Well the Jolly Poacher has started a soundcheck downstairs from my
office and I cannot do any work so here goes another in the occasional
series...
You should emerge gentoolkit soon after your install. the gentoolkit
package contains many useful utilities to help manage gentoo, including
the following:
euse
====
gives information on USE flags, for example:
-i, --info - print USE flag information for the the given USE flags.
-c, --conf - print USE flag setting in make.conf
-d, --defaults - print USE flag setting in make.defaults
-e, --env - print USE flag setting in environment variable USE
-E, --enable - enable use flag to make.conf e.g. -E mozilla puts
mozilla in make.conf. Mandatory argument.
-D, --disable - disable use flag from make.conf e.g. -D mozilla
puts -mozilla in make.conf. Mandatory argument.
qpkg - query packages
=====
$qpkg ---lists all the packages in the portage tree
$qpkg -I --- lists all the packages installed in your system (uppercase
eye) (similar to rpm -qa)
$qpkg -l samba -- lists all the files installed by samba (lowercase
ell) (viz rpm -ql samba)
$qpkg -f /bin/bash --- which package installed the file /bin/bash (viz
rpm -qf /bin/bash)
$qpkg -l gentoolkit|grep bin gives a hint about what executables
gentoolkit has installed
glsa-check
===========
This program is intended to tell you about GLSA'a outstanding on your
system. GLSA=Gentoo Linux Security Announcement - usually these are security
fixes from some upstreampackage. The functionality is new and comes with
the following:
WARNING: This tool is completely new and not very tested, so it should
not be used on production systems. It's mainly a test tool for the new
GLSA release and distribution system, it's functionality will later be
merged into emerge and equery.
Run it from the command line to see the options
etcat
=====
gives quite a lot of useful info re packages
-v - versions
example
$ etcat -v postfix
[ Results for search key : postfix ]
[ Candidate applications found : 8 ]
Only printing found installed programs.
* net-mail/postfix :
[ ] 1.1.11.20020917 (0)
[ ] 1.1.11.20020917-r1 (0)
[ ] 2.0.11 (0)
[ ] 2.0.16-r1 (0)
[M~ ] 2.0.18 (0)
[ I] 2.0.19 (0)
[M~ ] 2.0.19-r1 (0)
[M~ ] 2.0.19-r2 (0)
This shows that there are 8 versions of postfix in portage, three of
them are masked (M) and 2.0.19 is installed (I)
-u - another tool to look at those important use flags
example:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] nick $ etcat -u postfix
[ Colour Code : set unset ]
[ Legend : (U) Col 1 - Current USE flags ]
[ : (I) Col 2 - Installed With USE flags ]
U I [ Found these USE variables in : net-mail/postfix-2.0.19 ]
+ + ipv6 : Adds support for IP version 6
+ + pam : Adds support PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules)
- - ldap : Adds LDAP support (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)
+ + mysql : Adds mySQL support
+ + postgres : Adds support for the postgresql database
+ + ssl : Adds support for Secure Socket Layer connections
+ + sasl : Adds support for the Simple Authentication and Security Layer
+ + maildir : Adds support for maildir (~/.maildir) style mail spools
- - mbox : Adds support for mbox (/var/spool/mail) style mail spools
This shows that there is support in postfix's ebuild to include or
exclude support for ipv6, pam, ldap, mysql, postgres, ssl, sasl, maildir
and mbox. the package was installed with support for all except ldap and mbox,
and if i reinstalled it now the result would be the same Ie thue use
flags that affect postfix have not changed since i installed it)
etcat -c --gives the changelog file, or at least the most recent parts
of it. This is the cjhangelog maintained by the gentoo packager. It
often tells you why a change has been made, eg why your system wants to
recompile samba for the third time this month. It maybe a bugfix for the
ppc architecture, it may be something important.
equery
======
this is the new fangled but I think unfinished replacement for a number
of the above tools. for example:
equery depgraph postfix -- produces a looong list of all the
dependencies for postfix, right down to the brass tacks.
$ equery which postfix
/usr/portage/net-mail/postfix/postfix-2.0.19.ebuild
gives the full path to the ebuild file for the packagename
run equery without any parameters to get a fuller description of its
abilities.
Other tips
=========
most of the stuff in gentoolkit is a work in progress and sometimes not
well documented. running the xommand without a parameter usually
prodeces some documentation. However watch this with qpkg, as the
no-parameter default is to list every package in portage - a tedious
process unless your system flies.
secondly some of the programs produce nice colour output, pretty to look
at but a pain if you are piping the results into another utility. that
can be solved with the -nc parameter.
have a play, you can't do too much harm with these tools, just be
sensible, and /don't/ run them as root unless there is a clear need!
--
Nick Rout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
