Creating FreeBSD ports
Anton Berezin
tobez@tobez.org
A bit of meaningless statistics
~18800 individual ports
Two-level structure
One-level of categories
64 categories
ports/category/a-port/*
Probably the best beer^W^Wlargest collection in the world.
Old technology - a bunch of Makefiles
Infrastructure - include makefiles - ~19000 lines
Relatively well documented
The FreeBSD Porter's Handbook
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/porters-handbook/
Read it!
The most important include file: Mk/bsd.port.mk
If you are serious - read it, too!
If all else fails, going through it will answer your questions
Built-in targets
fetch
extract
patch
configure
build
install
package
clean
Anatomy of a port
Makefile - how to build it
pkg-descr - what it does
distinfo - what files constitute a distro
pkg-plist - what files it contains
files/patch-* - FreeBSD-specific patches
files/* - anything goes
src/* - when the port is self-contained
Anatomy of a Makefile
comment header
PORTNAME
PORTVERION
PORTREVISION
MASTER_SITES
MASTER_SITE_SUBDIR
MAINTAINER
COMMENT (an inode-saving device)
NO_BUILD/NO_INSTALL
dependencies
LIB_DEPENDS
BUILD_DEPENDS
RUN_DEPENDS
package dependencies
manpages
MAN1
MAN3
Overriding built-in targets
do-something:
post and/or pre stage targets
pre-something:/post-something:
Most useful: post-patch: and post-install:
ports-mgmt/portlint helps
So you have an idea for a port
First thing - make sure it is not already there!
Sometimes it may lurk in a non-obvious place
such as ports/devel
Sometimes it might be non-obviously named
locate
grep ports/INDEX-?
find | grep
So, it's not there
Is there a PR open for it?
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr-summary.cgi?query
Use a similar existing port as a starting point
For non-obvious things, try to find a port that already does a similar thing
Try to follow existing conventions
in how to do things
as well as in naming
If in doubt, ask
mailing list freebsd-ports@freebsd.org
IRC EFNet #bsdports
Ok, time to make a port
Most of the ports I do these days have a p5- prefix
If I am bored, I just pick one at random
First we'll go for a simple one
Such as Text::LooseCSV
Make sure the software builds OK by hand
cd /usr/ports/textproc
cp -pr p5-Text-CSV p5-Text-LooseCSV
rm distinfo pkg-plist
touch pkg-plist
vi pkg-descr
vi Makefile
make makesum
mkdir /var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
mtree -U -f $(make -V MTREE_FILE) -d -e -p /var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
make depends PREFIX=/var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
make install PREFIX=/var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
/usr/ports/Tools/scripts/plist -Md -m $(make -V MTREE_FILE) /var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME) > pkg-plist
vi pkg-plist
@dirrm vs. @dirrmtry
%%SITE_PERL%% and %%PERL_ARCH%%
pkg_delete
make clean
portlint -abtN
make
make install
make package
pkg_delete
make reinstall
make package
make deinstall
rm p5-*
rm -rf work ~ make clean
So everything's OK
cd ..
shar `find p5-Text-LooseCSV` >/tmp/port.shar
Use send-pr
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/porters-handbook/porting-submitting.html
Only *then* bug a committer you know on IRC
Then wait
Quite a bit of all this can be automated
Quite a bit of it *is* automated (many times over)
Do not skimp on the manual steps the first few times
The automation will fail
Then you are back to basics
So - understand the basics
We'll go now for Perl6-GatherTake
This one has dependencies
As we can see examining Makefile.PL
Do we have a port for Coro?
locate p5-Coro
Yup!
Pitfall: different Perl versions
Coro wants 5.8.0+
Ergo, Perl6-GatherTake wants it, too
What about Scalar::Util?
There is a port alright
Also included in perl5.8 itself
So skip this dependency
Proceed with manual build
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
What category?
locate p5-Perl6
devel: 7 vs. lang: 1
but we'll put it in lang anyway
ports/devel is sort of a backup place
ls /usr/ports/devel|wc -l
2515!!!
cd /usr/ports/lang
cp -pr p5-Perl6-Subs p5-Perl6-GatherTake
cd p5-Perl6-GatherTake
rm distinfo pkg-plist
vi pkg-descr
vi Makefile
Let's put some whitespace!
touch pkg-plist
make makesum
cat distinfo
mkdir /var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
mtree -U -f $(make -V MTREE_FILE) -d -e -p /var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
make depends PREFIX=/var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
make install PREFIX=/var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
/usr/ports/Tools/scripts/plist -Md -m $(make -V MTREE_FILE) /var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME) > pkg-plist
vi pkg-plist
@dirrm vs. @dirrmtry
%%SITE_PERL%% and %%PERL_ARCH%%
pkg_delete p5-Perl6-GatherTake-0.0.3
make clean
portlint -abtN
Gotcha!
vi Makefile
portlint -abtN
make
make install
make package
pkg_delete
make reinstall
make package
make deinstall
rm p5-*
rm -rf work ~ make clean
cd ..
shar `find p5-Perl6-GatherTake` >/tmp/port.shar
send-pr
Ok, let's try something else
freshmeat main page
hmm, this englab thing is interesting
is there a port?
locate
locate -i
nope!
download
ok, which one?
we'll skip the GUI
let's do the console app
download
extract
less INSTALL
aha, dependency!
is there a port?
nope!
so we'll make the library port first
download
extract
less INSTALL
no dependencies, good
can we build it by hand?
nope!
linuxisms
patch time
real patch or post-patch:
cp configure configure.orig
remember bash dependency
can we build it now?
still nope!
linuxisms
hmm, aha, a bug
report a bug upstream
fix a bug
fix a linuxism
remember gmake
can we build it now?
patch seems to work
diff configure{.orig,} >patch-linuxisms
cd /usr/ports/math
cp -pr libgmp4 libenglab
cd libenglab
rm distinfo pkg-plist
touch pkg-plist
mkdir files
cd files
copy the patch here
cd ..
vi pkg-descr
touch pkg-plist
vi Makefile
bash!
gmake!
make makesum
mkdir /var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
mtree -U -f $(make -V MTREE_FILE) -d -e -p /var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
make depends PREFIX=/var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
make PREFIX=/var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
questions so far, while it builds?
make install PREFIX=/var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME)
/usr/ports/Tools/scripts/plist -Md -m $(make -V MTREE_FILE) /var/tmp/$(make -V PORTNAME) > pkg-plist
vi pkg-plist
No more slides for this port
Just walk through the port creation
Pitfall: different FreeBSD versions
Pitfall: different gcc versions
Pitfall: different architectures
testing, testing, testing
Thank you.
Thank you!
Any questions?