INSTALL(1) BSD General Commands Manual INSTALL(1)NAMEinstall — install binaries
SYNOPSISinstall [-Ubcprs] [-B suffix] [-D destdir] [-f flags] [-M metalog]
[-T tags] [-a command] [-m mode] [-N dbdir] [-o owner] [-g group]
[-l linkflags] [-h hash] [-S stripflag] file1 file2
install [-Ubcprs] [-B suffix] [-D destdir] [-f flags] [-M metalog]
[-T tags] [-a command] [-m mode] [-N dbdir] [-o owner] [-g group]
[-l linkflags] [-h hash] [-S stripflag] file1 ... fileN directory
install-d [-Up] [-D destdir] [-M metalog] [-T tags] [-a command]
[-m mode] [-N dbdir] [-o owner] [-g group] directory ...
DESCRIPTION
The file(s) are copied (or linked if the -l option is specified) to the
target file or directory. If the destination is a directory, then the
file is copied into directory with its original filename. If the target
file already exists, it is either renamed to file.old if the -b option is
given or overwritten if permissions allow; an alternate backup suffix may
be specified via the -B option's argument.
-a command
Run command on the target after installation and stripping (-s),
but before ownership, permissions or timestamps are set and
before renaming (-r) occurs. command is invoked via the sh(1)
shell, allowing a single -a argument be to specified to install
which the shell can then tokenize.
-b Backup any existing files before overwriting them by renaming
them to file.old. See -B for specifying a different backup suf‐
fix.
-B suffix
Use suffix as the backup suffix if -b is given. If suffix con‐
tains a '%' sign, a numbered backup will be performed, and the
%-pattern will be expanded using sprintf(3), given an integer
counter as the backup number. The counter used starts from 0,
and the first available name resulting from the expansion is
used.
-c Copy the file. This is the default behavior; the flag is main‐
tained for backwards compatibility only.
-d Create directories. Missing parent directories are created as
required.
-D destdir
Specify the DESTDIR (top of the file hierarchy) that the items
are installed in to. If -M metalog is in use, a leading string
of “destdir” will be removed from the file names logged to the
metalog. This option does not affect where the actual files are
installed.
-f flags
Specify the target's file flags. (See chflags(1) for a list of
possible flags and their meanings.)
-g group
Specify a group.
-h hash
When copying, calculate the digest of the files with hash to
store in the -M metalog. Supported digests:
none No hash. This is the default.
md5 The MD5 cryptographic message digest.
rmd160 The RMD-160 cryptographic message digest.
sha1 The SHA-1 cryptographic message digest.
sha256 The 256-bits SHA-2 cryptographic message digest of
the file.
sha384 The 384-bits SHA-2 cryptographic message digest of
the file.
sha512 The 512-bits SHA-2 cryptographic message digest of
the file.
-l linkflags
Instead of copying the file make a link to the source. The type
of the link is determined by the linkflags argument. Valid
linkflags are: a (absolute), r (relative), h (hard), s (sym‐
bolic), m (mixed). Absolute and relative have effect only for
symbolic links. Mixed links are hard links for files on the same
filesystem, symbolic otherwise.
-M metalog
Write the metadata associated with each item installed to metalog
in an mtree(8) “full path” specification line. The metadata
includes: the file name and file type, and depending upon other
options, the owner, group, file flags, modification time, and
tags.
-m mode
Specify an alternative mode. The default mode is set to rwxr-xr-
x (0755). The specified mode may be either an octal or symbolic
value; see chmod(1) for a description of possible mode values.
-N dbdir
Use the user database text file master.passwd and group database
text file group from dbdir, rather than using the results from
the system's getpwnam(3) and getgrnam(3) (and related) library
calls.
-o owner
Specify an owner.
-p Preserve the source files access and modification times.
-r Install to a temporary file and then rename the file to its final
destination name. This can be used for precious files, to avoid
truncation of the original when error conditions (filesystem full
etc.) occur.
-sinstall exec's the command strip(1) to strip binaries so that
install can be portable over a large number of systems and binary
types. If the environment variable STRIP is set, it is used as
the strip(1) program.
-S stripflags
install passes stripflags as option arguments to strip(1). When
-S is used, strip(1) is invoked via the sh(1) shell, allowing a
single -S argument be to specified to install which the shell can
then tokenize. Normally, install invokes strip(1) directly.
This flag implies -s.
-T tags
Specify the mtree(8) tags to write out for the file when using -M
metalog.
-U Indicate that install is running unprivileged, and that it should
not try to change the owner, the group, or the file flags of the
destination. The information that would have been updated can be
stored in a log file with -M metalog.
By default, install preserves all file flags, with the exception of the
``nodump'' flag.
The install utility attempts to prevent copying a file onto itself.
Installing /dev/null creates an empty file.
ENVIRONMENT
STRIP The program used to strip installed binaries when the -s
option is used. If unspecified, /usr/bin/strip is used.
EXIT STATUS
The install utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
SEE ALSOchflags(1), chgrp(1), chmod(1), cp(1), mv(1), strip(1), chown(8),
mtree(8)HISTORY
The install utility appeared in 4.2BSD.
BSD May 1, 2009 BSD
