Manpages - aura.8

aura - package manager utility and AUR helper

aura OPERATION

aura is a secure, multilingual package manager for Arch Linux written in Haskell. It connects to both the official Arch repositories and to the Arch User Repositories (AUR), allowing easy control of all packages on an Arch system. Aura allows all pacman operations and provides new custom ones for dealing with AUR packages.

-A, –aursync \*[multi-optional packages]

Perform actions involving the *A*UR. Default action installs packages from the AUR.

During building, makepkg output is not shown by default. After building, the built *.pkg.tar.xz file is moved to the package cache and installed from there. This allows for easy AUR package downgrading.

-B, –save

Manage the saving and restoring of the global package state. Default action stores a record of all currently installed packages and their versions.

-C, –downgrade \*[multi-optional packages]

Perform actions involving the package *C*ache. Default action downgrades specified packages.

This process is interactive, allowing the user to choose from any previous version they have available in the package cache.

-L, –viewlog

Perform actions involving the pacman *L*ogfile. Default action opens the log for read-only viewing.

-O, –orphans \*[multi-optional packages]

Perform actions involving *O*rphan packages. Default action is to list the current orphans.

Orphan packages are packages installed as dependencies, but are no longer required by any other package.

-P, –analysis

Perform security analysis of a *P*KGBUILD. Default action reads PKGBUILD from stdin.

Useful for package maintainers and sysadmins to verify the safety of the PKGBUILD files that they write. To test any package on the AUR, try the following: aura -Ap */package/ | aura -P*

-a, –delmakedeps

Uninstalls build dependencies that are no longer required after installing the main package. This prevents the creation of orphan packages. Also note that while the package itself will be uninstalled, its package file will remain in the cache.

-c, –clean

After a package’s tarball has been built and copied to the package cache, delete its build directory immediately.

-d, –deps \*[multi packages]

View all dependencies of packages. This process is recursive for AUR packages, so all dependencies of dependencies (and so on) will also be shown. This can aid the pre-install package research process.

-i, –info \*[multi packages]

View information about AUR packages.

-k, –diff

Show PKGBUILD diffs. When upgrading, using this option will compare the most and second-most recent PKGBUILDs and output changes in colour.

-p, –pkgbuild \*[multi packages]

View PKGBUILDs of AUR packages. Use this before installing new packages to confirm that the build scripts aren’t doing anything fishy.

-q, –quiet

Display less information about certain -A operations (this is useful when processing Aura’s output in a script). In particular, search and view dependencies will only show uncoloured package names.

-s, –search

Search AUR for packages containing /word/s (not regex) in their names or descriptions. Multiple terms will narrow down the search. Results are sorted by votes. Suboptions:

–abc

Sorts results alphabetically.

–head[*=/N/*]

Only show the first N results. N defaults to 10.

–tail[*=/N/*]

Only show the last N results. N defaults to 10.

-r, –both

Show results from the official repos as well.

-u, –sysupgrade

Upgrade all installed AUR packages. -Au is like -Su but for AUR packages.

-w, –downloadonly \*[multi packages]

Retrieve AUR packages source tarballs, but do not build/install/upgrade anything.

-x, –unsuppress

Unsuppress *makepkg*(8) output during building. By default this output is suppressed for a more silent install. Note that when this option isn’t used, makepkg output is actually collected and printed if any errors occur.

–json \[multi packages]*

Query the AUR RPC for packages info as raw JSON. Good for debugging.

*–build*/ path/

Specify build path when building AUR packages. Only the full path of a pre-existing directory can be used. Example: aura -A foo –build=/full/path/to/build/location/

*–builduser*/ user/

Specify the user to build packages as. This can be useful when logged in as root and a build user is available.

–devel

When ran with -Au, adds all development packages to the queue of packages to upgrade. Devel packages are those pulled directly from online repositories, via git / mercurial / etc.

–dryrun

When ran with -A or -Au, update checks, PKGBUILD diffs, and dependency checks will be performed, but nothing will be built. Also usable with -M.

–force

Always (re)build the specified packages. Usually Aura will not rebuild packages whose versions are already available in the local package cache.

–hotedit

Before building, prompt the user if they wish to view/edit the PKGBUILD, as well as any .install or .patch files. However, research into packages (and by extension, their PKGBUILDs) should be done by the user before any building occurs. Please use -Ap and -Ad for this, as they will be much faster at presenting information than searching the AUR website manually. Note that, since aura is run through sudo, your local value of $*EDITOR* may not be preserved. Run as “sudo -E aura -A –hotedit . . .” to preserve your environment. To always allow environment variables to be passed, have a look at the env_reset and env_keep options in *sudoers*(5).

–skipdepcheck

Perform no dependency solving. Consider this when using –hotedit to avoid building annoying dependencies that aren’t necessary for your special use-case.

*–vcspath*/ path/

Save the cloned sources of VCS packages (i.e. those that end in *-git, etc.) in the given path, instead of the default var/cache/aura/vcs.

-c, –clean

“ states-to-retain Retains a given number of the most recently saved package states and removes the rest.

-r, –restore

Restores a record kept with -B. Attempts to downgrade any packages that were upgraded since the chosen save. Will remove any that weren’t installed at the time.

-l, –list

Show all saved package state filenames.

-b, –backup

“ path Backup the package cache to a given directory. The given directory must already exist. During copying, progress will be shown. If the copy takes too long, you may want to reduce the number of older versions of each package by using -Cc.

-c, –clean

“ versions-to-retain Retains a given number of package versions for each package, and deletes the rest from the package cache. Count is made from the most recent version, so using: aura -Cc 3

would save the three most recent versions of each package file. Giving the number 0 as an argument is identical to -Scc.

–notsaved

Remove only those package files which are not saved in a package record (a la -B).

-s, –search

“ regex Search the package cache via a regex. Any package name that matches the regex will be output as-is.

-i, –info \*[multi packages]

Displays install/upgrade history for given packages. Under the “Recent Actions” section, only the last five entries will be displayed. If there are less than five actions ever performed with the package, what is available will be printed.

-s, –search

“ regex Search the pacman log file via a regex. Useful for singling out any and all actions performed on a package.

-a, –adopt \*[multi packages]

Mark packages as being explicitly installed (i.e. it’s not a dependency).

-j, –abandon

Uninstall all orphan packages.

-f, –file

“ path Analyse a PKGBUILD at the specified path.

-d, –dir

“ path Analyse a /path//PKGBUILD found in the specified directory.

-a, –audit

Analyse the PKGBUILDs of all locally installed AUR packages.

–noconfirm

Never ask for any Aura or Pacman confirmation. Any time a prompt would appear, say before building or installation, it is assumed the user answered in whatever way would progress the program.

–needed

Don’t rebuild/reinstall packages that are already up to date.

–debug

View some handy debugging information.

*–color*/ when/

Specify when to enable colouring. Without this flag, both Aura and Pacman will attempt to colour text if the terminal allows it. Otherwise, you can pass always or never to be specific about your wants.

*–overwrite*/ glob/

If there are file conflicts during installation, overwrite conflicting files that match the given glob pattern.

–ignorearch

Ignores processor architecture when building packages.

–allsource

Creates a .src file containing all the downloaded sources (code, etc.) and stores it at var/cache/aura/src. To change the location where sources are stored, use the –allsourcepath flag on command line or via *aura.conf*(5).

–skipinteg

Skip package source integrity checks (hash sums).

–skippgpcheck

Skip all PGP checks.

Aura is available in multiple languages. As options, they can be used with either their English names or their real names written in their native characters. The available languages are, in option form:

• If you build a package and then choose not to install it, the built package file will still be moved to the cache. You can then install it whenever you want with -C.
• Research packages using -Ad (–deps), -Ai (–info) and -Ap (–pkgbuild)!
• When upgrading, use -Akua instead of just -Au. This will remove make deps, as well as show PKGBUILD diffs before building.

*aura.conf*(5), *pacman*(8), *pacman.conf*(5), *makepkg*(8)

It is not recommended to install non-AUR packages with pacman or aura. Aura will assume they are AUR packages during a -Au and attempt to upgrade them. If a name collision occurs (that is, if there is a legitimate AUR package with the same name as the one you installed) previous installations could be overwritten.

Colin Woodbury <colin@fosskers.ca>