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Figure 3.1: Installing Apache on a sample server
Even though I only asked for 
apache2
, 
apt
 informs me that it also needs to install 
apache2-bin
, 
apache2-data
, 
apache2-utils
, and 
libapr1
 (and others) in order to 
satisfy the dependencies for the 
apache2
 package. 
apt
 also suggests that I install 
apache2-doc
, 
apache2-suexec-pristine
, and a few others, though those are 
optional and are not required. You can install the suggested packages by adding 
the 
--install-suggests
 option to the 
apt install
 command, but that isn't always a 
good idea as it may install a large number of packages that you may not need. You 
can, of course, cherry-pick the suggested packages individually by using the 
apt
 
command to install any one or more of them manually.
Most of the time, though, you probably won't want to do this; it's usually better to 
keep your installed packages to a lean minimum and install only the packages you 
need. As we'll discuss in 
Chapter 21
, 
Securing Your Server
, the fewer packages you 
install, the smaller the attack surface of your server.
Another option that is common with installing packages via 
apt
 is the 
-y
 option, 
which assumes 
yes
 to the confirmation prompt where you choose if you want to 
continue or not. For example, my previous example output included the line 
Do you 
want to continue? [Y/n]
. If we used 
-y
, the command would have proceeded to 
install the package without any confirmation. This can be useful for administrators in 
a hurry, though I personally don't see the need for this unless you are scripting your 
package installations. In fact, it can sometimes be a bad idea, because by assuming 
yes
, you may be confirming something you'd regret.

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Managing Software Packages