INSTALL(1) General Commands Manual INSTALL(1)
NAME
install – install binaries
SYNOPSIS
install [-bCcpSsUv] [-B suffix] [-D destdir] [-f flags] [-g group]
[-h hash] [-l linkflags] [-M metalog] [-m mode] [-o owner]
[-T tags] file1 file2
install [-bCcpSsUv] [-B suffix] [-D destdir] [-f flags] [-g group]
[-h hash] [-l linkflags] [-M metalog] [-m mode] [-o owner]
[-T tags] file1 ... fileN directory
install -d [-Uv] [-D destdir] [-g group] [-h hash] [-M metalog] [-m mode]
[-o owner] [-T tags] 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.
The options are as follows:
-B suffix
Use suffix as the backup suffix if -b is given.
-b Back up any existing files before overwriting them by renaming
them to file.old. See -B for specifying a different backup
suffix.
-C Copy the file. If the target file already exists and the files
are the same, then do not change the modification time of the
target. If the target's file flags and mode need not to be
changed, the target's inode change time is also unchanged.
-c Copy the file. This is actually the default. The -c option is
only included for backwards compatibility.
-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.
-d Create directories. Missing parent directories are created as
required.
-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. A numeric GID is allowed.
-h hash
When copying, calculate the digest of the files with hash to
store in the -M metalog. When -d is given no hash is emitted.
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.
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
(symbolic), 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 alternate 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.
-o owner
Specify an owner. A numeric UID is allowed.
-p Preserve the access and modification times. Copy the file, as if
the -C (compare and copy) option is specified, except if the
target file does not already exist or is different, then preserve
the access and modification times of the source file.
-S Safe copy. Normally, install unlinks an existing target before
installing the new file. With the -S flag a temporary file is
used and then renamed to be the target. The reason this is safer
is that if the copy or rename fails, the existing target is left
untouched.
-s install exec's the command strip(1) to strip binaries so that
install can be portable over a large number of systems and binary
types. See below for how install can be instructed to use
another program to strip binaries.
-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.
-v Cause install to be verbose, showing files as they are installed
or backed up.
By default, install preserves all file flags, with the exception of the
“nodump” flag.
The install utility attempts to prevent moving a file onto itself.
Installing /dev/null creates an empty file.
ENVIRONMENT
The install utility checks for the presence of the STRIPBIN environment
variable and if present, uses the assigned value as the program to run if
and when the -s option has been specified.
If the DONTSTRIP environment variable is present, install will ignore any
specification of the -s option.
FILES
INS@XXXXXX If either -S option is specified, or the -C or -p option is
used in conjunction with the -s option, temporary files named
INS@XXXXXX, where XXXXXX is decided by mkstemp(3), are
created in the target directory.
EXIT STATUS
The install utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
COMPATIBILITY
Historically install moved files by default. The default was changed to
copy in FreeBSD 4.4.
SEE ALSO
chflags(1), chgrp(1), chmod(1), cp(1), mv(1), strip(1), mmap(2),
getgrnam(3), getpwnam(3), chown(8)
HISTORY
The install utility appeared in 4.2BSD.
BUGS
The meaning of the -M option has changed as of FreeBSD 9.2 and it now
takes an argument. Command lines that used the old -M will get an error
or in rare cases will append logs to the first of multiple source files
rather than installing it.
Temporary files may be left in the target directory if install exits
abnormally.
File flags cannot be set by fchflags(2) over a NFS file system. Other
file systems do not have a concept of flags. The install utility will
only warn when flags could not be set on a file system that does not
support them.
The install utility with -v falsely says a file is copied when -C snaps
hard links.
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