INSTALL(1) BSD General Commands Manual INSTALL(1)NAMEinstall — install binaries
SYNOPSISinstall [-bCclMpSsv] [-L etcdir] [-B suffix] [-f flags] [-g group]
[-m mode] [-o owner] file1 file2
install [-bCclMpSsv] [-L etcdir] [-B suffix] [-f flags] [-g group]
[-m mode] [-o owner] file1 ... fileN directory
install-d [-vl] [-L etcdir] [-g group] [-m mode] [-o owner] directory
...
DESCRIPTION
The file(s) are copied to the target file or directory. If the destina‐
tion is a directory, then the file is copied into directory with its
original filename. If the target file already exists, it is either
renamed to file.old if the -b option is given or overwritten if permis‐
sions allow. An alternate backup suffix may be specified via the -B
option's argument.
The options are as follows:
-b Back up any existing files before overwriting them by renaming
them to file.old. See -B for specifying a different backup suf‐
fix.
-L etcdir
Specify the location of the /etc directory containing the group
and password files. The default is "/etc". If an alternative
directory is specified group and username lookups will be made
from the alternative group and password files rather than the
system group and password files.
-B suffix
Use suffix as the backup suffix if -b is given.
-C Copy the file. If the target file already exists and the files
are the same, then don't change the modification time of the tar‐
get.
-c Copy the file. This is actually the default. The -c option is
only included for backwards compatibility.
-d Create directories. Missing parent directories are created as
required.
-f Specify the target's file flags; see chflags(1) for a list of
possible flags and their meanings.
-g Specify a group. A numeric GID is allowed.
-l When the -L option is specified and the owner or group cannot be
found, fallback to system files.
-M Disable all use of mmap(2).
-m Specify an alternate mode. The default mode is set to rwxr-xr-x
(0755). The specified mode may be either an octal or symbolic
value; see chmod(1) for a description of possible mode values.
-o Specify an owner. A numeric UID is allowed.
-p Preserve the modification time. Copy the file, as if the -C
(compare and copy) option is specified, except if the target file
doesn't already exist or is different, then preserve the modifi‐
cation time of the file.
-S Safe copy. Normally, install unlinks an existing target before
installing the new file. With the -S flag a temporary file is
used and then renamed to be the target. The reason this is safer
is that if the copy or rename fails, the existing target is left
untouched.
-sinstall exec's the command strip(1) to strip binaries so that
install can be portable over a large number of systems and binary
types.
-v Cause install to be verbose, showing files as they are installed
or backed up.
By default, install preserves all file flags, with the exception of the
“nodump” flag.
The install utility attempts to prevent moving a file onto itself.
Installing /dev/null creates an empty file.
FILES
INS@XXXX If either -S option is specified, or the -C or -p option is
used in conjunction with the -s option, temporary files named
INS@XXXX, where XXXX is decided by mkstemp(3), are created in
the target directory.
EXIT STATUS
The install utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
COMPATIBILITY
Historically install moved files by default. The default was changed to
copy in FreeBSD 4.4.
SEE ALSOchflags(1), chgrp(1), chmod(1), cp(1), mv(1), strip(1), mmap(2), chown(8)HISTORY
The install utility appeared in 4.2BSD.
BUGS
Temporary files may be left in the target directory if install exits
abnormally.
File flags cannot be set by fchflags(2) over a NFS filesystem. Other
filesystems do not have a concept of flags. The install utility will
only warn when flags could not be set on a filesystem that does not sup‐
port them.
The install utility with -v falsely says a file is copied when -C snaps
hard links.
BSD May 7, 2001 BSD
