For convenience, you can copy frequently installed packages to a spool directory. If you copy packages to the default spool directory, /var/spool/pkg, you do not need to specify the source location of the package (-d device-name argument) when you use the pkgadd command. The pkgadd command, by default, checks the /var/spool/pkg directory for any packages specified on the command line. Note that copying packages to a spool directory is not the same as installing the packages on a system.
Become superuser or assume an equivalent role.
Remove any already spooled packages with the same names as the packages you are adding.
For information on removing spooled packages, see Example—Removing a Spooled Software Package.
Add a software package to a spool directory.
# pkgadd -d device-name -s spooldir pkgid ... |
-d device-name |
Specifies the absolute path to the software packages. device-name can be the path to a device, a directory, or a spool directory. |
-s spooldir |
Specifies the name of the spool directory where the package will be spooled. You must specify a spooldir. |
pkgid |
(Optional) Is the name of one or more packages, separated by spaces, to be added to the spool directory. If omitted, the pkgadd command copies all available packages. |
Verify that the package has been copied successfully to the spool directory.
$ pkginfo -d spooldir| grep pkgid |
If pkgid is copied correctly, the pkginfo command returns a line of information about the pkgid. Otherwise, the pkginfo command returns the system prompt.
The following example shows how to transfer the SUNWman package from a mounted SPARC Solaris 9 CD to the default spool directory (/var/spool/pkg).
# pkgadd -d /cdrom/cdrom0/s0/Solaris_9/Product -s /var/spool/pkg SUNWman Transferring <SUNWman> package instance |
If packages you want to copy are available from a remote system, you can manually mount the directory that contains the packages, in package format, and copy them to a local spool directory.
The following example shows the commands to do this scenario. In this example, assume that the remote system named package-server has software packages in the /latest-packages directory. The mount command mounts the package directory locally on /mnt, and the pkgadd command copies the SUNWpl5p package from /mnt to the default spool directory (/var/spool/pkg).
# mount -F nfs -o ro package-server:/latest-packages /mnt # pkgadd -d /mnt -s /var/spool/pkg SUNWpl5p Transferring <SUNWpl5p> package instance |
If the automounter is running at your site, you do not have to mount the remote package server manually. Instead, use the automounter path, in this case, /net/package-server/latest-packages, as the argument to the -d option.
# pkgadd -d /net/package-server/latest-packages -s /var/spool/pkg SUNWpl5p Transferring <SUNWpl5p> package instance |
The following example shows how to install the SUNWpl5p package from the default spool directory. When no options are used, the pkgadd command searches the /var/spool/pkg directory for the named packages.
# pkgadd SUNWpl5p . . . Installation of <SUNWpl5p> was successful. |