Instructions

Download & Installation Instructions

Download

Navigate to the Packages Menu Item and move down to the level of Solaris you are using.  Click on that level and you will get a list of the packages we offer.   Scroll down to find the specific program you want or do a search for it.   If you search for apache, for example, you will get a listing for apache and apachetop and others related to apache.   A search for keyword, editor, will bring up packages that have a relation to editors.

When you find the program you want, click on it.  You will be taken to entries related to it. Click on the version you want and get details on the package and where to get the files.  You now have two options: Either click on the "http" link to the right of the file name, typically ending with -local.gz, and downloading will start from our Amazon S3 file server, or select "Older Versions" to be taken to our Older Version Matrix Table .  The files on this site are Solaris Pkgadd packages that have been compressed with GNU gzip.   We suggest that you study the pkgadd related man pages if you are not familiar with installing packages under Solaris 2.5, 2.6, 7-11.

Note: You will also need to install the dependencies for the package you are installing, and many cases the dependencies have their own dependencies. For your convenience click on the 'dependency tree' to view all the dependencies for a given package. Clicking on a package within the tree will download that package.

Download Notes:

  • FTP vs HTTP Downloads
    We deliver our downloads from Amazon's S3 file-store service via HTTP. This ensures a high availability and rapid download speeds. We no longer support FTP access to our repository.
  • Rsync and Wget
    We do not provide open/public access via rsync or wget to our repository. Corporate Unlimited account holders may, for an additional fee, access our repository using S3sync or S3curl to create a mirror of our package files.
  • File notation
    Notation for Solaris 2.6, 7-11 and now most Solaris 2.5.x entries is in this format:
    program name-version-os-processor-install directory.gz
    For Example: gcc-2.8.1-sol26-sparc-local.gz
  • Availability
    Not all packages are available for all levels of Solaris.
  • Un-Zipping
    It is possible that if you have gunzip installed on your system, a downloaded .gz file will be gunzipped during download.
  • File Corruption
    If you have any problems with the file you obtain, check that the file size and the md5 checksum are correct.  These are listed in the File Info links of the packages or source files.  Other information, like the pkgadd name, the location where files are installed, the source code details, and various notes are found by clicking the More Info link for a given package.  For other problems and questions please complete our Support Form.

Installation

To install a file you have downloaded, follow the detail here: For example, if you were to download a gzipped package foo-1.00-sol8-sparc-local.gz into directory /tmp, to install this package, you would use the following commands:
%> cd /tmp
%> gunzip foo-1.00-sol8-sparc-local.gz
%> pkgadd -d foo-1.00-sol8-sparc-local

The pkgadd command must be run as root. Do NOT put a . , ./ or the directory name in front of the file name in pkgadd!
This will create a new directory, i.e., /usr/local (the actual name of the new directory would depend on the package) if it does not already exist..

If the package installs in /usr/local/bin, you must put /usr/local/bin (or /opt/foo/bin when programs install in /opt/foo) in your UNIX PATH. You will also probably want to add /usr/local/lib to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH and /usr/local/man to your MANPATH in a similar way. See your Solaris manual on how to do this for the shell program you are using.
In addition please see our FAQ for further details on installation and problems.

Potential Problems

  • Binaries
    The programs at this site have been tested on our SPARC/Intel/Solaris 2.5.1, 2.6, and 7-11 systems and appear to work. we have not tried to test every single element of every program nor do we guarantee that the binaries will work on your system if there is some different configuration. We have no idea if there are bugs in the software. We will try to keep up with new releases, but not instantly. Documentation and other relevant files have been included to the best of our abilities. If you have problems with installation or execution, we want to hear about it, but we cannot assure you that we can solve your problem. Please contact the authors if there is a bug in the program itself.
  • Windows Downloads
    Users who attempt to download these files to Windows machines running Internet Explorer, with or without virus scanners, tend to have a lot of problems with file corruption. If you must download to a PC running Windows, try to use Firefox or do just a straight ftp. Make sure you check the file size of the .gz files you get. If you do not get the correct size, it is probable that your Windows software corrupted the file. It makes much more sense to download directly to your Solaris machines anyway.
  • /tmp space too small
    During some of parts of the installation your  /tmp space may get filled up. You will need to increase the size of /tmp. On Solaris systems  /tmp is dependent on how much swap space you have. You can also look up in the man pages or other documentation for the section on increasing  /tmp space.
  • /opt or /usr/local space too small
    Before doing any of this, you should back up your /opt  or  /usr/local  directory fully!
    By default the pkgadd program will create directories in  /opt  or  /usr/local  for the packaged software. On some systems the disk space allocated to these directories is too small. If you have enough space elsewhere you can either move some of the things you have in  /opt  or  /usr/local there or move  /opt  or  /usr/local  there entirely. For example, suppose you have a directory on another disk called /solaris2. Create a directory called  /solaris2/local  and after moving your /usr/local  directories to  /solaris2/local,  delete (careful here), your  /usr/local  directory and then do a ln -s  /solaris2/local /usr/local and make sure it is accessible by anyone who needs it. If you do not feel expert enough to do this, have a system administrator guide you through it or recommend another procedure.You can now use pkgadd.
  • /var space too small
    It is also possible for the /var/tmp  or /var/spool/pkg  directories to be too small. You can follow the same sort of technique as above to remedy this. For more detail on this see the FAQ "I am getting an error message like: cpio: Cannot write......".

Package Removal/Un-Install

To remove a package, simply run (as root) the Solaris Package removal command pkgrm: For example to remove apache-2.4.17
%> pkgrm SMCap2417
If you don't remember the package's name, do
%> pkginfo | grep SMC
and you will get a list of our packages you have already installed and the names of the software.  Find the SMC package name and use pkgrm on that.