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<!--
The FreeBSD Documentation Project
$Id: chapter.sgml,v 1.34 1999-06-28 04:03:08 hoek Exp $
-->
<chapter id="ports">
<title>Installing Applications: The Ports collection</title>
<para><emphasis>Contributed by &a.jraynard;.</emphasis></para>
<para>The FreeBSD Ports collection allows you to compile and install a very
wide range of applications with a minimum of effort.</para>
<para>For all the hype about open standards, getting a program to work on
different versions of Unix in the real world can be a tedious and tricky
business, as anyone who has tried it will know. You may be lucky enough
to find that the program you want will compile cleanly on your system,
install itself in all the right places and run flawlessly &ldquo;out of
the box&rdquo;, but this is unfortunately rather rare. With most
programs, you will find yourself doing a fair bit of head-scratching, and
there are quite a few programs that will result in premature greying, or
even chronic alopecia...</para>
<para>Some software distributions have attacked this problem by providing
configuration scripts. Some of these are very clever, but they have an
unfortunate tendency to triumphantly announce that your system is
something you have never heard of and then ask you lots of questions that
sound like a final exam in system-level Unix programming (<literal>Does
your system's gethitlist function return a const pointer to a fromboz or
a pointer to a const fromboz? Do you have Foonix style unacceptable
exception handling? And if not, why not?</literal>).</para>
<para>Fortunately, with the Ports collection, all the hard work involved has
already been done, and you can just type <command>make install</command>
and get a working program.</para>
<sect1>
<title>Why Have a Ports Collection?</title>
<para>The base FreeBSD system comes with a very wide range of tools and
system utilities, but a lot of popular programs are not in the base
system, for good reasons:-</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Programs that some people cannot live without and other people
cannot stand, such as a certain Lisp-based editor.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Programs which are too specialised to put in the base system
(CAD, databases).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Programs which fall into the &ldquo;I must have a look at that
when I get a spare minute&rdquo; category, rather than
system-critical ones (some languages, perhaps).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Programs that are far too much fun to be supplied with a serious
operating system like FreeBSD ;-)</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>However many programs you put in the base system, people will
always want more, and a line has to be drawn somewhere (otherwise
FreeBSD distributions would become absolutely enormous).</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>Obviously it would be unreasonable to expect everyone to port their
favourite programs by hand (not to mention a tremendous amount of
duplicated work), so the FreeBSD Project came up with an ingenious way
of using standard tools that would automate the process.</para>
<para>Incidentally, this is an excellent illustration of how &ldquo;the
Unix way&rdquo; works in practice by combining a set of simple but very
flexible tools into something very powerful.</para>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>How Does the Ports Collection Work?</title>
<para>Programs are typically distributed on the Internet as a <link
linkend="ports-tarball">tarball</link> consisting of a Makefile and
the source code for the program and usually some instructions (which are
unfortunately not always as instructive as they could be), with perhaps
a configuration script.</para>
<para>The standard scenario is that you FTP down the tarball, extract it
somewhere, glance through the instructions, make any changes that seem
necessary, run the configure script to set things up and use the
standard <command>make</command> program to compile and install the
program from the source.</para>
<para>FreeBSD ports still use the tarball mechanism, but use a <link
linkend="ports-skeleton">skeleton</link> to hold the
&quot;knowledge&quot; of how to get the program working on FreeBSD,
rather than expecting the user to be able to work it out. They also
supply their own customised <link
linkend="ports-makefile">Makefile</link>, so that almost every port
can be built in the same way.</para>
<para>If you look at a port skeleton (either on <ulink
URL="file://localhost/usr/ports/devel/ElectricFence">your FreeBSD
system</ulink> or <ulink
URL="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/ports/devel/ElectricFence">the
FTP site</ulink>) and expect to find all sorts of pointy-headed rocket
science lurking there, you may be disappointed by the one or two rather
unexciting-looking files and directories you find there. (We will
discuss in a minute how to go about <link
linkend="ports-getting">Getting a port</link>).</para>
<para>&ldquo;How on earth can this do anything?&rdquo; I hear you cry.
&ldquo;There is no source code there!&rdquo;</para>
<para>Fear not, gentle reader, all will become clear (hopefully). Let us
see what happens if we try and install a port. I have chosen
<application>ElectricFence</application>, a useful tool for developers,
as the skeleton is more straightforward than most.</para>
<note>
<para>If you are trying this at home, you will need to be root.</para>
</note>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports/devel/ElectricFence</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make install</userinput>
&gt;&gt; Checksum OK for ElectricFence-2.0.5.tar.gz.
===&gt; Extracting for ElectricFence-2.0.5
===&gt; Patching for ElectricFence-2.0.5
===&gt; Applying FreeBSD patches for ElectricFence-2.0.5
===&gt; Configuring for ElectricFence-2.0.5
===&gt; Building for ElectricFence-2.0.5
[lots of compiler output...]
===&gt; Installing for ElectricFence-2.0.5
===&gt; Warning: your umask is "0002". If this is not desired, set it to
an appropriate value and install this port again by ``make reinstall''.
install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444 /usr/ports/devel/ElectricFence/work/ElectricFence-2.0.5/libefence.a /usr/local/lib
install -c -o root -g wheel -m 444 /usr/ports/devel/ElectricFence/work/ElectricFence-2.0.5/libefence.3 /usr/local/man/man3
===&gt; Compressing manual pages for ElectricFence-2.0.5
===&gt; Registering installation for ElectricFence-2.0.5</screen>
<para>To avoid confusing the issue, I have completely removed the build
output.</para>
<para>If you tried this yourself, you may well have got something like
this at the start:-</para>
<screen id="ports-fetch">&prompt.root; <userinput>make install</userinput>
&gt;&gt; ElectricFence-2.0.5.tar.gz doesn't seem to exist on this system.
&gt;&gt; Attempting to fetch from ftp://ftp.doc.ic.ac.uk/Mirrors/sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/devel/lang/c/.</screen>
<para>The <command>make</command> program has noticed that you did not
have a local copy of the source code and tried to FTP it down so it
could get the job done. I already had the source handy in my example,
so it did not need to fetch it.</para>
<para>Let's go through this and see what the <command>make</command>
program was doing.</para>
<procedure>
<step>
<para>Locate the source code <link
linkend="ports-tarball">tarball.</link> If it is not available
locally, try to grab it from an FTP site.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Run a <link linkend="ports-checksum">checksum</link> test on the
tarball to make sure it has not been tampered with, accidentally
truncated, downloaded in ASCII mode, struck by neutrinos while in
transit, etc.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Extract the tarball into a temporary work directory.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Apply any <link linkend="ports-patch">patches</link> needed to
get the source to compile and run under FreeBSD.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Run any configuration script required by the build process and
correctly answer any questions it asks.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>(Finally!) Compile the code.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Install the program executable and other supporting files, man
pages, etc. under the <filename>/usr/local</filename> hierarchy
(unless this is an <link linkend="x11">X11</link> program,
then it will be under <filename>/usr/X11R6</filename>),
where they will not get mixed up with system programs. This also
makes sure that all the ports you install will go in the same place,
instead of being flung all over your system.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Register the installation in a database. This means that, if
you do not like the program, you can cleanly <link
linkend="ports-remove">remove</link> all traces of it from your
system.</para>
</step>
</procedure>
<para>Scroll up to the <command>make</command> output and see if you can
match these steps to it. And if you were not impressed before, you
should be by now!</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="ports-getting">
<title>Getting a FreeBSD Port</title>
<para>There are two ways of getting hold of the FreeBSD port for a
program. One requires a <link linkend="ports-cd">FreeBSD CDROM</link>,
the other involves using an <link linkend="ports-inet">Internet
Connection.</link></para>
<sect2 id="ports-cd">
<title>Compiling ports from CDROM</title>
<para>Assuming that your FreeBSD CDROM is in the drive and mounted on
<filename>/cdrom</filename> (and the mount point
<emphasis>must</emphasis> be <filename>/cdrom</filename>), you should
then be able to build ports just as you normally do and the port
collection's built in search path should find the tarballs in
<filename>/cdrom/ports/distfiles/</filename> (if they exist there)
rather than downloading them over the net.</para>
<para>Another way of doing this, if you want to just use the port
skeletons on the CDROM, is to set these variables in
<filename>/etc/make.conf</filename>:</para>
<programlisting>
PORTSDIR= /cdrom/ports
DISTDIR= /tmp/distfiles
WRKDIRPREFIX= /tmp</programlisting>
<para>Substitute <literal>/tmp</literal> for any place you have enough
free space. Then, just <command>cd</command> to the appropriate
subdirectory under <filename>/cdrom/ports</filename> and type
<command>make install</command> as usual.
<makevar>WRKDIRPREFIX</makevar> will cause the port to be build under
<filename>/tmp/cdrom/ports</filename>; for instance,
<filename>games/oneko</filename> will be built under
<filename>/tmp/cdrom/ports/games/oneko</filename>.</para>
<note>
<para>There are some ports for which we cannot provide the original
source in the CDROM due to licensing limitations. In that case, you
will need to look at the section on <link
linkend="ports-inet">Compiling ports using an Internet
connection.</link></para>
</note>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="ports-inet">
<title>Compiling ports from the Internet</title>
<para>If you do not have a CDROM, or you want to make sure you get the
very latest version of the port you want, you will need to download
the <link linkend="ports-skeleton">skeleton</link> for the port. Now
this might sound like rather a fiddly job full of pitfalls, but it is
actually very easy.</para>
<para>First, if you are running a release version of FreeBSD, make sure
you get the appropriate &ldquo;upgrade kit&rdquo; for your release
from the <ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/ports/">ports web
page</ulink>. These packages include files that have been updated
since the release that you may need to compile new ports.</para>
<para>The key to the skeletons is that the FreeBSD FTP server can create
on-the-fly <link linkend="ports-tarball">tarballs</link> for you.
Here is how it works, with the gnats program in the databases
directory as an example (the bits in square brackets are comments. Do
not type them in if you are trying this yourself!):-</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>mkdir databases</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>cd databases</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>ftp ftp.FreeBSD.org</userinput>
[log in as `ftp' and give your email address when asked for a
password. Remember to use binary (also known as image) mode!]
<prompt>ftp&gt;</prompt> <userinput>cd /pub/FreeBSD/ports/ports/databases</userinput>
<prompt>ftp&gt;</prompt> <userinput>get gnats.tar</userinput>
[tars up the gnats skeleton for us]
<prompt>ftp&gt;</prompt> <userinput>quit</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>tar xf gnats.tar</userinput>
[extract the gnats skeleton]
&prompt.root; <userinput>cd gnats</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make install</userinput>
[build and install gnats]</screen>
<para>What happened here? We connected to the FTP server in the usual
way and went to its <filename>databases</filename> sub-directory.
When we gave it the command <command>get gnats.tar</command>, the FTP
server <link linkend="ports-tarball">tarred</link> up the gnats
directory for us.</para>
<para>We then extracted the gnats skeleton and went into the gnats
directory to build the port. As we explained <link
linkend="ports-fetch">earlier</link>, the make process noticed we
did not have a copy of the source locally, so it fetched one before
extracting, patching and building it.</para>
<para>Let us try something more ambitious now. Instead of getting a
single port skeleton, we will get a whole sub-directory, for example all
the database skeletons in the ports collection. It looks almost the
same:-</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>ftp ftp.FreeBSD.org</userinput>
[log in as `ftp' and give your email address when asked for a
password. Remember to use binary (also known as image) mode!]
<prompt>ftp&gt;</prompt> <userinput>cd /pub/FreeBSD/ports/ports</userinput>
<prompt>ftp&gt;</prompt> <userinput>get databases.tar</userinput>
[tars up the databases directory for us]
<prompt>ftp&gt;</prompt> <userinput>quit</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>tar xf databases.tar</userinput>
[extract all the database skeletons]
&prompt.root; <userinput>cd databases</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make install</userinput>
[build and install all the database ports]</screen>
<para>With half a dozen straightforward commands, we have now got a set
of database programs on our FreeBSD machine! All we did that was
different from getting a single port skeleton and building it was that
we got a whole directory at once, and compiled everything in it at
once. Pretty impressive, no?</para>
<para>If you expect to be installing many ports, it is probably worth
downloading all the ports directories.</para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="ports-skeleton">
<title>Skeletons</title>
<para>A team of compulsive hackers who have forgotten to eat in a frantic
attempt to make a deadline? Something unpleasant lurking in the FreeBSD
attic? No, a skeleton here is a minimal framework that supplies
everything needed to make the ports magic work.</para>
<sect2 id="ports-makefile">
<title><filename>Makefile</filename></title>
<para>The most important component of a skeleton is the Makefile. This
contains various statements that specify how the port should be
compiled and installed. Here is the Makefile for
ElectricFence:-</para>
<programlisting>
# New ports collection makefile for: Electric Fence
# Version required: 2.0.5
# Date created: 13 November 1997
# Whom: jraynard
#
# &#36;Id&#36;
#
DISTNAME= ElectricFence-2.0.5
CATEGORIES= devel
MASTER_SITES= ${MASTER_SITE_SUNSITE}
MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR= devel/lang/c
MAINTAINER= jraynard@freebsd.org
MAN3= libefence.3
do-install:
${INSTALL_DATA} ${WRKSRC}/libefence.a ${PREFIX}/lib
${INSTALL_MAN} ${WRKSRC}/libefence.3 ${PREFIX}/man/man3
.include &lt;bsd.port.mk&gt;</programlisting>
<para>The lines beginning with a &quot;#&quot; sign are comments for the
benefit of human readers (as in most Unix script files).</para>
<para><literal>DISTNAME</literal> specifies the name of the <link
linkend="ports-tarball">tarball</link>, but without the
extension.</para>
<para><literal>CATEGORIES</literal> states what kind of program this is.
In this case, a utility for developers. See the <link
linkend="porting-categories">categories</link> section of this
handbook for a complete list.</para>
<para><literal>MASTER_SITES</literal> is the URL(s) of the master FTP
site, which is used to retrieve the <link
linkend="ports-tarball">tarball</link> if it is not available on the
local system. This is a site which is regarded as reputable, and is
normally the one from which the program is officially distributed (in
so far as any software is &quot;officially&quot; distributed on the
Internet).</para>
<para><literal>MAINTAINER</literal> is the email address of the person
who is responsible for updating the skeleton if, for example a new
version of the program comes out.</para>
<para>Skipping over the next few lines for a minute, the line
<literal>.include &lt;bsd.port.mk&gt;</literal> says that the other
statements and commands needed for this port are in a standard file
called <filename>bsd.port.mk</filename>. As these are the same for
all ports, there is no point in duplicating them all over the place,
so they are kept in a single standard file.</para>
<para>This is probably not the place to go into a detailed examination
of how Makefiles work; suffice it to say that the line starting with
<literal>MAN3</literal> ensures that the ElectricFence man page is
compressed after installation, to help conserve your precious disk
space. The original port did not provide an
<maketarget>install</maketarget> target, so the three lines from
<maketarget>do-install</maketarget> ensure that the files produced by
this port are placed in the correct destination.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>The <filename>files</filename> directory</title>
<para>The file containing the <link
linkend="ports-checksum">checksum</link> for the port is called
<filename>md5</filename>, after the MD5 algorithm used for ports
checksums. It lives in a directory with the slightly confusing name
of <filename>files</filename>.</para>
<para>This directory can also contain other miscellaneous files that are
required by the port and do not belong anywhere else.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>The <filename>patches</filename> directory</title>
<para>This directory contains the <link
linkend="ports-patch">patches</link> needed to make everything work
properly under FreeBSD.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>The <filename>pkg</filename> directory</title>
<para>This program contains three quite useful files:-</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><filename>COMMENT</filename> &mdash; a one-line description of
the program.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><filename>DESCR</filename> &mdash; a more detailed
description.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><filename>PLIST</filename> &mdash; a list of all the files
that will be created when the program is installed.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect2>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="ports-troubleshooting">
<title>What to do when a port does not work.</title>
<para>Oh. You can do one of four (4) things :</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Fix it yourself. Technical details on how ports work can be
found in <link linkend="porting">Porting applications.</link></para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Gripe. This is done by e-mail <emphasis>only</emphasis>! Send
such e-mail to the maintainer of the port, first. Type
<command>make maintainer</command> or read the
<filename>Makefile</filename> to find the maintainer's email
address. Remember to include the name/version of
the port (copy the <literal>$Id:</literal> line from the
<filename>Makefile</filename>), and the output leading up-to the
error, inclusive. If you do not get a satisfactory response,
you can try filing a bug report with <command>send-pr</command>.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Forget it. This is the easiest for most &mdash; very few of the
programs in ports can be classified as essential!</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Grab the pre-compiled package from a ftp server. The
&ldquo;master&rdquo; package collection is on FreeBSD's FTP server
in the <ulink
URL="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/packages/">packages
directory</ulink>, though check your local mirror first, please!
These are more likely to work (on the whole) than trying to compile
from source and a lot faster besides! Use the &man.pkg.add.1;
program to install a package file on your
system.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1>
<title>Some Questions and Answers</title>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I thought this was going to be a discussion about
modems??!</para>
<para>A. Ah. You must be thinking of the serial ports on the back of
your computer. We are using &ldquo;port&rdquo; here to mean the
result of &ldquo;porting&rdquo; a program from one version of Unix
to another. (It is an unfortunate bad habit of computer people to
use the same word to refer to several completely different
things).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I thought you were supposed to use packages to install extra
programs?</para>
<para>A. Yes, that is usually the quickest and easiest way of doing
it.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. So why bother with ports then?</para>
<para>A. Several reasons:-</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The licensing conditions on some software distributions
require that they be distributed as source code, not
binaries.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Some people do not trust binary distributions. At least
with source code you can (in theory) read through it and look
for potential problems yourself.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If you have some local patches, you will need the source to
add them yourself.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>You might have opinions on how a program should be compiled
that differ from the person who did the package &mdash; some
people have strong views on what optimisation setting should be
used, whether to build debug versions and then strip them or
not, etc. etc.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Some people like having code around, so they can read it if
they get bored, hack around with it, borrow from it (licence
terms permitting, of course!) and so on.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If you ain't got the source, it ain't software! <!-- smiley
-->;-)</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><anchor id="ports-patch"> Q. What is a patch?</para>
<para>A. A patch is a small (usually) file that specifies how to go
from one version of a file to another. It contains text that says,
in effect, things like &ldquo;delete line 23&rdquo;, &ldquo;add
these two lines after line 468&rdquo; or &ldquo;change line 197 to
this&rdquo;. Also known as a &ldquo;diff&rdquo;, since it is
generated by a program of that name.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><anchor id="ports-tarball"> Q. What is all this about
tarballs?</para>
<para>A. It is a file ending in <filename>.tar</filename> or
<filename>.tar.gz</filename> (with variations like
<filename>.tar.Z</filename>, or even <filename>.tgz</filename> if
you are trying to squeeze the names into a DOS filesystem).</para>
<para>Basically, it is a directory tree that has been archived into a
single file (<filename>.tar</filename>) and optionally compressed
(<filename>.gz</filename>). This technique was originally used for
<emphasis>T</emphasis>ape <emphasis>AR</emphasis>chives (hence the
name <command>tar</command>), but it is a widely used way of
distributing program source code around the Internet.</para>
<para>You can see what files are in them, or even extract them
yourself, by using the standard Unix tar program, which comes with
the base FreeBSD system, like this:-</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>tar tvzf foobar.tar.gz</userinput>
&prompt.user; <userinput>tar xzvf foobar.tar.gz</userinput>
&prompt.user; <userinput>tar tvf foobar.tar</userinput>
&prompt.user; <userinput>tar xvf foobar.tar</userinput></screen>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><anchor id="ports-checksum"> Q. And a checksum?</para>
<para>A. It is a number generated by adding up all the data in the
file you want to check. If any of the characters change, the
checksum will no longer be equal to the total, so a simple
comparison will allow you to spot the difference. (In practice, it
is done in a more complicated way to spot problems like
position-swapping, which will not show up with a simplistic
addition).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I did what you said for <link linkend="ports-cd">compiling
ports from a CDROM</link> and it worked great until I tried to
install the kermit port:-</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>make install</userinput>
&gt;&gt; cku190.tar.gz doesn't seem to exist on this system.
&gt;&gt; Attempting to fetch from ftp://kermit.columbia.edu/kermit/archives/.</screen>
<para>Why can it not be found? Have I got a dud CDROM?</para>
<para>A. The licensing terms for kermit do not allow us to put the
tarball for it on the CDROM, so you will have to fetch it by hand
&mdash; sorry! The reason why you got all those error messages was
because you were not connected to the Internet at the time. Once
you have downloaded it from any of the sites above, you can re-start
the process (try and choose the nearest site to you, though, to save
your time and the Internet's bandwidth).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I did that, but when I tried to put it into
<filename>/usr/ports/distfiles</filename> I got some error about not
having permission.</para>
<para>A. The ports mechanism looks for the tarball in
<filename>/usr/ports/distfiles</filename>, but you will not be able
to copy anything there because it is sym-linked to the CDROM, which
is read-only. You can tell it to look somewhere else by
doing</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>make DISTDIR=<replaceable>/where/you/put/it</replaceable> install</userinput></screen>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. Does the ports scheme only work if you have everything in
<filename>/usr/ports</filename>? My system administrator says I must
put everything under
<filename>/u/people/guests/wurzburger</filename>, but it does not
seem to work.</para>
<para>A. You can use the <makevar>PORTSDIR</makevar> and
<makevar>PREFIX</makevar> variables to tell the ports mechanism to
use different directories. For instance,</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>make PORTSDIR=/u/people/guests/wurzburger/ports install</userinput></screen>
<para>will compile the port in
<filename>/u/people/guests/wurzburger/ports</filename> and install
everything under <filename>/usr/local</filename>.</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>make PREFIX=/u/people/guests/wurzburger/local install</userinput></screen>
<para>will compile it in <filename>/usr/ports</filename> and install
it in <filename>/u/people/guests/wurzburger/local</filename>.</para>
<para>And of course</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>make PORTSDIR=.../ports PREFIX=.../local install</userinput></screen>
<para>will combine the two (it is too long to fit on the page if I
write it in full, but I am sure you get the idea).</para>
<para>If you do not fancy typing all that in every time you install a
port (and to be honest, who would?), it is a good idea to put these
variables into your environment.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I do not have a FreeBSD CDROM, but I would like to have all
the tarballs handy on my system so I do not have to wait for a
download every time I install a port. Is there an easy way to get
them all at once?</para>
<para>A. To get every single tarball for the ports collection,
do</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make fetch</userinput></screen>
<para>For all the tarballs for a single ports directory, do</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports/<replaceable>directory</replaceable></userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make fetch</userinput></screen>
<para>and for just one port &mdash; well, I think you have guessed
already.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I know it is probably faster to fetch the tarballs from one
of the FreeBSD mirror sites close by. Is there any way to tell the
port to fetch them from servers other than ones listed in the
MASTER_SITES?</para>
<para>A. Yes. If you know, for example, <hostid
role="fqdn">ftp.FreeBSD.ORG</hostid> is much closer than sites
listed in <makevar>MASTER_SITES</makevar>, do as following
example.</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports/<replaceable>directory</replaceable></userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make MASTER_SITE_OVERRIDE=ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/ fetch</userinput></screen>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I want to know what files make is going to need before it
tries to pull them down.</para>
<para>A. <command>make fetch-list</command> will display a list of
the files needed for a port.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. Is there any way to stop the port from compiling? I want to
do some hacking on the source before I install it, but it is a bit
tiresome having to watch it and hit control-C every time.</para>
<para>A. Doing <command>make extract</command> will stop it after it
has fetched and extracted the source code.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I am trying to make my own port and I want to be able to
stop it compiling until I have had a chance to see if my patches
worked properly. Is there something like <command>make
extract</command>, but for patches?</para>
<para>A. Yep, <command>make patch</command> is what you want. You
will probably find the <makevar>PATCH_DEBUG</makevar> option useful
as well. And by the way, thank you for your efforts!</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I have heard that some compiler options can cause bugs. Is
this true? How can I make sure that I compile ports with the right
settings?</para>
<para>A. Yes, with version 2.6.3 of <command>gcc</command> (the
version shipped with FreeBSD 2.1.0 and 2.1.5), the
<option>-O2</option> option could result in buggy code unless you
used the <option>-fno-strength-reduce</option> option as well.
(Most of the ports do not use <option>-O2</option>). You
<emphasis>should</emphasis> be able to specify the compiler options
used by something like</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>make CFLAGS='-O2 -fno-strength-reduce' install</userinput></screen>
<para>or by editing <filename>/etc/make.conf</filename>, but
unfortunately not all ports respect this. The surest way is to do
<command>make configure</command>, then go into the source directory
and inspect the Makefiles by hand, but this can get tedious if the
source has lots of sub-directories, each with their own
Makefiles.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. There are so many ports it is hard to find the one I want.
Is there a list anywhere of what ports are available?</para>
<para>A. Look in the <filename>INDEX</filename> file in
<filename>/usr/ports</filename>. If you would like to search the
ports collection for a keyword, you can do that too. For example,
you can find ports relevant to the LISP programming language
using:</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>cd /usr/ports</userinput>
&prompt.user; <userinput>make search key=lisp</userinput></screen>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I went to install the <literal>foo</literal> port but the
system suddenly stopped compiling it and starting compiling the
<literal>bar</literal> port. What is going on?</para>
<para>A. The <literal>foo</literal> port needs something that is
supplied with <literal>bar</literal> &mdash; for instance, if
<literal>foo</literal> uses graphics, <literal>bar</literal> might
have a library with useful graphics processing routines. Or
<literal>bar</literal> might be a tool that is needed to compile the
<literal>foo</literal> port.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><anchor id="ports-remove"> Q. I installed the
<literal>grizzle</literal> program from the ports and frankly it is
a complete waste of disk space. I want to delete it but I do not
know where it put all the files. Any clues?</para>
<para>A. No problem, just do</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>pkg_delete grizzle-6.5</userinput></screen>
<para>Alternatively, you can do</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd <replaceable>/usr/ports/somewhere/grizzle</replaceable></userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make deinstall</userinput></screen>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Q. Hang on a minute, you have to know the version number to use
that command. You do not seriously expect me to remember that, do
you??</para>
<para>A. Not at all, you can find it out by doing</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>pkg_info -a | grep grizzle</userinput>
Information for grizzle-6.5:
grizzle-6.5 - the combined piano tutorial, LOGO interpreter and shoot 'em up arcade game.</screen>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. Talking of disk space, the ports directory seems to be
taking up an awful lot of room. Is it safe to go in there and
delete things?</para>
<para>A. Yes, if you have installed the program and are fairly
certain you will not need the source again, there is no point in
keeping it hanging around. The best way to do this is</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make clean</userinput></screen>
<para>which will go through all the ports subdirectories and delete
everything except the skeletons for each port.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I tried that and it still left all those tarballs or
whatever you called them in the <filename>distfiles</filename>
directory. Can I delete those as well?</para>
<para>A. Yes, if you are sure you have finished with them, those can
go as well.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I like having lots and lots of programs to play with. Is
there any way of installing all the ports in one go?</para>
<para>A. Just do</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make install</userinput></screen>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. OK, I tried that, but I thought it would take a very long
time so I went to bed and left it to get on with it. When I looked
at the computer this morning, it had only done three and a half
ports. Did something go wrong?</para>
<para>A. No, the problem is that some of the ports need to ask you
questions that we cannot answer for you (eg &ldquo;Do you want to
print on A4 or US letter sized paper?&rdquo;) and they need to have
someone on hand to answer them.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. I really do not want to spend all day staring at the
monitor. Any better ideas?</para>
<para>A. OK, do this before you go to bed/work/the local
park:-</para>
<screen>&prompt.root <userinput>cd /usr/ports</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make -DBATCH install</userinput></screen>
<para>This will install every port that does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
require user input. Then, when you come back, do</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd /usr/ports</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make -DIS_INTERACTIVE install</userinput></screen>
<para>to finish the job.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. At work, we are using <literal>frobble</literal>, which is
in your ports collection, but we have altered it quite a bit to get
it to do what we need. Is there any way of making our own packages,
so we can distribute it more easily around our sites?</para>
<para>A. No problem, assuming you know how to make patches for your
changes:-</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>cd <replaceable>/usr/ports/somewhere/frobble</replaceable></userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make extract</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>cd work/frobble-2.8</userinput>
[Apply your patches]
&prompt.root; <userinput>cd ../..</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make package</userinput></screen>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Q. This ports stuff is really clever. I am desperate to find
out how you did it. What is the secret?</para>
<para>A. Nothing secret about it at all, just look at the
<filename>bsd.ports.mk</filename> and
<filename>bsd.ports.subdir.mk</filename> files in your <ulink
URL="file://localhost/usr/ports/Mk/">makefiles
directory.</ulink></para>
<note>
<para>Readers with an aversion to intricate shell-scripts are
advised not to follow this link...)</para>
</note>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="porting">
<title>Making a port yourself</title>
<para><emphasis>Contributed by &a.jkh;, &a.gpalmer;, &a.asami; &a.obrien;
and &a.hoek;. 28 August 1996.</emphasis></para>
<para>So, now you are interested in making your own port or upgrading
an existing one? Great!</para>
<para>What follows are some guidelines for creating a new port for
FreeBSD. If you want to upgrade an existing port, you should read this
and then read <xref linkend="port-upgrading">.</para>
<para>When this document is not sufficiently detailed, you should refer to
<filename>/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk</filename>, which all port Makefiles
include. Even if you do not hack Makefiles daily, it is well
commented, and you will still gain much knowledge from it.
Additionally, you may send specific questions to &a.ports;.</para>
<note>
<para>Only a fraction of the overridable variables
(<makevar><replaceable>VAR</replaceable></makevar>) are mentioned in
this document. Most (if not all) are documented at the start of
<filename>bsd.port.mk</filename>. This file users a non-standard tab
setting. <application>Emacs</application> and
<application>Vim</application> should recognise the setting on loading
the file. Both <command>vi</command> and <command>ex</command> can be
set to use the correct value by typing <command>:set tabstop=4</command>
once the file has been loaded.</para>
</note>
<sect2 id="quick-porting">
<title>Quick Porting</title>
<para>This section tells you how to do a quick port. In many cases, it
is not enough, but we will see.</para>
<para>First, get the original tarball and put it into
<makevar>DISTDIR</makevar>, which defaults to
<filename>/usr/ports/distfiles</filename>.</para>
<note>
<para>The following assumes that the software compiled out-of-the-box,
i.e., there was absolutely no change required for the port to work
on your FreeBSD box. If you needed to change something, you will
have to refer to the next section too.</para>
</note>
<sect3>
<title>Writing the <filename>Makefile</filename></title>
<para>The minimal <filename>Makefile</filename> would look something
like this:</para>
<programlisting>
# New ports collection makefile for: oneko
# Version required: 1.1b
# Date created: 5 December 1994
# Whom: asami
#
# &#36;Id&#36;
#
DISTNAME= oneko-1.1b
CATEGORIES= games
MASTER_SITES= ftp://ftp.cs.columbia.edu/archives/X11R5/contrib/
MAINTAINER= asami@FreeBSD.ORG
MAN1= oneko.1
MANCOMPRESSED= yes
USE_IMAKE= yes
.include &lt;bsd.port.mk&gt;</programlisting>
<para>See if you can figure it out. Do not worry about the contents
of the <literal>&#36;Id&#36;</literal> line, it will be filled in
automatically by CVS when the port is imported to our main ports
tree. You can find a more detailed example in the <link
linkend="porting-samplem">sample Makefile</link> section.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Writing the description files</title>
<para>There are three description files that are required for any
port, whether they actually package or not. They are
<filename>COMMENT</filename>, <filename>DESCR</filename>, and
<filename>PLIST</filename>, and reside in the
<filename>pkg</filename> subdirectory.</para>
<sect4>
<title><filename>COMMENT</filename></title>
<para>This is the one-line description of the port.
<emphasis>Please</emphasis> do not include the package name (or
version number of the software) in the comment. The comment
should begin with a capital, and end without a period. Here
is an example:</para>
<programlisting>
A cat chasing a mouse all over the screen</programlisting>
</sect4>
<sect4>
<title><filename>DESCR</filename></title>
<para>This is a longer description of the port. One to a few
paragraphs concisely explaining what the port does is
sufficient.</para>
<note>
<para>This is <emphasis>not</emphasis> a manual or an in-depth
description on how to use or compile the port! <emphasis>Please
be careful if you are copying from the
<filename>README</filename> or manpage</emphasis>; too often
they are not a concise description of the port or are in an
awkward format (e.g., manpages have justified spacing). If the
ported software has an official WWW homepage, you should list it
here. Prefix <emphasis>one</emphasis> of the websites with
<literal>WWW:</literal> so that automated tools will work
correctly.</para>
</note>
<para>It is recommended that you sign your name at the end of this
file, as in:</para>
<programlisting>
This is a port of oneko, in which a cat chases a poor mouse all over
the screen.
:
(etc.)
WWW: http://www.oneko.org/
- Satoshi
asami@cs.berkeley.edu</programlisting>
</sect4>
<sect4>
<title><filename>PLIST</filename></title>
<para>This file lists all the files installed by the port. It is
also called the &ldquo;packing list&rdquo; because the package is
generated by packing the files listed here. The pathnames are
relative to the installation prefix (usually
<filename>/usr/local</filename> or
<filename>/usr/X11R6</filename>). If you are using the
<makevar>MAN<replaceable>n</replaceable></makevar> variables (as
you should be), do not list any manpages here.</para>
<para>Here is a small example:</para>
<programlisting>
bin/oneko
lib/X11/app-defaults/Oneko
lib/X11/oneko/cat1.xpm
lib/X11/oneko/cat2.xpm
lib/X11/oneko/mouse.xpm
@dirrm lib/X11/oneko</programlisting>
<para>Refer to the &man.pkg.create.1; man page for details on the
packing list.</para>
<note>
<para>You should list all the files, but not the name directories,
in the list. Also, if the port creates directories for itself
during installtion, make sure to add <literal>@dirrm</literal>
lines as necessary to remove them when the port is
deleted.</para>
<para>It is recommended that you keep all the filenames in this
file sorted alphabetically. It will make verifying the changes
when you upgrade the port much easier.</para>
<para>Creating a packing list manually can be a very tedious
task. If the port installs a large numbers of files, <link
linkend="porting-autoplist">creating the packing list
automatically</link> might save time.</para>
</note>
</sect4>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Creating the checksum file</title>
<para>Just type <command>make makesum</command>. The ports make rules
will automatically generate the file
<filename>files/md5</filename>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="porting-testing">
<title>Testing the port</title>
<para>You should make sure that the port rules do exactly what you
want it to do, including packaging up the port. These are the
important points you need to verify.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><filename>PLIST</filename> does not contain anything not
installed by your port</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><filename>PLIST</filename> contains everything that is
installed by your port</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Your port can be installed multiple times using the
<maketarget>reinstall</maketarget> target</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Your port <link linkend="porting-cleaning">cleans up</link>
after itself upon deinstall</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<procedure>
<title>Recommended test ordering</title>
<step>
<para><command>make install</command></para>
</step>
<step>
<para><command>make package</command></para>
</step>
<step>
<para><command>make deinstall</command></para>
</step>
<step>
<para><command>pkg_add <replaceable>package-name</replaceable>
</command></para>
</step>
<step>
<para><command>make deinstall</command></para>
</step>
<step>
<para><command>make reinstall</command></para>
</step>
<step>
<para><command>make package</command></para>
</step>
</procedure>
<para>Make sure that there are not any warnings issued in any of the
<maketarget>package</maketarget> and
<maketarget>deinstall</maketarget> stages, After step 3, check to
see if all the new directories are correctly deleted. Also, try
using the software after step 4, to ensure that is works correctly
when installed from a package.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="porting-portlint">
<title>Checking your port with <command>portlint</command></title>
<para>Please use <command>portlint</command> to see if your port
conforms to our guidelines. The <command>portlint</command> program
is part of the ports collection. In particular, your may want to
check if the <link linkend="porting-samplem">Makefile</link> is in
the right shape and the <link
linkend="porting-pkgname">package</link> is named
appropriately.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="porting-submitting">
<title>Submitting the port</title>
<para>First, make sure you have read the <link
linkend="porting-dads">Do's and Dont's</link> section.</para>
<para>Now that you are happy with your port, the only thing remaining
is to put it in the main FreeBSD ports tree and make everybody else
happy about it too. We do not need your <filename>work</filename>
directory or the <filename>pkgname.tgz</filename> package, so delete
them now. Next, simply include the output of <command>shar `find
port_dir`</command> in a bug report and send it with the
&man.send-pr.1; program (see <link linkend="contrib-general">Bug
Reports and General Commentary</link> for more information about
&man.send-pr.1;. If the uncompressed port is larger than 20KB,
you should compress it into a tarfile and use &man.uuencode.1;
before including it in the bug report (uuencoded tarfiles are
acceptable even if the bug report is smaller than 20KB but are not
preferred). Be sure to classify the bug report as category
<literal>ports</literal> and class
<literal>change-request</literal>. (Do not mark the report
<literal>confidential</literal>!)</para>
<para>One more time, <emphasis>do not include the original source
distfile, the <filename>work</filename> directory, or the package
you built with <command>make package</command></emphasis>.</para>
<note>
<para>In the past, we asked you to upload new port submissions in
our ftp site (<hostid role="fqdn">ftp.FreeBSD.org</hostid>). This
is no longer recommended as read access is turned off on that
<filename>incoming/</filename> directory of that site due to the
large amount of pirated software showing up there.</para>
</note>
<para>We will look at your port, get back to you if necessary, and put
it in the tree. Your name will also appear in the list of
&ldquo;Additional FreeBSD contributors&rdquo; on the FreeBSD
Handbook and other files. Isn't that great?!? <!-- smiley
-->:)</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Slow Porting</title>
<para>Ok, so it was not that simple, and the port required some
modifications to get it to work. In this section, we will explain,
step by step, how to modify it to get it to work with the ports
paradigm.</para>
<sect3>
<title>How things work</title>
<para>First, this is the sequence of events which occurs when the user
first types <command>make</command> in your port's directory, and
you may find that having <filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> in another
window while you read this really helps to understand it.</para>
<para>But do not worry if you do not really understand what
<filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> is doing, not many people do...
<!-- smiley --><emphasis>:&gt;</emphasis></para>
<procedure>
<step>
<para>The <maketarget>fetch</maketarget> target is run. The
<maketarget>fetch</maketarget> target is responsible for making
sure that the tarball exists locally in
<makevar>DISTDIR</makevar>. If <maketarget>fetch</maketarget>
cannot find the required files in <makevar>DISTDIR</makevar> it
will look up the URL <makevar>MASTER_SITES</makevar>, which is
set in the Makefile, as well as our main ftp site at <ulink
URL="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/">ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/</ulink>,
where we put sanctioned distfiles as backup. It will then
attempt to fetch the named distribution file with
<makevar>FETCH</makevar>, assuming that the requesting site has
direct access to the Internet. If that succeeds, it will save
the file in <makevar>DISTDIR</makevar> for future use and
proceed.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>The <maketarget>extract</maketarget> target is run. It
looks for your port's distribution file (typically a gzip'd
tarball) in <makevar>DISTDIR</makevar> and unpacks it into a
temporary subdirectory specified by <makevar>WRKDIR</makevar>
(defaults to <filename>work</filename>).</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>The <maketarget>patch</maketarget> target is run. First,
any patches defined in <makevar>PATCHFILES</makevar> are
applied. Second, if any patches are found in
<makevar>PATCHDIR</makevar> (defaults to the
<filename>patches</filename> subdirectory), they are applied at
this time in alphabetical order.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>The <maketarget>configure</maketarget> target is run. This
can do any one of many different things.</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>If it exists, <filename>scripts/configure</filename> is
run.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If <makevar>HAS_CONFIGURE</makevar> or
<makevar>GNU_CONFIGURE</makevar> is set,
<filename><makevar>WRKSRC</makevar>/configure</filename> is
run.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If <makevar>USE_IMAKE</makevar> is set,
<makevar>XMKMF</makevar> (default: <command>xmkmf
-a</command>) is run.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</step>
<step>
<para>The <maketarget>build</maketarget> target is run. This is
responsible for descending into the port's private working
directory (<makevar>WRKSRC</makevar>) and building it. If
<makevar>USE_GMAKE</makevar> is set, GNU <command>make</command>
will be used, otherwise the system <command>make</command> will
be used.</para>
</step>
</procedure>
<para>The above are the default actions. In addition, you can define
targets
<maketarget>pre-<replaceable>something</replaceable></maketarget> or
<maketarget>post-<replaceable>something</replaceable></maketarget>,
or put scripts with those names, in the <filename>scripts</filename>
subdirectory, and they will be run before or after the default
actions are done.</para>
<para>For example, if you have a <maketarget>post-extract</maketarget>
target defined in your Makefile, and a file
<filename>pre-build</filename> in the <filename>scripts</filename>
subdirectory, the <maketarget>post-extract</maketarget> target will
be called after the regular extraction actions, and the
<filename>pre-build</filename> script will be executed before the
default build rules are done. It is recommended that you use
<filename>Makefile</filename> targets if the actions are simple
enough, because it will be easier for someone to figure out what
kind of non-default action the port requires.</para>
<para>The default actions are done by the
<filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> targets
<maketarget>do-<replaceable>something</replaceable></maketarget>.
For example, the commands to extract a port are in the target
<maketarget>do-extract</maketarget>. If you are not happy with the
default target, you can fix it by redefining the
<maketarget>do-<replaceable>something</replaceable></maketarget>
target in your <filename>Makefile</filename>.</para>
<note>
<para>The &ldquo;main&rdquo; targets (e.g.,
<maketarget>extract</maketarget>,
<maketarget>configure</maketarget>, etc.) do nothing more than
make sure all the stages up to that one are completed and call
the real targets or scripts, and they are not intended to be
changed. If you want to fix the extraction, fix
<maketarget>do-extract</maketarget>, but never ever touch
<maketarget>extract</maketarget>!</para>
</note>
<para>Now that you understand what goes on when the user types
<command>make</command>, let us go through the recommended steps to
create the perfect port.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Getting the original sources</title>
<para>Get the original sources (normally) as a compressed tarball
(<filename><replaceable>foo</replaceable>.tar.gz</filename> or
<filename><replaceable>foo</replaceable>.tar.Z</filename>) and copy
it into <makevar>DISTDIR</makevar>. Always use
<emphasis>mainstream</emphasis> sources when and where you
can.</para>
<para>If you cannot find a ftp/http site that is well-connected to the
net, or can only find sites that have irritatingly non-standard
formats, you might want to put a copy on a reliable ftp or http
server that you control (e.g., your home page). Make sure you set
<makevar>MASTER_SITES</makevar> to reflect your choice.</para>
<para>If you cannot find somewhere convenient and reliable to put the
distfile (if you are a FreeBSD committer, you can just put it in
your <filename>public_html/</filename> directory on
<hostid>freefall</hostid>), we can &ldquo;house&rdquo; it ourselves
by putting it on
<filename>ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/LOCAL_PORTS/</filename>
as the last resort. Please refer to this location as
<makevar>MASTER_SITE_LOCAL</makevar>. Send mail to the &a.ports;if
you are not sure what to do.</para>
<para>If your port's distfile changes all the time for no good reason,
consider putting the distfile in your home page and listing it as
the first <makevar>MASTER_SITES</makevar>. This will prevent users
from getting <errorname>checksum mismatch</errorname> errors, and
also reduce the workload of maintainers of our ftp site. Also, if
there isonly one master site for the port, it is recommended that
you house a backup at your site and list it as the second
<makevar>MASTER_SITES</makevar>.</para>
<para>If your port requires some additional `patches' that are
available on the Internet, fetch them too and put them in
<makevar>DISTDIR</makevar>. Do not worry if they come from a site
other than where you got the main source tarball, we have a way to
handle these situations (see the description of <link
linkend="porting-patchfiles">PATCHFILES</link> below).</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Modifying the port</title>
<para>Unpack a copy of the tarball in a private directory and make
whatever changes are necessary to get the port to compile properly
under the current version of FreeBSD. Keep <emphasis>careful
track</emphasis> of everything you do, as you will be automating
the process shortly. Everything, including the deletion, addition
or modification of files should be doable using an automated script
or patch file when your port is finished.</para>
<para>If your port requires significant user interaction/customization
to compile or install, you should take a look at one of Larry Wall's
classic <application>Configure</application> scripts and perhaps do
something similar yourself. The goal of the new ports collection is
to make each port as &ldquo;plug-and-play&rdquo; as possible for the
end-user while using a minimum of disk space.</para>
<note>
<para>Unless explicitly stated, patch files, scripts, and other
files you have created and contributed to the FreeBSD ports
collection are assumed to be covered by the standard BSD copyright
conditions.</para>
</note>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Patching</title>
<para>In the preparation of the port, files that have been added or
changed can be picked up with a recursive diff for later feeding to
patch. Each set of patches you wish to apply should be collected
into a file named
<filename>patch-<replaceable>xx</replaceable></filename> where
<replaceable>xx</replaceable> denotes the sequence in which the
patches will be applied &mdash; these are done in
<emphasis>alphabetical order</emphasis>, thus <literal>aa</literal>
first, <literal>ab</literal> second and so on. These files should
be stored in <makevar>PATCHDIR</makevar>, from where they will be
automatically applied. All patches should be relative to
<makevar>WRKSRC</makevar> (generally the directory your port's
tarball unpacks itself into, that being where the build is done).
To make fixes and upgrades easier, you should avoid having more than
one patch fix the same file (e.g., <filename>patch-aa</filename> and
<filename>patch-ab</filename> both changing
<filename><makevar>WRKSRC</makevar>/foobar.c</filename>).</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Configuring</title>
<para>Include any additional customization commands to your
<filename>configure</filename> script and save it in the
<filename>scripts</filename> subdirectory. As mentioned above, you
can also do this as <filename>Makefile</filename> targets and/or
scripts with the name <filename>pre-configure</filename> or
<filename>post-configure</filename>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Handling user input</title>
<para>If your port requires user input to build, configure or install,
then set <makevar>IS_INTERACTIVE</makevar> in your Makefile. This
will allow &ldquo;overnight builds&rdquo; to skip your port if the
user sets the variable <envar>BATCH</envar> in his environment (and
if the user sets the variable <envar>INTERACTIVE</envar>, then
<emphasis>only</emphasis> those ports requiring interaction are
built).</para>
<para>It is also recommended that if there are reasonable default
answers to the questions, you check the
<makevar>PACKAGE_BUILDING</makevar> variable and turn off the
interactive script when it is set. This will allow us to build the
packages for CD-ROMs and ftp.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Configuring the Makefile</title>
<para>Configuring the Makefile is pretty simple, and again we suggest
that you look at existing examples before starting. Also, there is a
<link linkend="porting-samplem">sample Makefile</link> in this
handbook, so take a look and please follow the ordering of variables
and sections in that template to make your port easier for others to
read.</para>
<para>Now, consider the following problems in sequence as you design
your new Makefile:</para>
<sect3>
<title>The original source</title>
<para>Does it live in <makevar>DISTDIR</makevar> as a standard gzip'd
tarball? If so, you can go on to the next step. If not, you should
look at overriding any of the <makevar>EXTRACT_CMD</makevar>,
<makevar>EXTRACT_BEFORE_ARGS</makevar>,
<makevar>EXTRACT_AFTER_ARGS</makevar>,
<makevar>EXTRACT_SUFX</makevar>, or <makevar>DISTFILES</makevar>
variables, depending on how alien a format your port's distribution
file is. (The most common case is
<literal>EXTRACT_SUFX=.tar.Z</literal>, when the tarball is
condensed by regular compress, not gzip.)</para>
<para>In the worst case, you can simply create your own
<maketarget>do-extract</maketarget> target to override the default,
though this should be rarely, if ever, necessary.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><makevar>DISTNAME</makevar></title>
<para>You should set <makevar>DISTNAME</makevar> to be the base name
of your port. The default rules expect the distribution file list
(<makevar>DISTFILES</makevar>) to be named
<makevar>DISTNAME</makevar><makevar>EXTRACT_SUFX</makevar> which, if
it is a normal tarball, is going to be something like
<literal>foozolix-1.0.tar.gz</literal> for a setting of
<literal>DISTNAME=foozolix-1.0</literal>.</para>
<para>The default rules also expect the tarball(s) to extract into a
subdirectory called
<filename>work/<makevar>DISTNAME</makevar></filename>, e.g.
<filename>work/foozolix-1.0/</filename>.</para>
<para>All this behavior can be overridden, of course; it simply
represents the most common time-saving defaults. For a port
requiring multiple distribution files, simply set
<makevar>DISTFILES</makevar> explicitly. If only a subset of
<makevar>DISTFILES</makevar> are actual extractable archives, then
set them up in <makevar>EXTRACT_ONLY</makevar>, which will override
the <makevar>DISTFILES</makevar> list when it comes to extraction,
and the rest will be just left in <makevar>DISTDIR</makevar> for
later use.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><makevar>PKGNAME</makevar></title>
<para>If <makevar>DISTNAME</makevar> does not conform to our <link
linkend="porting-pkgname">guidelines for a good package
name</link>, you should set the <makevar>PKGNAME</makevar>
variable to something better. See the abovementioned guidelines for
more details.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><makevar>CATEGORIES</makevar></title>
<para>When a package is created, it is put under
<filename>/usr/ports/packages/All</filename> and links are made from
one or more subdirectories of
<filename>/usr/ports/packages</filename>. The names of these
subdirectories are specified by the variable
<makevar>CATEGORIES</makevar>. It is intended to make life easier
for the user when he is wading through the pile of packages on the
ftp site or the CD-ROM. Please take a look at the existing <link
linkend="porting-categories">categories</link> and pick the ones
that are suitable for your port.</para>
<para>This list also determines where in the ports tree the port is
imported. If you put more than one category here, it is assumed
that the port files will be put in the subdirectory with the name in
the first category. See the <link
linkend="porting-categories">categories</link> section for more
discussion about how to pick the right categories.</para>
<para>If you port truly belongs to something that is different from
all the existing ones, you can even create a new category name. In
that case, please send mail to the &a.ports; to propose a new
category.</para>
<note>
<para>There is no error checking for category names. <command>make
package</command> will happily create a new directory if you
mustype the category name, so be careful!</para>
</note>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><makevar>MASTER_SITES</makevar></title>
<para>Record the directory part of the ftp/http-URL pointing at the
original tarball in <makevar>MASTER_SITES</makevar>. Do not forget
the trailing slash (<filename>/</filename>)!</para>
<para>The <command>make</command> macros will try to use this
specification for grabbing the distribution file with
<makevar>FETCH</makevar> if they cannot find it already on the
system.</para>
<para>It is recommended that you put multiple sites on this list,
preferably from different continents. This will safeguard against
wide-area network problems, and we are even planning to add support
for automatically determining the closest master site and fetching
from there!</para>
<para>If the original tarball is part of one of the following popular
archives: X-contrib, GNU, Perl CPAN, TeX CTAN, or Linux Sunsite, you
refer to those sites in an easy compact form using
<makevar>MASTER_SITE_XCONTRIB</makevar>,
<makevar>MASTER_SITE_GNU</makevar>,
<makevar>MASTER_SITE_PERL_CPAN</makevar>,
<makevar>MASTER_SITE_TEX_CTAN</makevar>, and
<makevar>MASTER_SITE_SUNSITE</makevar>. Simply set
<makevar>MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR</makevar> to the path with in the
archive. Here is an example:</para>
<programlisting>
MASTER_SITES= ${MASTER_SITE_XCONTRIB}
MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR= applications</programlisting>
<para>The user can also set the <makevar>MASTER_SITE_*</makevar>
variables in <filename>/etc/make.conf</filename> to override our
choices, and use their favorite mirrors of these popular archives
instead.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="porting-patchfiles">
<title><makevar>PATCHFILES</makevar></title>
<para>If your port requires some additional patches that are available
by ftp or http, set <makevar>PATCHFILES</makevar> to the names of
the files and <makevar>PATCH_SITES</makevar> to the URL of the
directory that contains them (the format is the same as
<makevar>MASTER_SITES</makevar>).</para>
<para>If the patch is not relative to the top of the source tree
(i.e., <makevar>WKRSRC</makevar>) because it contains some extra
pathnames, set <makevar>PATCH_DIST_STRIP</makevar> accordingly. For
instance, if all the pathnames in the patch have an extra
<literal>foozolix-1.0/</literal> in front of the filenames, then set
<literal>PATCH_DIST_STRIP=-p1</literal>.</para>
<para>Do not worry if the patches are compressed, they will be
decompressed automatically if the filenames end with
<filename>.gz</filename> or <filename>.Z</filename>.</para>
<para>If the patch is distributed with some other files, such as
documentation, in a gzip'd tarball, you cannot just use
<makevar>PATCHFILES</makevar>. If that is the case, add the name
and the location of the patch tarball to
<makevar>DISTFILES</makevar> and <makevar>MASTER_SITES</makevar>.
Then, from the <maketarget>pre-patch</maketarget> target, apply the
patch either by running the patch command from there, or copying the
patch file into the <makevar>PATCHDIR</makevar> directory and
calling it
<filename>patch-<replaceable>xx</replaceable></filename>.</para>
<note>
<para>Note the tarball will have been extracted alongside the
regular source by then, so there is no need to explicitly extract
it if it is a regular gzip'd or compress'd tarball. If you do the
latter, take extra care not to overwrite something that already
exists in that directory. Also do not forget to add a command to
remove the copied patch in the <maketarget>pre-clean</maketarget>
target.</para>
</note>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><makevar>MAINTAINER</makevar></title>
<para>Set your mail-address here. Please. <!-- smiley
--><emphasis>:)</emphasis></para>
<para>For detailed description of the responsibility of maintainers,
refer to <link linkend="policies-maintainer">MAINTAINER on
Makefiles</link> section.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Dependencies</title>
<para>Many ports depend on other ports. There are five variables that
you can use to ensure that all the required bits will be on the
user's machine. There are also some pre-supported dependency
variables for common cases, plus a few more to control the behaviour
of dependencies.</para>
<sect4>
<title><makevar>LIB_DEPENDS</makevar></title>
<para>This variable specifies the shared libraries this port depends
on. It is a list of
<replaceable>lib</replaceable>:<replaceable>dir</replaceable><optional><replaceable>:target</replaceable></optional>
tuples where <replaceable>lib</replaceable> is the name of the
shared library, and <replaceable>dir</replaceable> is the
directory in which to find it in case it is not available, and
<replaceable>target</replaceable> is the target to call in that
directory. For example, <programlisting> LIB_DEPENDS=
jpeg.9:${PORTSDIR}/graphics/jpeg:install</programlisting>
will check for a shared jpeg library with major version 9, and
descend into the <filename>graphics/jpeg</filename> subdirectory
of your ports tree to build and install it if it is not found.
The <replaceable>target</replaceable> part can be omitted if it is
equal to <makevar>DEPENDS_TARGET</makevar> (which defaults to
<literal>install</literal>).</para>
<note>
<para>The <replaceable>lib</replaceable> part is an argument given
to <command>ldconfig -r | grep -wF</command>. There shall be no
reqular expressions in this variable.</para>
</note>
<para>The dependency is checked twice, once from within the
<maketarget>extract</maketarget> target and then from within the
<maketarget>install</maketarget> target. Also, the name of the
dependency is put in to the package so that
<command>pkg_add</command> will automatically install it if it is
not on the user's system.</para>
</sect4>
<sect4>
<title><makevar>RUN_DEPENDS</makevar></title>
<para>This variable specifies executables or files this port depends
on during run-time. It is a list of
<replaceable>path</replaceable>:<replaceable>dir</replaceable><optional><replaceable>:target</replaceable></optional>
tuples where <replaceable>path</replaceable> is the name of the
executable or file, and <replaceable>dir</replaceable> is the
directory in which to find it in case it is not available, and
<replaceable>target</replaceable> is the target to call in that
directory. If <replaceable>path</replaceable> starts with a slash
(<literal>/</literal>), it is treated as a file and its existence
is tested with <command>test -e</command>; otherwise, it is
assumed to be an executable, and <command>which -s</command> is
used to determine if the program exists in the user's search
path.</para>
<para>For example,</para>
<programlisting>
RUN_DEPENDS= ${PREFIX}/etc/innd:${PORTSDIR}/news/inn \
wish8.0:${PORTSDIR}/x11-toolkits/tk80</programlisting>
<para>will check if the file or directory
<filename>/usr/local/etc/innd</filename> exists, and build and
install it from the <filename>news/inn</filename> subdirectory of
the ports tree if it is not found. It will also see if an
executable called <command>wish8.0</command> is in your search
path, and descend into the <filename>x11-toolkits/tk80</filename>
subdirectory of your ports tree to build and install it if it is
not found.</para>
<note>
<para>In this case, <command>innd</command> is actually an
executable; if an executable is in a place that is not expected
to be in a normal user's search path, you should use the full
pathname.</para>
</note>
<para>The dependency is checked from within the
<maketarget>install</maketarget> target. Also, the name of the
dependency is put in to the package so that
<command>pkg_add</command> will automatically install it if it is
not on the user's system. The <replaceable>target</replaceable>
part can be omitted if it is the same
<makevar>DEPENDS_TARGET</makevar>.</para>
</sect4>
<sect4>
<title><makevar>BUILD_DEPENDS</makevar></title>
<para>This variable specifies executables or files this port
requires to build. Like <makevar>RUN_DEPENDS</makevar>, it is a
list of
<replaceable>path</replaceable>:<replaceable>dir</replaceable><optional><replaceable>:target</replaceable></optional>
tuples. For example, <programlisting> BUILD_DEPENDS=
unzip:${PORTSDIR}/archivers/unzip</programlisting> will check
for an executable called <command>unzip</command>, and descend
into the <filename>archivers/unzip</filename> subdirectory of your
ports tree to build and install it if it is not found.</para>
<note>
<para>&ldquo;build&rdquo; here means everything from extracting to
compilation. The dependency is checked from within the
<maketarget>extract</maketarget> target. The
<replaceable>target</replaceable> part can be omitted if it is
the same as <makevar>DEPENDS_TARGET</makevar></para>
</note>
</sect4>
<sect4>
<title><makevar>FETCH_DEPENDS</makevar></title>
<para>This variable specifies executables or files this port
requires to fetch. Like the previous two, it is a list of
<replaceable>path</replaceable>:<replaceable>dir</replaceable><optional><replaceable>:target</replaceable></optional>
tuples. For example, <programlisting> FETCH_DEPENDS=
ncftp2:${PORTSDIR}/net/ncftp2</programlisting> will check for an
executable called <command>ncftp2</command>, and descend into the
<filename>net/ncftp2</filename> subdirectory of your ports tree to
build and install it if it is not found.</para>
<para>The dependency is checked from within the
<maketarget>fetch</maketarget> target. The
<replaceable>target</replaceable> part can be omitted if it is the
same as <makevar>DEPENDS_TARGET</makevar>.</para>
</sect4>
<sect4>
<title><makevar>DEPENDS</makevar></title>
<para>If there is a dependency that does not fall into either of the
above four categories, or your port requires to have the source of
the other port extracted in addition to having them installed,
then use this variable. This is a list of
<replaceable>dir</replaceable><optional><replaceable>:target</replaceable></optional>,
as there is nothing to check, unlike the previous four. The
<replaceable>target</replaceable> part can be omitted if it is the
same as <makevar>DEPENDS_TARGET</makevar>.</para>
</sect4>
<sect4>
<title>Common dependency variables</title>
<para>Define <literal>USE_XLIB=yes</literal> if your port requires
the X Window System to be installed (it is implied by
<makevar>USE_IMAKE</makevar>). Define
<literal>USE_GMAKE=yes</literal> if your port requires GNU
<command>make</command> instead of BSD <command>make</command>.
Define <literal>USE_AUTOCONF=yes</literal> if your port requires
GNU autoconf to be run. Define <literal>USE_QT=yes</literal> if
your port uses the latest qt toolkit. Use
<literal>USE_PERL5=yes</literal> if your port requires version 5
of the perl language. (The last is especially important since
some versions of FreeBSD has perl5 as part of the base system
while others do not.)</para>
</sect4>
<sect4>
<title>Notes on dependencies</title>
<para>As mentioned above, the default target to call when a
dependency is required is <maketarget>DEPENDS_TARGET</maketarget>.
It defaults to <literal>install</literal>. This is a user
variable; is is never defined in a port's
<filename>Makefile</filename>. If your port needs a special way
to handle a dependency, use the <literal>:target</literal> part of
the <makevar>*_DEPENDS</makevar> variables instead of redefining
<makevar>DEPENDS_TARGET</makevar>.</para>
<para>When you type <command>make clean</command>, its dependencies
are automatically cleaned too. If you do not wish this to happen,
define the variable <makevar>NOCLEANDEPENDS</makevar> in your
environment.</para>
<para>To depend on another port unconditionally, it is customary to
use the string <literal>nonexistent</literal> as the first field
of <makevar>BUILD_DEPENDS</makevar> or
<makevar>RUN_DEPENDS</makevar>. Use this only when you need to
the to get to the source of the other port. You can often save
compilation time by specifying the target too. For
instance
<programlisting>
BUILD_DEPENDS= /nonexistent:${PORTSDIR}/graphics/jpeg:extract</programlisting>
will always descend to the JPEG port and extract it.</para>
<para>Do not use <makevar>DEPENDS</makevar> unless there is no other
way the behaviour you want can be accomplished. It will cause the
other port to be always build (and installed, by default), and the
dependency will go into the packages as well. If this is really
what you need, I recommend you write it as
<literal>BUILD_DEPENDS</literal> and
<literal>RUN_DEPENDS</literal> instead&mdash;at least the
intention will be clear.</para>
</sect4>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Building mechanisms</title>
<para>If your package uses GNU <command>make</command>, set
<literal>USE_GMAKE=yes</literal>. If your package uses
<command>configure</command>, set
<literal>HAS_CONFIGURE=yes</literal>. If your package uses GNU
<command>configure</command>, set
<literal>GNU_CONFIGURE=yes</literal> (this implies
<literal>HAS_CONFIGURE</literal>). If you want to give some extra
arguments to <command>configure</command> (the default argument list
<literal>--prefix=&dollar;{PREFIX}</literal> for GNU
<command>configure</command> and empty for non-GNU
<command>configure</command>), set those extra arguments in
<makevar>CONFIGURE_ARGS</makevar>. If your package uses GNU
<command>autoconf</command>, set
<literal>USE_AUTOCONF=yes</literal>. This implies
<makevar>GNU_CONFIGURE</makevar>, and will cause
<command>autoconf</command> to be run before
<command>configure</command>.</para>
<para>If your package is an X application that creates
<filename>Makefile</filename>s from <filename>Imakefile</filename>s
using <command>imake</command>, then set
<literal>USE_IMAKE=yes</literal>. This will cause the configure
stage to automatically do an <command>xmkmf -a</command>. If the
<option>-a</option> flag is a problem for your port, set
<literal>XMKMF=xmkmf</literal>. If the port uses
<command>imake</command> but does not understand the
<maketarget>install.man</maketarget> target,
<literal>NO_INSTALL_MANPAGES=yes</literal> should be set. In
addition, the author of the original port should be shot. <!--
smiley --><emphasis>:&gt;</emphasis></para>
<para>If your port's source <filename>Makefile</filename> has
something else than <maketarget>all</maketarget> as the main build
target, set <makevar>ALL_TARGET</makevar> accordingly. Same goes
for <maketarget>install</maketarget> and
<makevar>INSTALL_TARGET</makevar>.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Special considerations</title>
<para>There are some more things you have to take into account when you
create a port. This section explains the most common of those.</para>
<sect3 id="porting-ldconfig">
<title><command>ldconfig</command></title>
<para>If your port installs a shared library, add a
<maketarget>post-install</maketarget> target to your
<filename>Makefile</filename> that runs <literal>&dollar;{LDCONFIG}
-m</literal> on the directory where the new library is installed
(usually <filename><makevar>PREFIX</makevar>/lib</filename>) to
register it into the shared library cache.</para>
<para>Also, add a matching <literal>@exec /sbin/ldconfig -m</literal>
and <literal>@unexec /sbin/ldconfig -R</literal> pair to your
<filename>pkg/PLIST</filename> file so that a user who installed the
package can start using the shared library immediately and
deinstallation will not cause the system to still believe the
library is there. These lines should immediately follow the line
for the shared library itself, as in:</para>
<programlisting>
lib/libtvl80.so.1
@exec /sbin/ldconfig -m %D/lib
@unexec /sbin/ldconfig -R</programlisting>
<para>Never, ever, <emphasis>ever</emphasis> add a line that says
<literal>ldconfig</literal> without any arguments to your
<filename>Makefile</filename> or <filename>pkg/PLIST</filename>.
This will reset the shared library cache to the contents of
<filename>/usr/lib</filename> only, and will royally screw up the
user's machine ("Help, xinit does not run anymore after I install
this port!"). Anybody who does this will be shot and cut in 65,536
pieces by a rusty knife and have is liver chopped out by a bunch of
crows and will eternally rot to death in the deepest bowels of hell
(not necessarily in that order&hellip;)</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>ELF support</title>
<para>Since FreeBSD is moving to ELF shortly after 3.0-RELEASE, we need
to convert many ports that build shared libraries to support ELF.
Complicating this task is that a 3.0 system can run as both ELF and
a.out, and we wish to unofficially support the 2.2 as long as
possible. Below are the guidelines on how to convert a.out only ports
to support both a.out and ELF compilation.</para>
<para>Some part of this list is only applicable during the conversion,
but will be left here for awhile for reference in case you have come
across some old port you wish to upgrade.</para>
<sect3>
<title>Moving a.out libraries out of the way</title>
<para>A.out libraries should be moved out of
<filename>/usr/local/lib</filename> and similar to an
<filename>aout</filename> subdirectory. (If you do not move them out
of the way, ELF ports will happily overwrite a.out libraries.) The
<maketarget>move-aout-libs</maketarget> target in the 3.0-CURRENT
<filename>src/Makefile</filename> (called from
<maketarget>aout-to-elf</maketarget>) will do this for you. It will
only move a.out libs so it is safe to call it on a system with both
ELF and a.out libs in the standard directories.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Format</title>
<para>The ports tree will build packages in the format the machine is
in. This means a.out for 2.2 and a.out or ELF for 3.0 depending on
what <command>`objformat`</command> returns. Also, once users move
a.out libraries to a subdirectory, building a.out libraries will be
unsupported. (I.e., it may still work if you know what you are
doing, but you are on your own.)</para>
<note>
<para>If a port only works for a.out, set
<makevar>BROKEN_ELF</makevar> to a string describing the reason
why. Such ports will be skipped during a build on an ELF
system.</para>
</note>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><makevar>PORTOBJFORMAT</makevar></title>
<para><filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> will set
<makevar>PORTOBJFORMAT</makevar> to <literal>aout</literal> or
<literal>elf</literal> and export it in the environments
<envar>CONFIGURE_ENV</envar>, <envar>SCRIPTS_ENV</envar> and
<envar>MAKE_ENV</envar>. (It's always going to be
<literal>aout</literal> in 2.2-STABLE). It is also passed to
<maketarget>PLIST_SUB</maketarget> as
<literal>PORTOBJFORMAT=${PORTOBJFORMAT}</literal>. (See comment on
<literal>ldconfig</literal> lines below.)</para>
<para>The variable is set using this line in
<filename>bsd.port.mk</filename>:</para>
<programlisting>
PORTOBJFORMAT!= test -x /usr/bin/objformat && /usr/bin/objformat || echo aout</programlisting>
<para>Ports' make processes should use this variable to decide what to
do. However, if the port's <filename>configure</filename> script
already automatically detects an ELF system, it is not necessary to
refer to <makevar>PORTOBJFORMAT</makevar>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Building shared libraries</title>
<para>The following are differences in handling shared libraries for
a.out and ELF.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Shared library versions</para>
<para>An ELF shared library should be called
<filename>libfoo.so.<replaceable>M</replaceable></filename>
where <replaceable>M</replaceable> is the single version number,
and an a.out library should be called
<filename>libfoo.so.<replaceable>M</replaceable>.<replaceable>N</replaceable></filename>
where <replaceable>M</replaceable> is the major version and
<replaceable>N</replaceable> is the the minor version number.
Do not mix those; <emphasis>never</emphasis> install an ELF
shared library called
<filename>libfoo.so.<replaceable>N</replaceable>.<replaceable>M</replaceable></filename>
or an a.out shared library (or symlink) called
<filename>libfoo.so.<replaceable>N</replaceable></filename>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Linker command lines</para>
<para>Assuming <command>cc -shared</command> is used rather than
<command>ld</command> directly, the only difference is that you
need to add
<option>-Wl,-<replaceable>soname,libfoo.so.M</replaceable></option>
on the command line for ELF.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>You need to install a symlink from
<filename>libfoo.so</filename> to
<filename>libfoo.so.<replaceable>N</replaceable></filename> to make
ELF linkers happy. Since it should be listed in
<filename>PLIST</filename> too, and it won't hurt in the a.out case
(some ports even require the link for dynamic loading), you should
just make this link regardless of the setting of
<makevar>PORTOBJFORMAT</makevar>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><makevar>LIB_DEPENDS</makevar></title>
<para>All port Makefiles are edited to remove minor numbers from
<makevar>LIB_DEPENDS</makevar>, and also to have the regexp support
removed. (E.g., <literal>foo\\.1\\.\\(33|40\\)</literal> becomes
<literal>foo.2</literal>.) They will be matched using <command>grep
-wF</command>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><filename>PLIST</filename></title>
<para><filename>PLIST</filename> should contain the short (ELF) shlib
names if the a.out minor number is zero, and the long (a.out) names
otherwise. <filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> will automatically add
<literal>.0</literal> to the end of short shlib lines if
<makevar>PORTOBJFORMAT</makevar> equals <literal>aout</literal>, and
will delete the minor number from long shlib names if
<makevar>PORTOBJFORMAT</makevar> equals
<literal>elf</literal>.</para>
<para>In cases where you really need to install shlibs with two
versions on an ELF system or those with one version on an a.out
system (for instance, ports that install compatibility libraries for
other operating systems), define the variable
<makevar>NO_FILTER_SHLIBS</makevar>. This will turn off the editing
of <filename>PLIST</filename> mentioned in the previous
paragraph.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><literal>ldconfig</literal></title>
<para>The <literal>ldconfig</literal> line in Makefiles should
read:</para>
<programlisting>
${SETENV} OBJFORMAT=${PORTOBJFORMAT} ${LDCONFIG} -m ....</programlisting>
<para>In <filename>PLIST</filename> it should read;</para>
<programlisting>
@exec /usr/bin/env OBJFORMAT=%%PORTOBJFORMAT%% /sbin/ldconfig -m ...
@unexec /usr/bin/env OBJFORMAT=%%PORTOBJFORMAT%% /sbin/ldconfig -R</programlisting>
<para>This is to ensure that the correct <command>ldconfig</command>
will be called depending on the format of the package, not the
default format of the system.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="porting-masterdir">
<title><makevar>MASTERDIR</makevar></title>
<para>If your port needs to build slightly different versions of
packages by having a variable (for instance, resolution, or paper
size) take different values, create one subdirectory per package to
make it easier forusers to see what to do, but try to share as many
files as possible between ports. Typically you only need a very short
<filename>Makefile</filename> in all but one of the directories if you
use variables cleverly. In the sole <filename>Makefiles</filename>,
you can use <makevar>MASTERDIR</makevar> to specify the directory
where the rest of the files are. Also, use a variable as part of
<link linkend="porting-pkgname"><makevar>PKGNAME</makevar></link> so
the packages will have different names.</para>
<para>This will be best demonstrated by an example. This is part of
<filename>japanese/xdvi300/Makefile</filename>;</para>
<programlisting>
PKGNAME= ja-xdvi${RESOLUTION}-17
:
# default
RESOLUTION?= 300
.if ${RESOLUTION} != 118 && ${RESOLUTION} != 240 && \
${RESOLUTION} != 300 && ${RESOLUTION} != 400
@${ECHO} "Error: invalid value for RESOLUTION: \"${RESOLUTION}\""
@${ECHO} "Possible values are: 118, 240, 300 (default) and 400."
@${FALSE}
.endif</programlisting>
<para><filename>japanese/xdvi300</filename> also has all the regular
patches, package files, etc. If you type <command>make</command>
there, it will take the default value for the resolution (300) and
build the port normally.</para>
<para>As for other resolutions, this is the <emphasis>entire</emphasis>
<filename>xdvi118/Makefile</filename>;</para>
<programlisting>
RESOLUTION= 118
MASTERDIR= ${.CURDIR}/../xdvi300
.include ${MASTERDIR}/Makefile</programlisting>
<para>(<filename>xdvi240/Makefile</filename> and
<filename>xdvi400/Makefile</filename> are similar). The
<makevar>MASTERDIR</makevar> definition tells
<filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> that the refulat set of
subdirectories like <makevar>PATCHDIR</makevar> and
<makevar>PKGDIR</makevar> are to be found under
<filename>xdvi300</filename>. The <literal>RESOLUTION=118</literal>
line will override the <literal>RESOLUTION=300</literal> line in
<filename>xdvi300/Makefile</filename> and the port will be built with
resolution set to 118.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Shared library versions</title>
<para>First, please read our <link linkend="policies-shlib">policy on
shared library versioning</link> to understand what to do with
shared library versions in general. Do not blindly assume software
authors know what they are doing; many of them do not. It is very
important that these details are carefully considered, as we have
quite a unique situation where we are trying to have dozens of
potentially incompatible software pairs co-exist. Careless port
imports have caused great trouble regarding shared libraries in the
past (ever wondered why the port <filename>jpeg-6b</filename> has a
shared library version of 9.0?). If in doubt, send a message to the
&a.ports;. Most of the time, your job ends by determining the right
shared library version and making appropriate patches to implement
it.</para>
<para>However, if there is a port which is a different version of the
same software already in the tree, the situation is much more complex.
In short, the FreeBSD implementation does not allow the user to
specify to the linker which version of shared library to link against
(the linker will always pick the highest numbered version). This
means, if there is a <filename>libfoo.so.3.2</filename> and
<filename>libfoo.so.4.0</filename> in the system, there is no way to
tell the linker to link a particular application to
<filename>libfoo.so.3.2</filename>. It is essentially completely
overshadowed in terms of compilation-time linkage. In this case, the
only solution is to rename the <emphasis>base</emphasis> part of the
shared library. For instance, change
<filename>libfoo.so.4.0</filename> to
<filename>libfoo4.so.1.0</filename> so both version 3.2 and 4.0 can be
linked from other ports.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="porting-manpages">
<title>Manpages</title>
<para>The <makevar>MAN[1-9LN]</makevar> variables will automatically add
any manpages to <filename>pkg/PLIST</filename> (this means you must
<emphasis>not</emphasis> list manpages in the
<filename>PLIST</filename>&mdash;see <link
linkend="porting-plist">generating PLIST</link> for more). It also
makes the install stage automatically compress or uncompress manpages
depending on the setting of <makevar>NOMANCOMPRESS</makevar> in
<filename>/etc/make.conf</filename>.</para>
<para>If your port tries to install multiple names for manpages using
symlinks or hardlinks, you must use the <makevar>MLINKS</makevar>
variable to identify these. The link installed by your port will
be destroyed and recreated by <filename>bsd.port.mk</filename>
to make sure it points to the correct file. Any manpages
listed in MLINKS must not be listed in the
<filename>PLIST</filename>.</para>
<para>To specify whether the manpages are compressed upon installation,
use the <makevar>MANCOMPRESSED</makevar> variable. This variable can
take three values, <literal>yes</literal>, <literal>no</literal> and
<literal>maybe</literal>. <literal>yes</literal> means manpages are
already installed compressed, <literal>no</literal> means they are
not, and <literal>maybe</literal> means the software already respects
the value of <makevar>NOMANCOMPRESS</makevar> so
<filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> does not have to do anything
special.</para>
<para><makevar>MANCOMPRESSED</makevar> is automatically set to
<literal>yes</literal> if <makevar>USE_IMAKE</makevar> is set and
<makevar>NO_INSTALL_MANPAGES</makevar> is not set, and to
<literal>no</literal> otherwise. You do not have to explicitly define
it unless the default is not suitable for your port.</para>
<para>If your port anchors its man tree somewhere other than
<makevar>PREFIX</makevar>, you can use the
<makevar>MANPREFIX</makevar> to set it. Also, if only manpages in
certain sections go in a non-standard place, such as some Perl modules
ports, you can set individual man paths using
<makevar>MAN<replaceable>sect</replaceable>PREFIX</makevar> (where
<replaceable>sect</replaceable> is one of <literal>1-9</literal>,
<literal>L</literal> or <literal>N</literal>).</para>
<para>If your manpages go to language-specific subdirectories, set the
name of the languages to <makevar>MANLANG</makevar>. The value of
this variable defaults to <literal>""</literal> (i.e., English
only).</para>
<para>Here is an example that puts it all together.</para>
<programlisting>
MAN1= foo.1
MAN3= bar.3
MAN4= baz.4
MLINKS= foo.1 alt-name.8
MANLANG= "" ja
MAN3PREFIX= ${PREFIX}/share/foobar
MANCOMPRESSED= yes</programlisting>
<para>This states that six files are installed by this port;</para>
<programlisting>
${PREFIX}/man/man1/foo.1.gz
${PREFIX}/man/ja/man1/foo.1.gz
${PREFIX}/share/foobar/man/man3/bar.3.gz
${PREFIX}/share/foobar/man/ja/man3/bar.3.gz
${PREFIX}/man/man4/baz.4.gz
${PREFIX}/man/ja/man4/baz.4.gz</programlisting>
<para>Additionally <filename>${PREFIX}/man/man8/alt-name.8.gz</filename>
may or may-not be installed by your port. Regardless, a
symlink will be made to join the foo(1) manpage and
alt-name(8) manpage.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="porting-motif">
<title>Ports that require Motif</title>
<para>There are many programs that require a Motif library (available
from several commercial vendors, while there is a free clone reported
to be able to run many applications in
<filename>x11-toolkits/lesstif</filename>) to compile. Since it is a
popular toolkit and their licenses usually permit redistribution of
statically linked binaries, we have made special provisions for
handling ports that require Motif in a way that we can easily compile
binaries linked either dynamically (for people who are compiling from
the port) or statically (for people who distribute packages).</para>
<sect3>
<title><makevar>REQUIRES_MOTIF</makevar></title>
<para>If your port requires Motif, define this variable in the
Makefile. This will prevent people who do not own a copy of Motif
from even attempting to build it.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><makevar>MOTIFLIB</makevar></title>
<para>This variable will be set by <filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> to
be the appropriate reference to the Motif library. Please patch the
source to use this wherever the Motif library is referenced in the
<filename>Makefile</filename> or
<filename>Imakefile</filename>.</para>
<para>There are two common cases:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>If the port refers to the Motif library as
<literal>-lXm</literal> in its <filename>Makefile</filename> or
<filename>Imakefile</filename>, simply substitute
<literal>&dollar;{MOTIFLIB}</literal> for it.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If the port uses <literal>XmClientLibs</literal> in its
<filename>Imakefile</filename>, change it to
<literal>&dollar;{MOTIFLIB} &dollar;{XTOOLLIB}
&dollar;{XLIB}</literal>.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>Note that <makevar>MOTIFLIB</makevar> (usually) expands to
<literal>-L/usr/X11R6/lib -lXm</literal> or
<literal>/usr/X11R6/lib/libXm.a</literal>, so there is no need to
add <literal>-L</literal> or <literal>-l</literal> in front.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>X11 fonts</title>
<para>If your port installs fonts for the X Window system, put them in
<filename><makevar>X11BASE</makevar>/lib/X11/fonts/local</filename>.
This directory is new to XFree86 release 3.3.3. If it does not exist,
please create it, and print out a message urging the user to update
their XFree86 to 3.3.3 or newer, or at least add this directory to the
font path in <filename>/etc/XF86Config</filename>.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Info files</title>
<para>The new version of texinfo (included in 2.2.2-RELEASE and onwards)
contains a utility called <command>install-info</command> to add and
delete entries to the <filename>dir</filename> file. If your port
installs any info documents, please follow this instructions so your
port/package will correctly update the user's
<filename><makevar>PREFIX</makevar>/info/dir</filename> file. (Sorry
for the length of this section, but is it imperative to weave all the
info files together. If done correctly, it will produce a
<emphasis>beautiful</emphasis> listing, so please bear with me!</para>
<para>First, this is what you (as a porter) need to know</para>
<screen>&prompt.user; <userinput>install-info --help</userinput>
install-info [OPTION]... [INFO-FILE [DIR-FILE]]
Install INFO-FILE in the Info directory file DIR-FILE.
Options:
--delete Delete existing entries in INFO-FILE;
don't insert any new entries.
:
--entry=TEXT Insert TEXT as an Info directory entry.
:
--section=SEC Put this file's entries in section SEC of the directory. :</screen>
<note>
<para>This program will not actually <emphasis>install</emphasis> info
files; it merely inserts or deletes entries in the
<filename>dir</filename> file.</para>
</note>
<para>Here's a seven-step procedure to convert ports to use
<command>install-info</command>. I will use
<filename>editors/emacs</filename> as an example.</para>
<procedure>
<step>
<para>Look at the texinfo sources and make a patch to insert
<literal>@dircategory</literal> and <literal>@direntry</literal>
statements to files that do not have them. This is part of my
patch:</para>
<programlisting>
--- ./man/vip.texi.org Fri Jun 16 15:31:11 1995
+++ ./man/vip.texi Tue May 20 01:28:33 1997
@@ -2,6 +2,10 @@
@setfilename ../info/vip
@settitle VIP
+@dircategory The Emacs editor and associated tools
+@direntry
+* VIP: (vip). A VI-emulation for Emacs.
+@end direntry
@iftex
@finalout
:</programlisting>
<para>The format should be self-explanatory. Many authors leave a
<filename>dir</filename> file in the source tree that contains all
the entries you need, so look around before you try to write your
own. Also, make sure you look into related ports and make the
section names and entry indentations consistent (we recommend that
all entry text start at the 4th tab stop).</para>
<note>
<para>Note that you can put only one info entry per file because
of a bug in <command>install-info --delete</command> that
deletes only the first entry if you specify multiple entries in
the <email>@direntry</email> section.</para>
</note>
<para>You can give the <literal>dir</literal> entries to
<command>install-info</command> as arguments
(<option>--section</option> and <option>--entry</option>) instead
of patching the texinfo sources. I do not think this is a good
idea for ports because you need to duplicate the same information
in <emphasis>three</emphasis> places
(<filename>Makefile</filename> and
<literal>@exec</literal>/<literal>@unexec</literal> of
<filename>PLIST</filename>; see below). However, if you have a
Japanese (or other multibyte encoding) info files, you will have
to use the extra arguments to <command>install-info</command>
because <command>makeinfo</command> cannot handle those texinfo
sources. (See <filename>Makefile</filename> and
<filename>PLIST</filename> of <filename>japanese/skk</filename>
for examples on how to do this).</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Go back to the port directory and do a <command>make clean;
make</command> and verify that the info files are regenerated
from the texinfo sources. Since the texinfo sources are newer than
the info files, they should be rebuilt when you type
<command>make</command>; but many <filename>Makefile</filename>s
do not include correct dependencies for info files. In
<command>emacs</command>' case, I had to patch the main
<filename>Makefile.in</filename> so it will descend into the
<filename>man</filename> subdirectory to rebuild the info
pages.</para>
<programlisting>
--- ./Makefile.in.org Mon Aug 19 21:12:19 1996
+++ ./Makefile.in Tue Apr 15 00:15:28 1997
@@ -184,7 +184,7 @@
# Subdirectories to make recursively. `lisp' is not included
# because the compiled lisp files are part of the distribution
# and you cannot remake them without installing Emacs first.
-SUBDIR = lib-src src
+SUBDIR = lib-src src man
# The makefiles of the directories in $SUBDIR.
SUBDIR_MAKEFILES = lib-src/Makefile man/Makefile src/Makefile oldXMenu/Makefile lwlib/Makefile
--- ./man/Makefile.in.org Thu Jun 27 15:27:19 1996
+++ ./man/Makefile.in Tue Apr 15 00:29:52 1997
@@ -66,6 +66,7 @@
${srcdir}/gnu1.texi \
${srcdir}/glossary.texi
+all: info
info: $(INFO_TARGETS)
dvi: $(DVI_TARGETS)</programlisting>
<para>The second hunk was necessary because the default target in
the <filename>man</filename> subdir is called
<maketarget>info</maketarget>, while the main
<filename>Makefile</filename> wants to call
<maketarget>all</maketarget>. I also deleted the installation of
the <filename>info</filename> info file because we already have
one with the same name in <filename>/usr/share/info</filename>
(that patch is not shown here).</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>If there is a place in the <filename>Makefile</filename> that
is installing the <filename>dir</filename> file, delete it. Your
port may not be doing it. Also, remove any commands that are
otherwise mucking around with the <filename>dir</filename>
file.</para>
<programlisting>
--- ./Makefile.in.org Mon Aug 19 21:12:19 1996
+++ ./Makefile.in Mon Apr 14 23:38:07 1997
@@ -368,14 +368,8 @@
if [ `(cd ${srcdir}/info && /bin/pwd)` != `(cd ${infodir} && /bin/pwd)` ]; \
then \
(cd ${infodir}; \
- if [ -f dir ]; then \
- if [ ! -f dir.old ]; then mv -f dir dir.old; \
- else mv -f dir dir.bak; fi; \
- fi; \
cd ${srcdir}/info ; \
- (cd $${thisdir}; ${INSTALL_DATA} ${srcdir}/info/dir ${infodir}/dir); \
- (cd $${thisdir}; chmod a+r ${infodir}/dir); \
for f in ccmode* cl* dired-x* ediff* emacs* forms* gnus* info* message* mh-e* sc* vip*; do \
(cd $${thisdir}; \
${INSTALL_DATA} ${srcdir}/info/$$f ${infodir}/$$f; \
chmod a+r ${infodir}/$$f); \</programlisting>
</step>
<step>
<para>(This step is only necessary if you are modifying an existing
port.) Take a look at <filename>pkg/PLIST</filename> and delete
anything that is trying to patch up <filename>info/dir</filename>.
They may be in <filename>pkg/INSTALL</filename> or some other
file, so search extensively.</para>
<programlisting>
Index: pkg/PLIST
===================================================================
RCS file: /usr/cvs/ports/editors/emacs/pkg/PLIST,v
retrieving revision 1.15
diff -u -r1.15 PLIST
--- PLIST 1997/03/04 08:04:00 1.15
+++ PLIST 1997/04/15 06:32:12
@@ -15,9 +15,6 @@
man/man1/emacs.1.gz
man/man1/etags.1.gz
man/man1/ctags.1.gz
-@unexec cp %D/info/dir %D/info/dir.bak
-info/dir
-@unexec cp %D/info/dir.bak %D/info/dir
info/cl
info/cl-1
info/cl-2</programlisting>
</step>
<step>
<para>Add a <maketarget>post-install</maketarget> target to the
<filename>Makefile</filename> to create a <filename>dir</filename>
file if it is not there. Also, call
<maketarget>install-info</maketarget> with the installed info
files.</para>
<programlisting>
Index: Makefile
===================================================================
RCS file: /usr/cvs/ports/editors/emacs/Makefile,v
retrieving revision 1.26
diff -u -r1.26 Makefile
--- Makefile 1996/11/19 13:14:40 1.26
+++ Makefile 1997/05/20 10:25:09 1.28
@@ -20,5 +20,11 @@
post-install:
.for file in emacs-19.34 emacsclient etags ctags b2m
strip ${PREFIX}/bin/${file}
.endfor
+ if [ ! -f ${PREFIX}/info/dir ]; then \
+ ${SED} -ne '1,/Menu:/p' /usr/share/info/dir > ${PREFIX}/info/dir; \
+ fi
+.for info in emacs vip viper forms gnus mh-e cl sc dired-x ediff ccmode
+ install-info ${PREFIX}/info/${info} ${PREFIX}/info/dir
+.endfor
.include &lt;bsd.port.mk&gt;</programlisting>
<para>Do not use anything other than
<filename>/usr/share/info/dir</filename> and the above command to
create a new info file. In fact, I would add the first three lines
of the above patch to <filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> if you (the
porter) would not have to do it in <filename>PLIST</filename> by
yourself anyway.</para>
</step>
<step>
<para>Edit <filename>PLIST</filename> and add equivalent
<literal>@exec</literal> statements and also
<literal>@unexec</literal> for <command>pkg_delete</command>. You
do not need to delete <filename>info/dir</filename> with
<literal>@unexec</literal>.</para>
<programlisting>
Index: pkg/PLIST
===================================================================
RCS file: /usr/cvs/ports/editors/emacs/pkg/PLIST,v
retrieving revision 1.15
diff -u -r1.15 PLIST
--- PLIST 1997/03/04 08:04:00 1.15
+++ PLIST 1997/05/20 10:25:12 1.17
@@ -16,7 +14,15 @@
man/man1/etags.1.gz
man/man1/ctags.1.gz
+@unexec install-info --delete %D/info/emacs %D/info/dir
:
+@unexec install-info --delete %D/info/ccmode %D/info/dir
info/cl
info/cl-1
@@ -87,6 +94,18 @@
info/viper-3
info/viper-4
+@exec [ -f %D/info/dir ] || sed -ne '1,/Menu:/p' /usr/share/info/dir > %D/info/dir
+@exec install-info %D/info/emacs %D/info/dir
:
+@exec install-info %D/info/ccmode %D/info/dir
libexec/emacs/19.34/i386--freebsd/cvtmail
libexec/emacs/19.34/i386--freebsd/digest-doc</programlisting>
<note>
<para>The <literal>@unexec install-info --delete</literal>
commands have to be listed before the info files themselves so
they can read the files. Also, the <literal>@exec
install-info</literal> commands have to be after the info
files and the <literal>@exec</literal> command that creates the
the <filename>dir</filename> file.</para>
</note>
</step>
<step>
<para><link linkend="porting-testing">Test</link> and admire your
work. <!-- smiley --><emphasis>:)</emphasis>. Check the
<filename>dir</filename> file before and after each step.</para>
</step>
</procedure>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>The <filename>pkg/</filename> subdirectory</title>
<para>There are some tricks we have not mentioned yet about the
<filename>pkg/</filename> subdirectory that come in handy
sometimes.</para>
<sect3 id="porting-message">
<title><filename>MESSAGE</filename></title>
<para>If you need to display a message to the installer, you may place
the message in <filename>pkg/MESSAGE</filename>. This capability is
often useful to display additional installation steps to be taken
after a <command>pkg_add</command> or to display licensing
information.</para>
<note>
<para>The <filename>pkg/MESSAGE</filename> file does not need to be
added to <filename>pkg/PLIST</filename>. Also, it will not get
automatically printed if the user is using the port, not the
package, so you should probably display it from the
<maketarget>post-install</maketarget> target yourself.</para>
</note>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><filename>INSTALL</filename></title>
<para>If your port needs to execute commands when the binary package
is installed with <command>pkg_add</command> you can do this via the
<filename>pkg/INSTALL</filename> script. This script will
automatically be added to the package, and will be run twice by
<command>pkg_add</command>. The first time will as <literal>INSTALL
&dollar;{PKGNAME} PRE-INSTALL</literal> and the second time as
<literal>INSTALL &dollar;{PKGNAME} POST-INSTALL</literal>.
<literal>&dollar;2</literal> can be tested to determine which mode
the script is being run in. The <envar>PKG_PREFIX</envar>
environmental variable will be set to the package installation
directory. See &man.pkg.add.1; for
additional information.</para>
<note>
<para>This script is not run automatically if you install the port
with <command>make install</command>. If you are depending on it
being run, you will have to explicitly call it from your port's
<filename>Makefile</filename>.</para>
</note>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><filename>REQ</filename></title>
<para>If your port needs to determine if it should install or not, you
can create a <filename>pkg/REQ</filename> &ldquo;requirements&rdquo;
script. It will be invoked automatically at
installation/deinstallation time to determine whether or not
installation/deinstallation should proceed.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="porting-plist">
<title>Changing <filename>PLIST</filename> based on make
variables</title>
<para>Some ports, particularly the p5- ports, need to change their
<filename>PLIST</filename> depending on what options they are
configured with (or version of perl, in the case of p5- ports). To
make this easy, any instances in the <filename>PLIST</filename> of
<literal>%%OSREL%%</literal>, <literal>%%PERL_VER%%</literal>, and
<literal>%%PERL_VERSION%%</literal> will be substituted for
appropriately. The value of <literal>%%OSREL%%</literal> is the
numeric revision of the operating system (e.g.,
<literal>2.2.7</literal>). <literal>%%PERL_VERSION%%</literal> is
the full version number of perl (e.g., <literal>5.00502</literal>)
and <literal>%%PERL_VER%%</literal> is the perl version number minus
the patchlevel (e.g., <literal>5.005</literal>).</para>
<para>If you need to make other substitutions, you can set the
<makevar>PLIST_SUB</makevar> variable with a list of
<literal><replaceable>VAR</replaceable>=<replaceable>VALUE</replaceable></literal>
pairs and instances of
<literal>%%<replaceable>VAR</replaceable>%%</literal>' will be
substituted with <replaceable>VALUE</replaceable> in the
<filename>PLIST</filename>.</para>
<para>For instance, if you have a port that installs many files in a
version-specific subdirectory, you can put something like
<programlisting>
OCTAVE_VERSION= 2.0.13
PLIST_SUB= OCTAVE_VERSION=${OCTAVE_VERSION}</programlisting>
in the <filename>Makefile</filename> and use
<literal>%%OCTAVE_VERSION%%</literal> wherever the version shows up
in <filename>PLIST</filename>. That way, when you upgrade the port,
you will not have to change dozens (or in some cases, hundreds) of
lines in the <filename>PLIST</filename>.</para>
<para>This substitution (as well as addition of any <link
linkend="porting-manpages">man pages</link>) will be done between
the <maketarget>do-install</maketarget> and
<maketarget>post-install</maketarget> targets, by reading from
<makevar>PLIST</makevar> and writing to <makevar>TMPPLIST</makevar>
(default:
<filename><makevar>WRKDIR</makevar>/.PLIST.mktmp</filename>). So if
your port builds <makevar>PLIST</makevar> on the fly, do so in or
before <maketarget>do-install</maketarget>. Also, if your port
needs to edit the resulting file, do so in
<maketarget>post-install</maketarget> to a file named
<makevar>TMPPLIST</makevar>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title id="porting-pkgsubdir">Changing the names of files in the
<filename>pkg</filename> subdirectory</title>
<para>All the filenames in the <filename>pkg</filename> subdirectory
are defined using variables so you can change them in your
<filename>Makefile</filename> if need be. This is especially useful
when you are sharing the same <filename>pkg</filename> subdirectory
among several ports or have to write to one of the above files (see
<link linkend="porting-wrkdir">writing to places other than
<makevar>WRKDIR</makevar></link> for why it is a bad idea to write
directly in to the <filename>pkg</filename> subdirectory.</para>
<para>Here is a list of variable names and their default
values.</para>
<informaltable frame="none">
<tgroup cols="2">
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Variable</entry>
<entry>Default value</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><makevar>COMMENT</makevar></entry>
<entry><literal>${PKGDIR}/DESCR</literal></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>DESCR</makevar></entry>
<entry><literal>${PKGDIR}/DESCR</literal></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>PLIST</makevar></entry>
<entry><literal>${PKGDIR}/PLIST</literal></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>PKGINSTALL</makevar></entry>
<entry><literal>${PKGDIR}/PKGINSTALL</literal></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>PKGDEINSTALL</makevar></entry>
<entry><literal>${PKGDIR}/PKGDEINSTALL</literal></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>PKGREQ</makevar></entry>
<entry><literal>${PKGDIR}/REQ</literal></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>PKGMESSAGE</makevar></entry>
<entry><literal>${PKGDIR}/MESSAGE</literal></entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
<para>Please change these variables rather than overriding
<makevar>PKG_ARGS</makevar>. If you change
<makevar>PKG_ARGS</makevar>, those files will not correctly be
installed in <filename>/var/db/pkg</filename> upon install from a
port.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Licensing Problems</title>
<para>Some software packages have restrictive licenses or can be in
violation to the law (PKP's patent on public key crypto, ITAR (export
of crypto software) to name just two of them). What we can do with
them varies a lot, depending on the exact wordings of the respective
licenses.</para>
<note>
<para>It is your responsibility as a porter to read the licensing
terms of the software and make sure that the FreeBSD project will
not be held accountable of violating them by redistributing the
source or compiled binaries either via ftp or CD-ROM. If in doubt,
please contact the &a.ports;.</para>
</note>
<para>There are two variables you can set in the Makefile to handle the
situations that arise frequently:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>If the port has a &ldquo;do not sell for profit&rdquo; type of
license, set the variable <makevar>NO_CDROM</makevar> to a string
describing the reason why. We will make sure such ports will not go
into the CD-ROM come release time. The distfile and package will
still be available via ftp.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If the resulting package needs to be built uniquely for each
site, or the resulting binary package cannot be distributed due to
licensing; set the variable <makevar>NO_PACKAGE</makevar> to a
string describing the reason why. We will make sure such packages
will not go on the ftp site, nor into the CD-ROM come release time.
The distfile will still be included on both however.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If the port has legal restrictions on who can use it (e.g.,
crypto stuff) or has a &ldquo;no commercial use&rdquo; license,
set the variable <makevar>RESTRICTED</makevar> to be the string
describing the reason why. For such ports, the distfiles/packages
will not be available even from our ftp sites.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<note>
<para>The GNU General Public License (GPL), both version 1 and 2,
should not be a problem for ports.</para>
</note>
<note>
<para>If you are a committer, make sure you update the
<filename>ports/LEGAL</filename> file too.</para>
</note>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="port-upgrading">
<title>Upgrading</title>
<para>When you notice that a port is out of date compared to the latest
version from the original authors, first make sure you have the latest
port. You can find them in the
<filename>ports/ports-current</filename> directory of the ftp mirror
sites. You may also use CVSup to keep your whole ports collection
up-to-date, as described in <xref linkend="cvsup-config">.</para>
<para>The next step is to send a mail to the maintainer, if one is
listed in the port's <filename>Makefile</filename>. That person may
already be working on an upgrade, or have a reason to not upgrade the
port right now (because of, for example, stability problems of the new
version).</para>
<para>If the maintainer asks you to do the upgrade or there is not any
such person to begin with, please make the upgrade and send the
recursive diff (either unified or context diff is fine, but port
committers appear to prefer unified diff more) of the new and old
ports directories to us (e.g., if your modified port directory is
called <filename>superedit</filename> and the original as in our tree
is <filename>superedit.bak</filename>, then send us the result of
<command>diff -ruN superedit.bak superedit</command>). Please examine
the output to make sure all the changes make sense. The best way to
send us the diff is by including it to &man.send-pr.1; (category
<literal>ports</literal>). Please mention any added or deleted files
in the message, as they have to be explicitly specified to CVS when
doing a commit. If the diff is more than about 20KB, please compress
and uuencode it; otherwise, just include it in as is in the PR.</para>
<note>
<para>Once again, please use &man.diff.1; and not &man.shar.1; to send
updates to existing ports!</para>
</note>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title><anchor id="porting-dads">Do's and Dont's</title>
<para>Here is a list of common do's and dont's that you encounter during
the porting process.You should check your own port against this list,
but you can also check ports in the PR database that others have
submitted. Submit any comments on ports you check as described in
<link linkend="contrib-general">Bug Reports and General
Commentary</link>. Checking ports in the PR database will both make
it faster for us to commit them, and prove that you know what you are
doing.</para>
<sect3>
<title>Strip Binaries</title>
<para>Do strip binaries. If the original source already strips the
binaries, fine; otherwise you should add a
<literal>post-install</literal> rule to to it yourself. Here is an
example;</para>
<programlisting>
post-install:
strip ${PREFIX}/bin/xdl</programlisting>
<para>Use the &man.file.1; command on the installed executable to
check whether the binary is stripped or not. If it does not say
<literal>not stripped</literal>, it is stripped.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>INSTALL_* macros</title>
<para>Do use the macros provided in <filename>bsd.port.mk</filename>
to ensure correct modes and ownership of files in your own
<maketarget>*-install</maketarget> targets. They are:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><makevar>INSTALL_PROGRAM</makevar> is a command to install
binary executables.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><makevar>INSTALL_SCRIPT</makevar> is a command to install
executable scripts.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><makevar>INSTALL_DATA</makevar> is a command to install
sharable data.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><makevar>INSTALL_MAN</makevar> is a command to install
manpages and other documentation (it does not compress
anything).</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>These are basically the <command>install</command> command with
all the appropriate flags. See below for an example on how to use
them.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="porting-wrkdir">
<title><makevar>WRKDIR</makevar></title>
<para>Do not write anything to files outside
<makevar>WRKDIR</makevar>. <makevar>WRKDIR</makevar> is the only
place that is guaranteed to be writable during the port build (see
<link linkend="ports-cd">compiling ports from CDROM</link> for an
example of building ports from a read-only tree). If you need to
modigy some file in <makevar>PKGDIR</makevar>, do so by <link
linkend="porting-pkgsubdir">redefining a variable</link>, not by
writing over it.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="porting-wrkdirprefix">
<title><makevar>WRKDIRPREFIX</makevar></title>
<para>Make sure your port honors <makevar>WRKDIRPREFIX</makevar>.
Most ports do not have to worry about this. In particular, if you
are referring to a <makevar>WRKDIR</makevar> of another port, note
that the correct location is
<filename><makevar>WRKDIRPREFIX</makevar><makevar>PORTSDIR</makevar>/<replaceable>subdir</replaceable>/<replaceable>name</replaceable>/work</filename> not <filename><makevar>PORTSDIR</makevar>/<replaceable>subdir</replaceable>/<replaceable>name</replaceable>/work</filename> or <filename><makevar>.CURDIR</makevar>/../../<replaceable>subdir</replaceable>/<replaceable>name</replaceable>/work</filename> or some such.</para>
<para>Also, if you are defining <makevar>WRKDIR</makevar> yourself,
make sure you prepend
<literal>&dollar;{WKRDIRPREFIX}&dollar;{.CURDIR}</literal> in the
front.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="porting-versions">
<title>Differentiating operating systems and OS versions</title>
<para>You may come across code that needs modifications or conditional
compilation based upon what version of UNIX it is running under. If
you need to make such changes to the code for conditional
compilation, make sure you make the changes as general as possible
so that we can back-port code to FreeBSD 1.x systems and cross-port
to other BSD systems such as 4.4BSD from CSRG, BSD/386, 386BSD,
NetBSD, and OpenBSD.</para>
<para>The preferred way to tell 4.3BSD/Reno (1990) and newer versions
of the BSD code apart is by using the <literal>BSD</literal> macro
defined in <filename>&lt;sys/param.h&gt;</filename>. Hopefully that
file is already included; if not, add the code:</para>
<programlisting>
#if (defined(__unix__) || defined(unix)) &amp;&amp; !defined(USG)
#include &lt;sys/param.h&gt;
#endif</programlisting>
<para>to the proper place in the <filename>.c</filename> file. We
believe that every system that defines these two symbols has
<filename>sys/param.h</filename>. If you find a system that
does not, we would like to know. Please send mail to the
&a.ports;.</para>
<para>Another way is to use the GNU Autoconf style of doing
this:</para>
<programlisting>
#ifdef HAVE_SYS_PARAM_H
#include &lt;sys/param.h&gt;
#endif</programlisting>
<para>Do not forget to add <literal>-DHAVE_SYS_PARAM_H</literal> to the
<makevar>CFLAGS</makevar> in the <filename>Makefile</filename> for
this method.</para>
<para>Once you have <filename>sys/param.h</filename> included, you may
use:</para>
<programlisting>
#if (defined(BSD) &amp;&amp; (BSD &gt;= 199103))</programlisting>
<para>to detect if the code is being compiled on a 4.3 Net2 code base
or newer (e.g. FreeBSD 1.x, 4.3/Reno, NetBSD 0.9, 386BSD, BSD/386
1.1 and below).</para>
<para>Use:</para>
<programlisting>
#if (defined(BSD) &amp;&amp; (BSD &gt;= 199306))</programlisting>
<para>to detect if the code is being compiled on a 4.4 code base or
newer (e.g. FreeBSD 2.x, 4.4, NetBSD 1.0, BSD/386 2.0 or
above).</para>
<para>The value of the <literal>BSD</literal> macro is
<literal>199506</literal> for the 4.4BSD-Lite2 code base. This is
stated for informational purposes only. It should not be used to
distinguish between versions of FreeBSD based only on 4.4-Lite vs.
versions that have merged in changes from 4.4-Lite2. The
<literal>__FreeBSD__</literal> macro should be used instead.</para>
<para>Use sparingly:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para><literal>__FreeBSD__</literal> is defined in all versions of
FreeBSD. Use it if the change you are making
<emphasis>only</emphasis> affects FreeBSD. Porting gotchas like
the use of <literal>sys_errlist[]</literal> vs
<function>strerror()</function> are Berkeleyisms, not FreeBSD
changes.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>In FreeBSD 2.x, <literal>__FreeBSD__</literal> is defined to
be <literal>2</literal>. In earlier versions, it is
<literal>1</literal>. Later versions will bump it to match
their major version number.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If you need to tell the difference between a FreeBSD 1.x
system and a FreeBSD 2.x or 3.x system, usually the right answer
is to use the <literal>BSD</literal> macros described above. If
there actually is a FreeBSD specific change (such as special
shared library options when using <command>ld</command>) then it
is OK to use <literal>__FreeBSD__</literal> and <literal>#if
__FreeBSD__ &gt; 1</literal> to detect a FreeBSD 2.x and later
system. If you need more granularity in detecting FreeBSD
systems since 2.0-RELEASE you can use the following:</para>
<programlisting>
#if __FreeBSD__ &gt;= 2
#include &lt;osreldate.h&gt;
# if __FreeBSD_version &gt;= 199504
/* 2.0.5+ release specific code here */
# endif
#endif</programlisting>
<informaltable frame="none">
<tgroup cols="2">
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Release</entry>
<entry><literal>__FreeBSD_version</literal></entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry>2.0-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>119411</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.1-CURRENTs</entry>
<entry>199501, 199503</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.0.5-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>199504</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-CURRENT before 2.1</entry>
<entry>199508</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.1.0-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>199511</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-CURRENT before 2.1.5</entry>
<entry>199512</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.1.5-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>199607</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-CURRENT before 2.1.6</entry>
<entry>199608</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.1.6-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>199612</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.1.7-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>199612</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>220000</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2.1-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>220000 (no change)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-STABLE after 2.2.1-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>220000 (no change)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-STABLE after texinfo-3.9</entry>
<entry>221001</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-STABLE after top</entry>
<entry>221002</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2.2-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>222000</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-STABLE after 2.2.2-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>222001</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2.5-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>225000</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-STABLE after 2.2.5-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>225001</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-STABLE after ldconfig -R merge</entry>
<entry>225002</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2.6-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>226000</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2.7-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>227000</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-STABLE after 2.2.7-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>227001</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-STABLE after semctl(2) change</entry>
<entry>227002</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2.8-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>228000</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>2.2-STABLE after 2.2.8-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>228001</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.0-CURRENT before mount(2) change</entry>
<entry>300000</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.0-CURRENT after mount(2) change</entry>
<entry>300001</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.0-CURRENT after semctl(2) change</entry>
<entry>300002</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.0-CURRENT after ioctl arg changes</entry>
<entry>300003</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.0-CURRENT after ELF conversion</entry>
<entry>300004</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.0-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>300005</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.0-CURRENT after 3.0-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>300006</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.0-STABLE after 3/4 branch</entry>
<entry>300007</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.1-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>310000</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.1-STABLE after 3.1-RELEASE</entry>
<entry>310001</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.1-STABLE after C++ constructor/destructor order change</entry>
<entry>310002</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>3.2-STABLE</entry>
<entry>320001</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>4.0-CURRENT after 3/4 branch</entry>
<entry>400000</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>4.0-CURRENT after change in dynamic linker handling</entry>
<entry>400001</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>4.0-CURRENT after C++ constructor/destructor order change</entry>
<entry>400002</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>4.0-CURRENT after functioning dladdr(3)</entry>
<entry>400003</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>4.0-CURRENT after newbus</entry>
<entry>400004</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>4.0-CURRENT after suser(9) API change</entry>
<entry>400005</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>4.0-CURRENT after cdevsw registration change</entry>
<entry>400006</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>4.0-CURRENT after the addition of so_cred for socket level credentials</entry>
<entry>400007</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>4.0-CURRENT after the addition of a poll syscall wrapper to libc_r</entry>
<entry>400008</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<note>
<para>Note that 2.2-STABLE sometimes identifies itself as
&ldquo;2.2.5-STABLE&rdquo; after the 2.2.5-RELEASE. The pattern
used to be year followed by the month, but we decided to change it
to a more straightforward major/minor system starting from 2.2.
This is because the parallel development on several branches made
it infeasible to classify the releases simply by their real
release dates. If you are making a port now, you do not have to
worry about old -CURRENTs; they are listed here just for your
reference.</para>
</note>
<para>In the hundreds of ports that have been done, there have only
been one or two cases where <literal>__FreeBSD__</literal> should
have been used. Just because an earlier port screwed up and used it
in the wrong place does not mean you should do so too.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Writing something after
<filename>bsd.port.mk</filename></title>
<para>Do not write anything after the <literal>.include
&lt;bsd.port.mk&gt;</literal> line. it usually can be avoided by
including <filename>bsd.port.pre.mk</filename> somewhere in the
middle of your <filename>Makefile</filename> and
<filename>bsd.port.post.mk</filename> at the end.</para>
<note>
<para>You need to include either the
<filename>pre.mk</filename>/<filename>post.mk</filename> pair or
<filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> only; do not mix these two.</para>
</note>
<para><filename>bsd.port.pre.mk</filename> only defines a few
variables, which can be used in tests in the
<filename>Makefile</filename>, <filename>bsd.port.post.mk</filename>
defines the rest.</para>
<para>Here are some important variables defined in
<filename>bsd.port.pre.mk</filename> (this is not the complete list,
please read <filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> for the complete
list).</para>
<informaltable frame="none">
<tgroup cols="2">
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Variable</entry>
<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><makevar>ARCH</makevar></entry>
<entry>The architecture as returned by <command>uname
-m</command> (e.g., <literal>i386</literal>)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>OPSYS</makevar></entry>
<entry>The operating system type, as returned by
<command>uname -s</command> (e.g.,
<literal>FreeBSD</literal>)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>OSREL</makevar></entry>
<entry>The release version of the operating system (e.g.,
<literal>2.1.5</literal> or
<literal>2.2.7</literal>)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>OSVERSION</makevar></entry>
<entry>The numeric version of the operating system, same as
<link
linkend="porting-versions"><literal>__FreeBSD_version</literal></link>.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>PORTOBJFORMAT</makevar></entry>
<entry>The object format of the system
(<literal>aout</literal> or <literal>elf</literal></entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>LOCALBASE</makevar></entry>
<entry>The base of the &ldquo;local&rdquo; tree (e.g.,
<literal>/usr/local/</literal>)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>X11BASE</makevar></entry>
<entry>The base of the &ldquo;X11&rdquo; tree (e.g.,
<literal>/usr/X11R6</literal>)</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><makevar>PREFIX</makevar></entry>
<entry>Where the port installs itself (see <link
linkend="porting-prefix">more on
<makevar>PREFIX</makevar></link>).</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
<note>
<para>If you have to define the variables
<makevar>USE_IMAKE</makevar>, <makevar>USE_X_PREFIX</makevar>, or
<makevar>MASTERDIR</makevar>, do so before including
<filename>bsd.port.pre.mk</filename>.</para>
</note>
<para>Here are some examples of things you can write after
<filename>bsd.port.pre.mk</filename>;</para>
<programlisting>
# no need to compile lang/perl5 if perl5 is already in system
.if ${OSVERSION} > 300003
BROKEN= perl is in system
.endif
# only one shlib version number for ELF
.if ${PORTOBJFORMAT} == "elf"
TCL_LIB_FILE= ${TCL_LIB}.${SHLIB_MAJOR}
.else
TCL_LIB_FILE= ${TCL_LIB}.${SHLIB_MAJOR}.${SHLIB_MINOR}
.endif
# software already makes link for ELF, but not for a.out
post-install:
.if ${PORTOBJFORMAT} == "aout"
${LN} -sf liblinpack.so.1.0 ${PREFIX}/lib/liblinpack.so
.endif</programlisting>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Install additional documentation</title>
<para>If your software has some documentation other than the standard
man and info pages that you think is useful for the user, install it
under <filename><makevar>PREFIX</makevar>/share/doc</filename>.
This can be done, like the previous item, in the
<maketarget>post-install</maketarget> target.</para>
<para>Create a new directory for your port. The directory name should
reflect what the port is. This usually means
<makevar>PKGNAME</makevar> minus the version part. However, if you
think the user might want different versions of the port to be
installed at the same time, you can use the whole
<makevar>PKGNAME</makevar>.</para>
<para>Make the installation dependent to the variable
<makevar>NOPORTDOCS</makevar> so that users can disable it in
<filename>/etc/make.conf</filename>, like this:</para>
<programlisting>
post-install:
.if !defined(NOPORTDOCS)
${MKDIR}${PREFIX}/share/doc/xv
${INSTALL_MAN} ${WRKSRC}/docs/xvdocs.ps ${PREFIX}/share/doc/xv
.endif</programlisting>
<para>Do not forget to add them to <filename>pkg/PLIST</filename> too!
(Do not worry about <makevar>NOPORTDOCS</makevar> here; there is
currently no way for the packages to read variables from
<filename>/etc/make.conf</filename>.)</para>
<para>Also you can use the <filename>pkg/MESSAGE</filename> file to
display messages upon installation. See the <link
linkend="porting-message">using
<filename>pkg/MESSAGE</filename></link> section for
details.</para>
<note>
<para><filename>MESSAGE</filename> does not need to be added to
<filename>pkg/PLIST</filename>).</para>
</note>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title><makevar>DIST_SUBDIR</makevar></title>
<para>Do not let your port clutter
<filename>/usr/ports/distfiles</filename>. If your port requires a
lot of files to be fetched, or contains a file that has a name that
might conflict with other ports (e.g.,
<filename>Makefile</filename>), set <makevar>DIST_SUBDIR</makevar>
to the name of the port (<makevar>PKGNAME</makevar> without the
version part should work fine). This will change
<makevar>DISTDIR</makevar> from the default
<filename>/usr/ports/distfiles</filename> to
<filename>/usr/ports/distfiles/<makevar>DIST_SUBDIR</makevar></filename>,
and in effect puts everything that is required for your port into
that subdirectory.</para>
<para>It will also look at the subdirectory with the same name on the
backup master site at <filename>ftp.FreeBSD.org</filename>.
(Setting <makevar>DISTDIR</makevar> explicitly in your
<makevar>Makefile</makevar> will not accomplish this, so please use
<makevar>DIST_SUBDIR</makevar>.)</para>
<note>
<para>This does not affect the <makevar>MASTER_SITES</makevar> you
define in your Makefile.</para>
</note>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Package information</title>
<para>Do include package information, i.e.
<filename>COMMENT</filename>, <filename>DESCR</filename>, and
<filename>PLIST</filename>, in <filename>pkg</filename>.</para>
<note>
<para>Note that these files are not used only for packaging anymore,
and are <emphasis>mandatory</emphasis> now, even if
<makevar>NO_PACKAGE</makevar> is set.</para>
</note>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>RCS strings</title>
<para>Do not put RCS strings in patches. CVS will mangle them when we
put the files into the ports tree, and when we check them out again,
they will come out different and the patch will fail. RCS strings
are surrounded by dollar (<literal>&#36;</literal>) signs, and
typically start with <literal>&#36;Id</literal> or
<literal>&#36;RCS</literal>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Recursive diff</title>
<para>Using the recurse (<option>-r</option>) option to
<command>diff</command> to generate patches is fine, but please take
a look at the resulting patches to make sure you do not have any
unnecessary junk in there. In particular, diffs between two backup
files, <filename>Makefiles</filename> when the port uses
<command>Imake</command> or GNU <command>configure</command>, etc.,
are unnecessary and should be deleted. If you had to edit
<filename>configure.in</filename> and run
<command>autoconf</command> to regenerate
<command>configure</command>, do not take the diffs of
<command>configure</command> (it often grows to a few thousand
lines!); define <literal>USE_AUTOCONF=yes</literal> and take the
diffsof <filename>configure.in</filename>.</para>
<para>Also, if you had to delete a file, then you can do it in the
<maketarget>post-extract</maketarget> target rather than as part of
the patch. Once you are happy with the resulting diff, please split
it up into one source file per patch file.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="porting-prefix">
<title><makevar>PREFIX</makevar></title>
<para>Do try to make your port install relative to
<makevar>PREFIX</makevar>. (The value of this variable will be set
to <makevar>LOCALBASE</makevar> (default
<filename>/usr/local</filename>), unless
<makevar>USE_X_PREFIX</makevar> or <makevar>USE_IMAKE</makevar> is
set, in which case it will be <makevar>X11BASE</makevar> (default
<filename>/usr/X11R6</filename>).)</para>
<para>Not hard-coding <filename>/usr/local</filename> or
<filename>/usr/X11R6</filename> anywhere in the source will make the
port much more flexible and able to cater to the needs of other
sites. For X ports that use <command>imake</command>, this is
automatic; otherwise, this can often be done by simply replacing the
occurrences of <filename>/usr/local</filename> (or
<filename>/usr/X11R6</filename> for X ports that do not use imake)
in the various scripts/Makefiles in the port to read
<makevar>PREFIX</makevar>, as this variable is automatically passed
down to every stage of the build and install processes.</para>
<para>Do not set <makevar>USE_X_PREFIX</makevar> unless your port
truly require it (i.e., it links against X libs or it needs to
reference files in <makevar>X11BASE</makevar>).</para>
<para>The variable <makevar>PREFIX</makevar> can be reassigned in your
<filename>Makefile</filename> or in the user's environment.
However, it is strongly discouraged for individual ports to set this
variable explicitly in the <filename>Makefiles</filename>.</para>
<para>Also, refer to programs/files from other ports with the
variables mentioned above, not explicit pathnames. For instance, if
your port requires a macro <literal>PAGER</literal> to be the full
pathname of <command>less</command>, use the compiler flag:
<programlisting>
-DPAGER=\"&#36;{PREFIX}/bin/less\"</programlisting>
or
<programlisting>
-DPAGER=\"&#36;{LOCALBASE}/bin/less\"</programlisting>
if this is an X port, instead of
<literal>-DPAGER=\"/usr/local/bin/less\".</literal> This way it will
have a better chance of working if the system administrator has
moved the whole `/usr/local' tree somewhere else.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Subdirectories</title>
<para>Try to let the port put things in the right subdirectories of
<makevar>PREFIX</makevar>. Some ports lump everything and put it in
the subdirectory with the port's name, which is incorrect. Also,
many ports put everything except binaries, header files and manual
pages in the a subdirectory of <filename>lib</filename>, which does
not bode well with the BSD paradigm. Many of the files should be
moved to one of the following: <filename>etc</filename>
(setup/configuration files), <filename>libexec</filename>
(executables started internally), <filename>sbin</filename>
(executables for superusers/managers), <filename>info</filename>
(documentation for info browser) or <filename>share</filename>
(architecture independent files). See man &man.hier.7; for details,
the rules governing
<filename>/usr</filename> pretty much apply to
<filename>/usr/local</filename> too. The exception are ports
dealing with USENET &ldquo;news&rdquo;. They may use
<filename><makevar>PREFIX</makevar>/news</filename> as a destination
for their files.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3 id="porting-cleaning">
<title>Cleaning up empty directories</title>
<para>Do make your ports clean up after themselves when they are
deinstalled. This is usually accomplished by adding
<literal>@dirrm</literal> lines for all directories that are
specifically created by the port. You need to delete subdirectories
before you can delete parent directories.</para>
<programlisting>
:
lib/X11/oneko/pixmaps/cat.xpm
lib/X11/oneko/sounds/cat.au
:
@dirrm lib/X11/oneko/pixmals
@dirrm lib/X11/oneko/sounds
@dirrm lib/X11/oneko</programlisting>
<para>However, sometimes <literal>@dirrm</literal> will give you
errors because other ports also share the same subdirectory. You
can call <command>rmdir</command> from <literal>@unexec</literal> to
remove only empty directories without warning.</para>
<programlisting>
@unexec rmdir %D/share/doc/gimp 2>/dev/null || true</programlisting>
<para>This will neither print any error messages nor cause
<command>pkg_delete</command> to exit abnormally even if
<filename><makevar>PREFIX</makevar>/share/doc/gimp</filename> is not
empty due to other ports installing some files in there.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>UIDs</title>
<para>If your port requires a certain user to be on the installed
system, let the <filename>pkg/INSTALL</filename> script call
<command>pw</command> to create it automatically. Look at
<filename>net/cvsup-mirror</filename> for an example.</para>
<para>If your port must use the same user/group ID number when it is
installed a binarypackage as when it was compiled, then you mus
choose a free UID from 50 to 99 and register it below. Look at
<filename>japanese/Wnn</filename> for an example.</para>
<para>Make sure you do not use a UID already used by the system or
other ports. This is the current list of UIDs between 50 and
99.</para>
<programlisting>
majordom:*:54:54:Majordomo Pseudo User:/usr/local/majordomo:/nonexistent
cyrus:*:60:60:the cyrus mail server:/nonexistent:/nonexistent
gnats:*:61:1:GNATS database owner:/usr/local/share/gnats/gnats-db:/bin/sh
uucp:*:66:66:UUCP pseudo-user:/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/libexec/uucp/uucico
xten:*:67:67:X-10 daemon:/usr/local/xten:/nonexistent
pop:*:68:6:Post Office Owner (popper):/nonexistent:/nonexistent
wnn:*:69:7:Wnn:/nonexistent:/nonexistent
ifmail:*:70:66:Ifmail user:/nonexistent:/nonexistent
pgsql:*:70:70:PostgreSQL pseudo-user:/usr/local/pgsql:/bin/sh
ircd:*:72:72:IRCd hybrid:/nonexistent:/nonexistent
alias:*:81:81:QMail user:/var/qmail/alias:/nonexistent
qmaill:*:83:81:QMail user:/var/qmail:/nonexistent
qmaild:*:82:81:QMail user:/var/qmail:/nonexistent
qmailq:*:85:82:QMail user:/var/qmail:/nonexistent
qmails:*:87:82:QMail user:/var/qmail:/nonexistent
qmailp:*:84:81:QMail user:/var/qmail:/nonexistent
qmailr:*:86:82:QMail user:/var/qmail:/nonexistent
msql:*:87:87:mSQL-2 pseudo-user:/var/db/msqldb:/bin/sh</programlisting>
<para>Please include a notice when you submit a port (or an upgrade)
that reserves a new UID or GID in this range. This allows us to
keep the list of reserved IDs up to date.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Do things rationally</title>
<para>The <filename>Makefile</filename> should do things simply and
reasonably. If you can make it a couple of lines shorter or more
readable, then do so. Examples include using a make
<literal>.if</literal> construct instead of a shell
<literal>if</literal> construct, not redefining
<maketarget>do-extract</maketarget> if you can redefine
<makevar>EXTRACT*</makevar> instead, and using
<makevar>GNU_CONFIGURE</makevar> instead of <literal>CONFIGURE_ARGS
+= --prefix=&dollar;{PREFIX}</literal>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Respect <makevar>CFLAGS</makevar></title>
<para>The port should respect the <makevar>CFLAGS</makevar> variable.
If it does not, please add <literal>NO_PACKAGE=ignores
cflags</literal> to the <filename>Makefile</filename>.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Configuration files</title>
<para>If your port requires some configuration files in
<filename><makevar>PREFIX</makevar>/etc</filename>, do
<emphasis>not</emphasis> just install them and list them in
<filename>pkg/PLIST</filename>. That will cause
<command>pkg_delete</command> to delete files carefully edited by
the user and a new installation to wipe them out.</para>
<para>Instead, install sample files with a suffix
(<filename><replaceable>filename</replaceable>.sample</filename>
will work well) and print out a <link
linkend="porting-message">message</link> pointing out that the
user has to copy and edit the file before the software can be made
to work.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Portlint</title>
<para>Do check your work with <link
linkend="porting-portlint"><command>portlint</command></link>
before you submit or commit it.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Feedback</title>
<para>Do send applicable changes/patches to the original
author/maintainer for inclusion in next release of the code. This
will only make your job that much easier for the next
release.</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Miscellanea</title>
<para>The files <filename>pkg/DESCR</filename>,
<filename>pkg/COMMENT</filename>, and <filename>pkg/PLIST</filename>
should each be double-checked. If you are reviewing a port and feel
they can be worded better, do so.</para>
<para>Do not copy more copies of the GNU General Public License into
our system, please.</para>
<para>Please be careful to note any legal issues! Do not let us
illegally distribute software!</para>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>If you are stuck&hellip;</title>
<para>Do look at existing examples and the
<filename>bsd.port.mk</filename> file before asking us questions!
<!-- smiley --><emphasis>;)</emphasis></para>
<para>Do ask us questions if you have any trouble! Do not just beat
your head against a wall! <!-- smiley
--><emphasis>:)</emphasis></para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="porting-samplem">
<title>A Sample <filename>Makefile</filename></title>
<para>Here is a sample <filename>Makefile</filename> that you can use to
create a new port. Make sure you remove all the extra comments (ones
between brackets)!</para>
<para>It is recommended that you follow this format (ordering of
variables, empty lines between sections, etc.). This format is
designed so that the most important information is easy to locate. We
recommend that you use <link
linkend="porting-portlint">portlint</link> to check the
<filename>Makefile</filename>.</para>
<programlisting>
[the header...just to make it easier for us to identify the ports.]
# New ports collection makefile for: xdvi
[the version required header should updated when upgrading a port.]
# Version required: pl18 [things like "1.5alpha" are fine here too]
[this is the date when the first version of this Makefile was created.
Never change this when doing an update of the port.]
# Date created: 26 May 1995
[this is the person who did the original port to FreeBSD, in particular, the
person who wrote the first version of this Makefile. Remember, this should
not be changed when upgrading the port later.]
# Whom: Satoshi Asami &lt;asami@FreeBSD.ORG&gt;
#
# &#36;Id&#36;
[ ^^^^ This will be automatically replaced with RCS ID string by CVS
when it is committed to our repository.]
#
[section to describe the port itself and the master site - DISTNAME
is always first, followed by PKGNAME (if necessary), CATEGORIES,
and then MASTER_SITES, which can be followed by MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR.
After those, one of EXTRACT_SUFX or DISTFILES can be specified too.]
DISTNAME= xdvi
PKGNAME= xdvi-pl18
CATEGORIES= print
[do not forget the trailing slash ("/")!
if you are not using MASTER_SITE_* macros]
MASTER_SITES= ${MASTER_SITE_XCONTRIB}
MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR= applications
[set this if the source is not in the standard ".tar.gz" form]
EXTRACT_SUFX= .tar.Z
[section for distributed patches -- can be empty]
PATCH_SITES= ftp://ftp.sra.co.jp/pub/X11/japanese/
PATCHFILES= xdvi-18.patch1.gz xdvi-18.patch2.gz
[maintainer; *mandatory*! This is the person (preferably with commit
privileges) who a user can contact for questions and bug reports - this
person should be the porter or someone who can forward questions to the
original porter reasonably promptly. If you really do not want to have
your address here, set it to "ports@FreeBSD.ORG".]
MAINTAINER= asami@FreeBSD.ORG
[dependencies -- can be empty]
RUN_DEPENDS= gs:${PORTSDIR}/print/ghostscript
LIB_DEPENDS= Xpm.5:${PORTSDIR}/graphics/xpm
[this section is for other standard bsd.port.mk variables that do not
belong to any of the above]
[If it asks questions during configure, build, install...]
IS_INTERACTIVE= yes
[If it extracts to a directory other than ${DISTNAME}...]
WRKSRC= ${WRKDIR}/xdvi-new
[If the distributed patches were not made relative to ${WRKSRC}, you
may need to tweak this]
PATCH_DIST_STRIP= -p1
[If it requires a "configure" script generated by GNU autoconf to be run]
GNU_CONFIGURE= yes
[If it requires GNU make, not /usr/bin/make, to build...]
USE_GMAKE= yes
[If it is an X application and requires "xmkmf -a" to be run...]
USE_IMAKE= yes
[et cetera.]
[non-standard variables to be used in the rules below]
MY_FAVORITE_RESPONSE= "yeah, right"
[then the special rules, in the order they are called]
pre-fetch:
i go fetch something, yeah
post-patch:
i need to do something after patch, great
pre-install:
and then some more stuff before installing, wow
[and then the epilogue]
.include &lt;bsd.port.mk&gt;</programlisting>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="porting-autoplist">
<title>Automated package list creation</title>
<para>First, make sure your port is almost complete, with only
<filename>PLIST</filename> missing. Create an empty
<filename>PLIST</filename>.</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>touch PLIST</userinput></screen>
<para>Next, create a new set of directories which your port can be
installed, and install any dependencies.</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>mtree -U -f /etc/mtree/BSD.local.dist -d -e -p /var/tmp/<replaceable>port-name</replaceable></userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>make depends PREFIX=/var/tmp/<replaceable>port-name</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<para>Store the directory structure in a new file.</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>(cd /var/tmp/<replaceable>port-name</replaceable> && find * \! -type d) &gt; OLD-DIRS</userinput></screen>
<para>If your port honours <makevar>PREFIX</makevar> (which it should)
you can then install the port and create the package list.</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>make install PREFIX=/var/tmp</userinput>
&prompt.root; <userinput>(cd /var/tmp/<replaceable>port-name</replaceable> && find * \! -type d) &gt; pkg/PLIST</userinput></screen>
<para>You must also add any newly created directories to the packing
list.</para>
<screen>&prompt.root; <userinput>(cd /var/tmp/<replaceable>port-name && find * -type d) | comm -13 OLD-DIRS - | sed -e 's#^#@dirrm#' &gt;&gt; pkg/PLIST</replaceable></userinput></screen>
<para>Finally, you need to tidy up the packing list by hand. I lied
when I said this was all automated. Manual pages should be listed in
the port's <filename>Makefile</filename> under
<makevar>MAN<replaceable>n</replaceable></makevar>, and not in the
package list. User configuration files should be removed, or
installed as
<filename><replaceable>filename</replaceable>.sample</filename>. Any
libraries installed by the port should be listed as specified in the
<link linkend="porting-ldconfig">ldconfig</link> section.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="porting-pkgname">
<title>Package Names</title>
<para>The following are the conventions you should follow in naming your
packages. This is to have our package directory easy to scan, as
there are already lots and lots of packages and users are going to
turn away if they hurt their eyes!</para>
<para>The package name should look like
<filename><replaceable>language-</replaceable>name<replaceable>-compiled.specifics</replaceable><replaceable>-version.numbers</replaceable></filename>.</para>
<para>If your <makevar>DISTNAME</makevar> does not look like that, set
<makevar>PKGNAME</makevar> to something in that format.</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>FreeBSD strives to support the native language of its users.
The <replaceable>language-</replaceable> part should be a two
letter abbreviation of the natural language defined by ISO-639 if
the port is specific to a certain language. Examples are
<literal>ja</literal> for Japanese, <literal>ru</literal> for
Russian, <literal>vi</literal> for Vietnamese,
<literal>zh</literal> for Chinese, <literal>ko</literal> for
Korean and <literal>de</literal> for German.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The <filename>name</filename> part should be all lowercases,
except for a really large package (with lots of programs in it).
Things like XFree86 (yes there really is a port of it, check it
out) and ImageMagick fall into this category. Otherwise, convert
the name (or at least the first letter) to lowercase. If the
capital letters are important to the name (for example, with
one-letter names like <literal>R</literal> or
<literal>V</literal>) you may use capital letters at your
discretion. There is a tradition of naming Perl 5 modules by
prepending <literal>p5-</literal> and converting the double-colon
separator to a hyphen; for example, the
<literal>Data::Dumper</literal> module becomes
<literal>p5-Data-Dumper</literal>. If the software in question
has numbers, hyphens, or underscores in its name, you may include
them as well (like <literal>kinput2</literal>).</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If the port can be built with different <link
linkend="porting-masterdir">hardcoded defaults</link> (usually
part of the directory name in a family of ports), the
<replaceable>-compiled.specifics</replaceable> part should state
the compiled-in defaults (the hyphen is optional). Examples are
papersize and font units.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The version string should be a period-separated list of
integers and single lowercase alphabetics. The only exception is
the string <literal>pl</literal> (meaning `patchlevel'), which can
be used <emphasis>only</emphasis> when there are no major and
minor version numbers in the software.</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>Here are some (real) examples on how to convert a
<makevar>DISTNAME</makevar> into a suitable
<makevar>PKGNAME</makevar>:</para>
<informaltable frame="none">
<tgroup cols="3">
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Distribution Name</entry>
<entry>Package Name</entry>
<entry>Reason</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry>mule-2.2.2.</entry>
<entry>mule-2.2.2</entry>
<entry>No changes required</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>XFree86-3.1.2</entry>
<entry>XFree86-3.1.2</entry>
<entry>No changes required</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>EmiClock-1.0.2</entry>
<entry>emiclock-1.0.2</entry>
<entry>No uppercase names for single programs</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>gmod1.4</entry>
<entry>gmod-1.4</entry>
<entry>Need a hyphen before version numbers</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>xmris.4.0.2</entry>
<entry>xmris-4.0.2</entry>
<entry>Need a hyphen before version numbers</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>rdist-1.3alpha</entry>
<entry>rdist-1.3a</entry>
<entry>No strings like <literal>alpha</literal>
allowed</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>es-0.9-beta1</entry>
<entry>es-0.9b1</entry>
<entry>No strings like <literal>beta</literal>
allowed</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>v3.3beta021.src</entry>
<entry>tiff-3.3</entry>
<entry>What the heck was that anyway?</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>tvtwm</entry>
<entry>tvtwm-pl11</entry>
<entry>Version string always required</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>piewm</entry>
<entry>piewm-1.0</entry>
<entry>Version string always required</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>xvgr-2.10pl1</entry>
<entry>xvgr-2.10.1</entry>
<entry><literal>pl</literal> allowed only when no
major/minor version numbers</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>gawk-2.15.6</entry>
<entry>ja-gawk-2.15.6</entry>
<entry>Japanese language version</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>psutils-1.13</entry>
<entry>psutils-letter-1.13</entry>
<entry>Papersize hardcoded at package build time</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>pkfonts</entry>
<entry>pkfonts300-1.0</entry>
<entry>Package for 300dpi fonts</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
<para>If there is absolutely no trace of version information in the
original source and it is unlikely that the original author will ever
release another version, just set the version string to
<literal>1.0</literal> (like the piewm example above). Otherwise, ask
the original author or use the date string
(<literal><replaceable>yy</replaceable>.<replaceable>mm</replaceable>.<replaceable>dd</replaceable></literal>) as the version.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="porting-categories">
<title>Categories</title>
<para>As you already know, ports are classified in several categories.
But for this to wor, it is important that porters and users understand
what each category and how we deicde what to put in each
category.</para>
<sect3>
<title>Current list of categories</title>
<para>First, this is the current list of port categories. Those
marked with an asterisk (<literal>*</literal>) are
<emphasis>virtual</emphasis> categories&mdash;those that do not have
a corresponding subdirectory in the ports tree.</para>
<note>
<para>For non-virtual categories, you will find a one-line
description in the <filename>pkg/COMMENT</filename> file in that
subdirectory (e.g.,
<filename>archivers/pkg/COMMENT</filename>).</para>
</note>
<informaltable frame="none">
<tgroup cols="2">
<thead>
<row>
<entry>Category</entry>
<entry>Description</entry>
</row>
</thead>
<tbody>
<row>
<entry><filename>afterstep*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports to support AfterStep window manager</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>archivers</filename></entry>
<entry>Archiving tools.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>astro</filename></entry>
<entry>Astronomical ports.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>audio</filename></entry>
<entry>Sound support.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>benchmarks</filename></entry>
<entry>Benchmarking utilities.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>biology</filename></entry>
<entry>Biology-related software.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>cad</filename></entry>
<entry>Computer aided design tools.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>chinese</filename></entry>
<entry>Chinese language support.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>comms</filename></entry>
<entry>Communication software. Mostly software to talk to
your serial port.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>converters</filename></entry>
<entry>Character code converters.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>databases</filename></entry>
<entry>Databases.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>deskutils</filename></entry>
<entry>Things that used to be on the desktop before
computers were invented.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>devel</filename></entry>
<entry>Development utilities. Do not put libraries here just
because they are libraries&mdash;unless they truly do not
belong to anywhere else, they should not be in this
category.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>editors</filename></entry>
<entry>General editors. Specialized editors go in the section
for those tools (e.g., a mathematical-formula editor will go
in <filename>math</filename>).</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>elisp</filename></entry>
<entry>Emacs-lisp ports.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>emulators</filename></entry>
<entry>Emulators for other operating systems. Terminal
emulators do <emphasis>not</emphasis> belong
here&mdash;X-based ones should go to
<filename>x11</filename> and text-based ones to either
<filename>comms</filename> or <filename>misc</filename>,
depending on the exact functionality.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>games</filename></entry>
<entry>Games.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>german</filename></entry>
<entry>German language support.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>graphics</filename></entry>
<entry>Graphics utilities.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>irc</filename></entry>
<entry>Internet Chat Relay utilities.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>japanese</filename></entry>
<entry>Japanese language support.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>java</filename></entry>
<entry>Java languge support.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>kde*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports that form the K Desktop Environment
(kde).</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>korean</filename></entry>
<entry>Korean language support.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>lang</filename></entry>
<entry>Programming languages.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>mail</filename></entry>
<entry>Mail software.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>math</filename></entry>
<entry>Numerical computation software and other utilities
for mathematics.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>mbone</filename></entry>
<entry>MBone applications.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>misc</filename></entry>
<entry>Miscellaneous utilities&mdash;basically things that
does not belong to anywhere else. This is the only category
that should not appear with any other non-virtual category.
If you have <literal>misc</literal> with something else in
your <makevar>CATEGORIES</makevar> line, that means you can
safely delete <literal>misc</literal> and just put the port
in that other subdirectory!</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>net</filename></entry>
<entry>Miscellaneous networking software.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>news</filename></entry>
<entry>USENET news software.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>offix*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports from the OffiX suite.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>palm</filename></entry>
<entry>Software support for the 3Com Palm(tm) series.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>perl5*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports that require perl version 5 to run.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>plan9*</filename></entry>
<entry>Various programs from Plan9.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>print</filename></entry>
<entry>Printing software. Desktop publishing tools
(previewers, etc.) belong here too.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>python*</filename></entry>
<entry>Software written in python.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>russian</filename></entry>
<entry>Russian language support.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>security</filename></entry>
<entry>Security utilities.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>shells</filename></entry>
<entry>Command line shells.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>sysutils</filename></entry>
<entry>System utilities.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>tcl75*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports that use tcl version 7.5 to run.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>tcl76*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports that use tcl version 7.6 to run.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>tcl80*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports that use tcl version 8.0 to run.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>tcl81*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports that use tcl version 8.1 to run.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>textproc</filename></entry>
<entry>Text processing utilities. It does not include
desktop publishing tools, which go to print/.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>tk41*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports that use tk version 4.1 to run.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>tk42*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports that use tk version 4.2 to run.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>tk80*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports that use tk version 8.0 to run.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>tk81*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports that use tk version 8.1 to run.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>vietnamese</filename></entry>
<entry>Vietnamese language support.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>windowmaker*</filename></entry>
<entry>Ports to support the WindowMaker window
manager</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>www</filename></entry>
<entry>Software related to the World Wide Web. HTML language
support belong here too.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry>x11</entry>
<entry>The X window system and friends. This category is only
for software that directly support the window system. Do not
put regular X applications here. If your port is an X
application, define <makevar>USE_XLIB</makevar> (implied by
<makevar>USE_IMAKE</makevar>) and put it in appropriate
categories. Also, many of them go into other
<filename>x11-*</filename> categories (see below).</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>x11-clocks</filename></entry>
<entry>X11 clocks.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>x11-fm</filename></entry>
<entry>X11 file managers.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>x11-fonts</filename></entry>
<entry>X11 fonts and font utilities.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>x11-servers</filename></entry>
<entry>X11 servers.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>x11-toolkits</filename></entry>
<entry>X11 toolkits.</entry>
</row>
<row>
<entry><filename>x11-wm</filename></entry>
<entry>X11 window managers.</entry>
</row>
</tbody>
</tgroup>
</informaltable>
</sect3>
<sect3>
<title>Choosing the right category</title>
<para>As many of the categories overlap, you often have to choose
which of the categories should be the primary category of your port.
There are several rules that govern this usse. Here is the list of
priorities, in decreasing order of precedence.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>Language specific categories always come first. For
example, if your port installs Japanese X11 fonts, then your
<makevar>CATEGORIES</makevar> line would read <literal>japanese
x11-fonts</literal>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Specific categories win over less-specific ones. For
instance, an HTML editor should be listed as <literal>www
editors</literal>, not the other way around. Also, you do not
need to list <literal>net</literal> when the port belongs to
either of <literal>mail</literal>, <literal>mbone</literal>,
<literal>news</literal>, <literal>security</literal>, or
<literal>www</literal>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><literal>x11</literal> is used as a secondary category only
when the primary category is a natural language. In particular,
you should not put <literal>x11</literal> in the category line
for X applications.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If your port truly does not belong anywhere else, put it in
<literal>misc</literal>.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>If you are not sure about the category, please put a comment to
that effect in your <command>send-pr</command> submission so we can
discuss it before import it. (If you are a committer, send a note
&a.ports; so we can discuss it first&mdash;too often new ports are
imported to a wrong category only to be moved right away.)</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>Changes to this document and the ports system</title>
<para>If you maintain a lot of ports, you should consider following the
&a.ports;. Important changes to the way ports work will be announced
there. You can always find more detailed information on the latest
changes by looking at <ulink
url="http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk"> the
bsd.port.mk CVS log</ulink>.</para>
</sect2>
<sect2>
<title>That is It, Folks!</title>
<para>Boy, this sure was a long tutorial, wasn't it? Thanks for
following us to here, really.</para>
<para>Well, now that you know how to do a port, let us go at it and
convert everything in the world into ports! That is the easiest way to
start contributing to the FreeBSD Project! <!-- smiley
--><emphasis>:)</emphasis></para>
</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>
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