FreeBSD Porter's Handbook

The FreeBSD Documentation Project

Table of Contents

1 Making a port yourself

2 Quick Porting

2.1 Writing the Makefile

2.2 Writing the description files

2.2.1 pkg-descr
2.2.2 pkg-plist

2.3 Creating the checksum file

2.4 Testing the port

2.5 Checking your port with portlint

2.6 Submitting the port

3 Slow Porting

3.1 How things work
3.2 Getting the original sources
3.3 Modifying the port
3.4 Patching
3.5 Configuring
3.6 Handling user input

4 Configuring the Makefile

4.1 The original source

4.2 Naming

4.2.1 PORTNAME and PORTVERSION
4.2.2 PORTREVISION and PORTEPOCH
4.2.3 PKGNAMEPREFIX and PKGNAMESUFFIX
4.2.4 Package Naming Conventions

4.3 Categorization

4.3.1 CATEGORIES
4.3.2 Current list of categories
4.3.3 Choosing the right category

4.4 The distribution files

4.4.1 DISTNAME
4.4.2 MASTER_SITES
4.4.3 EXTRACT_SUFX
4.4.4 DISTFILES
4.4.5 EXTRACT_ONLY
4.4.6 PATCHFILES
4.4.7 Multiple distribution files or patches from different sites and subdirectories (MASTER_SITES:n)
4.4.8 DIST_SUBDIR

4.5 MAINTAINER

4.6 COMMENT

4.7 Dependencies

4.7.1 LIB_DEPENDS
4.7.2 RUN_DEPENDS
4.7.3 BUILD_DEPENDS
4.7.4 FETCH_DEPENDS
4.7.5 DEPENDS
4.7.6 USE_*
4.7.7 Notes on dependencies
4.7.8 Optional dependencies

4.8 Specifying the working directory

4.8.1 WRKSRC
4.8.2 NO_WRKSUBDIR

4.9 Building mechanisms

5 Special considerations

5.1 Shared Libraries

5.2 Ports with distribution restrictions

5.2.1 NO_PACKAGE
5.2.2 NO_CDROM
5.2.3 RESTRICTED
5.2.4 RESTRICTED_FILES

5.3 Using Perl

5.4 Using X11

5.5 Using automake, autoconf, and libtool

5.6 Using GNOME

5.7 Using KDE

5.8 Using Bison

5.9 Using Java

5.10 Using Python

5.11 Using Emacs

5.12 Using Ruby

6 MASTERDIR

7 Shared library versions

8 Manpages

9 Ports that require Motif

9.1 USE_MOTIF
9.2 MOTIFLIB

10 X11 fonts

11 Info files

12 The pkg-* files

12.1 pkg-message
12.2 pkg-install
12.3 pkg-req
12.4 Changing pkg-plist based on make variables
12.5 Changing the names of pkg-* files

13 Testing your port

13.1 Portlint
13.2 PREFIX
13.3 FreshPorts sanity tests

14 Upgrading

15 Dos and Don'ts

15.1 Stripping Binaries
15.2 INSTALL_* macros
15.3 WRKDIR
15.4 WRKDIRPREFIX
15.5 Differentiating operating systems and OS versions
15.6 __FreeBSD_version values
15.7 Writing something after bsd.port.mk
15.8 Install additional documentation
15.9 Subdirectories
15.10 Cleaning up empty directories
15.11 UIDs
15.12 Do things rationally
15.13 Respect both CC and CXX
15.14 Respect CFLAGS
15.15 Configuration files
15.16 Feedback
15.17 README.html
15.18 Marking a port BROKEN, FORBIDDEN, or otherwise
15.19 Miscellanea
15.20 If you are stuck...

16 A Sample Makefile

17 Automated package list creation

18 Changes to this document and the ports system

List of Tables
4-1. The USE_* variables
5-1. Variables for ports that use Perl
5-2. Variables for ports that use X
5-3. Variables for ports that use automake, autoconf or libtool
5-4. Variables for ports that use KDE

List of Examples
4-1. Simplified use of MASTER_SITES:n with 1 file per site
4-2. Simplified use of MASTER_SITES:n with more than 1 file per site
4-3. Detailed use of MASTER_SITES:n in MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR
4-4. Detailed use of MASTER_SITES:n with comma operator, multiple files, multiple sites and multiple subdirectories
4-5. Detailed use of MASTER_SITES:n with MASTER_SITE_SOURCEFORGE
4-6. Simplified use of MASTER_SITES:n with PATCH_SITES.

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