passing a parameter into dpkg -i?

Question

Is there any way to pass a parameter into dpkg -i that can then be used by preinst and postinst? I've looked into this and was wondering if I could refer to these parameters with $1 or $2

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

No, you cannot pass a parameter that way.

You can set an environmental variable this way

$ VARIABLE=foo dpkg --install package.deb

or (much better) use debconf to ask questions to the user.

Answer 2

You know, the parameters of an application are visible with the debconf-get-selections command. i.e. debconf-get-selections | grep myapp

Assume there're two parameters available for your deb package, so you can perform non-interactive install like this:

echo myapp myapp/param1 string 8888 | debconf-set-selections
echo myapp myapp/param2 boolean true | debconf-set-selections
DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive dpkg -i blablabla.deb

Now, you can use param1 and param2 in your preinst and postinst.