eix

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eix is a set of utilities for searching and diffing local ebuild repositories using a binary cache. The cache allows relatively fast queries, and should be generated after each Portage sync.

eix is both more efficient and more flexible than the emerge --search command. eix comes with colorized output which helps users easily find the needed package information.

For more information on eix, read its man page: man eix.

Installation

Emerge

Install app-portage/eix:

root #emerge --ask app-portage/eix

Optional upstream optimizations

Note
Following eix man pages the maintainer strongly recommends to export these flags: --enable-security --enable-new-dialect --enable-strong-optimization which highly optimizes eix and usually essentially decreases the binary size and corresponding memory usage. Doing so may ignore compiler flags in make.conf however.
FILE /etc/portage/env/eix-extra-econf.confEnvironment overrides for configure options
EXTRA_ECONF="--enable-security
--enable-new-dialect
--enable-strong-optimization"
FILE /etc/portage/package.env/eixSpecifying eix as package specific file defining overrides for eix
app-portage/eix eix-extra-econf.conf

Configuration

Files

  • /etc/eix-sync.conf - Stores commands and configurations for eix-sync
  • /etc/eixrc - eix's global configuration file.
  • ~/.eixrc - eix's per-user configuration file.

Environment variables

  • EIXRC - If this variable can set a new location for eix's global configuration file (see above).
  • EIX_SYNC_OPTS, EIX_SYNC_CONF, EIX_REMOTE_OPTS, EIX_LAYMAN_OPTS, EIX_TEST_OBSOLETE_OPTS - Security relevant variables. See the man page for more details.

Managing the cache

Updating the cache manually

After the installation has finished, it is important to update the cache to index all packages on the system. Running following command will update the local eix cache:

root #eix-update
Tip
eix-update can utilize the metadata cache generated by emerge --regen for a speedup and better accuracy. To enable this, set the OVERLAY_CACHE_METHOD variable to assign in the /etc/eixrc/01-cache file.

FILE /etc/eixrc/01-cacheSetting OVERLAY_CACHE_METHOD
OVERLAY_CACHE_METHOD="assign"

Updating the cache with each sync

After each update of the Portage tree, the cache needs to be updated.

The following two alternative methods are used to automatically update the cache with each sync.

Note
Method 1 is preferred, as it is able to work in combination with all possible emaint sync commands (see Portage plug-in sync system specification).
Method 1: Using Portage's postsync hook

After all repository syncs, all executable scripts in the directory /etc/portage/postsync.d/ are called. First, create the directory:

root #mkdir --parents /etc/portage/postsync.d

Then place the following script:

FILE /etc/portage/postsync.d/eix
#!/usr/bin/env bash
if [[ -e /var/cache/eix/portage.eix ]]; then
    rsync -ca /var/cache/eix/portage.eix /var/cache/eix/previous.eix;
fi
eix-update
if [[ -e /var/cache/eix/previous.eix ]]; then
    eix-diff;
fi

Do not forget to make the file executable:

root #chmod +x /etc/portage/postsync.d/eix

If additional ebuild repositories are used, eix-update can become quite slow, as many of them do not provide pregenerated caches. To speed up the process of eix-update, Portage can be hooked to regenerate the cache for each repository, after each sync.

An example for this is provided in the /usr/share/portage/config/repo.postsync.d/example file. This example can be copied to /etc/portage/repo.postsync.d/egencache and made executable. Note the --jobs argument to egencache - setting this to the output of nproc (as shown below) causes it to use all available system cores. If less impact on system resources is desired, this can be reduced to a smaller number.

FILE /etc/portage/repo.postsync.d/egencache
#!/bin/sh

# The repository name.
repository_name=${1}
# The URI to which the repository was synced.
sync_uri=${2}
# The path to the repository.
repository_path=${3}

# Portage assumes that a hook succeeded if it exits with 0 code. If no
# explicit exit is done, the exit code is the exit code of last spawned
# command. Since our script is a bit more complex, we want to control
# the exit code explicitly.
ret=0

if [ -n "${repository_name}" ]; then
        # Repository name was provided, so we're in a post-repository hook.
        echo "* In post-repository hook for ${repository_name}"
        echo "** synced from remote repository ${sync_uri}"
        echo "** synced into ${repository_path}"

        # Gentoo comes with pregenerated cache but the other repositories
        # usually don't. Generate them to improve performance.
        if [ ! -d "${repository_path}/metadata/md5-cache" ]; then
                if ! egencache --update --repo="${repository_name}" --jobs=$(nproc)
                then
                        echo "!!! egencache failed!"
                        ret=1
                fi
        fi
fi

# Return explicit status.
exit "${ret}"
Method 2: Using eix-sync

Alternatively, eix-sync can be used from eix itself:

root #eix-sync

The above command is a shorthand way to running these commands sequentially:

root #emerge --sync
root #cp -a /var/cache/eix/portage.eix /var/cache/eix/previous.eix
root #eix-update
root #eix-diff

If layman is used to manage ebuild repositories, then it is recommended to configure eix to synchronize layman-managed repositories too:

FILE /etc/eix-sync.conf
# Sync all ebuild repositories with layman -S
*

In standard configuration, emerge --sync calls emaint sync --auto that updates other repositories as well. Finally, to speed up the eix-update step, eix-sync can run emerge --regen after syncing ebuild repositories:

FILE /etc/eix-sync.conf
# Regenerate ebuild repository metadata
@emerge --regen || true

Adding remote repositories to the cache

To be able to search for packages in remote repositories/overlays not yet installed, fetch caches of them (by default from http://gpo.zugaina.org/eix_cache/eix-cache.tbz2) and store them locally:

Important
This must be run as root for the first invocation, otherwise the files it downloads will have incorrect ownership.
root #eix-remote update

To do this automatically on each eix-sync, add the following:

FILE /etc/eix-sync.conf
@StatusInfo "Downloading remote1"
@eix-remote fetch1

It will then be possible to search all overlays using the -R option to eix:

user $eix -R
* dev-scheme/termite
     Available versions:  (~)0.15-r1
     Homepage:            https://code.google.com/p/termite/
     Description:         Erlang-style concurrency for Gambit Scheme

* x11-terms/termite
     Available versions:  (~)6[1] (~)7[1] (~)7[3] (~)8[1] (~)8[3] (~)9[1] (~)9[3] (~)10[1] (~)10[3] (~)11[1] (~)11[3] (~)12[1] (~)13[1] (~)13[2] **9999[1] **9999[2] **9999[3] (~)9999[4] (~)9999[5] {nocsd}
     Homepage:            https://github.com/thestinger/termite
     Description:         A keyboard-centric VTE-based terminal

[1] "eroen" layman/eroen
[2] "gig" layman/gig
[3] "nightmare" layman/nightmare
[4] "SoniFrog" layman/SoniFrog
[5] "zjpxshade" layman/zjpxshade

Found 2 matches

Using tmpfs cache

This breaks eix because /var/cache/eix is missing when /var/cache is mounted:

root #grep /var/cache /etc/fstab
none /var/cache tmpfs size=512m 0 0

The simple solution is to move the eix cache files away from the default location:

root #cat >> /etc/eixrc/00-eixrc << EOF
EIX_CACHEFILE=%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/portage.eix
EIX_PREVIOUS=%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/previous.eix
EIX_REMOTE1=%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote.eix
EIX_REMOTE2=%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote2.eix
EIX_REMOTEARCHIVE1=%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote.tar.bz2
EIX_REMOTEARCHIVE2=%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote2.tar.bz2
EOF

Check all new set variables:

root #eix --dump | grep "EIX_CACHEFILE\|EIX_PREVIOUS\|EIX_REMOTE1\|EIX_REMOTE2\|EIX_REMOTEARCHIVE1\|EIX_REMOTEARCHIVE2"
EIX_CACHEFILE="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/portage.eix"
# EIX_CACHEFILE="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/portage.eix"
EIX_PREVIOUS="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/previous.eix"
# EIX_PREVIOUS="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/previous.eix"
EIX_REMOTE1="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote.eix"
# EIX_REMOTE1="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote.eix"
EIX_REMOTE2="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote2.eix"
# EIX_REMOTE2="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote2.eix"
EIX_REMOTEARCHIVE1="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote.tar.bz2"
# EIX_REMOTEARCHIVE1="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote.tar.bz2"
EIX_REMOTEARCHIVE2="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote2.tar.bz2"
# EIX_REMOTEARCHIVE2="%{EPREFIX}/var/cache/eix/eix-remote2.tar.bz2"

One side effect is needing to run eix-update after each reboot which will take a few seconds. To do so, add a .start script to the /etc/local.d/ (Local.d) directory:

FILE /etc/local.d/90_eix-update.start
#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/logger -s "/etc/local.d/90_eix-update.start: executed"
/usr/bin/eix-update

This will also write into the /var/log/syslog log file that it was executed.

Do not forget to make the file executable:

root #chmod +x /etc/local.d/90_eix-update.start

For systemd:

FILE /etc/systemd/system/eix-update.timer
[Unit]
Description=update the eix database 15min after boot

[Timer]
OnBootSec=15min
OnUnitActiveSec=1d

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

And the service file:

FILE /etc/systemd/system/eix-update.service
[Unit]
Description=update the eix database 15min after boot and every day if system is running

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/eix-update
User=portage
Group=systemd-journal

Afterwards enable timer:

root #systemctl enable eix-update.timer

Usage

Searching for packages

Simple search

To find package names containing kernel keyword:

user $eix kernel
* app-admin/eclean-kernel
     Available versions:  (~)0.3 {{python_targets_python2_6 python_targets_python2_7}}
     Homepage:            https://bitbucket.org/mgorny/eclean-kernel/
     Description:         Remove outdated built kernels

* app-doc/linux-kernel-in-a-nutshell
     Available versions:  1
     Homepage:            http://www.kroah.com/lkn/
     Description:         Linux Kernel in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference

* games-misc/fortune-mod-kernelcookies
     Available versions:  9 {{offensive}}
     Homepage:            http://www.schwarzvogel.de/software-misc.shtml
     Description:         A collection of funny lines from the Linux kernel

* net-fs/openafs-kernel
     Available versions:  1.4.14 (~)1.4.14.1 (~)1.6.0 (~)1.6.1_pre1 (~)1.6.1 {{kernel_linux}}
     Homepage:            http://www.openafs.org/
     Description:         The OpenAFS distributed file system kernel module

* sec-policy/selinux-kerneloops
     Available versions:  [M]2.20120215 [M](~)2.20120215-r1
     Homepage:            http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/hardened/selinux/
     Description:         SELinux policy for kerneloops

* sys-cluster/drbd-kernel
     Available versions:  8.0.16 (~)8.3.6 (~)8.3.8.1 {{kernel_linux}}
     Homepage:            http://www.drbd.org
     Description:         mirror/replicate block-devices across a network-connection

* sys-cluster/gfs-kernel
     Available versions:  2.03.09 {{kernel_linux}}
     Homepage:            http://sources.redhat.com/cluster/wiki/
     Description:         GFS kernel module

[I] sys-kernel/genkernel
     Available versions:  3.4.16 (~)3.4.16.1 3.4.20 (~)3.4.21.2 (~)3.4.22.1 (~)3.4.23.1 (~)3.4.24 3.4.24_p1 (~)3.4.25.1 (~)3.4.26 (~)3.4.27 (~)3.4.28 (~)3.4.29 (~)3.4.32 (~)3.4.33.1 (~)3.4.34 (~)3.4.35 (~)3.4.36 **9999 {{crypt cryptsetup ibm selinux}}
     Installed versions:  3.4.36(01:30:10 AM 07/01/2012)(crypt -cryptsetup -ibm -selinux)
     Homepage:            http://www.gentoo.org
     Description:         Gentoo automatic kernel building scripts

Found 8 matches.
Note
The displayed versions are colorized and have the following meanings:

stable
unstable or testing and unkeyworded

unkeyworded or masked

Searching for installed packages

Search for installed packages using the -I option:

user $eix -I kernel
[I] sys-kernel/genkernel
     Available versions:  3.4.16 (~)3.4.16.1 3.4.20 (~)3.4.21.2 (~)3.4.22.1 (~)3.4.23.1 (~)3.4.24 3.4.24_p1 (~)3.4.25.1 (~)3.4.26 (~)3.4.27 (~)3.4.28 (~)3.4.29 (~)3.4.32 (~)3.4.33.1 (~)3.4.34 (~)3.4.35 (~)3.4.36 **9999 {{crypt cryptsetup ibm selinux}}
     Installed versions:  3.4.36(01:30:10 AM 07/01/2012)(crypt -cryptsetup -ibm -selinux)
     Homepage:            http://www.gentoo.org
     Description:         Gentoo automatic kernel building scripts

Searching in package descriptions

To search in package descriptions use the -S option. It is possible to print out results in a compact list using -c:

user $eix -S -c corba
[N] dev-ada/polyorb (~2.1.0): A CORBA implementation for Ada
[I] dev-libs/libIDL (0.8.14{tbz2}@07/10/11): CORBA tree builder
[N] gnome-base/libbonobo (2.24.3): GNOME CORBA framework
[I] gnome-base/orbit (2.14.19-r1(2){tbz2}@07/10/11): ORBit2 is a high-performance CORBA ORB
[N] net-misc/mico (~2.3.13-r5): A freely available and fully compliant implementation of the CORBA standard
[N] net-misc/omniORB (4.1.4-r1): A robust, high-performance CORBA 2 ORB

Searching in package categories

Search for certain category using the -C option and print out the results in a compact list (-c):

user $eix -C -c app-officeext
[N] app-officeext/barcode (1.3.5.0): Extension for reading barcodes
[N] app-officeext/ct2n (1.4.0): Extension for converting text to numbers
[N] app-officeext/dmaths (3.4.2.2): Mathematics Formula Editor Extension
[N] app-officeext/languagetool (1.7): Style and Grammar Checker for libreoffice
[N] app-officeext/ooo2gd (3.0.0): Extension for export to Google docs, zoho and WebDAV
[N] app-officeext/sun-templates (~1.0.0): Collection of sun templates for various countries.
[N] app-officeext/texmaths (0.35): LaTeX Equation Editor for LibreOffice

Searching in only the main (gentoo) repository

The main Gentoo repository has an overlay index of 0 (zero), and so can be specified by the --only-in-overlay option.

user $eix -C games-board --only-in-overlay 0
[N] games-board/ace (~1.4-r2): DJ Delorie's Ace of Penguins solitaire games
[N] games-board/atakks (~1.0-r2): Clone of Ataxx
[N] games-board/awale (~1.6): Free Awale - The game of all Africa
[N] games-board/biloba (~0.9.3-r2): a board game, up to 4 players, with AI and network
[N] games-board/blokish (~0.9.4-r3): Open source clone of the four-player board game Blokus
[N] games-board/cgoban (~1.9.14-r2): A Go-frontend
...

Searching by license

Search for packages that are licensed under a specific license or subset of licenses using the -L option. For example's sake let the license be an End-User License Agreement (a type of proprietary license), or EULA and let's limit the results to the games-rpg category (as without a category limitation the results would be too long to fit comfortably in this article):

user $eix -Cc games-rpg -L "EULA"
[N] games-rpg/arx-fatalis-data ((~)1.21-r3): Arx Fatalis data files
[N] games-rpg/nwn (1.69-r1): role-playing game set in a huge medieval fantasy world of Dungeons and Dragons
[N] games-rpg/nwn-data (1.29-r5): Neverwinter Nights Data Files
[N] games-rpg/runescape-launcher (2.2.4): Official RuneScape NXT client launcher

Excluding results

To exclude results that, for example, have EULA in their license field using the --not option:

user $eix --not -L "EULA"

(output not shown as it is too long).

Searching for installed obsolete packages

Search for obsolete packages on the system using the eix-test-obsolete command (It will in fact search for packages not installed but mentioned in the config files.):

user $eix-test-obsolete
No non-matching entries in /etc/portage/package.keywords.
Non-matching entries in /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords:

net-wireless/iwl5000-code ~amd64
app-text/xpdf ~amd64
--

No non-matching entries in /etc/portage/package.mask.
No non-matching entries in /etc/portage/package.unmask.
No non-matching or empty entries in /etc/portage/package.use.
No non-matching or empty entries in /etc/portage/package.env.
No non-matching or empty entries in /etc/portage/package.license.
No non-matching or empty entries in /etc/portage/package.cflags.
The names of all installed packages are in the database.


Redundant in /etc/portage/package.{,accept_}keywords:

... considered as REDUNDANT_IF_WEAKER
[I] www-client/firefox-bin (14.0.1{tbz2}@02/08/12): Firefox Web Browser
[I] www-client/opera-next (12.50.1546{tbz2}@17/08/12): A fast and secure web browser and Internet suite
[N] www-client/seamonkey-bin (2.11): Mozilla Application Suite - web browser, email, HTML editor, IRC
Found 3 matches.


... considered as REDUNDANT_IF_NO_CHANGE
[I] app-laptop/laptop-mode-tools (1.60-r1{tbz2}@18/01/12): Linux kernel laptop_mode user-space utilities
[I] media-sound/ncmpc (0.20{tbz2}@02/04/12): A ncurses client for the Music Player Daemon (MPD)
[I] media-sound/ncmpcpp (0.5.10{tbz2}@02/04/12): An ncurses mpd client, ncmpc clone with some new features, written in C++
[N] media-sound/pms ((~)0.42{tbz2}): Practical Music Search: an open source ncurses client for mpd, written in C++
[I] www-client/opera (12.01.1532{tbz2}@02/08/12): A fast and secure web browser and Internet suite
[N] www-client/seamonkey-bin (2.11): Mozilla Application Suite - web browser, email, HTML editor, IRC
[I] www-plugins/adobe-flash (11.2.202.238{tbz2}@18/08/12): Adobe Flash Player
[I] x11-misc/dclock (2.2.2_p4{tbz2}@02/04/12): Digital clock for the X window system.
[I] x11-misc/xosview (1.9.3{tbz2}@29/04/12): X11 operating system viewer
[I] x11-wm/fvwm (2.6.5{tbz2}[2]@12/05/12): An extremely powerful ICCCM-compliant multiple virtual desktop window manager
[1] "mpd" /var/lib/layman/mpd
[2] "testing" /usr/local/portage

Found 10 matches.


Not installed but in /etc/portage/package.{,accept_}keywords:
[N] media-sound/pms ((~)0.42{tbz2}): Practical Music Search: an open source ncurses client for mpd, written in C++
[N] www-client/seamonkey-bin (2.11): Mozilla Application Suite - web browser, email, HTML editor, IRC
[N] x11-libs/libaosd ((~)0.2.7{tbz2}): An advanced on screen display (OSD) library
[N] x11-plugins/wmtime ((~)1.0_beta2_p10): applet which displays the date and time in a dockable tile
Found 5 matches.

No  redundant  entries in /etc/portage/package.mask
No uninstalled entries in /etc/portage/package.mask
No  redundant  entries in /etc/portage/package.unmask
No uninstalled entries in /etc/portage/package.unmask
Skipping check:  redundant  entries in /etc/portage/package.use
Skipping check: uninstalled entries in /etc/portage/package.use
Skipping check:  redundant  entries in /etc/portage/package.env
Skipping check: uninstalled entries in /etc/portage/package.env
No  redundant  entries in /etc/portage/package.license
No uninstalled entries in /etc/portage/package.license
Skipping check:  redundant  entries in /etc/portage/package.cflags
Skipping check: uninstalled entries in /etc/portage/package.cflags

Installed packages with a version not in the database (or masked):
[D] sys-fs/udev (171-r6{tbz2}@26/05/12 -> ??): Linux dynamic and persistent device naming support (aka userspace devfs)
[D] x11-misc/xmobar (0.13{tbz2}@21/03/12 -> ~0.14): A Minimalistic Text Based Status Bar
Found 2 matches.

Format strings

This is probably the most powerful aspect of eix, but the documentation is hard to understand. eix has a mini-language for specifying more precise queries and output formats than are possible using only the basic options. The format string is specified as the option argument to the --format option. There are basically two major concepts, properties and variables:

  • Properties: Each package has a set of associated properties that can either be printed or used as part of a predicate in a conditional block.
  • Variables: A variable can be any environment variable set in the environment of eix, or any of the variables printed from the output of eix --dump.

Category/name-version and license

When creating distributed media eix can be used to output a versioned package list along with the associated license information:

user $NAMEVERSION="<category>/<name>-<version>" eix -I --format 'Package: <installedversions:NAMEVERSION> | License: <licenses>\n'

Conditional blocks

Conditional blocks take can 3 forms, each with an optional RHS, each of which can be optionally negated:

CODE If-then string comparison
{[!]PROPERTY=RHS}TCODE{}
CODE If-then predicate
{[!]PROPERTY}TCODE{}
CODE If-then-else string comparison
{[!]PROPERTY=RHS}TCODE{else}FCODE{}
CODE If-then-else predicate
{[!]PROPERTY}TCODE{else}FCODE{}
CODE Assignment
{[!]*VARIABLE=RHS}
CODE Assign 1 or empty string
{[!]*VARIABLE}

Tips

Show changes since last sync

It is possible to show a diff of the changes since the last sync:

root #cp -a /var/cache/eix/portage.eix /var/cache/eix/previous.eix
root #eix-update
root #eix-diff

Have Eix and Emerge use the same color palette

On some terminal emulators, the color palette will render Eix and Emerge with different color output. To get it back together, add this to the end of the Eix configuration:

FILE /etc/eixrc/00-eixrc
COLOR_INST_VERSION="white,1;blue|33,1;%{BG1}|black;green|30,1;%{BG3}"

BG0=none;
BG1=none;
BG2=none;
BG3=none;

COLORSCHEME0=0;
COLORSCHEME1=0;
COLORSCHEME2=0;
COLORSCHEME3=0;

Tmux and Screen users should disable status line updates

When using tmux with automatic window renaming enabled (that is set -g automatic-rename on has been ran in the tmux configuration file) or screen, status line updates should be disabled. Otherwise, every time eix-update is ran the title of the window will be renamed to something like "eix-update: Finished*".

To disable status line updates, run the following command:

root #echo "NOSTATUSLINE=true" >> /etc/eixrc/00-eixrc

See also

External resources

Retrieved from "https://wiki.gentoo.org/index.php?title=Eix&oldid=1274443"