extracting and creating ipk files

Question

ipk packages are the intallation packages used by opkg.

I'm trying to extract the contents of one of them and also create my own ipk.

I've read that I should be able to untar them but that is not true.

I've tried:

tar -zxvf mypack.ipk

and I get:

zip: stdin: not in gzip format

I've also tried:

tar -xvf mypack.ipk

and I get:

tar: This does not look like a tar archive

I've found that most of the information on the internet regarding ipk's are inaccurate.

My ipk was generated by bitbake. I'm having a hard time with bitbake and want to avoid using it.

Any ideas on how to extract and how to create ipk files? A simple template with a single package would be useful to have.

Étienne · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-02 15:57:48Z

42

I figured it out.

You can extract the main package with the ar x command, then extract the control.tar.gz with the tar -zxf command.

edited Nov 2, 2016 at 15:57

Étienne

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answered Jun 28, 2013 at 17:42

max

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phuclv · Accepted Answer · 2024-10-02 11:02:38Z

I have tested ar x package-name.ipk command but it didn't help

I found the bellow command which worked perfectly

tar zxpvf package-name.ipk

This extracts three files:

debian-binary data.tar.gz control.tar.gz

use the same command to open data.tar.gz and control.tar.gz files

for more information refer to https://cognito.me.uk/computers/manual-extractioninstallation-of-ipk-packages-on-gargoyleopenwrt/

Mark Lakata · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-18 00:05:22Z

You need to create a control file, and then do some archiving using tar and ar. In my case, I was distributing just python scripts, so there was no architecture dependency. You should check the control and Makefile into version control, and delete all the other intermediate files.

Here are the contents of control

 Package: my-thing-python Version: 1.0 Description: python scripts for MyCompany Section: extras Priority: optional Maintainer: John License: CLOSED Architecture: all OE: my-thing-python Homepage: unknown Depends: python python-distutils python-pyserial python-curses python-mmap python-ctypes Source: N/A

Here is my Makefile which sits in the same directory as all my python scripts.

 all: my-thing-python.ipk my-thing-python.ipk: rm -rf ipk mkdir -p ipk/opt/my-thing-python cp *.py ipk/opt/my-thing-python tar czvf control.tar.gz control cd ipk; tar czvf ../data.tar.gz .; cd .. echo 2.0 > debian-binary ar r my-thing-python.ipk control.tar.gz data.tar.gz debian-binary clean: FORCE rm -rf ipk rm -f control.tar.gz rm -f data.tar.gz rm -f my-thing-python.ipk FORCE:

@MarkLakata, After installing the package, it gives an error as Collected errors: * pkg_init_from_file: Malformed package file my-thing-python.ipk.. See this question
@kmort - good question about OE:. I showed it in the example as a result of reverse engineering. I don't know what it means. It's possible that it is not standard.

ravi.zombie · Accepted Answer · 2016-10-26 20:01:16Z

Extracting with these commands:

Extract the file by running the command:
```
 ar -xv <.ipk file> 
```
Extract the control.tar.gz file by running the command:
```
 tar -zxvf control.tar.gz 
```
data.tar.gz : untar by running the command:
```
 tar –zxvf data.tar.gz 
```

mcr · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-08 20:22:50Z

If you want a list of files in an ipk, you can do something like:

#!/bin/sh for f do tar -x -z -f $f ./data.tar.gz -O | tar tvzf - done

-O is extract to standard output. ipk files used to be AR (like DPKG), but are now tgz. I feel that some dpkg utility ought to cope with ipkg files, but I haven't found the right one.

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