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apt Cheat Sheet

Commands

apt-get install <package> 
apt-get remove <package>     # Remove files installed by <package>
apt-get purge <package>      # Remove <package> and all the files it did create

apt-get upgrade              # Upgrade all packages
apt-get install <package>    # Upgrade an already installed package

apt-get dist-upgrade         # Upgrade distribution

apt-cache search <package>   # Check if there is such a package name in the repos
apt-cache policy <package>   # Check which repos in which order provide the package
apt-cache clean              # Remove all downloaded .debs

apt-mark showauto            # List all automatically installed packages
apt-mark showmanual
apt-mark showhold

apt file to package lookup

apt-get install apt-file
apt-file update
apt-file search <some file>

100% Non-interactive

To achieve a useful 100% non-interactive “apt-get install” you need 4 things:

  • Set Debian frontend “noninteractive”
  • Pass “-y” to confirm everything
  • Specify to keep old configs always
  • Enforce config definitions

Ommitting any of those will cause interaction.

DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confdef" -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confold" <package>

Using Snapshots

You can access arbitrary older releases via snapshot.debian.org:

deb     http://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian/20091004T111800Z/ lenny main
deb-src http://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian/20091004T111800Z/ lenny main
deb     http://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian-security/20091004T121501Z/ lenny/updates main
deb-src http://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian-security/20091004T121501Z/ lenny/updates main

APT Proxy Auth

Create an new auth.conf entry in /etc/apt/auth.conf.d/myproxy.conf

machine <host/path> login <user> password <password>

Unattended Upgrades

apt-get install unattended-upgrades
dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades 
# and maybe set notification mail address in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

Check for security upgrades

  • Debian

    # With apt-show-versions
apt-show-versions | grep "security upgradeable"

# With aptitude
aptitude search '?and(~U,~Asecurity)'

# With pure apt-get
grep -h '^deb.*security' /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/* >sec.list
apt-get -s dist-upgrade -o Dir::Etc::SourceList=sec.list | grep ^Inst

  • Ubuntu

    # Print summary
/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check --human-readable

# Print package names
/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check -p

Check for necessary restarts

apt-get install needrestart
needrestart

Ubuntu differences

Distro upgrades

Run upgrade with

do-release-upgrade [-d]       # use -d when you want all versions

You can configure prompting for versions by changing Prompt=lts in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades

Snapshots

Access Repositories for older releases. Once a release is deprecated it is moved to old-releases.ubuntu.com. You need to adapt /etc/apt/sources.list to fetch packages from there

sed -i 's/archive.ubuntu.com/old-releases.ubuntu.com/' /etc/apt/sources.list

Check for new HWE

hwe-support-status

Upgrade Security Fixes Only

apt-get dist-upgrade -o Dir::Etc::SourceList=/etc/apt/sources.security.repos.only.list

Check if Reboot Required

ls /var/run/reboot-required # Reboot flag file

# Packages requiring the reboot
cat /var/run/reboot-required.pkgs

Misc

  • Manage Updates on multiple systems: apt-dater
  • Debian Repo manager aptly.info

  • APT Repo with reprepro

    cd <repo dir>
reprepro -v includedeb wheezy <.deb file>
reprepro remove wheezy <name>

  • Build Kernel Package: How to build kernel packages with make-pkg

    cd /usr/src/linux && make-kpkg clean && make-kpkg --initrd --revision=myrev kernel_image

  • Setup Keyring: How to solve “The following packages cannot be authenticated”

    apt-get install debian-archive-keyring
apt-get update
  • Security Debian HowTo