Complete Installation Package Download on Linux (Including Dependencies)

Background

When upgrading internal network servers, it is often necessary to download the installation packages in advance. However, dependency issues can be challenging to resolve in a Linux environment. Therefore, we need a method that can download all dependencies of a software package during installation. In this article, we will introduce how to achieve this. There are many Linux distributions, but we will use CentOS 7 and Ubuntu as examples.

CentOS 7

This article provides two methods for CentOS 7:

Method 1 [Recommended]

1. Install the Tool

yum install yum-utils

2. Usage

yumdownloader <package>

Note:

By default, the packages are downloaded to the current directory. To specify a download directory, you can use –destdir.

To download dependencies, you need to add –resolve.

3. Usage Example

For example, to download vim:

yumdownloader --destdir=/download --resolve vim

After running, you will see all the installation packages as follows:

[root@2c6e5f3d0398 download]# ls
gpm-libs-1.20.7-6.el7.x86_64.rpm      perl-File-Temp-0.23.01-3.el7.noarch.rpm     perl-Pod-Simple-3.28-4.el7.noarch.rpm           perl-Time-Local-1.2300-2.el7.noarch.rpm  perl-threads-shared-1.43-6.el7.x86_64.rpm
groff-base-1.22.2-8.el7.x86_64.rpm    perl-Filter-1.49-3.el7.x86_64.rpm           perl-Pod-Usage-1.63-3.el7.noarch.rpm            perl-constant-1.27-2.el7.noarch.rpm      vim-common-7.4.629-8.el7_9.x86_64.rpm
perl-5.16.3-299.el7_9.x86_64.rpm      perl-Getopt-Long-2.40-3.el7.noarch.rpm      perl-Scalar-List-Utils-1.27-248.el7.x86_64.rpm  perl-libs-5.16.3-299.el7_9.x86_64.rpm    vim-enhanced-7.4.629-8.el7_9.x86_64.rpm
perl-Carp-1.26-244.el7.noarch.rpm     perl-HTTP-Tiny-0.033-3.el7.noarch.rpm       perl-Socket-2.010-5.el7.x86_64.rpm              perl-macros-5.16.3-299.el7_9.x86_64.rpm  vim-filesystem-7.4.629-8.el7_9.x86_64.rpm
perl-Encode-2.51-7.el7.x86_64.rpm     perl-PathTools-3.40-5.el7.x86_64.rpm        perl-Storable-2.45-3.el7.x86_64.rpm             perl-parent-0.225-244.el7.noarch.rpm     which-2.20-7.el7.x86_64.rpm
perl-Exporter-5.68-3.el7.noarch.rpm   perl-Pod-Escapes-1.04-299.el7_9.noarch.rpm  perl-Text-ParseWords-3.29-4.el7.noarch.rpm      perl-podlators-2.5.1-3.el7.noarch.rpm
perl-File-Path-2.09-2.el7.noarch.rpm  perl-Pod-Perldoc-3.20-4.el7.noarch.rpm      perl-Time-HiRes-1.9725-3.el7.x86_64.rpm         perl-threads-1.87-4.el7.x86_64.rpm

Method 2

1. Install the Tool

yum install yum-plugin-downloadonly

2. Usage

yum install --downloadonly --downloaddir= your-dir package-name

3. Usage Example

Again, using the vim installation package as an example:

yum install --downloadonly --downloaddir=/download vim

Ubuntu

The local practical version is Ubuntu 18.04.

Method 1 (Native) [Recommended]

Use apt-cache depends to recursively query all dependencies, then use apt-get download to batch download, suitable for most scenarios.

1. Usage Format

apt-get download $( 
  apt-cache depends --recurse \
    --no-recommends --no-suggests \
    --no-conflicts --no-breaks \
    --no-replaces --no-enhances \
    <package-name> | grep "^\w" | sort -u \
)

Parameter Explanation:

  • –recurse: Recursively query all dependencies (including dependencies of dependencies);
  • –no-recommends: Exclude recommended dependencies, keeping only core dependencies;
  • –no-suggests: Exclude suggested dependencies, keeping only core dependencies;
  • –no-breaks: Filter out packages marked as Breaks to avoid interference with the dependency list;
  • –no-replaces: Do not display information about packages that can be replaced, focusing on dependencies themselves;
  • –no-enhances: Filter out information about enhancement packages, keeping only core dependencies;
  • grep “^\w”: Filter out non-package name lines (such as dependency relationship descriptions);
  • sort -u: Remove duplicates to avoid downloading the same dependency multiple times.

This command will download the installation packages and dependencies to the current directory.

2. Installation Methods

2.1 dpkg Installation

Directly use dpkg to install deb packages.

dpkg -i <package-name>

2.2 apt Installation

This method essentially packages the locally downloaded deb packages onto the internal network server for use as a local repository.

The local practical directory is:<span>/download/pkg</span>, and all downloaded packages are placed here. Again, using the download of<span>vim</span> as an example.

2.1.1 Create Local<span>.deb</span> Index Table

Install the<span>dpkg-scanpackages</span> command on an internet machine to perform the operation.

apt install dpkg-dev

Operate in the<span>/download</span> directory

dpkg-scanpackages -m . /dev/null | gzip -9c > Packages.gz

mv Package.gz pkg/

Packages.gz: Records the name, version, dependencies, architecture, and other information of each package. apt uses it to identify which packages are available locally;

2.2.2 Create Local Source “Credentials”

Operate in the<span>/download/pkg</span> directory

cat > Release << EOF
Origin: Local Repository
Label: Local
Suite: stable
Codename: $(grep VERSION_CODENAME /etc/os-release | cut -d= -f2)
Version: 1.0
Architectures: amd64
Components: main
Description: Local APT Repository for Offline Packages
EOF

Codename: System release code name

Architectures: System architecture, 32-bit is i386

2.2.3 Configure Source on Internal Network Machine

Copy<span>/download</span> to the internal network machine for configuration.

  • Source Configuration
cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.bak

echo "deb file:///download  pkg/"| tee /etc/apt/sources.list
  • Refresh Source
apt update --allow-insecure-repositories

<span>--allow-insecure-repositories</span> parameter temporarily allows unsigned sources.

2.2.4 Installation on Internal Network Machine

apt-get install vim

Method 2 [Not Recommended]

1. Install the Tool

apt install apt-offline

This method is relatively simple, but it requires a clean environment because this solution will only download missing dependencies from the system.

2. Tool Usage

Using vim as an example:

  • 2.1 Generate Dependency Download List
apt-offline set ./vim-offline.sig --install-packages vim

Generate a dependency download list in the current directory.

  • 2.2 Download Packages Based on Dependencies
apt-offline get ./vim-offline.sig -d /download

Method 3

This method has flaws and is for reference only.

[Note] Based on <span>apt-rdepends + apt-get download</span>, sometimes the package names of dependencies are incorrect, which may lead to download failures. A common error is:

E: Can't select candidate version from package debconf-2.0 as it has no candidate

Verification:

root@b8e208703627:/download/pkg# apt search debconf-2.0
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
root@b8e208703627:/download/pkg# apt search debconf
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
cdebconf/bionic 0.213ubuntu1 amd64
  Debian Configuration Management System (C-implementation)
......

The real package name is<span>debconf</span>.

Here, we also provide a script for readers to use:

downloadPkg.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Check if parameters are correct
if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then
    echo "Usage: $0 <package-name>"
    echo "Example: $0 vim"
    exit 1
fi

PACKAGE="$1"
SAVE_DIR=$(pwd)

# Check if apt-rdepends is installed
if ! command -v apt-rdepends > /dev/null; then
    echo "Error: apt-rdepends not found. Please install it first:"
    echo "sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y apt-rdepends"
    exit 1
fi

echo "Starting to download all dependencies of $PACKAGE, saving to $SAVE_DIR ..."

# Recursively query all dependencies and download (deduplicate, skip invalid packages)
for pkg in $(apt-rdepends "$PACKAGE" | grep -v "^ " | sort -u); do
    # Check if the package exists (exclude virtual packages or invalid ones)
    if ! apt-cache show "$pkg" > /dev/null; then
        echo "[Warning] Skipping invalid dependency: $pkg"
        continue
    fi
    # Download the package to the specified directory
    echo "Downloading: $pkg"
    apt-get download "$pkg"
    if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
        echo "[Failed] Failed to download $pkg"
    fi
done

echo "[Success] Download completed. All dependencies are saved to $SAVE_DIR"

Usage:

sh downloadPkg.sh <package-name>

The current script can only download packages and dependencies to the current directory and needs improvement.

Conclusion

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