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Managing Packages on Debian and Ubuntu Systems

Managing packages means managing what version of software is available on a Linux distribution. For Ubuntu/Debian Linux distributions, the high-level, `apt`, manages installation, upgrading, and removal automatically. Ubuntu/Debian-based distributions also utilize the low-level tool `dpkg`, which requires resolving dependencies manually. But it provides powerful overrides, queries, and the ability to reconfigure installed packages. During this activity, we will work with `apt` to update, install, and remove packages, since it automatically manages packages required for dependencies. Then we will use the `dpkg` command to query information about installed packages and reconfigure one that is already installed. After completing this activity, we'll have a basic understanding of how manage software packages on Ubuntu/Debian systems.

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Path Info

Level
Clock icon Intermediate
Duration
Clock icon 15m
Published
Clock icon Jan 17, 2020

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Table of Contents

  1. Challenge

    Clean the apt Cached Information, Retrieve Latest Information About Available Packages, and Upgrade the System Software

    Use the apt command to clean, update and upgrade the system software:

    sudo -i
apt clean
apt update
apt list --upgradeable
apt upgrade

  2. Challenge

    Search for the apache http Package, Install It along with the elinks Package, and Use elinks to Dump the Home Page to /root/index.html

    Use the apt command to find the apache http package. Install it, and then install elinks to verify operation of the server. Use elinks to output the http://localhost home page to /root/index.html

    apt search 'apache http'
apt install apache2 elinks

    To just see if the server is up, run this command:

    elinks http://localhost

    We should see a It works! page. Hit the q key to get back to a command line. Now lets dump that page's output to a text file:

    elinks -dump http://localhost > index.html

  3. Challenge

    Show Information about the tzdata Package and Reconfigure That Package

    Use the dpkg command to show the information about the tzdata. Use dpkg-reconfigure to adjust the timezone to US/Pacific.

    dpkg -s tzdata
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

    Once we run the reconfigure command, we'll be prompted with the tzdata package's configuration window, and we can set the correct time zone.

A Cloud Guru - Labs - Managing Packages on Debian and Ubuntu Systems
Author
A Cloud Guru

The Cloud Content team comprises subject matter experts hyper focused on services offered by the leading cloud vendors (AWS, GCP, and Azure), as well as cloud-related technologies such as Linux and DevOps. The team is thrilled to share their knowledge to help you build modern tech solutions from the ground up, secure and optimize your environments, and so much more!

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