opkg¶

ID: opkg
Home page: https://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/opkg/
Version requirement: >= 0.2
Platforms: 🅱️ BSD · 🐧 Linux · ⨂ Unix
Operations: installed · outdated · search · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove · sync
purl types: pkg:openwrt · pkg:opkg
CLI name: opkg
Issues and PRs: 📦 manager: dpkg-based
Source: meta_package_manager/managers/opkg.toml

opkg is the lightweight package manager of embedded Linux distributions (OpenWrt, Yocto).

opkg has no search verb, so mpm lists the whole catalog (opkg list, whose rows are name - version - description) and refilters it against the query; the description column is dropped, since the definition DSL captures only ids and versions. The other listings are name - version (list-installed) and name - installed - latest (list-upgradable) rows. No operation is marked sudo: opkg’s embedded targets run as root.

What `mpm` adds to `opkg`¶

Through mpm, opkg gains --exact and --extended search, to narrow to exact names or match descriptions.

Bigger still, mpm reaches across every manager at once: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover opkg alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill of materials.

Every mpm command also gains --dry-run and --plan previews, cross-scheme version comparison and purl identifiers. See manager augmentations for how each one is built.

Your `opkg` commands, in `mpm`¶

You already know opkg: each operation maps one-to-one onto mpm, in an interface shared by every manager.

To…	With `opkg`	With `mpm`
List what’s installed	`opkg list-installed`	`mpm --opkg installed`
List outdated packages	`opkg list-upgradable`	`mpm --opkg outdated`
Search for a package	`opkg list`	`mpm --opkg search list`
Install a package	`opkg install <package_id>`	`mpm install pkg:opkg/<package_id>`
Upgrade one package	`opkg upgrade <package_id>`	`mpm --opkg upgrade <package_id>`
Upgrade everything	`opkg upgrade`	`mpm --opkg upgrade --all`
Remove a package	`opkg remove <package_id>`	`mpm remove pkg:opkg/<package_id>`

Prefix any command above with --dry-run to simulate the underlying manager calls without touching the system: the safe way to watch what mpm would do before trusting it.

Operations¶

Operation	Supported	Notes
`installed`	✓
`outdated`	✓
`orphans`
`search`	✓	exact and extended search backfilled by `mpm`
`install`	✓
`upgrade`	✓
`upgrade_all`	✓
`remove`	✓
`sync`	✓
`cleanup`
`doctor`

Selecting and configuring `opkg`¶

Deselect opkg for a single run with --no-opkg, or persist the choice in your configuration:

[mpm]
opkg = false

Keep it enabled but tune how mpm drives it with a per-manager override:

[mpm.managers.opkg]
timeout = 900

mpm config-template opkg prints every overridable attribute as a ready-to-paste block.

Recipes¶

A few jobs you would otherwise script around opkg, one mpm command each:

Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --opkg dump opkg.toml, then mpm restore opkg.toml on the next one.
Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --opkg sbom (CycloneDX by default, --spdx for SPDX).

Privilege escalation¶

mpm runs this manager as the current user and never prepends sudo by default. Flip the policy for its privileged operations with --sudo or the per-manager sudo override.

None of its operations needs root.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Cooldown¶

State of opkg’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

Status: ❌ None

A cooldown only pays off where a compromised release can be withdrawn while the clock runs, and can only be emulated where the registry dates its releases. From the retraction table:

Registry: Distro binary archives (pkg:deb, pkg:rpm, pkg:alpm, pkg:apk)
Retraction: Index revert: removal is an archive operation and the mirror is rebuilt without the package. Debian, for one, requires filing an RM: bug against ftp.debian.org (developers-reference)
Publish date: ❌ the version string is the distro maintainer’s build, carrying no upstream publication date

With --cooldown set, mpm skips this manager’s install and upgrade operations rather than run them unguarded (fail-closed); --allow-unsupported-managers opts back in.

Version probe¶

The version is probed by running:

$ opkg --version
opkg version 0.3.6 (libsolv 0.7.5)

and extracted with:

r"opkg\s+version\s+(?P<version>\S+)"

Reference traces¶

Raw native outputs captured in the bundled definition: the reference mpm’s parsers were written against. If you know opkg well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ opkg list-installed
3rd-party-feed-configs - 1.1-r0
aio-grab - 1.0+git71+c79e264-r0

$ opkg list-upgradable
openpli-bootlogo - 20190717-r0 - 20190718-r0
enigma2-hotplug - 2.7+git1720+55c6b34-r0 - 2.7+git1722+daf2f52-r0

$ opkg list
bash - 5.0-r0 - An sh-compatible command language interpreter
busybox - 1.31.0-r0 - Tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities

Feed any of these through mpm and the raw output becomes one uniform table, the same shape for every manager: filter it, project columns, or export it (mpm --opkg installed --output json, or csv, toml, yaml), each package carrying a purl and a version comparable across managers.

Changelog¶

6.4.0 (2026-04-27)
- Add remove operation. Closes #1775.