Command line installer

Prerequisites

The following description requires the latest version of the PEAR package manager to be installed.

The command line installer is the easiest way to install PEAR packages on your system: It connects to the PEAR package server via a simple HTTP connection, loads the package on your system and installs it to the desired location.

Fully-automatic installation

Using the command line installer is pretty straightforward and easy to use. Simply run the following line on your shell:

$ pear install <package>

<package> has to be replaced with the name of the package you want to install (e.g. HTTP_Upload). To get a list of the available packages, you can point your browser to the PEAR package browser or you can run:

$ pear remote-list

This command returns a list of all packages that are available in PEAR at the moment.

Semi-automatic installation

If you have downloaded a package release from http://pear.php.net/ as a gzipped tar archive, you can also install it locally. To do this, run the following line on your shell:

$ pear install <file>.tgz

This command will automatically install the package and does not require an online connection. <file>.tgz has to be replaced with the name of the downloaded file.

Commands and Variables

Here's a list of commands available to the pear command line tool. Many of these commands may require root access to the server.

Command	Description
build	Build the extension from source
bundle	Download and unpack a PECL extension
channel-add	Add a Channel (PEAR 1.4+)
channel-alias	Specify an alias to a channel name (PEAR 1.4+)
channel-delete	Remove a channel from the list (PEAR 1.4+)
channel-discover	Initialize a channel from its server name (PEAR 1.4+)
channel-info	Retrieve information on a channel (PEAR 1.4+)
channel-update	Update an existing channel (PEAR 1.4+)
clear-cache	Clear the XML-RPC cache
config-create	Create a default configuration file (PEAR 1.4+)
config-get	Echo a specific configuration setting
config-help	Show information about a setting
config-set	Set a specific configuration setting value
config-show	Show all configuration setting values
convert	Convert a package.xml 1.0 format to package.xml 2.0 format (PEAR 1.4+)
cvsdiff	Execute and display a "`cvs diff -u`" on all files within the package
cvstag	Set a CVS release tag
download	Download a package but not install it
download-all	Downloads every available package
info	Display information about a package
install	Install a package, will report with success or failure
list	List installed packages
list-all	List all packages, packaged and/or available
list-channels	List available channels (PEAR 1.4+)
list-files	List files in an installed package (PEAR 1.4+)
list-upgrades	List available upgrades for the installed packages
login	Connects and authenticates to the remote PEAR server
logout	Logs out from the remote PEAR server
makerpm	Builds a RPM spec file from a PEAR package
package	Build a package
package-dependencies	Show package dependencies
package-validate	Validate package consistency
remote-info	Information about remote packages
remote-list	List remote packages
run-scripts	Run post-install scripts bundled with a package (PEAR 1.4+)
run-tests	Run regression tests
search	Search the remote package database
shell-test	Do a shell script test
sign	Sign a package distribution file
uninstall	Uninstall and remove a package
update-channels	Update the channel list (PEAR 1.4+)
upgrade	Upgrade a package to the current version (see also: preferred_state)
upgrade-all	Upgrade all packages (see also: list-upgrades)

And here's a list of available PEAR configuration variables. Use the config-get, config-help, config-set, and config-show command options to use these configuration variables. While installing PEAR on the system, PEAR will attempt to replace the default values with values specific to the given server. Adjust accordingly.

Variable Name	Description	Default Value
bin_dir	Directory where executables are installed	`/usr/bin`
doc_dir	Directory where documentation is installed	`/usr/lib/php/docs`
ext_dir	Directory where loadable extensions are installed	`./`
php_dir	Directory where PHP files are installed (like PEAR files)	`/usr/lib/php`
cache_dir	PEAR installer cache directory, and used by XMLRPC	`/tmp/pear/cache`
data_dir	Directory where data files are installed	`/usr/lib/php/data`
php_bin	The PHP CLI or CGI binary for executing scripts	`/usr/bin/php`
test_dir	Directory where regression tests are installed	`/usr/lib/php/tests`
cache_ttk	Number of seconds that the local cache is used, and not updated (Time To Kill)	3600
preferred_state	Preferred package state: stable, beta, alpha, devel, or snapshot	stable
umask	umask used when creating files (Unix-like systems only)	22
verbose	Debug log level: 0-3 where 3 is full debug mode.	1
http_proxy	The optional HTTP proxy address (host:port) used when downloading packages
remote_config	Remote configuration file, used to mirror a local installation on a remote server through ftp. (PEAR 1.4+)
auto_discover	Auto-discover new channels from command line or dependencies	0
default_channel	Default channel (PEAR 1.4+)	pear.php.net (pecl.php.net if using the pecl command)
preferred_mirror	Preferred channel mirror (PEAR 1.4+)	pear.php.net (pecl.php.net if using the pecl command)
master_server	PEAR server [deprecated in PEAR 1.4+]	pear.php.net
password	PEAR password (used by maintainers)
sig_bin	Signature handling program	`/sw/bin/gpg`
sig_keydir	Signature key directory	`/etc/pearkeys`
sig_keyid	The key used for signing
sig_type	Package signature type (only gpg)	gpg
username	PEAR username (used by maintainers)