Examples of usage
Available packages
With the available (-a) option you get common name, package name, version and download size.
# pkgutil -a | head
9menu CSW9menu 1.8,REV=2006.05.19 15.3 KB
a2ps CSWa2ps 4.13b 1.3 MB
aalib CSWaalib 1.4.0,REV=2008.04.13_rev=rc5 198.5 KB
achievo CSWachievo 0.8.4 273.6 KB
acpidump CSWacpidump 20071116,REV=2008.05.10 20.7 KB
aggregate CSWaggregate 1.6,REV=2008.03.22 10.4 KB
amanda CSWamanda 2.4.4p4,REV=2005.08.05 2.3 MB
amarok CSWamarok 1.4.8,REV=2008.02.26 12.8 MB
amavisd_new CSWamavisdnew 2.5.2,REV=2007.08.03 656.2 KB
amsn CSWamsn 0.94 2.3 MB
You can also add arguments that filter the output, it tries to match both the common name and the package name. See the example below which lists available packages with the strings "geoip" or "python" in them. This is equivalent to "pkgutil -a | egrep -i 'geoip|python'" but much easier to type.
# pkgutil -a geoip python
ap2_modgeoip CSWap2modgeoip 1.2.5,REV=2008.10.17 16.0 KB
ap2_modpython CSWap2modpython 3.3.1,REV=2007.10.25 389.5 KB
geoip CSWgeoip 1.4.4,REV=2008.04.15 310.5 KB
geoip_devel CSWgeoipdevel 1.4.4,REV=2008.04.15 160.1 KB
gnome_python CSWgnome-python 2.0.2,REV=2004.08.09 251.4 KB
pm_geoippureperl CSWpmgeoippureperl 1.19,REV=2008.04.16 18.7 KB
python CSWpython 2.5.1,REV=2007.11.03 10.9 MB
python_tk CSWpython-tk 2.5.1,REV=2007.11.03 301.3 KB
Compare packages
With compare (-c) you get your locally installed CSW packages and their version compared to the current catalog. Below is a sample listing, note that CSWripmime is a testing package that is not officially available in the catalog.
# pkgutil -c
package installed catalog
CSWmiltergreylist 4.0,REV=2008.04.03 4.0,REV=2008.05.06
CSWrcs 5.7,REV=2006.01.10 SAME
CSWripmime 1.4.0.7,REV=2008.04.11 not in catalog
As with -a you can add filters to the output. The example shows the status of packages containing "php" or "perl". Again, this is the same as "pkgutil -c | egrep -i 'php|perl'" but much easier to type.
# pkgutil -c php perl
package installed catalog
CSWap2modphp5 5.2.4,REV=2007.10.29 5.2.6,REV=2008.10.28
CSWperl 5.8.8,REV=2008.10.08 SAME
CSWphp5 5.2.4,REV=2007.10.29 5.2.6,REV=2008.10.28
CSWphp5gd 5.2.4,REV=2007.10.29 5.2.6,REV=2008.10.28
CSWphp5mysqli 5.2.4,REV=2007.10.29 5.2.6,REV=2008.10.28
CSWpmgeoippureperl 1.19,REV=2008.04.16 SAME
You can also use -C which skips the SAME lines. This option also takes filter arguments like -a and -c.
# pkgutil -C
package installed catalog
CSWcswclassutils 1.32,REV=2010.02.09 1.30,REV=2009.11.21
CSWcurlrt 7.19.7,REV=2010.01.15 7.20.0,REV=2010.02.15
CSWdiffutils 2.8.1,REV=2005.11.10 2.9,REV=2010.02.17
CSWpcp 1.09,REV=2010.02.17 not in catalog
CSWpython 2.6.4,REV=2009.12.21 2.6.4,REV=2010.02.15
CSWpython-rt 2.6.4,REV=2009.12.22 2.6.4,REV=2010.02.15
A fast way of checking a single package is by using -c with —single:
pkgutil -c --single CSWdiffutils
CSWdiffutils 2.8.1,REV=2005.11.10 2.9,REV=2010.02.17
Update notifications
The option email (-e) will compare your installed packages to the available ones and send you an e-mail if there's updates available for your system. You could set it up to run weekly from root's crontab like this:
0 5 * * 0 /opt/csw/bin/pkgutil -U -e nobody@foo.bar > /dev/null 2>&1
This is an example of how the e-mail looks like:
From: Super-User <root@foo.bar>
To: nobody@foo.bar
Subject: yourhostname: CSW updates available
CSWbind 9.4.2,REV=2008.01.17 9.4.2,REV=2008.07.09_rev=p1
CSWmiltergreylist 4.0,REV=2008.04.03 4.0,REV=2008.05.06
Remove packages
This feature is to be considered experimental at this stage.
The remove (-r) option can remove a package including all dependencies that are not in use by other packages.
# pkgutil -r CSWrcs
Recursively checking catalog, may take a while...
Looking at installed CSW packages...
Examining dependencies for:
CSWrcs (remove)
CSWdiffutils (remove)
CSWcommon (in use)
Removing CSWrcs
... (output of pkgrm not shown)
Removing CSWdiffutils
... (output of pkgrm not shown)
Run it over and over again with the same arguments until all unused packages are removed. It's normal that it can't remove all packages in one go.
System check
You can check what pkgutil finds in your system by using syscheck (-V). Example below:
# pkgutil -V
- System -
Pkgutil 1.10
Arch i386
Solaris 5.10
Pkg patch 119318 (119318-01 installed)
GPG binary /opt/csw/bin/gpg
Gzip binary /opt/csw/bin/gzip
Mailx binary /bin/mailx
MD5 binary not found (suggestion: install CSWtextutils)
MD5 module 2.36 (primary choice for MD5)
Perl 5.008008
Perl binary /opt/csw/bin/perl
Wget binary /opt/csw/bin/wget
PATH /opt/csw/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
- Configuration -
catalog_not_cached true (default: true)
catalog_update 14 (default: 14)
exclude_pattern perl (default: none)
gpg_homedir not set (default: none)
maxpkglist 2500000 (default: 2500000)
mirror http://ftp.df.lth.se/pub/csw/current
(default: http://ibiblio.org/pub/packages/solaris/opencsw/current)
noncsw false (default: false)
pkgaddopts -S (default: none)
pkgliststyle 1 (default: 0)
stop_on_hook_soft_error not set (default: false)
use_gpg false (default: false)
use_md5 false (default: false)
wgetopts -nv (default: none)
Temporary site
With the temp (-t) option you can select a primary download location, the location specified with mirror in pkgutil.conf will be secondary. Downloads will try the primary location first and go on to the secondary if it has to.
You can use this if you're having problems with your normal mirror and want to use another official mirror temporarily. See example:
# grep mirror= /etc/opt/csw/pkgutil.conf
mirror=http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/packages/solaris/opencsw/current
# pkgutil -t http://ftp.math.purdue.edu/mirrors/opencsw.org/current -i perl
If you have packages you have built yourself that has dependencies to CSW packages it can be a problem to install them easily. Now you can use pkgutil for that as well. Use bldcat to create a catalog for your own packages and then place them on a web server you control. Then use "-t http://yourserver" so pkgutil can find your catalog.
# bldcat .
# pkgutil -t http://yourserver -i yourpackage
Package streams
You can download packages for a specific platform with all dependencies into one big file in order to transfer and install them on another computer using the stream option (-s). The desired platform can be specified and is not related to the platform pkgutil runs on.
Example to download "nano" for Solaris 10 Sparc:
pkgutil --stream --download -T sparc:5.10 nano
The example below will send a package stream including all dependencies needed for CSWbind to standard output which is piped to gzip. With "-o -" the normal output is sent to standard error and "-y" is used to skip the confirmation prompt.
# pkgutil -y -o - -ds bind | gzip > bind.pkg.gz
Use on Linux for downloading
Sometimes your Solaris servers don't have direct internet access but you have Linux servers that does. Then you can use pkgutil to download packages intelligently for you on a Linux host. Pkgutil is not designed for Linux though so you have to do some steps before it works.
- Download the latest version of the script to your home directory
$ cd
$ wget -O pkgutil https://sourceforge.net/p/pkgutil/code/HEAD/tree/trunk/pkgutil?format=raw
$ chmod 755 pkgutil
- Create a directory to hold the admin file
# mkdir -p /var/opt/csw/pkgutil
- Create the admin file
# touch /var/opt/csw/pkgutil/admin
- Pkgutil looks in the wrong locations for wget so fake a Solaris location with a symlink
# mkdir /usr/sfw/bin
# ln -s /usr/bin/wget /usr/sfw/bin/wget
Now you can use pkgutil for downloading, you must specify target architecture and Solaris release, for example:
Downloads perl and its dependencies for Solaris 10 on i386 to the .pkgutil directory in your home directory
$ ./pkgutil -d -T i386:5.10 perl
For obvious reasons all options involving actual Solaris package commands will not work. An alternative to this downloading on Linux may be rsyncing your own local mirror from one of the official ones.
