Solaris for Linux admins - part 3: Blastwave

I've already written about Solaris package management. Today, more details about Blastwave - software repository for Solaris which comes with a tool that works a lot like Apt or Yum. Enabling Blastwave takes a few minutes and several simple steps. Note that half of them deals with package signing. If you don't care about security, you can skip them (but then, get off my Internet before you become a zombie PC).

1. Install pkgutil

pkgadd -d http://blastwave.network.com/csw/pkgutil_`/sbin/uname -p`.pkg

2. Fetch the catalog

/opt/csw/bin/pkgutil --catalog

Note: you should probably add /opt/csw/bin to your $PATH. From now on I'll assume you did that and omit the /opt/csw/bin part from the commands.

3. Install required software to check package signatures

pkgutil --install gnupg textutils

You'll notice it'll also fetch dependencies.

4. Get Blastwave package signing key

gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys A1999E90

Note: don't trust me, check the key ID on Blastwave website. It might have changed. Or I might be tricking you into installing malware.

5. Set the key as trusted

gpg --edit-key A1999E90

Enter trust, than 5 and quit.

6. Enable signature verification
Edit /opt/csw/etc/pkgutil.conf. Uncomment the lines:

use_gpg=true
use_md5=true

7. Download catalog again

8. That's it
You can now install the software the way you'd do with apt-get or yum, for example:

pkgutil --install mc

(personally, I think any Unix is much more user friendly with Midnight Commander)

pkgutil --remove [package name]

will remove a package with all dependencies.