How to search for a file in apk packages

Question

I would like to know, given a binary's name, which package I should install on Alpine Linux.

How can I do that?

Francesco Colista · Accepted Answer · 2022-04-07T13:16:07.670

27

You have three ways basically.

First: The package should be installed and you need to specify the full path :

apk info --who-owns /path/to/the/file

Second: Use the pkgs.alpinelinux.org website

Third: Use the api.alpinelinux.org API by filtering the json output. For this you need a json parser like jq:

apk add jq

then use the API with the instructions provided here

UPDATE on 2022-04-07

I've released a tiny utility that allows to search via CLI what can be found on pkgs.alpinelinux.org website: https://github.com/fcolista/apkfile

.: Francesco

edited Apr 07 '22 at 13:16

answered Jan 23 '17 at 17:47

Francesco Colista

1

`apk info` seems to be closer to `dpkg -S`. In my case I'm trying to answer the question "What package provides this binary that I know the name of", rather than where does this pre-existing file come from. – Att Righ Feb 15 '17 at 20:35
therefore, `apk info --who-owns /with/th/full/path` is the tool if you have the package installed, otherwise from a CLI is not possible. You should check [pkgs.alpinelinux.org/contents] (https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/contents) website. You write the binary name there, and it returns the package that contains that binary. – Francesco Colista Feb 16 '17 at 08:02
Using `apk info --who-owns`, how do you do if you don't know the file's full path? – Elouan Keryell-Even Apr 17 '18 at 15:20
No, you can't as yet...sorry – Francesco Colista Apr 18 '18 at 17:51
why is --who-owns undocumented? – Rolf Apr 22 '20 at 10:58
It's documented. Read better the output of "apk info --help" – Francesco Colista Apr 22 '20 at 11:18

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 02 '16 at 07:08

5

You're looking for the equivalent of Debian's apt-file for Alpine. Searching for that yields apk-file.

Basically apt-file but for alpine.

answered Sep 02 '16 at 07:08

2

That's what I'm after. It appears that *apk-file* is not an alpine package, you can install it with `go get github.com/jessfraz/apk-file` (it happily runs on non alpine systems). The binary is likely static so can probably be copied into docker containers etc. – Att Righ Feb 15 '17 at 20:38
3

apt-file basically parses pkgs.alpinelinux.org website...so using a JSON decode as i wrote before would be better, since does not need bloated software to reach the same goal. – Francesco Colista Jul 03 '17 at 09:55
Indeed, you can see that with `-d` option. And it [doesn't strip whitespaces](https://github.com/genuinetools/apk-file/issues/7). And for some reason with `--arch` it [doesn't display all the results](https://github.com/genuinetools/apk-file/issues/6). – x-yuri Jun 02 '20 at 16:56

Elouan Keryell-Even · Answer 3 · 2022-05-09T13:17:20.340

2

Go to the official Alpine package-browsing website: https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/contents
In the File search bar, type the name of the file you are looking for

Example looking for file telnet:

edited May 09 '22 at 13:17

answered Feb 15 '22 at 15:55

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 12 '22 at 20:12

2

given a binary's name, which package I should install on Alpine Linux.

The answer to the body of the question (not the same as the answer to the title of the question) is

apk search -xqa cmd:vim (where vim is the "binary's name"). In this case, there are two packages that provide that command.

answered Jul 12 '22 at 20:12

earboxer

This should be the accepted answer for the question. Other solutions that propose to use apk-file or the alpine package website are also valid, but for the specific case of finding which package provides a specific command, this one is the most straight forward. – Gaëtan Lehmann Jan 06 '23 at 12:25