install copies files while setting their permission modes and, if
possible, their owner and group.
In the first of these invocation forms, the
source file is copied to the
dest target file. In the second, each of the
source files are copied to the destination
directory. In the last, each
directory (and any missing parent directories) is created.
install is similar to
cp, but allows you to control the attributes of destination files.
It is typically used in Makefiles to copy programs into their
destination directories. It refuses to copy files onto themselves.
Ignored; for compatibility with old Unix versions of
install.
-d, --directory
Create each given directory and any missing parent directories,
setting the owner, group and mode as given on the command line or
to the defaults. It also gives any parent directories it creates
those attributes. (This is different from the SunOS 4.x
install, which gives directories that it creates the default attributes.)
-D
Create all leading components of the
dest except the last, then copy
source to
dest. This option is useful in the first format in the synopsis, above.
(New in file utils-4.0.)
-g group, --group=group
Set the group ownership of installed files or directories to
group. The default is the process’s current group.
group may be either a group name or a numeric group ID.
-m mode, --mode=mode
Set the permissions for the installed file or directory to
mode, which can be either an octal number, or a symbolic mode as in
chmod, with 0 as the point of departure. The default mode is 0755 — read,
write, and execute for the owner, and read and execute for group and other.
-o owner, --owner=owner
If
install has appropriate privileges (is run as root), set the ownership of
installed files or directories to
owner. The default is ‘root’.
owner may be either a user name or a numeric user ID.
-s, --strip
Strip the symbol tables from installed binary executables.
The GNU versions of programs like
cp,
mv,
ln,
install and
patch will make a backup of files about to be overwritten, changed or destroyed
if that is desired. That backup files are desired is indicated by
the -b option. How they should be named is specified by the -V option.
In case the name of the backup file is given by the name of the file
extended by a suffix, this suffix is specified by the -S option.
-b, --backup
Make backups of files that are about to be overwritten or removed.
-S SUFFIX, --suffix=SUFFIX
Append
SUFFIX to each backup file made.
If this option is not specified, the value of the
SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX environment variable is used. And if
SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX is not set, the default is ‘~’.
-V METHOD, --version-control=METHOD
Specify how backup files are named. The
METHOD argument can be ‘numbered’ (or ‘t’), ‘existing’ (or ‘nil’), or ‘never’ (or
‘simple’).
If this option is not specified, the value of the
VERSION_CONTROL environment variable is used. And if
VERSION_CONTROL is not set, the default backup type is ‘existing’.
This option corresponds to the Emacs variable ‘version-control’.
The valid
METHODs are (unique abbreviations are accepted):
t, numbered
Always make numbered backups.
nil, existing
Make numbered backups of files that already have them, simple
backups of the others.
The variables LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE and LC_MESSAGES have the
usual meaning. For the GNU version, the variables SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX
and VERSION_CONTROL control backup file naming, as described above.
