# Yaourt

Related articles

- AUR helpers
- AUR
- Pacman

Warning: Yaourt is an unofficial, third-party script that is not supported by the Arch Linux developers. Report bugs at the archlinux.fr bugtracker.

Yaourt (Yet AnOther User Repository Tool) is a wrapper for pacman which adds automated access to the AUR. Yaourt uses the same syntax as pacman.

## Installation

First install package-queryAUR as a dependency, and then the yaourtAUR package itself. Since both those packages are available from the AUR, you will have to install them with the official method for installing unsupported packages, which is exhaustively described in the AUR article. It is important that you understand what "unsupported package" really means, and you can take this as an opportunity to learn what are the operations that AUR helpers like yaourt make automatic.

Alternatively, add the (unsigned) archlinuxfr repository as described on the yaourt homepage.

## Using yaourt

You can install packages (including AUR packages) with

    $ yaourt packagename

or

    $ yaourt -Sa packagename

You can update your system including AUR packages with:

    $ yaourt -Syua

See the yaourt manual page for more information.

## Examples

Search and install:

    $ yaourt search pattern

Sync database, upgrade packages, search the AUR and devel (all packages based on cvs, svn, git, bzr(...)-version) upgrades:

    $ yaourt -Syua --devel

Build package from source:

    $ yaourt -Sb package

Check, edit, merge or remove *.pac* files:

    $ yaourt -C

Get a PKGBUILD (support split package):

    $ yaourt -G package

Build and export package, its sources to a directory:

    $ yaourt -Sb --export dir package

Backup database:

    $ yaourt -B

Query backup file:

    $ yaourt -Q --backupfile file

See also: Pacman and Pacman tips.

## Persistent local source repositories

By default, yaourt will pull remote repositories for building to /tmp. To avoid having to refetch whole repositories whenever AUR packages update, you can change this directory by uncommenting and setting `DEVELSRCDIR` in yaourtrc to wherever you want source repositories pulled to. Note this will only apply to devel packages, usually suffixed by -git or -svn.

    /etc/yaourtrc

    DEVELSRCDIR="/var/abs/local/yaourtbuild"

## Cache

Yaourt by default does not save built package tarballs during installation. To save built AUR packages in the default pacman folder `/var/cache/pacman/pkg`, edit `/etc/yaourtrc` and set:

    # Build
    EXPORT=2

Alternatively, set up a separate folder for Yaourt packages by changing these lines to:

    # Build
    EXPORT=1
    EXPORTDIR="/var/cache/pacman/pkg-local"

## Troubleshooting

### Yaourt asking for password twice

If you disable the `sudo` password timeout by adding

    Defaults timestamp_timeout=0

to `/etc/sudoers`, then yaourt will ask for your password twice each time you try to perform an operation that requires root. To prevent this, add:

    SUDONOVERIF=1

to `/etc/yaourtrc` or to `~/.yaourtrc`

### Yaourt freezing up or unable to continue due to no space left on device

Yaourt uses `/tmp` (mounted as tmpfs, limited to 50% of RAM) to compile packages, which may be problematic for systems with low RAM or limited swap space. Change the location in `/etc/yaourtrc` by uncommenting and changing the `TMPDIR` variable.

### Yaourt installing unwanted subpackages (split PKGBUILD)

Refer to issue #50 upstream, during the install/upgrade cycle yaourt is passing pacman the directory where the packages were built and not the direct name of only one package. This causes any package (i.e. subpackages automatically built) in that directory to get added to the install list and not just the named package; as a workaround use `--pkg` like so:

    yaourt --pkg foo -S foo

This will prevent subpackages (foo-bar, foo-baz, etc.) from being built or installed if they're not required dependencies. During a full system upgrade (`-Syua`) the problem still exists; instead upgrade those AUR packages manually first on their own until it's worked out upstream.

Categories:

- Package management
- Arch User Repository