NAME

       aptitude-robot - automate package choice management

SYNOPSIS

       aptitude-robot [options]

       aptitude-robot --help

DESCRIPTION

       aptitude-robot uses configuration files to install and remove Debian software packages
       automatically.  This allows hands-off setup and maintenance of workstations and servers.
       Create package lists in a development environment and copy the package lists over to the
       production machines.  aptitude-robot will then make sure that the packages mentioned in
       the lists are installed or removed as indicated.

OPTIONS

       --force-install
           give priority to install(+), remove(-), and purge(_) actions over keep(:) and hold(=)

       --config-dir /path/to/config/dir
           specify an alternate configuration directory.  Defaults to /etc/aptitude-robot

       --show-cmdline
           only show the command that would be executed

       --help
           Prints this page.

       other options
           any option not recognized by aptitude-robot itself is passed through to aptitude.  The
           options -q and -s are likely to be used occasionally.  See aptitude(8) for details.

CONFIGURATION

       The configuration directory given by the "--config-dir" (or /etc/aptitude-robot by
       default) must contain a directory named pkglist.d.  This directory may have several
       package list files that are chosen according to the criteria of run-parts(8).  They are
       concatenated in the order given by run-parts(8).

       Each line shall contain an action and a package name separated by white space.  The
       actions are those used by the "aptitude" command line interface (see aptitude
       documentation).  Typically they are:

       +  package  # install package

       +M package  # install package and mark it as automatically installed

       -  package  # remove package

       _  package  # purge package

       :  package  # keep package at current version

       =  package  # mark a package as "hold", i.e., prevent automatic updates

       If a package is mentioned several times the last entry will determine the action.  If the
       "--force-install" option is given the keep(:) and hold(=) actions are given lower
       priority, i.e., the appear only when no other action for the package is specified.

       A "#" character starts a comment extending to the end of line.  Empty lines or extra white
       space at the beginning or end of line is ignored.

       Optionally the configuration directory may contain a file name options containing extra
       options given to aptitude in the form of one option per line.

       Optionally the configuration directory may contain two directories triggers.pre and
       triggers.post with scripts that are executed by run-parts(8) before and after aptitude
       respectively.

SEE ALSO

       aptitude(8), aptitude-robot-session(8)

AUTHORS

       Elmar S. Heeb <elmar@heebs.ch> and Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>