Debian – How to find out why was specific package installed by apt

debian

Just tried to install the following package in my Buster – monitoring-plugins-standard and noticed the following output:

The following additional packages will be installed:
  dirmngr gnupg gnupg-l10n gnupg-utils gpg gpg-agent gpg-wks-client gpg-wks-server gpgconf gpgsm libarchive13 libassuan0 libavahi-client3 libavahi-common-data libavahi-common3
  libcups2 libdbi1 libgpgme11 libksba8 libldb1 libnet-snmp-perl libnpth0 libpq5 libradcli4 libsensors-config libsensors5 libsmbclient libsnmp-base libsnmp30 libtalloc2 libtdb1
  libtevent0 libtirpc-common libtirpc3 libwbclient0 pinentry-curses python-crypto python-gpg python-ldb python-samba python-talloc python-tdb rpcbind samba-common samba-common-bin
  samba-dsdb-modules samba-libs smbclient snmp

Can someone help me to understand why does apt want to install for example gnupg?

Looking at the recommended packages:

Recommends: bind9-host | host, dnsutils, libnet-snmp-perl, rpcbind, smbclient, snmp, sudo, libdbi1 (>= 0.8.4), libgnutls30 (>= 3.6.5), libldap-2.4-2 (>= 2.4.7), libmariadb3 (>= 3.0.0), libpq5, libradcli4, zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)

I can't understand which exact package forces gnupg installation. Can someone explain me additional packages installation logic with gnupg package as example? Thanks.

Best Answer

aptitude can tell you:

$ aptitude why monitoring-plugins-standard gnupg
p   monitoring-plugins-standard Recommends smbclient
i A smbclient                   Depends    samba-common (= 2:4.9.5+dfsg-5+deb10u1)
i A samba-common                Recommends samba-common-bin
i A samba-common-bin            Recommends samba-dsdb-modules
i A samba-dsdb-modules          Depends    libgpgme11 (>= 1.2.0)
i A libgpgme11                  Recommends gpgsm
i A gpgsm                       Recommends gnupg (= 2.2.12-1+deb10u1)

This works even if none of the packages are installed.

Related Solutions

Package-Management – How to Find Which Package a File Belongs To

apt-file

apt-file provides the feature of searching for a package providing a binary (like Debian or Ubuntu), it is not installed by default but in the repositories.

apt-file search <path-to-file>

You may want to update once before searching...

apt-file update

For example, let's search for the not installed binary mysqldump:

$ apt-file search /usr/bin/mysqldump

mysql-client-5.1: /usr/bin/mysqldump
mysql-client-5.1: /usr/bin/mysqldumpslow
mysql-cluster-client-5.1: /usr/bin/mysqldump
mysql-cluster-client-5.1: /usr/bin/mysqldumpslow

It's also possible to list the contents of a (not-installed) package:

$ apt-file list mysql-client-5.1

mysql-client-5.1: /usr/bin/innochecksum
mysql-client-5.1: /usr/bin/innotop
mysql-client-5.1: /usr/bin/myisam_ftdump
mysql-client-5.1: /usr/bin/mysql_client_test
...

yum

yum accepts the command whatprovides (or provides) to search for installed or not installed binaries:

yum whatprovides <path-to-file>

Again, the not installed mysqldump:

$ yum whatprovides /usr/bin/mysqldump

mysql-5.1.51-2.fc14.i686 : MySQL client programs and shared libraries
Repo        : fedora
Matched from: 
Filename    : /usr/bin/mysqldump

mysql-5.1.51-1.fc14.i686 : MySQL client programs and shared libraries
Repo        : fedora
Matched from: 
Filename    : /usr/bin/mysqldump

zypper

zypper's search command can check file lists when used with the -f option.

zypper se -f /bin/mksh
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S | Name | Summary           | Type   
--+------+-------------------+--------
  | mksh | MirBSD Korn Shell | package

Webpin provides a webbased solution, there is even a script for the command-line.

pkgfile

Available as pkgtools for pacman based systems. Provides a similar search feature like the others above:

$ pkgfile -si /usr/bin/mysqldump

Name      : mysql-clients
Version   : 5.1.54-1
Url       : http://www.mysql.com/
License   : GPL
Depends   : libmysqlclient
...

Debian – How to mark “not fully installed” apt-get package as “successfully installed”

You should fix /etc/initramfs/post-update.d/flash-kernel so that it successfully flashes your kernel & initrd. It's in /etc, so you're free to edit it to make it work on your board.

If you can't edit it to make it work (e.g., flashing is done with JTAG), then you ought to have it print out a big warning reminding you to flash it, and exit 0.

Once you've fixed it, then you can run dpkg --configure -a.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Package-Management – How to Find Which Package a File Belongs To

Debian – How to mark “not fully installed” apt-get package as “successfully installed”

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