apk(8) System Manager's Manual apk(8)

apk - Alpine Package Keeper

apk [<options>...] command [<arguments>...]

apk manages packages installed on the system. The set of top level constraints on system packages is called the world (see apk-world(5)).

apk supports various sub-commands to query and manipulate world and package repositories.

By default apk is non-interactive. See FILES or --interactive on changing this default to be interactive.

Each command is documented in detail on its manual page.

apk-add(8) Add packages to world and commit changes
apk-del(8) Remove packages from world and commit changes

apk-fix(8) Fix, reinstall or upgrade packages without modifying world
apk-update(8) Update repository indexes
apk-upgrade(8) Install upgrades available from repositories
apk-cache(8) Manage the local package cache

apk-info(8) Give detailed information about packages or repositories
apk-list(8) List packages matching a pattern or other criteria
apk-dot(8) Render dependencies as graphviz graphs
apk-policy(8) Show repository policy for packages
apk-search(8) Search for packages by name or description

apk-index(8) Create repository index file from packages
apk-fetch(8) Download packages from repositories to a local directory
apk-manifest(8) Show checksums of package contents
apk-verify(8) Verify package integrity and signature

apk-audit(8) Audit system for changes
apk-stats(8) Show statistics about repositories and installations
apk-version(8) Compare package versions or perform tests on version strings

The following options are available for all commands.

-f, --force

Enable selected --force-* options (deprecated).

-i, --interactive

Ask confirmation before performing certain operations. Interactive mode can be made the default when running on a tty, by creating /etc/apk/interactive as an empty file.

-p, --root ROOT

Manage file system at ROOT.

-q, --quiet

Print less information.

-U, --update-cache

Alias for '--cache-max-age 1'.

-v, --verbose

Print more information (can be specified twice).

-V, --version

Print program version and exit.

-X, --repository REPO

Specify additional package repository. This option can be specified multiple times.

--allow-untrusted

Install packages with untrusted signature or no signature.

--arch ARCH

Temporarily override architecture. When used with --root the architecture will be saved.

--cache-dir CACHEDIR

Temporarily override the cache directory. CACHEDIR is treated relative to the ROOT.

--cache-max-age AGE

Maximum AGE (in minutes) for index in cache before it's refreshed.

--force-binary-stdout

Continue even if binary data will be printed to the terminal.

--force-broken-world

DANGEROUS: Delete world constraints until a solution without conflicts is found. This does not allow installation of packages with unsatisfiable dependencies and is mainly intended to be used initramfs boot and is implied by --initramfs-diskless-boot. The primary purpose is to allow run-from-tmpfs systems to boot if media was upgraded and some packages are no longer available in the new release.

APK will try to determine the world constraints that causes packages with conflicting dependencies and start disabling the world constraints in this order until a satisfiable set of constraints is left. Using this switch on hard disk installation will likely result in unexpected removal of some packages. If uncertain, use with --interactive or --simulate first.

--force-missing-repositories

Continue even if some of the repository indexes are not available.

--force-non-repository

Continue even if packages may be lost on reboot. This can happen when running in run-from-tmpfs mode, and installing non-repository package.

--force-old-apk

Continue even if packages use unsupported features.

--force-overwrite

Overwrite files in other packages.

--force-refresh

Do not use cached files (local or from proxy).

--keys-dir KEYSDIR

Override directory of trusted keys. This is treated relative to ROOT.

--no-cache

Do not use any local cache path.

--no-check-certificate

Do not validate the HTTPS server certificates.

--no-interactive

Disable interactive mode.

--no-network

Do not use the network. The cache is still used when possible.

--no-progress

Disable progress bar even for TTYs.

--print-arch

Print default arch and exit.

--progress

Show progress.

--progress-fd FD

Write progress to the specified file descriptor.

--purge

Purge modified configuration and cached packages. Enables deletion of modified configuration files on package removal. On cache clean action this enables deletion of unneeded cached packages (uninstalled packages on tmpfs installations or all packages on disk installations).

--repositories-file REPOFILE

Override system repositories, see apk-repositories(8). Specifying this option overrides the normal repositories file and repositories.d directory processing. The given REPOFILE is relative to the startup directory since apk 2.12.0_rc2.

--timeout TIME

Timeout network connections if no progress is made in TIME seconds. The default is 60 seconds.

--wait TIME

Wait for TIME seconds to get an exclusive repository lock before failing.

The following options are available for all commands which commit the database.

-s, --simulate

Simulate the requested operation without making any changes. The database is opened in read only mode, and auto-updating of indexes is disabled. You may want to run "apk update" before running a simulation to make sure it is done with up-to-date repository indexes.

--clean-protected

Do not create .apk-new files in configuration directories.

--overlay-from-stdin

Read list of overlay files from stdin. Normally this is used only during initramfs when booting run-from-tmpfs installation.

--no-scripts

Do not execute any scripts. Useful for extracting a system image for different architecture on alternative ROOT.

--no-commit-hooks

Skip pre/post hook scripts (but not other scripts).

--initramfs-diskless-boot

Used by initramfs when it's recreating root tmpfs. This enables selected force options to minimize failure, and disables commit hooks, among other features.

The following options are available for all commands which operate on the package indexes only.

--from FROMSPEC

Search packages from: system (all system sources), repositories (exclude installed database), installed (exclude normal repositories) or none (commandline repositories only).

LANG

Used to determine if UTF-8 is supported, and set the default progress character accordingly.

SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH

See apk-index(8).

TERM

Used to determine if the terminal is dumb or not. Progress bar is not enabled on dumb terminals by default.

FETCH_BIND_ADDRESS

A local IP address to which libfetch will bind all sockets it creates. Can be useful for source routing.

FTP_PROXY, ftp_proxy

If set, these variables should contain the proxy URL for ftp connections.

NETRC

Specify the .netrc file to read for authentication secrets. If not set, defaults to $HOME/.netrc.

HTTP_AUTH
HTTP_REFERER
HTTP_USER_AGENT

Specify a custom HTTP level Authorization, Referer or User-Agent header.

HTTP_PROXY, http_proxy
HTTPS_PROXY, https_proxy
If set, these variables should contain the proxy URL for http

and https connections respectively.

HTTP_PROXY_AUTH

Specify a HTTP Proxy-Authorization header. Used only if the connection is established through a configured HTTP proxy.

NO_PROXY, no_proxy

Comma-separated list of domain extensions or CIDR notation IP addresses to which a proxy should not be used for. This is used explicitly to test the URL hostname portion only. That is, specifying an IP address or CIDR block will not match a DNS name that resolves to the IP address.

SSL_CLIENT_CERT_FILE
SSL_CLIENT_KEY_FILE

Override default SSL client certificate and corresponding private key filename.

SSL_NO_VERIFY_HOSTNAME

If set to anything, disables the server certificate name verification.

/etc/apk/arch

The CPU architecture for this database. See apk-package(5) section on package metadata field arch for the list.

/etc/apk/cache

This is expected to be a symlink to directory what apk will use as package cache. See also apk-cache(5) and apk-cache(8).

/etc/apk/commit_hooks.d/*.pre-commit
/etc/apk/commit_hooks.d/*.post-commit

Hook scripts which are executed before or after changes to database are committed. If a pre-commit script returns failure, the commit is aborted.

If --no-scripts or --no-commit-hooks option is specified, these hook scripts are not executed.

/etc/apk/interactive

If this file exists and apk is running on a tty, --interactive mode is enabled by default.

/etc/apk/keys

A directory containing trusted signing keys for apk.

/etc/apk/protected_paths.d/*.list

Configuration files to specify how to treat changes to specified directory or file masks.

/etc/apk/repositories
/etc/apk/repositories.d/*.list

Configuration files to specify repositories. See apk-repositories(5) for details.

/etc/apk/world

Top level requirements and constraints on what should be installed. See apk-world(5) for details.

/etc/apk/ca.pem

CA certificate store bundle for verifying server certificates. If not present, the default system CA store is used.

/etc/apk/crl.pem

CRL store to check the server certificates against.

/etc/apk/cert.key

Client certificate private key.

/etc/apk/cert.pem

Client certificate to use for authentication.

/lib/apk/db/lock

A lock file used to allow only one concurrent write transaction on the system.

/lib/apk/db/installed

Database of installed packages and their contents.

/lib/apk/db/scripts.tar

Collection of all package scripts from currently installed packages.

/lib/apk/db/triggers

List of triggers rules for currently installed packages.

/lib/apk/exec

Temporary directory for extraction and execution of package scripts and triggers.

This apk has coffee making abilities.

2024-04-29