NAME

       pkgsync - Automated package synchronization tool

SYNOPSIS

       pkgsync

DESCRIPTION

       pkgsync is a tool for keeping multiple machines reasonably similar and clean. Packages can either be in a
       `must be installed', `may be installed' or `must  not  be  installed'  list  (which  is  presumed  to  be
       distributed  separately  using  a tool such as rdist or cfengine).  pkgsync will take care of meeting the
       demands put down in the lists, and then removing everything that is not in the `must' or `may'  list  and
       is not necessary for their operations (as determined by aptitude).

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
              Print a short help text and exit.

       -s, --simulate
              Do  everything  as  usual, but put aptitude in simulation mode, causing it to never do any changes
              (except update and autoclean, which should both be harmless) to your system.  This  is  especially
              useful on a new system to make sure pkgsync behaves as expected.

              Note  that  aptitude  prints  out  its intended actions _before_ running the conflict resolver. If
              there's a conflict somewhere, chances are that the results on your system will be  different  from
              what aptitude prints out.

       -k, --keep-unused
              Instruct  aptitude to not remove cruft (ie. unused packages); this is morally equivalent to having
              an "*" entry in mayhave.

       -d, --dpkg-glob
              When encountering a wildcard pattern, pkgsync tries to `un-glob' it.  Traditionally, this was done
              using  dpkg -- however, in later versions one can use aptitude instead. Using aptitude is a little
              slower, but the syntax is a lot more flexible, supporting regular expressions and various searches
              on  fields.  Giving  --dpkg-glob  makes  pkgsync  use  dpkg,  which  is not very useful except for
              backwards compatibility.

       -a, --aptitude-glob
              Use aptitude's globbing instead of dpkg's globbing (see above). This option is the default.

SEE ALSO

       /usr/share/doc/pkgsync/README.Debian (complete tutorial and reference documentation)

AUTHOR

       pkgsync is Copyright 2004-2007 Steinar H. Gunderson <sgunderson@bigfoot.com>.

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