Even if Alpine is designed to run from RAM, it has some similarities in package management with both Gentoo and Debian. This page outlines those similarities and differences, to help Debian and Gentoo users to use Alpine.

Alpine is compiled using Gentoo's portage, but Alpine itself uses its own apk-tools binary package which is more similar to FreeBSD's binary packages. Updating package database Gentoo will update the build-from-source scripts and are the updating of the database is takes much more time that updating the database for Debian or Alpine.

1. If you wish to use the Alpine Configuration Framework (ACF) front-end for squid, install the acf-squid package: apk add acf-squid You can then logon to the device over (replace x.x.x.x with the IP of your server of course) and manage the squid configuration files and stop/start/restart the daemon etc.
2. How to install telnet into a alpine docker container. This is useful when using the celery remote debugger in a dev environment. Clone via HTTPS Clone with Git.
3. Alpine is compiled using Gentoo's portage, but Alpine itself uses its own apk-tools binary package which is more similar to FreeBSD's binary packages. Updating package database Gentoo will update the build-from-source scripts and are the updating of the database is takes much more time that updating the database for Debian or Alpine.

The page was originally copied from: http://gentoo-wiki.com/TIP_Converting_from_or_to_Debian

• 1Package management
• 2Runlevel & Initscripts
• 3Config Files

Where Gentoo has portage and emerge; Debian has, among others, apt; Alpine uses apk-tools. This section compares how apk-tools is used, in comparison to apt-get/aptitude and emerge.

Note that Gentoo is source-based, just like ports in FreeBSD are, while Debian uses pre-compiled binaries. Alpine is compiled using Gentoo's portage, but Alpine itself uses its own apk-tools binary package which is more similar to FreeBSD's binary packages.

Updating package database

Gentoo will update the build-from-source scripts and are the updating of the database is takes much more time that updating the database for Debian or Alpine.

Alpine

Gentoo

Debian

Showing available updates

Show which packages have an update available:

Alpine

or:

Gentoo

Debian

Updating a particular package

Alpine

Debian

Gentoo

Installing packages

Alpine

For source compile, see the Aports tree and the abuild tool.

Gentoo

Debian

Debian source compile:

(optional: customize the build by modifying the debian/rules makefile)(or set environmental variables like DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS)(note that this will make your bug reports invalid to the maintainer)

Simplified source compile:

(the packages are automatically generated using the -b switch above)

Note: This process can be used to backport packages from testing and unstable by simply adding their respective source repositories to sources.list, which is similar to adding ~x86 to package.keywords in Gentoo. This is explored further in the 'Architectures and repositories' section below.

Reinstalling a particular package

Alpine

or:

Gentoo

Debian

Note: You rarely need to reinstall a package on Debian

Searching the package database

Alpine

Alpine will only search package names.

Gentoo

To search the package names and descriptions:

Note: On Gentoo, it's actually much better to install and use either the esearch package or the eix package to do a search. You use them like this:

or

Debian

Both emerge and apt-cache search support regular expressions.

To get the long package information on Debian (searching only in package names):

Removing packages

Alpine

apk del will remove configuration files when the --purge flag is used. Make sure you have backups of your configuration files. (Using rcs might be an idea)

You will mostly like to take a quick look at the dependencies before you remove packages recursively.

To see dependencies for a package, use:

To see if package is required by other packages (is a dependency for another packages), use:

Gentoo

Debian

or to remove along with all configuration files

Only downloading packages

This can be useful e.g. if you're on a dial-up connection and want to download everything first and install later.

Alpine

Gentoo

Debian

Cleaning up downloaded packages

Compressed packages that were downloaded for installation can easily consume gigabytes of storage space.

Alpine

Alpine will clean up packages automatically.

Gentoo

To only remove outdated packages you will need to install the gentoolkit package and use eclean:

Cleaning temporary files from emerging packages:

Debian

Only remove outdated packages:

Reverse dependencies

Alpine

apk-tools will take care of reverse dependencies.

Gentoo

Reverse dependencies are a major drawback of Gentoo's current portage implementation: It does not take care of them at all at the moment.If you use the unsafe --unmerge argument, this means that you can uninstall packages needed by others without being warned about it. E.g. you can remove the X server package without portage warning you that KDE (which you have installed as well) depends on it. This way you can actually break your entire system (e.g. by removing glibc).

can fix broken dependencies broken byemerge --depclean

Recent versions of portage include library tracking and preservation with the preserved-libs feature. Portage will notify you to run

emerge @preserved-rebuild

to help rebuild binaries that might otherwise become broken.

Debian

Reverse dependencies are taken care of by dpkg.

Runlevels work pretty conventionally on Debian (see details: systemd). On Alpine and Gentoo, they are a bit different.

Directories and files

In Debian, runlevels are named conventionally (0-6 and S). They are represented by directories in /etc/ called rc*.d (when the default sysv-rc boot loader package is installed; file-rc can be installed instead, and then the relevant file is runlevel.conf).

• /etc/rc0.d
• /etc/rc1.d
• /etc/rcS.d
• /etc/rc2.d
• /etc/rc3.d
• /etc/rc4.d
• /etc/rc5.d
• /etc/rc6.d

In Gentoo, runlevels have the same names, but these are mapped to more self explanatory ones (in /etc/inittab): 'boot', 'default', 'nonetwork', with the option to add more. The directories that represent them are in /etc/runlevels/:

• /etc/runlevels/boot
• /etc/runlevels/default
• /etc/runlevels/nonetwork

In Gentoo, if a service is not explicitly started in a runlevel, it is stopped when switching to that runlevel! There is no explicit stopping of runlevels as in Debian (/etc/rc?.d/K??service).

In both Debian and Gentoo, which things are started (and stopped) in which runlevels is controlled by links in the runlevel directories to scripts in /etc/init.d/, e.g.:Gentoo

Debian

AlpineIn Alpine, runlevels work like they do in Gentoo:

• /etc/runlevels/boot
• /etc/runlevels/default
• /etc/runlevels/sysinit
• /etc/runlevels/nonetwork
• /etc/runlevels/shutdown

Runlevel management

To manage which things to start in which runlevels, use the following commands:

Alpine

To see current status of services in runlevels, do:

To add sshd to default runlevel, do:

The -k option will make sure sshd is stopped when shutting down or reboot.To remove sshd from all runlevels do:

Gentoo

To add the cupsd to the default runlevel, do:

To remove alsasound from the boot runlevel, do:

Also see this wiki page about gentoo runlevel management with rc-update

Debian

Configure cupsd to be started in runlevels 2, 3, 4, 5, and stopped in 0, 1, 6, with sequence code 20:

or simply:

Remove cupsd from all runlevels:

/etc/portage/make.conf and use flags

While in Gentoo there's a large number of configuration files which control the behaviour of the package management system, there are comparatively fewer in Debian, as there is no need to dictate how to compile software which is downloaded and tweak/alter it. In Gentoo, the file /etc/portage/make.conf is used for much configuration; this includes USE flags, which influence which elements of packages are compiled, and which libraries to build support for - common USE flags (USE or -USE to specifically negate support) include 'gtk gnome' for Gnome users (and a corresponding -qt -kde -arts) and 'qt kde arts' for KDE users. A Gentoo user's complete set of use flags may look something like this:

USE='-kde -arts -qt xv truetype bluetooth crypt slang readline gpm berkdb mmx gdbm tcpd pam libwww ssl nls ethereal perl python esd gif imlib sdl oggvorbis mpeg gnome gtk X motif opengl avi png tiff nptl pcmcia nptl ldap eds'

Architectures and repositories

Gentoo

Also in /etc/portage/make.conf is the ACCEPT_KEYWORDS setting, with (for an X86-based processor) two settings, x86 for stabler packages, and ~x86 for bleeding edge packages. It is however not recommended to make this change in /etc/portage/make.conf. Rather configure this per-package in /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords. It's enough to put a line into that file naming the package (for example 'app-foo/bar'). That file might look like this:

The last line says, that only version 4.3-r1 should be unmasked. Older and newer versions will still be ignored.

Note for non-x86 users:The keywords x86 and ~x86 can of course be replaced by sparc and ~sparc for example.

Debian

Setting this in Debian is slightly more complicated, and is accomplished by setting different 'repositories' in /etc/apt/sources.list - along with which 'tree' to use for packages; in Debian, these are stable, testing, and unstable. An /etc/apt/sources.list file for a debian testing user may look something like this:

Alternatively, /etc/apt/sources.list can contain any number of repositories for any trees, and a default tree (this can be overridden using the -t switch on the command line) in /etc/apt/apt.conf:

Per-package settings go in /etc/apt/preferences, somewhat like Gentoo's /etc/portage/package.keywords.

Network

Alpine

Alpine uses /etc/network/interfaces, just like Debian. The main reason is because this is the way busybox does it.

/etc/network/interfaces:

Gentoo

/etc/conf.d/net:

Note that this has changed recently. For more information please refer to http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=4

Debian

/etc/network/interfaces:

This chart shows how some standard things are done in Alpine compared to other distributions.

To create new wiki account, please join us on #znc at freenode and ask admins to create a wiki account for you. You can say thanks to spambots for this inconvenience.

There are several possibilities to install ZNC on your machine. The latest version is always available using the source tarball from https://znc.in/releases.

A ChangeLog is available in the wiki.You can also read more about ZNC's portability.

Which way should I choose for installing ZNC?

If you don't have root access, the only way is to use source tarball. You'll need to use ./configure --prefix='$HOME/.local' as described.

If you have root access, you can use either source tarball or the convenient way for your distro. Check section about your distro for details, but be aware that these may contain old versions of ZNC!

Once you have installed ZNC, you can create a config file with znc --makeconf.

Development Versions[edit]

Read the git page if you want to get the current development version. Beware that this might have more bugs, more features, be a little unstable and eat your first born. You have been warned!

Source Tarball[edit]

Official source tarballs can be found here.

If you want to compile ZNC with OpenSSL support, you need the OpenSSL development package. On Debian/Ubuntu this is called libssl-dev, on CentOS/Fedora/Red Hat it's openssl-devel, and on openSUSE it's libopenssl-devel.A good way to install this and other dependencies is the build dependency feature of package managers (apt-get build-dep / yum-builddep / zypper source-install --build-deps-only).

1. Download the latest source tarball
2. tar -xzvf znc-1.8.2.tar.gz
3. cd znc-1.8.2
4. mkdir build
5. cd build
6. cmake ..
   (use cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX='$HOME/.local' if you don't want a system wide installation or simply don't have root access; use cmake -DOPENSSL_ROOT_DIR=/path/to/openssl if you have a non-standard SSL path)
   (use ccmake or cmake-gui to see other configure options)
7. make
   (if you are on a dedicated server and your CPU has more than one core, you can use make -jX where X is the number of CPU cores to speed up compilation)
8. make install

Please note that compiling can take 5-10 minutes or more.

Once you have installed znc, you can use znc --makeconf to make a configuration file for ZNC. This config is stored in ~/.znc under the user you run it as. You should create a dedicated non root user to run znc under.

ZNC is run by just executing znc under the dedicated znc user, at which stage it goes to background. It does not automatically make an init.d service for itself (which can be done by following the instructions to running ZNC as a system daemon) nor does it need to be run in screen or something similar.

See the FAQ page if you encounter problems.

Linux[edit]

Docker[edit]

ZNC is available as an image in Docker Hub, and can be downloaded with:

docker pull znc

Follow the link above for additional instructions.

If you want to test great new features (and bugs!), unstable ZNC image is here.

Debian[edit]

Debian provides ZNC packages which may be installed using (stretch/stable, buster/testing, sid)

Debian Jessie LTS backports

If you want to build znc from source to get a newer version than Debian provides, you may need the following packages:

You can use the command

to install build dependencies automatically. Note that sometimes these build-depedencies are outdated and won't work with the current version of ZNC.

Fedora/CentOS/Red Hat Enterprise Linux[edit]

Fedora has znc packaged in it's main repository and their Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository provides them for CentOS/RHEL.

If using RHEL install the EPEL repository by downloading the appropriate package linked on EPEL's website.

Once you have EPEL installed (or are on Fedora), execute:

or dnf

Once installed you can configure znc by running:

Then finally to start it you can run:

Build from Source: CentOS 7+ only[edit]

If you really wish to build from source, then please follow the instructions here, written by Thomas Ward. Note that these instructions do utilize the EPEL repository in order to get all the necessary build dependencies (and there's a lot of them). These instructions work properly to create a basic ZNC installation. CentOS 7 or newer is needed because of the C++ standards being used, and older CentOS not having the required compilers for those standards.

Ubuntu[edit]

You can either build ZNC from source, or use a PPA that was made by a community member to contain pre-built ZNC packages for all supported Ubuntu releases. Note that the PPA does not contain packages for every Ubuntu release, and the support dates for various Ubuntu versions is detailed here. If the release of Ubuntu you are on is not supported on the PPA, you will have to compile it from source yourself.

Build From Source[edit]

If you want to build znc from source to get a newer version than Ubuntu provides, you may need to determine capability of your system to build ZNC 1.6.0 (and newer) based on the version of Ubuntu.

Building from Git Master[edit]

If you are trying to use the Git master version of the source code, then you will also need to ensure the following packages are also installed. You will not need to install these if you are using a stable release tarball, only if you are using Git master:

After you have installed these packages, then continue onward for the additional dependencies you will need.

After installing dependencies, you will have to run autogen.sh to generate the configure script.

Add Build Dependency Sources[edit]

Ubuntu 14.04[edit]

If you are on Ubuntu 14.04, you will need to add one PPA to your system, with the following command:

Newer than Ubuntu 14.04[edit]

You will not need any additional PPAs or sources for build dependencies.

Other Build Dependencies[edit]

After verifying you have the required build dependency sources, you will need to install the following packages:

After you have done this, you can follow the instructions on this page for compiling from the source tarball.

Install via PPA[edit]

A Personal Package Archive (PPA) has been created by Thomas W., and contains the latest stable ZNC release as exists in Debian. It contains packages for all releases of Ubuntu that are currently supported. It does not contain packages for versions of Ubuntu that are past their end of life dates. Click here if you wish to see the details of the packages in the PPA.

The versions of ZNC currently available in the PPA are detailed on the repository's information page but will only receive updates for currently-supported, non End of Life Ubuntu Releases.

First, make sure you have the python-software-properties package installed:

Then, add the PPA to your sources, and update the apt information:

Then, install the znc packages:

ZNC is now installed. You can create the configuration normally with this, when run on the user that you want to run ZNC as:

(open)SUSE[edit]

ZNC is part of the official repositories. To install, use the YaST GUI or install via commandline by typing

Gentoo[edit]

Gentoo provides ZNC packages which may be installed using:

Several USE Flags can be used for znc:

• daemon (local): (not offically supported) Allow znc to run as a system-wide service. Installs an init script and creates a znc user:group.
• debug (global): enable debug
• ipv6 (global): adds support for ipv6
• perl (global): adds support for writing perl modules
• python (global): adds support for writing python 3 modules
• ssl (global): enable secure socket layer connections
• sasl (global): sasl support
• tcl (global): adds support for writing tcl modules

Will print you a list of USE flags that will be used for znc

Slackware[edit]

Alpine Linux[edit]

To install znc from the package manager, enter the following command:

If you want to build znc from source to get a newer version than Alpine provides, you need to install packages with the following command:

If you want to run git, Debugging, perl, (requires swig), python, (requires swig), tcl, or cyrus then install the packages that correspond:

Archlinux[edit]

ZNC is part of the archlinux package repository, and can be installed with the following:

Additionally you can install the following optional dependencies to add support for additional modules.

• cyrus-sasl - saslauth module
• perl - modperl module
• python - modpython module
• tcl - modtcl module

Unstable/Testing[edit]

You can install the latest git snapshot from the Arch User Repository.

FreeBSD[edit]

ZNC is in FreeBSD ports, just do:

or pkg_add

or pkgng

Mac OS X[edit]

There are two ways to install ZNC on OS X, either using a package manager such as Homebrew or installing it yourself from source. See this blog post for a tutorial on how to compile ZNC from source.

• NOTE: If you are running on PPC architecture and cannot make the ./configure && make && sudo make install dance work, you'll want to do the following:

1. Make sure that you're using the --disable-perl switch for configure. Hence: ./configure --prefix=/usr/local --disable-perl

Homebrew[edit]

Installing Homebrew[edit]

For more information about Homebrew see here. The following command will install Homebrew to /usr/local

Homebrew requires Xcode and Mac OS X >= 10.5

Installing znc with Homebrew[edit]

Installing znc with MacPorts[edit]

Alpine Linux Install Git

Microsoft Windows[edit]

Warning: If you're going to install ZNC on your local Windows machine, it will probably be useless. You should run it on some machine (Windows or not), which is connected to internet 24/7.

Cygwin[edit]

ZNC is available in list of cygwin packages.

Download Cygwin, install it. When choosing list of packages to install, search for 'znc'.

If you don't want to use the provided packages, you can compile ZNC from source; for that you'll need the following packages installed: automake, gcc-g++, libicu-devel, make, mpfr, pkg-config, openssl-devel, zlib-devel. After installing these packages proceed to source tarball section (or git)

WSL[edit]

Install Git On Windows

After ensuring that WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) itself works, follow the Linux instructions above.

Download Git