CRUX prt-get

ID

prt-get

Home page

https://crux.nu/Main/Prt-get

Version requirement

>= 5.19

Platforms

🐧 Linux (CRUX only)

Operations

installed · outdated · search · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove · sync

purl types

pkg:prt-get

CLI name

prt-get

Issues and PRs

📦 manager: prt-get

Source

meta_package_manager/managers/prt_get.py

The ports front-end of CRUX.

Documentation: prt-get(8) man page.

Caution

CRUX builds every port from source, so an install or an upgrade compiles. mpm caps a mutating operation at 500 seconds, which a large port outlasts by hours. Raise it for this manager with [mpm.managers.prt-get] timeout.

Note

sync() runs the sibling ports binary rather than prt-get, that being the tool CRUX gives the ports tree. mpm resolves it from the same directory as cli_path.

Warning

prt-get listorphans is deliberately left unmapped. It lists “ports with no packages depending on them”, which on a stock CRUX install includes bash, binutils and coreutils: the base system is depended on by nothing, so feeding that list to an orphan sweep would remove the machine. That is a different question from the one orphans() asks, which is which packages were pulled in as dependencies and are no longer required.

What mpm adds to prt-get

Through mpm, prt-get gains --exact and --extended search, to narrow to exact names or match descriptions.

Bigger still, mpm reaches across every manager at once: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover prt-get alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill of materials.

Every mpm command also gains --dry-run and --plan previews, cross-scheme version comparison and purl identifiers. See manager augmentations for how each one is built.

Your prt-get commands, in mpm

You already know prt-get: each operation maps one-to-one onto mpm, in an interface shared by every manager.

To…

With prt-get

With mpm

List what’s installed

prt-get listinst -v

mpm --prt-get installed

List outdated packages

prt-get diff

mpm --prt-get outdated

Search for a package

`prt-get printf %n

%v

Install a package

sudo prt-get depinst dosfstools

mpm install pkg:prt-get/dosfstools

Upgrade one package

sudo prt-get update dosfstools

mpm --prt-get upgrade dosfstools

Upgrade everything

sudo prt-get sysup

mpm --prt-get upgrade --all

Remove a package

sudo prt-get remove dosfstools

mpm remove pkg:prt-get/dosfstools

Prefix any command above with --dry-run to simulate the underlying manager calls without touching the system: the safe way to watch what mpm would do before trusting it.

Operations

Operation

Supported

Notes

installed

✓

outdated

✓

orphans

search

✓

exact and extended search backfilled by mpm

install

✓

upgrade

✓

upgrade_all

✓

remove

✓

sync

✓

cleanup

doctor

Selecting and configuring prt-get

Deselect prt-get for a single run with --no-prt-get, or persist the choice in your configuration:

[mpm]
prt-get = false

Keep it enabled but tune how mpm drives it with a per-manager override:

[mpm.managers.prt-get]
timeout = 900

mpm config-template prt-get prints every overridable attribute as a ready-to-paste block.

Recipes

A few jobs you would otherwise script around prt-get, one mpm command each:

  • Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --prt-get dump prt-get.toml, then mpm restore prt-get.toml on the next one.

  • Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --prt-get sbom (CycloneDX by default, --spdx for SPDX).

Privilege escalation

System-wide manager: mpm wraps its privileged operations in sudo out of the box. Instead of letting the tool prompt mid-run, mpm primes the credential cache up-front, with a single branded password prompt at most. Turn escalation off for rootless setups with --no-sudo or the per-manager sudo override.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Cooldown

State of CRUX prt-get’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

Status: ❌ None (CRUX ports)

A cooldown only pays off where a compromised release can be withdrawn while the clock runs, and can only be emulated where the registry dates its releases. From the retraction table:

  • Registry: Source-based recipe trees

  • Retraction: Index revert of the recipe tree

  • Publish date: ❌ a recipe carries no publication date

With --cooldown set, mpm skips this manager’s install and upgrade operations rather than run them unguarded (fail-closed); --cooldown best-effort opts back in.

Version probe

The version is probed by running:

$ prt-get version
prt-get 5.19.5 by Johannes Winkelmann, [email protected]

and extracted with:

r"prt-get\s+(?P<version>\S+)"

Reference traces

Raw native outputs captured in the manager source: the reference mpm’s parsers were written against. If you know CRUX prt-get well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ prt-get listinst -v
acl 2.3.2-1
attr 2.5.2-1
autoconf 2.72-1
automake 1.17-1
bash 5.2.37-1
bc 1.08.1-1

$ prt-get diff
Differences between installed packages and ports tree:

Port                Installed           Available in the ports tree

acl                 2.3.2-1             2.4.0-1
attr                2.5.2-1             2.6.0-1
autoconf            2.72-1              2.73-1
automake            1.17-1              1.18.1-1
bash                5.2.37-1            5.3.15-1

Feed any of these through mpm and the raw output becomes one uniform table, the same shape for every manager: filter it, project columns, or export it (mpm --prt-get installed --output json, or csv, toml, yaml), each package carrying a purl and a version comparable across managers.

Changelog

  • 8.0.0.dev0 (unreleased)

    • Add the CRUX ports front-end, with inventory, outdated, catalog search, install, remove, single-port upgrade, full upgrade and ports-tree sync.