iSH's built in APK

iSH 1.1 includes the APK package manager. To keep the app self contained while also not including gigabytes of packages, files are downloaded from the App Store as on-demand resources.

If you updated from a previous version, you won't have the iSH-provided APK, since enabling it is a potentially destructive action (overwriting /etc/apk/repositories). To enable it manually, run this command after installing the 1.1 update:

mkdir -p /ish/apk && printf 'file:///ish/apk/main\nfile:///ish/apk/community\n' > /etc/apk/repositories && mount -t apk apk /ish/apk && tar -xf /ish/apk/main/x86/apk-tools-static-2.10.5-r1.apk -C / && apk.static add apk-tools && rm /sbin/apk.static && apk upgrade

If this fails with mkdir: can't create directory '/ish/apk': Operation not permitted, run this slightly different command:

printf 'file:///ish/apk/main\nfile:///ish/apk/community\n' > /etc/apk/repositories && tar -xf /ish/apk/main/x86/apk-tools-static-2.10.5-r1.apk -C / && apk.static add apk-tools && rm /sbin/apk.static && apk upgrade

Alternatively, if you have no important data, you may delete and reinstall the app to use the new default filesystem.

Starting from this build, the default iSH filesystem reserves the directory /ish for its own internal bookkeeping. A “default” filesystem is identified by the existence of a directory at /ish. The command above will create this directory. Current uses for this directory include updating the version file to match the build of iSH that it was opened with and mounting a synthetic filesystem to provide the ODRs necessary for the built-in APK. If you don't want this, run umount /ish/apk && rm -rf /ish.

If you run into any issues (which is not unlikely as we barely tested this), please contact us.

Known issues

• We forgot to include the community repository in this version. This is fixed in 1.1.1 (build 88). Workaround: echo 'file:///ish/apk/community' >> /etc/apk/repositories
• If you already have a /ish directory, iSH will "take it over" by creating /ish/version. We realize this may cause problems for people who have created and are using /ish for other reasons. The next update will only reserve it for internal use if /ish/version exists. Workaround: umount /ish/apk, rm /ish/version, rename the directory.
• Resizing the terminal (e.g. hiding the keyboard, rotating the screen) will cancel any ongoing package downloads. We will fix this in the next update. Workaround: don't resize the terminal.