Package manager is a collection of software tools used to install, remove upgrade, and manage programs in a computer system. Package management is an essential skill when working in a command-line interface. FreeBSD provides a pkg package manager to install and manage different packages via the command line.
Step 1 – Getting Help Information
Before working with a pkg package manager, we will show you how to use the pkg command with the help flag to find all sub-commands.
To see all available options of the pkg command, run the following command:
pkg help
You will see all supported sub-commands in the following output:
Commands supported: add Compatibility interface to install a package alias List the command line aliases annotate Add, modify or delete tag-value style annotations on packages audit Reports vulnerable packages autoremove Removes orphan packages check Checks for missing dependencies and database consistency clean Cleans old packages from the cache config Display the value of the configuration options create Creates software package distributions delete Deletes packages from the database and the system fetch Fetches packages from a remote repository help Displays help information info Displays information about installed packages install Installs packages from remote package repositories and local archives lock Locks package against modifications or deletion plugins Manages plugins and displays information about plugins query Queries information about installed packages register Registers a package into the local database remove Deletes packages from the database and the system repo Creates a package repository catalogue rquery Queries information in repository catalogues search Performs a search of package repository catalogues set Modifies information about packages in the local database ssh Package server (to be used via ssh) shell Opens a debug shell shlib Displays which packages link against a specific shared library stats Displays package database statistics triggers Execute deferred triggers unlock Unlocks a package, allowing modification or deletion update Updates package repository catalogues updating Displays UPDATING information for a package upgrade Performs upgrades of packaged software distributions version Displays the versions of installed packages which Displays which package installed a specific file
If you want to see the help information of any sub-command, run the following command:
pkg help search
You will see how to use the pkg command with the search sub-command:
NAME
pkg search – search package repository catalogues
SYNOPSIS
pkg search [-U] [-r reponame] [-S search] [-L label] [-Q query-modifier]
[-Cegix] pattern
pkg search [-cDdfopqRsU] [-r reponame] [-Cegix] pattern
pkg search [--no-repo-update] [--repository reponame] [--search search]
[--label label] [--query-modifier query-modifier]
[--{case-sensitive,exact,glob,case-insensitive,regex}] pattern
pkg search [--{comment,description,depends-on,full,origins,prefix}]
[--{quiet,raw,size,no-repo-update}] [--repository reponame]
[--{case-sensitive,exact,glob,case-insensitive,regex}]
[--raw-format format] pattern
To see the help information about the install sub-command, run the following command:
pkg help install
You will see the following command:
NAME
pkg install – install packages from remote package repositories or local
archives
SYNOPSIS
pkg install [-AfIMnFqRUy] [-r reponame] [-Cgix]
<pkg-origin|pkg-name|pkg-name-version> ...
pkg install [--{automatic,force,no-scripts,ignore-missing}]
[--{dry-run,fetch-only,quiet,recursive,no-repo-update,yes}]
[--repository reponame]
[--{case-sensitive,glob,case-insensitive,regex}]
<pkg-origin|pkg-name|pkg-name-version> ...
Step 2 – Search Packages Using pkg Command
The basic syntax to search a package is shown below.
pkg search package-name
For example, to search for Nginx packages, run the following command:
pkg search nginx
You will see all Nginx packages in the following output:
nginx-1.24.0_12,3 Robust and small WWW server nginx-devel-1.25.2_7 Robust and small WWW server nginx-lite-1.24.0,3 Robust and small WWW server (lite package) nginx-naxsi-1.24.0,3 Robust and small WWW server (plus NAXSI) nginx-prometheus-exporter-0.11.0_2 Prometheus exporter for NGINX and NGINX Plus stats nginx-ultimate-bad-bot-blocker-4.2020.03.2005_1 Nginx bad bot and other things blocker nginx-vts-exporter-0.10.7_14 Server that scraps NGINX vts stats and export them via HTTP p5-Nginx-ReadBody-0.07_1 Nginx embeded perl module to read and evaluate a request body p5-Nginx-Simple-0.07_1 Perl 5 module for easy to use interface for Nginx Perl Module p5-Test-Nginx-0.30 Testing modules for Nginx C module development py39-certbot-nginx-2.6.0 NGINX plugin for Certbot
To see the information about a specific package, use the -f flag followed by the package name.
pkg search -f nginx-1.24.0_12,3
You will see the following output:
nginx-1.24.0_12,3 Name : nginx Version : 1.24.0_12,3 Origin : www/nginx Architecture : FreeBSD:13:amd64 Prefix : /usr/local Repository : FreeBSD [pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:13:amd64/quarterly] Categories : www Licenses : BSD2CLAUSE Maintainer : [email protected] WWW : https://nginx.com/ Comment : Robust and small WWW server
Step 3 – Install Packages Using pkg Command
The basic syntax to install a package is shown below.
pkg install package-name
For example, to install an Nginx package, run the following command:
pkg install nginx
If you want to download the package without installing it on your system, run the following command:
pkg fetch nginx
To download the package with all of its dependencies use the -d flag.
pkg fetch -d nginx
You can see all fetched packages in the /var/cache/pkg directory.
ls /var/cache/pkg
Output:
brotli-1.1.0,1.pkg indexinfo-0.3.1~bd05368104.txz nettle-3.9.1.pkg brotli-1.1.0,1~2e5f90142a.pkg libassuan-2.5.6.pkg nettle-3.9.1~6bc5253893.pkg e2fsprogs-1.46.2.txz libassuan-2.5.6~7b204af578.pkg nginx-1.24.0_12,3.pkg e2fsprogs-1.46.2~a2abff02bc.txz libedit-3.1.20221030,1.pkg nginx-1.24.0_12,3~af8e35c324.pkg e2fsprogs-1.46.2~b1851d3194.txz libedit-3.1.20221030,1~02edf68058.pkg npth-1.6.pkg e2fsprogs-1.47.0.pkg libffi-3.4.4.pkg npth-1.6~55fe55fef2.pkg e2fsprogs-1.47.0~196e9c9c54.pkg libffi-3.4.4~3c80f31254.pkg p11-kit-0.24.1_2.pkg e2fsprogs-core-1.47.0.pkg libgcrypt-1.10.2.pkg p11-kit-0.24.1_2~d841595c85.pkg e2fsprogs-core-1.47.0~584e640d80.pkg libgcrypt-1.10.2~4ef2ab992e.pkg pcre2-10.42.pkg e2fsprogs-libblkid-1.46.2.txz libgpg-error-1.47.pkg pcre2-10.42~0252e988c3.pkg e2fsprogs-libblkid-1.46.2~11342cdd9e.txz libgpg-error-1.47~a11cc8f9f8.pkg perl5-5.34.1_3.pkg e2fsprogs-libblkid-1.46.2~d0aac929ad.txz libhsts-0.1.0.pkg perl5-5.34.1_3~be88f18f29.pkg
To remove packages from the cache directory, run the following command:
pkg clean
Output:
The following package files will be deleted: /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-1.46.2~b1851d3194.txz /var/cache/pkg/gettext-runtime-0.21.txz /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-1.46.2.txz /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-libuuid-1.46.2~b78457aa6b.txz /var/cache/pkg/gettext-runtime-0.21~7f53ebc469.txz /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-libuuid-1.46.2.txz /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-libblkid-1.46.2~11342cdd9e.txz /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-libblkid-1.46.2.txz /var/cache/pkg/indexinfo-0.3.1~bd05368104.txz /var/cache/pkg/indexinfo-0.3.1.txz /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-libss-1.46.2~d0e44d1a51.txz /var/cache/pkg/indexinfo-0.3.1~75a19b3acb.txz /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-libss-1.46.2.txz /var/cache/pkg/vim-tiny-8.2.2725~640683e659.txz /var/cache/pkg/vim-tiny-8.2.2725.txz /var/cache/pkg/vim-tiny-8.2.2725~a1de39a0a9.txz /var/cache/pkg/gettext-runtime-0.21~4f88146680.txz /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-libuuid-1.46.2~b01e611407.txz /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-libss-1.46.2~b2cac5e088.txz /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-libblkid-1.46.2~d0aac929ad.txz /var/cache/pkg/e2fsprogs-1.46.2~a2abff02bc.txz The cleanup will free 5 MiB Proceed with cleaning the cache? [y/N]: y
To remove all cached packages, run the following command:
pkg clean -a
Step 4 – View Information About Installed Package
The basic syntax to see the information about installed packages is shown below.
pkg info package-name
For example, to see the Nginx package information, run the following command:
pkg info nginx
You will see the following output:
nginx-1.24.0_12,3 Name : nginx Version : 1.24.0_12,3 Installed on : Sat Oct 14 08:53:08 2023 UTC Origin : www/nginx Architecture : FreeBSD:13:amd64 Prefix : /usr/local Categories : www Licenses : BSD2CLAUSE Maintainer : [email protected] WWW : https://nginx.com/ Comment : Robust and small WWW server
Step 5 – Remove Packages Using pkg Command
The basic syntax to remove a package is shown below.
pkg delete package-name
For example, to remove a package named nginx, run the following command:
pkg delete nginx
To remove additional dependencies that are installed with the package, run the following command:
pkg autoremove
Step 6 – Lock and Unlock Packages Using pkg Command
Sometimes, you don’t want to upgrade a package on your server. In this case, you can lock that package so that pkg never upgrades it.
To lock the Nginx package, run:
pkg lock nginx
To list all locked packages, run:
pkg lock -l
Output:
Currently locked packages: nginx-1.24.0_12,3
To unlock an Nginx package, run:
pkg unlock nginx
To lock all packages, run:
pkg lock -a
To unlock all packages, run:
pkg unlock -a
Conclusion
In this post, we showed you how to manage packages with the pkg command in FreeBSD. You can now easily install, remove, update, upgrade, and manage packages via the command line interface. Try to manage packages using the pkg command on dedicated server hosting from Atlantic.Net!
