# apk-add ## NAME `apk add` - add packages to _world_ and commit changes ## SYNOPSIS ```shell apk add [...] packages... ``` ## DESCRIPTION `apk add` adds the requested packages to _world_ and installs (or upgrades) them if not already present, ensuring all dependencies are met. To upgrade individual packages without modifying _world_ use *apk-fix*(8). By default *apk* tries to select a set of packages so that all dependencies are satisfied. This means that some packages can be held back in an older version if there is direct or implicit dependencies to the older version. ## OPTIONS *apk add* supports the commit options described in *apk*(8), as well as the following options: *--initdb* Initialize a new package database. *-l, --latest* Always choose the latest package by version. However, the versions considered are based on the package pinning. Primarily this overrides the default heuristic and will cause an error to displayed if all dependencies cannot be satisfied. *-u, --upgrade* Upgrade _packages_ and it's dependencies. Normally *apk add* will avoid changing installed package unless it is required by the newly added _packages_ or their dependencies. This changes the default preference to upgrading the package to the latest installable version. *-t, --virtual* _NAME_ Create virtual package _NAME_ with given dependencies. This new package will get the _packages_ as dependencies instead of _world_. Finally the _NAME_ is added to _world_. One can use this to ensure that selected set of packages are installed, and later the temporary modification be undone with *apk-del*(8) _NAME_ without removing packages that were installed earlier. *--no-chown* Do not change file owner or group. By default apk will manage the file ownership when running as root. However, this option is turned on when running as non-root user, as changing file ownership is not permitted by the system then.