PKGBUILD

Related articles
Arch build system
Arch package guidelines
Arch User Repository
.SRCINFO
This article discusses variables definable by the maintainer in a
PKGBUILD
. For information on the
PKGBUILD
functions and creating packages in general, refer to
Creating packages
. Also read
PKGBUILD(5)
.
A
PKGBUILD
is a
Bash
script containing the build information required by
Arch Linux
packages.
Packages in Arch Linux are built using the
makepkg
utility. When
makepkg
is run, it searches for a
PKGBUILD
file in the current directory and follows the instructions therein to either compile or otherwise acquire the files to build a package archive—
pkgname
.pkg.tar.zst
. The resulting package contains binary files and installation instructions, readily installable with
pacman
.
Mandatory variables are
pkgname
,
pkgver
,
pkgrel
, and
arch
.
license
is not strictly necessary to build a package, but is recommended for any
PKGBUILD
shared with others, as
makepkg
will produce a warning if not present.
It is a common practice to define the variables in the
PKGBUILD
in the same order as given here. However, it is not mandatory.
Tip
Use
namcap
to check
PKGBUILD
s for common packaging mistakes.
Use
shellcheck(1)
to check
PKGBUILD
s for common scripting mistakes. See also
SC2034
,
SC2154
and
SC2164
:
shellcheck --shell=bash --exclude=SC2034,SC2154,SC2164 PKGBUILD
termux-language-server
AUR
provides a
language server
for
PKGBUILD
,
makepkg.conf
, etc.
See the
.proto
files
in the
/usr/share/pacman/
directory as examples.
Package name
pkgbase
When building regular packages, this variable should not be explicitly declared in the
PKGBUILD
: its value defaults to that of
#pkgname
.
When building a
split package
, this variable can be used to explicitly specify the name to be used to refer to the group of packages in the output of
makepkg
and in the naming of source-only tarballs. The value is not allowed to begin with a hyphen. If not specified, the value will default to the first element in the
pkgname
array.
All options and directives for split packages default to the global values given in the
PKGBUILD
. Nevertheless, the following ones can be overridden within each split package’s packaging function:
#pkgdesc
,
#arch
,
#url
,
#license
,
#groups
,
#depends
,
#optdepends
,
#provides
,
#conflicts
,
#replaces
,
#backup
,
#options
,
#install
, and
#changelog
.
pkgname
Either the name of the package, e.g.
pkgname=foo
, or, for split packages, an array of names, e.g.
pkgname=(foo bar)
. Package names should only consist of lowercase alphanumerics and the following characters:
@._+-
(at symbol, dot, underscore, plus, hyphen). Names are not allowed to start with hyphens or dots. For the sake of consistency,
pkgname
should match the name of the source tarball of the software: for instance, if the software is in
foobar-2.5.tar.gz
, use
pkgname=foobar
.
Version
pkgver
The version of the package.
This should be the same as the version published by the author of the upstream software. It can contain letters, numbers, periods and underscores, but
not
a hyphen (
-
). If the author of the software uses one, replace it with an underscore (
_
). If the
pkgver
variable is used later in the
PKGBUILD
, then the underscore can easily be substituted for a hyphen, e.g.
source=("${pkgname}-${pkgver//_/-}.tar.gz")
.
Note
If upstream uses a timestamp versioning such as
30102014
, ensure to use the reversed date, i.e.
20141030
(
ISO 8601
format). Otherwise it will not appear as a newer version.
Tip
The ordering of uncommon values can be tested with
vercmp(8)
, which is provided by the
pacman
package.
makepkg
can automatically
update
this variable by defining a
pkgver()
function in the
PKGBUILD
. See
VCS package guidelines#The pkgver() function
for details.
See also
Arch package guidelines#Package versioning
.
pkgrel
The release number. This is usually a positive integer number that allows to differentiate between consecutive builds of the same version of a package. As fixes and additional features are added to the
PKGBUILD
that influence the resulting package, the
pkgrel
should be incremented by 1. When a new version of the software is released, this value must be reset to 1. In exceptional cases other formats can be found in use, such as
major.minor
.
See also
Arch package guidelines#Package versioning
.
epoch
Used to force the package to be seen as newer than any previous version with a lower epoch. This value is required to be a non-negative integer; the default is 0. It is used when the version numbering scheme of a package changes (or is alphanumeric), breaking normal version comparison logic. For example:
pkgver=5.13
pkgrel=2
epoch=1
1:5.13-2
See
pacman(8)
for more information on version comparisons.
Warning
epoch
should only be used when absolutely required to do so.
Generic
pkgdesc
The description of the package. This is recommended to be 80 characters or less and should not include the package name in a self-referencing way, unless the application name differs from the package name. For example, use
pkgdesc='Text editor for X11'
instead of
pkgdesc='Nedit is a text editor for X11'
.
Also it is important to use keywords wisely to increase the chances of appearing in relevant search queries.
arch
An array of architectures that the
PKGBUILD
is intended to build and work on. Arch officially supports only
x86_64
, but other projects may support other architectures. For example,
Arch Linux 32
provides support for
i686
and
pentium4
, and
Arch Linux ARM
provides support for
armv7h
(armv7 hardfloat) and
aarch64
(armv8 64-bit).
There are two types of values the array can use:
arch=(any)
indicates the package can be built on any architecture, and once built, is architecture-independent in its compiled state (usually shell scripts, fonts, themes, many types of extensions,
Java
programs, etc.).
arch=(...)
with one or more architectures (but not
any
) indicates the package can be compiled for any of the specified architectures, but is architecture-specific once compiled. For these packages, specify all architectures that the
PKGBUILD
officially supports. For official repository and
AUR
packages, this means
arch=('x86_64')
. Optionally, AUR packages may choose to additionally support other known working architectures.
The target architecture can be accessed with the variable
CARCH
during a build.
url
The URL of the official site of the software being packaged.
license
This article or section is a candidate for merging with
Arch package guidelines#licenses
.
Notes:
The PKGBUILD format does not enforce a packaging policy. (Discuss in
Talk:PKGBUILD
)
This article or section needs expansion.
Reason:
Add more details from
[1]
. (Discuss in
Talk:PKGBUILD
)
The license under which the software is distributed. Arch Linux uses
SPDX license identifiers
. Each license must have a corresponding entry in
/usr/share/licenses/
.
For common licenses (like
GPL-3.0-or-later
), package
licenses
delivers all the corresponding files. The package is installed by default, as it is a dependency of
base
meta package
, and the files may be found in
/usr/share/licenses/spdx/
. Simply refer to the license using its SPDX license identifier from the
list of SPDX identifiers
.
License families like BSD or MIT are, strictly speaking, not a single license and each instance requires a separate license file. In
license
variable refer to them using a common SPDX identifier (e.g.
BSD-3-Clause
or
MIT
), but then provide the corresponding file as if it was a custom license.
For custom licenses the identifier should be either
LicenseRef-
license-name
or
custom:
license-name
, if they are not covered by the common families mentioned above. The corresponding license text must be placed in directory
/usr/share/licenses/
pkgname
. To install the file a following code snippet may be used in
package()
section:
install -Dm644
LICENSE
-t "${pkgdir}/usr/share/licenses/${pkgname}/"
Note
pkgdir
variable is defined by
makepkg
, see
PKGBUILD(5) § PACKAGING FUNCTIONS
for more information.
Combining multiple licenses or adding exceptions should follow the
SPDX syntax
. For example a package released under
either
GNU/GPL 2.0 or GNU/LGPL 2.1 could use
'GPL-2.0-or-later OR LGPL-2.1-or-later'
, a package released under Apache 2.0 with LLVM exception would use
'Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception'
and a package released with part under the BSD 3 clause, others under GNU/LGPL 2.1 and some under GNU/GPL 2.0 would use
'BSD-3-Clause AND LGPL-2.1-or-later AND GPL-2.0-or-later'
[2]
. Note that this must be a single string, so the entire expression has to be enclosed in quotes. As for November 2023
SPDX list of exceptions
is limited, so usually the custom license route must be used.
If issues are encountered with SPDX identifiers, during the transitional period using old identifiers —names of the directories in
/usr/share/licenses/common
— is acceptable.
See also
Nonfree applications package guidelines
.
Additional information and perspectives on free and open source software licenses may be found on the following pages:
Wikipedia:Free software license
Wikipedia:Comparison of free and open-source software licenses
A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects
GNU Project - Various Licenses and Comments about Them
Debian - License information
Open Source Initiative - Licenses by Name
groups
The
group
the package belongs in. For instance, when installing
plasma
, it installs all packages belonging in that group.
Dependencies
Note
Additional architecture-specific arrays can be added by appending an underscore and the architecture name, e.g.
optdepends_x86_64=()
.
depends
An array of packages that must be installed for the software to build
and
run. Dependencies defined inside the
package()
function are only required to run the software.
Version restrictions can be specified with comparison operators, e.g.
depends=('foobar>=1.8.0')
; if multiple restrictions are needed, the dependency can be repeated for each, e.g.
depends=('foobar>=1.8.0' 'foobar<2.0.0')
.
This article or section is a candidate for merging with
Arch package guidelines
.
Notes:
The PKGBUILD format does not enforce a packaging policy. (Discuss in
Talk:PKGBUILD
)
The
depends
array should list all direct first level dependencies even when some are already declared transitively. For instance, if a package
foo
depends on both
bar
and
baz
, and the
bar
package depends in turn on
baz
too, it will ultimately lead to undesired behavior if
bar
stops pulling in
baz
. Pacman will not enforce the installation of
baz
on systems which newly install the
foo
package, or have cleaned up orphans, and
foo
will crash at runtime or otherwise misbehave.
In some cases this is not necessary and may or may not be listed, for example
glibc
cannot be uninstalled as every system needs some C library, or
python
for a package that already depends on another
python-
module, as the second module must per definition depend on
python
and cannot ever stop pulling it in as a dependency.
Dependencies should normally include the requirements for building all optional features of a package. Alternatively, any feature whose dependencies are not included should be explicitly disabled via a configure option. Failure to do this can lead to packages with "
automagic dependencies
" build-time optional features that are unpredictably enabled due to transitive dependencies or unrelated software installed on the build machine, but which are not reflected in the package dependencies.
If the dependency name appears to be a library, e.g.
depends=(libfoobar.so)
,
makepkg
will try to find a binary that depends on the library in the built package and append the
soname
version needed by the binary. Manually appending the version disables automatic detection, e.g.
depends=('libfoobar.so=2')
.
makedepends
An array of packages that are
only
required to build the package. The minimum dependency version can be specified in the same format as in the
depends
array. The packages in the
depends
array are implicitly required to build the package, they should not be duplicated here.
Note
The package
base-devel
is assumed to be already installed when building with
makepkg
. Dependencies of this package
should not
be included in
makedepends
array.
If using
VCS sources
, do not forget to include the appropriate VCS tool (
git
,
subversion
,
cvs
, ...).
Tip
Use
pactree -rsud1
package
| grep base-devel
to check whether a particular package is a direct dependency of
base-devel
(requires
pacman-contrib
).
checkdepends
An array of packages that the software depends on to run its test suite, but are not needed at runtime. Packages in this list follow the same format as
depends
. These dependencies are only considered when the
check()
function is present and is to be run by
makepkg
.
Note
The package
base-devel
is assumed to be already installed when building with
makepkg
. Dependencies of this package
should not
be included in
checkdepends
array.
optdepends
An array of packages that are not needed for the software to function, but provide additional features. This may imply that not all executables provided by a package will function without the respective optdepends.
[3]
If the software works on multiple alternative dependencies, all of them can be listed here, instead of the
depends
array.
A short description of the extra functionality each optdepend provides should also be noted:
optdepends=('cups: printing support'
            'sane: scanners support'
            'libgphoto2: digital cameras support'
            'alsa-lib: sound support'
            'giflib: GIF images support'
            'libjpeg: JPEG images support'
            'libpng: PNG images support')
Package relations
Note
Additional architecture-specific arrays can be added by appending an underscore and the architecture name, e.g.
conflicts_x86_64=()
.
provides
An array of additional packages that the software provides the features of, including
virtual packages
such as
cron
or
sh
and
all external shared libraries
. Packages providing the same item can be installed side-by-side, unless at least one of them uses a
conflicts
array.
Note
The version that the package provides should be mentioned (
pkgver
and potentially the
pkgrel
), in case packages referencing the software require one. For instance, a modified
qt
package version 3.3.8, named
qt-foobar
, should use
provides=('qt=3.3.8')
; omitting the version number would cause the dependencies that require a specific version of
qt
to fail.
Do not add
pkgname
to the
provides
array, as it is done automatically.
conflicts
An array of packages that conflict with, or cause problems with the package, if installed. All these packages and packages providing this item will need to be removed. The version properties of the conflicting packages can also be specified in the same format as the
depends
array.
Note that conflicts are checked against
pkgname
as well as names specified in the
provides
array. Hence, if your package
provides
a
foo
feature, specifying
foo
in the
conflicts
array will cause a conflict between your package and all other packages that contain
foo
in their
provides
array (i.e., there is no need to specify all those conflicting package names in your
conflicts
array). Let us take a concrete example:
netbeans
implicitly provides
netbeans
as the
pkgname
itself
A hypothetical
netbeans-cpp
package would provide
netbeans
and conflicts with
netbeans
A hypothetical
netbeans-php
package would provide
netbeans
and conflicts with
netbeans
, but does not need to explicitly conflict with
netbeans-cpp
since packages providing the same feature are implicitly in conflict.
When packages provide the same feature via the
provides
array, there is a difference between explicitly adding the alternative package to the
conflicts
array and not adding it. If the
conflicts
array is explicitly declared the two packages providing the same feature will be considered as
alternative
; if the
conflicts
array is missing the two packages providing the same feature will be considered as
possibly cohabiting
. Packagers should always ignore the content of the
provides
variable in deciding whether to declare a
conflicts
variable or not.
replaces
An array of obsolete packages that are replaced by the package, e.g.
wireshark-qt
uses
replaces=('wireshark')
. When syncing,
pacman
will immediately replace an installed package upon encountering another package with the matching
replaces
in the repositories. If providing an alternate version of an already existing package or uploading to the AUR, use the
conflicts
and
provides
arrays, which are only evaluated when actually installing the conflicting package.
Others
backup
An array of files that can contain user-made changes and should be preserved during upgrade or removal of a package, primarily intended for configuration files in
/etc
. If these files are unchanged from how they ship with the package, they will be removed or replaced as normal files during upgrade or removal.
Files in this array should use
relative
paths without the leading slash (
/
) (e.g.
etc/pacman.conf
, instead of
/etc/pacman.conf
). The
backup
array
does not support empty directories or wildcards such as "*"
.
When updating, new versions may be saved as
file
.pacnew
to avoid overwriting a file which already exists and was previously modified by the user. Similarly, when the package is removed, user-modified files will be preserved as
file
.pacsave
unless the package was removed with the
pacman -Rn
command.
See also
Pacnew and Pacsave files
.
options
This array allows overriding some of the default behavior of
makepkg
, defined in
/etc/makepkg.conf
. To set an option, include the name in the array. To disable an option, place an
!
before it.
The full list of the available options can be found in
PKGBUILD(5) § OPTIONS AND DIRECTIVES
.
install
The name of the
.install
script to be included in the package.
pacman
has the ability to store and execute a package-specific script when it installs, removes or upgrades a package. The script contains the following functions which run at different times:
pre_install
— The script is run right before files are extracted. One argument is passed: new package version.
post_install
— The script is run right after files are extracted. Any additional notes that should be printed after the package is installed should be located here. One argument is passed: new package version.
pre_upgrade
— The script is run right before files are extracted. Two arguments are passed in the following order: new package version, old package version.
post_upgrade
— The script is run right after files are extracted. Two arguments are passed in the following order: new package version, old package version.
pre_remove
— The script is run right before files are removed. One argument is passed: old package version.
post_remove
— The script is run right after files are removed. One argument is passed: old package version.
Each function is run
chrooted
inside the
pacman
install directory. See
this thread
.
Tip
A prototype
.install
is provided at
/usr/share/pacman/proto.install
.
pacman#Hooks
provide similar functionality.
Note
Do not end the script with
exit
. This would prevent the contained functions from executing.
changelog
The name of the package changelog. To view changelogs for installed packages (that have this file):
$ pacman -Qc
pkgname
Sources
source
An array of files needed to build the package. It must contain the location of the software source, which in most cases is a full HTTP or FTP URL. The previously set variables
pkgname
and
pkgver
can be used effectively here; e.g.
source=("https://example.com/${pkgname}-${pkgver}.tar.gz")
.
Files can also be supplied in the same directory where the
PKGBUILD
is located, and their names added to this array. Before the actual build process starts, all the files referenced in this array will be downloaded or checked for existence, and
makepkg
will not proceed if any is missing.
.install
files are recognized automatically by
makepkg
and should not be included in the
source
array. Files in the
source
array with extensions
.sig
,
.sign
, or
.asc
are recognized by
makepkg
as PGP signatures and will be automatically used to verify the integrity of the corresponding source file.
Warning
The downloaded source filename must be unique because the
SRCDEST
directory can be the same for all packages. For instance, using the version number of the project as a filename potentially conflicts with other projects with the same version number. In this case, the alternative unique filename to be used is provided with the syntax
source=('
unique_package_name
::
file_uri
')
; e.g.
source=("${pkgname}-${pkgver}.tar.gz::https://github.com/coder/program/archive/v${pkgver}.tar.gz")
.
Tip
Additional architecture-specific arrays can be added by appending an underscore and the architecture name, e.g.
source_x86_64=()
. There must be a corresponding integrity array with checksums, e.g.
sha256sums_x86_64=()
.
Some servers restrict download by filtering the
User-Agent
string of the client or other types of restrictions, which can be circumvented with
DLAGENTS
.
Use
file://
URL to point to a directory or a file in your computer filesystem. For example, a local Git repository can be specified as
"${pkgname}::git+file://
/path/to/repository
"
.
Magnet link support can be added using
transmission-dlagent
AUR
as
DLAGENT
and using the
magnet://
URI prefix instead of the canonical
magnet:?
.
See
PKGBUILD(5) § USING VCS SOURCES
and
VCS package guidelines#VCS sources
for details on VCS specific options, such as targeting a specific Git branch or commit.
noextract
An array of files listed under
source
, which should not be extracted from their archive format by
makepkg
. This can be used with archives that cannot be handled by
/usr/bin/bsdtar
or those that need to be installed as-is. If an alternative unarchiving tool is used (e.g.
lrzip
), it should be added in the
makedepends
array and the first line of the
prepare()
function should extract the source archive manually; for example:
prepare() {
  lrzip -d
source
.tar.lrz
}
Note that while the
source
array accepts URLs,
noextract
is
just
the file name portion:
source=("http://foo.org/bar/foobar.tar.xz")
noextract=('foobar.tar.xz')
To extract
nothing
, consider the following:
If
source
contains only plain URLs without custom file names, strip the
source
array before the last slash:
noextract=("${source[@]##*/}")
If
source
contains only entries with custom file names, strip the
source
array after the
::
separator (taken from a previous version of
firefox-i18n's PKGBUILD
):
noextract=("${source[@]%%::*}")
Note
If an archive has many top-level files, there is a risk of unwanted overwriting files extracted from other source archives. If that is the case, consider adding it to
noextract
and extracting it manually into a subdirectory.
validpgpkeys
An array of PGP fingerprints. If used,
makepkg
will only accept signatures from the keys listed here and will ignore the trust values from the keyring. If the source file was signed with a subkey,
makepkg
will still use the primary key for comparison.
Only full fingerprints are accepted. They must be uppercase and must not contain whitespace characters.
Note
Use
gpg --list-keys --fingerprint
KEYID
to find out the fingerprint of the appropriate key.
Please read
makepkg#Signature checking
for more information.
Integrity
These variables are arrays whose items are checksum strings that will be used to verify the integrity of the respective files in the
source
array. Insert
SKIP
for a particular file, and its checksum will not be tested.
The checksum type and values should always be those provided by upstream, such as in release announcements. When multiple types are available, the strongest checksum is to be preferred (in order from most to least preferred):
b2
,
sha512
,
sha384
,
sha256
,
sha224
,
sha1
,
md5
,
ck
. This best ensures the integrity of the downloaded files, from upstream announcement to package building.
Note
Additionally, when upstream makes
digital signatures
available, the signature files should be added to the
source
array and the PGP key fingerprint to the
validpgpkeys
array. This allows authentication of the files at build time.
The values for these variables can be auto-generated by
makepkg
's
-g
/
--geninteg
option, then commonly appended with
makepkg -g >> PKGBUILD
. The
updpkgsums(8)
command from
pacman-contrib
is able to update the variables wherever they are in the
PKGBUILD
. Both tools will use the variable that is already set in the
PKGBUILD
, or fall back to
sha256sums
if none is set.
The file integrity checks to use can be set up with the
INTEGRITY_CHECK
option in
/etc/makepkg.conf
. See
makepkg.conf(5)
.
Note
Additional architecture-specific arrays can be added by appending an underscore and the architecture name, e.g.
sha256sums_x86_64=()
.
b2sums
An array of
BLAKE2b
checksums with digest size of 512 bits.
sha512sums, sha384sums, sha256sums, sha224sums
An array of
SHA-2
checksums with digest sizes 512, 384, 256 and 224 bits, respectively.
sha256sums
is the most common of them.
sha1sums
An array of 160-bit
SHA-1
checksums of the files listed in the
source
array.
md5sums
An array of 128-bit
MD5
checksums of the files listed in the
source
array.
cksums
An array
CRC32
checksums (from UNIX-standard
cksum
) of the files listed in the
source
array.