Packages

• package.install
• package.repository

Package Providers

Packages is a group of actions that utilize the local system's package manager, however it is a bit special. Unlike some other actions, packages can also contain providers. Some operating systems may have multiple package managers available and providers allow the user to choose which package manager to use. For example, macOS will automatically utilize homebrew as the default package manager, but this default can be overridden for another package manager on the system such as pkgin, which also supports macOS, or macports.

Supported package providers

Not all package managers are supported. This is a list of currently supported package providers:

If you would like support to be added for a package provider, feel free to contribute the support or request support in the repository issue tracker.

Default package provider

Without provider, package.install and package.repository use the usual package manager of the OS, e.g. apt on Debian. To use another one for all of them, set package_provider in Comtrya.yaml:

# Use pkgin instead of apt, unless an action sets its own provider
package_provider: pkgin

The order is:

1. provider on the action, or on its variant for this OS
2. package_provider in Comtrya.yaml
3. the default for this OS

The names and aliases are the same as for provider. An unknown name stops comtrya with an error listing the valid ones. The provider in use is available as packages.provider in templates and where conditions:

where: packages.provider == "pkgin"

On an OS without a default, like Alpine, actions without a provider fail with an error until provider or package_provider is set.

Arch Linux: pacman, yay and paru

On Arch and its derivatives, the default provider depends on how comtrya runs:

1. As root: pacman, because AUR helpers refuse to run as root. Packages from the AUR fail with pacman's "target not found".
2. Otherwise, paru if it is installed.
3. Otherwise yay. If yay isn't installed, comtrya installs base-devel and git with pacman and builds yay from the AUR.

paru and yay install packages from the official repositories and the AUR. They run as your user and ask for sudo themselves, so run comtrya as a normal user to install AUR packages. With provider: yay or provider: paru as root, package.install fails with an error saying so.

pacman installs packages from the official repositories only, with pacman -S --needed, and works as root too:

- action: package.install
  provider: pacman
  list:
    - git
    - ripgrep

Before 0.10.0, pacman was another name for yay. Manifests that use provider: pacman for AUR packages need provider: yay now.

Important note on homebrew and macOS

Some package manager providers can implement a bootstrap method that will automatically configure the package manager on the system if it is not part of the default installation. This is the case with macOS. Comtrya can automatically install homebrew to a macOS system and will do so if a manifest specifies a package.install action and does not overridfe the macOS default of homebrew.

package.install

Example

# Install package using default provider
- action: package.install
  name: curl

# Install a list of packages using default provider
- action: package.install
  list:
  - curl
  - wget

# Install a package using a specific package provider
- action: package install
  name: curl
  provider: pkgin

# Install a package specifying a repository
- action: package.repository
  provider: homebrew
  name: foo-repository/formulae
- action: package.install
  name: foo
  provider: homebrew

Local package install support

Some package providers allow for installing a package from the local file system. An example of this would be .pkg files that can be installed using FreeBSD's package manager pkg. As of this time, it requires that the file property be set in the action's definition.

List of supported package providers:

• pkg (FreeBSD)
• aptitude (debian/ubuntu)

If you would like to have this feature supported on another package provider, please open an issue at the comtrya GitHub repository.

Example

- action: package.install
  name: /some/path/to/file/nano-8.1.pkg
  file: true

package.repository

RepositoryKey

apt (Debian, Ubuntu)

For apt, name is the repository in the one-line format <uri> <suite> [<component>...]. Comtrya writes it as a deb822 file to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/comtrya-<uri>.sources and runs apt update. If a key is given, it's downloaded to /usr/share/keyrings/<name>.asc and used as Signed-By.

- action: package.repository
  name: "https://download.docker.com/linux/debian {{ os.codename }} stable"
  key:
    name: docker
    url: https://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg

- action: package.install
  name: docker-ce

On Ubuntu, name can also be a PPA such as ppa:neovim-ppa/stable, which is added with add-apt-repository.