Install Debian packages in order

Let's say you've downloaded many Debian packages into a folder, and then later you want to install them. You'll need to do this in the reverse order of their dependency tree. Packages without dependencies get installed first, etc.

This CLI creates a shell script to be used later to correctly install the folder of .deb files in a correct order.

It is assumed that this CLI is being run in a Debian/Ubuntu environment with access to the dpkg-deb command to inspect .deb files for metadata.

Usage

You can fetch Debian packages and store the *.deb files in a specific folder:

apt-get install -y -d -o debug::nolocking=true \
    -o dir::cache=path/to/many/debs \
    package1 package2

The two packages package1 and package2 might have nested dependency Debian packages. Later, when you want to install the packages, you need to install them in reverse order so package1 and package2 are installed last.

You can either:

. <(install-debs-in-order path/to/many/debs)

Or, after caching the files with apt-get install -o dir::cache, you can create a script for the next person to use to install the packages:

cd path/to/many/debs
install-debs-in-order . > install-packages.sh

Later, someone can install the packages with that script:

cd path/to/whereever/the/debs/are/now
. install-packages.sh

Installation

The install-debs-in-order CLI can be installed via Debian:

wget -q -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/starkandwayne/homebrew-cf/master/public.key | apt-key add -
echo "deb http://apt.starkandwayne.com stable main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/starkandwayne.list
apt-get update

apt-get install install-debs-in-order

Run tests inside Ubuntu Docker container

bin/test

Run inside Ubuntu Docker container

docker run -ti \
    -v $PWD:/go/src/github.com/starkandwayne/install-debs-in-order \
    -v $PWD:/app golang:1 \
    /app/bin/install-and-run /app/fixtures/debs/archives

Inside the container:

go test github.com/starkandwayne/install-debs-in-order
go install github.com/starkandwayne/install-debs-in-order
install-debs-in-order

Install from source

go get github.com/starkandwayne/install-debs-in-order

Fetch a fixture package

docker run -ti -v $PWD/fixtures/debs:/debs golang:1 bash

Inside the container:

apt-get update
apt-get install -o debug::nolocking=true -o dir::cache=/debs \
    tree

The tree_1.7.0-5_amd64.deb file will be placed in /debs/archives/tree_1.7.0-5_amd64.deb, which maps to fixtures/debs/archives/tree_1.7.0-5_amd64.deb in this project.

To see the list of dependencies:

# dpkg-deb -f archives/tree*.deb Depends
libc6 (>= 2.14)