PTS-SUBSCRIBE(1)

💖 pts-subscribe(1) 💖

okay bestie, listen up — this is a page from the General Commands Manual in the Debian Utilities corner of the manual universe, and it's about the cutest lil time-limited subscription hack ever. she's called pts-subscribe and she's about to become your new fav 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

pts-subscribe — a time-limited subscription to the PTS, no cap 🌸

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

pts-subscribe [options] package

pts-unsubscribe [options] package

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

okay so here's the tea. pts-subscribe sends a subscription request for package to the Package Tracking System at pts@qa.debian.org, and then — plot twist — it cancels that subscription 30 days later. literally a situationship with your package. iconic.

if you call it as pts-unsubscribe instead, it sends an unsubscription request for package to the Package Tracking System. bye bestie 👋

so why would you even want this? the utility is useful if a developer has made an NMU and wants to track the package for a limited period of time. like, just for the era of the NMU. not forever. main character energy but with boundaries. 💖

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• --until time, -u time — this tells you when at(1) should cancel the subscription. time must be specified using at's syntax. the default is 'now + 30 days'. > ⚠️ this option will probably require quoting!! like, for real, quote it or she'll be messy.
• --forever — don't cancel the subscription automatically. this can also be specified as --until forever. clingy mode: activated 😌
• --help, -h — display a help message and exit successfully. (yes, successfully. we love a clean exit ✨)
• --version — display version and copyright information and exit successfully. slay.

🦋 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🦋

• DEBEMAIL, EMAIL — if one of these is set (with preference given to DEBEMAIL), then this will be used for the subscription address. if neither is set, then the email will be sent without a specified subscription address, and the email's From: line will be used to determine the sender's address. and who decides that? that's mail(1)'s whole job. 💌

🌸 CONFIGURATION VARIABLES 🌸

the two configuration files /etc/devscripts.conf and ~/.devscripts are sourced in that order to set configuration variables. command line options can be used to override configuration file settings. environment variable settings are ignored for this purpose — yes, ignored, don't come for her 🙈

the currently recognised variables are:

• PTS_UNTIL — setting this is equivalent to giving a --until option. that's it, that's the variable, periodt.

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

• at(1)
• information about the Package Tracking System in the Developer's Reference at https://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/resources.html#pkg-tracking-system

👑 AUTHOR 👑

this program was written by Julian Gilbey <jdg@debian.org> based on a public domain prototype by Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>, and is copyright under the GPL, version 2 or later. two legends, one tool. we stan. 🫶

okay that's the whole page, you're officially a PTS subscription expert, go forth and track responsibly 💖

this lil page lives in the DEBIAN source, Debian Utilities section, as PTS-SUBSCRIBE(1) — and ngl, no date on it, she's timeless like that ✨