Postinstallerade

Postinstallerade is a term used in Swedish IT discourse to describe software or components that have been installed after the initial system installation. It refers to items added through installation or provisioning steps performed after the operating system is deployed, rather than being part of the base image.

In many Linux distributions, installing a package may trigger a post-installation routine, commonly called a postinst script in Debian-based systems or a %post script in RPM-based systems. These scripts configure the package, create necessary users, adjust settings, start or enable services, and perform other setup tasks after the package files are placed on the system. The purpose is to ensure the software is ready to use without requiring manual post-setup steps.

Postinstallerade components are often managed during system provisioning, for example via cloud-init, configuration management tools, or manual user actions after deployment. Distinguishing base components from post-installerade ones helps with reproducibility, auditing, and maintenance of the system’s configuration over time.

Because post-install scripts can run with elevated privileges and modify critical parts of the system, they require careful maintenance, testing, and version control. Errors in post-installerade steps can leave systems in incomplete or inconsistent states, and updates to these scripts may necessitate redeployment or reconfiguration to maintain system integrity.

See also: postinst scripts, RPM %post, dpkg triggers, cloud-init, configuration management tools.