-runtime@3.4.3-0.175.1.0.0.23.0 type=require
depend fmri=pkg:/library/security/openssl@1.0.0.10-0.175.1.0.0.23.0 type=require
depend fmri=pkg:/runtime/lua@5.1.4-0.175.1.0.0.23.0 type=require
depend fmri=pkg:/system/library/math@0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.19.0 type=require
depend fmri=pkg:/system/library@0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.23.0 type=require
depend fmri=pkg:/runtime/python-26@2.6.8-0.175.1.0.0.23.0 type=require
depend fmri=pkg:/library/pcre@8.21-0.175.1.0.0.23.0 type=require
depend fmri=pkg:/system/library/libpcap@1.1.1-0.175.1.0.0.23.0 type=require
depend fmri=pkg:/library/python-2/pygtk2-26@2.17.0-0.175.1.0.0.19.0 type=require

The –t option specifies action.raw, which is used to limit the search to a specific attribute, such as depend. The –r option matches packages based on the newest available version and gets information about noninstalled packages, and the -o option limits the columns to be shown in the output.

We have a list of required packages to install a new package such as nmap, and all the packages are shown as require; however, this command would have shown as optional if we were managing another package.

An overview of the recipe

The previous commands have verified that if a specific package is already installed (nmap), it reindexes the package catalog (to speed up the search) and collects details about the package. Furthermore, we've listed the decencies of the nmap package. We will notice that the number of packages that were indexed (847) is very high, and that's the main reason this operation takes some time.