Author: Dave McKay / Source: How-To Geek
install is a versatile file-copying command in Linux and macOS. It’s perfect for the power-user looking for efficiency. Read this article to discover how to work smarter—not harder.
Wait—It’s Not For Installing Software?
The install command might have the most misleading name of any of the Linux commands.
apt-get command. On other Linux distributions, use your Linux distribution’s package management tool instead—for example, dnf on Fedora or zypper on openSUSE. So What Does install Do?
In a nutshell install combines elements from the cp (copy), chown (change owner), chmod (change mode), mkdir (make directory), and strip (strip symbols) commands. It lets you use functions from all of those in one single action.
The install command can:
- Copy files like the
cpcommand. - Choose whether to overwrite existing files.
- Create the target directory if it does not exist, like
mkdir. - Set the user permission flags of the files, just like the
chmodcommand. - Set the owner of the files, just like the
chowncommand. - Remove non-essential baggage from executable files, just like the
stripcommand.
Despite all that functionality, the install command doesn’t have too many options to contend with.
When Would You Use It
The install command probably won’t be used every day. It’s useful, but only for certain situations. One scenario where install comes into its own is software development. Let’s say you’re programming a new utility. You’ll need to do testing outside of the development environment. To do that you need to copy the new program files to a test directory. The test directory might need to be created, and you need to set the correct permissions and ownership for the files.
Because development is an iterative activity, you can end up doing this sequence of actions many, many times. The install command does all the heavy lifting for you. Finally, when your new utility is ready to be deployed, you can use install to copy it with the correct permissions to its final working location.
An Example
A programmer is working on just such a new utility, called ana. It consists of an executable binary file and a database. After testing, it must be copied to /usr/local/bin to make it available for all users of the Linux system. You’ll need to substitute the filenames and directory paths in our example for the files and paths you’re using on your computer when you use install.
Until it is ready for release it will be tested in a directory called ~/test/ana. Members of the geek group will have read and execute permissions. Other users will have read and execute permissions also. The install command uses the same numeric representation for permissions as chmod does. Our programmer has decided that the permissions must be set to:
- Owner: Read, write, and execute.
- Group: Read and execute.
- Others: Execute only.
How to Use the install Command
Our fictional programmer’s working directory is ~/work. He has written the program, compiled it, and produced a binary called ana. He already created the database file that ana works with, Words.db. So both files are ready for testing. Let’s take a look at them:
ls -l ana Words.db
The ana utility he has just written creates anagrams out of a phrase provided on the command line. Verification testing is quite straightforward.
Our programmer has invoked ana with the phrase “biscuit” and all seems well. He now wants to copy these two files to the ~/test/ana directory to see if the new utility functions correctly away from the development environment. He issues the following command:
install -D -v ana Words.db -t ~/test/ana
The options used on the command line were:
- D: Create directories, including parent directories, if required.
- v: Verbose, list each directory as it is made and each file copy as it is…
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