opkg to apk cheat sheet

This is a cheat sheet which aims to help with a seamless transition from the previous opkg package manager to the new apk.

Other resources are

• apk's built-in help, which is quite good. Just run apk and you'll get the sub-command overview, then use sub-command help (apk add -h) to get details on options applicable to that sub-command.

• The forum support thread is the best place to ask for help or clarifications.

• The Alpine Linux User Handbook is Alpine-centric, but the command examples are quite good.

• Since apk-tools is part of a major distro, its man pages are published on all the usual sites. For example, see the Arch Linux wiki entry for the latest versions.

• Less accessible, but most authoritative is the apk-tools documentation source itself.

Just as with opkg, most commands allow an optional package name pattern (denoted [P] in commands below). And, like opkg, the patterns are file globs, e.g., *dns* matches every package with dns somewhere in its name.

Adding is substantially the same with both package managers. One difference is that apk wants you to provide valid signatures for all packages, while opkg ignores this on local ones, so if you're installing a non-standard (self-built) package, use the --allow-untrusted option:

$ apk add ./owut_2024.07.01~189b2721-r1.apk
ERROR: ./owut_2024.07.01~189b2721-r1.apk: UNTRUSTED signature

$ apk add --allow-untrusted ./owut_2024.07.01~189b2721-r1.apk
OK: 2313 MiB in 569 packages

The --update-cache option of apk allows you to perform an update at the same time you do the add, so you can now replace the traditional chained opkg commands with a single apk one.

opkg update && opkg install dnsmasq-full

becomes

apk --update-cache add dnsmasq-full

The --simulate option allows you to do a dry run of a command, to see its effect before you actually execute it.

$ apk del --simulate nmap
(1/1) Purging nmap (7.95-r1)
OK: 47 MiB in 288 packages

The apk is by default configured to update the package repositories defined in /etc/apk/repositories.d/ when apk add is used for the first time. This might be unwanted in some off-line (or air-gapped) scenarios, where apk is going to reach possibly remote package repositories to update its local package database before allowing to install the local package.

$ apk add ./owut_2024.07.01~189b2721-r1.apk 
fetch https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/x86/64/packages/packages.adb
Failed to send request: Operation not permitted
WARNING: updating and opening https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/targets/x86/64/packages/packages.adb: network error (check Internet connection and firewall)
...snip...
OK: 2313 MiB in 569 packages

If you don't want that default behavior, you can disable it with --repositories-file /dev/null option

$ apk add --repositories-file /dev/null ./owut_2024.07.01~189b2721-r1.apk
...snip...
OK: 2313 MiB in 569 packages

If you want this a permanent, simply remove /etc/apk/repositories.d, thus running mv /etc/apk/repositories.d /etc/apk/repositories.d-disabled.

To reiterate, [P] is a file glob in the following.

Interesting variants

• apk list --installed --manifest - produces a simple list of “package-name version” pairs that are easily parsed with awk or sed
• apk info - without any parameters lists only the installed package names, so no parsing needed
• apk list --orphaned - shows any dependencies that may have been orphaned, i.e., packages that have no declared top-level dependents. This may indicate that they are left over from an error in removing another package, but it may show packages that are required, but simply have incorrect dependencies. If you wish to remove an orphaned package, first make absolutely sure that it is not required for your system to function correctly.

Show all candidates via opkg:

$ opkg -A whatprovides dnsmasq  
What provides dnsmasq
    dnsmasq-dhcpv6
    dnsmasq
    dnsmasq-full

Show all candidates via apk:

$ apk list --providers dnsmasq
<dnsmasq> dnsmasq-2.90-r3 x86_64 {feeds/base/package/network/services/dnsmasq} (GPL-2.0)
<dnsmasq> dnsmasq-dhcpv6-2.90-r3 x86_64 {feeds/base/package/network/services/dnsmasq} (GPL-2.0)
<dnsmasq> dnsmasq-full-2.90-r3 x86_64 {feeds/base/package/network/services/dnsmasq} (GPL-2.0) [installed]

Show the installed provider for dnsmasq package via opkg:

$ opkg whatprovides dnsmasq
What provides dnsmasq
    dnsmasq-full

Show the installed provider for dnsmasq package via apk:

$ apk list --installed --providers dnsmasq
<dnsmasq> dnsmasq-full-2.90-r3 x86_64 {feeds/base/package/network/services/dnsmasq} (GPL-2.0) [installed]

You may occasionally see warnings such as:

WARNING: opening from cache … No such file or directory

These warnings usually occur when the local apk repository indexes are missingor outdated. In most cases they can be resolved by refreshing the packageindexes:

apk update

If the warnings persist but do not affect package installation, they aregenerally harmless.

Advanced users who prefer to hide these warnings can use a shell alias, for example:

alias apk='apk 2>/dev/null'

or, to keep real errors visible:

alias apk='apk 2> >(grep -v "WARNING: opening from cache")'