All supported versions of FreeBSD now contain/usr/sbin/pkg a.k.apkg(7).This is a small placeholder that has just the minimum functionality required to install the realpkg(8).

Runpkg(8) command line:

The output should be similar to the following:

pkg(7) will intercept the command, and when confirmed, downloads thepkg(8) tarball, installspkg(8) from it, bootstraps the local package database and then proceeds to run the command originally requested.

More recent versions ofpkg(7) understandpkg -N as a test to see ifpkg(8) is installed without triggering the installation, and conversely, pkg bootstrap[-f] to installpkg(8) (or force it to be reinstalled) without performing any other actions.

Usage information for pkg is available in thepkg(8) manual page or by runningpkg without additional arguments.Additional pkg configuration options are described inpkg.conf(5).

Each pkg command argument is documented in a command-specific manual page.

To read the manual page forpkg install, for example, run this command:

The rest of this section demonstrates common binary package management tasks which can be performed usingpkg(8).Each demonstrated command provides many switches to customize its use.Refer to a command’s help or man page for details and more examples.

TheQuarterly branch provides users with a more predictable and stable experience for port and package installation and upgrades.This is done essentially by only allowing non-feature updates.Quarterly branches aim to receive security fixes (that may be version updates, or backports of commits), bug fixes and ports compliance or framework changes.The Quarterly branch is cut from HEAD at the beginning of every (yearly) quarter in January, April, July, and October.Branches are named according to the year (YYYY) and quarter (Q1-4) they are created in.For example, the quarterly branch created in January 2023, is named 2023Q1.And theLatest branch provides the latest versions of the packages to the users.

To switchpkg(8) from Quarterly to Latest run the following commands:

Then run this command to update the local package repositories catalogues for the Latest branch:

The kernel module repositories allow users to install ready to use kernelmodules like the ones used for graphic drivers and specific hardware.Starting with FreeBSD 14.3, the FreeBSD Project provides kernel modules builtfor every supported version. To create such a repository configuration if itdoes not exist, add the following to/usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/kmods.conf:

KMODSFLAVOR respects the following pattern:kmods_PORTBRANCH_MINORRELEASE.

For instance:

pkg.conf(5) is the system-wide configuration file used by thepkg(8) tools.The default location of this file is/usr/local/etc/pkg.conf.

Lines in the file beginning with a "#" are comments and are ignored.

The file is in UCL format.For more information on the syntax oflibucl(3), please visit theofficial UCL website.

The following types of options are recognized - boolean, string and list options.

A boolean option is marked as enabled if one of the following values is specified in the configuration file - YES, TRUE and ON.

To search a packagepkg-search(8) can be used:

The output should be similar to the following:

To install a binary packagepkg-install(8) can be used.This command uses repository data to determine which version of the software to install and if it has any uninstalled dependencies.For example, to install curl:

The output should be similar to the following:

The new package and any additional packages that were installed as dependencies can be seen in the installed packages list:

The output should be similar to the following:

To fetch a package and install it later or in another place usepkg-fetch(8).For example, to downloadnginx-lite:

The output should be similar to the following:

To install the downloaded packagespkg-install(8) can be used as follows:

Information about the packages installed on a system can be viewed by runningpkg-info(8) which, when run without any switches, will list the package version for either all installed packages or the specified package.

For example, to see which version of pkg is installed, run:

The output should be similar to the following:

Installed packages can be upgraded to their latest versions usingpkg-upgrade(8):

This command will compare the installed versions with those available in the repository catalogue and upgrade them from the repository.

Software vulnerabilities are regularly discovered in third-party applications.To address this, pkg includes a built-in auditing mechanism.To determine if there are any known vulnerabilities for the software installed on the system, usepkg-audit(8):

The output should be similar to the following:

Packages that are no longer needed can be removed withpkg-delete(8).

For example:

The output should be similar to the following:

Removing a package may leave behind dependencies which are no longer required.Unneeded packages that were installed as dependencies (leaf packages) can be automatically detected and removed usingpkg-autoremove(8):

The output should be similar to the following:

Packages installed as dependencies are calledautomatic packages.Non-automatic packages, i.e the packages that were explicitly installed not as a dependency to another package, can be listed using:

The output should be similar to the following:

pkg prime-list is an alias command declared in/usr/local/etc/pkg.conf.There are many others that can be used to query the package database of the system.For instance, commandpkg prime-origins can be used to get the origin port directory of the list mentioned above:

The output should be similar to the following:

This list can be used to rebuild all packages installed on a system using build tools such asports-mgmt/poudriere orports-mgmt/synth.

Marking an installed package as automatic can be done using:

Once a package is a leaf package and is marked as automatic, it gets selected bypkg autoremove.

Marking an installed package asnot automatic can be done using:

By default, pkg stores binary packages in a cache directory defined byPKG_CACHEDIR inpkg.conf(5).Only copies of the latest installed packages are kept. Older versions of pkg kept all previous packages.To remove these outdated binary packages, run:

The entire cache may be cleared by running:

pkg-lock(8) is used to lock packages against reinstallation, modification or deletion.pkg-unlock(8) unlocks the named packages.Either variant only has an effect on currently installed packages.Consequently it is impossible to block installation of a new package by using this mechanism, unless such an installation implies updating a locked package.

For example, to locknginx-lite:

And to unlocknginx-lite:

Software within the FreeBSD Ports Collection can undergo major version number changes.To address this, pkg has a built-in command to update package origins.This can be useful, for example, iflang/python3 is renamed tolang/python311 so thatlang/python3 can now represent version3.11.

To change the package origin for the above example, run:

As another example, to updatelang/ruby31 tolang/ruby32, run:

Before an application can be compiled using a port, the Ports Collection must first be installed.If it was not installed during the installation of FreeBSD, use the following method to install it:

This section provides basic instructions on using the Ports Collection to install or remove software.The detailed description of availablemake targets and environment variables is available inports(7).

Using the Ports Collection assumes a working Internet connection.It also requires superuser privilege.

To compile and install the port, change to the directory of the port to be installed, then typemake install at the prompt.Messages will indicate the progress:

Sincelsof is a program that runs with increased privileges, a security warning is displayed as it is installed.Once the installation is complete, the prompt will be returned.

Some shells keep a cache of the commands that are available in the directories listed in thePATH environment variable, to speed up lookup operations for the executable file of these commands.Users of thetcsh shell should typerehash so that a newly installed command can be used without specifying its full path.Usehash -r instead for thesh shell.Refer to the documentation for the shell for more information.

During installation, a working subdirectory is created which contains all the temporary files used during compilation.Removing this directory saves disk space and minimizes the chance of problems later when upgrading to the newer version of the port:

Installed ports can be uninstalled usingpkg delete.Examples for using this command can be found in thepkg-delete(8) manual page.

Alternately,make deinstall can be run in the port's directory:

It is recommended to read the messages as the port is uninstalled.If the port has any applications that depend upon it, this information will be displayed but the uninstallation will proceed.In such cases, it may be better to reinstall the application in order to prevent broken dependencies.

Over time, newer versions of software become available in the Ports Collection.This section describes how to determine which software can be upgraded and how to perform the upgrade.

To determine if newer versions of installed ports are available, ensure that the latest version of the ports tree is installed,using the updating command described inGit Method.The following command will list the installed ports which are out of date:

Using the Ports Collection will use up disk space over time.After building and installing a port, runningmake clean within the ports skeleton will clean up the temporarywork directory.If Portmaster is used to install a port, it will automatically remove this directory unless-K is specified.If Portupgrade is installed, this command will remove allwork directories found within the local copy of the Ports Collection:

In addition, outdated source distribution files accumulate in/usr/ports/distfiles over time.To use Portupgrade to delete all the distfiles that are no longer referenced by any ports:

Portupgrade can remove all distfiles not referenced by any port currently installed on the system:

If Portmaster is installed, use:

By default, this command is interactive and prompts the user to confirm if a distfile should be deleted.

In addition to these commands,ports-mgmt/pkg_cutleaves automates the task of removing installed ports that are no longer needed.

After configuration, initialize poudriere so that it installs a jail with the required FreeBSD tree and a ports tree.Specify a name for the jail using-j and the FreeBSD version with-v.On systems running FreeBSD/amd64, the architecture can be set with-a to eitheri386 oramd64.The default is the architecture shown byuname.

On a single computer, poudriere can build ports with multiple configurations, in multiple jails, and from different port trees.Custom configurations for these combinations are calledsets.See the CUSTOMIZATION section ofpoudriere(8) for details afterports-mgmt/poudriere orports-mgmt/poudriere-devel is installed.

The basic configuration shown here puts a single jail-, port-, and set-specificmake.conf in/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d.The filename in this example is created by combining the jail name, port name, and set name:13amd64-local-workstation-make.conf.The systemmake.conf and this new file are combined at build time to create themake.conf used by the build jail.

Packages to be built are entered in13amd64-local-workstation-pkglist (ports withFLAVORS can be defined with @FLAVOR):

Options and dependencies for the specified ports are configured:

Finally, packages are built and a package repository is created:

While running, pressingCtrl+t displays the current state of the build.poudriere also builds files in/poudriere/logs/bulk/jailname that can be used with a web server to display build information.

After completion, the new packages are now available for installation from the poudriere repository.

For more information on using poudriere, seepoudriere(8) and the main web site,https://github.com/freebsd/poudriere/wiki.

While it is possible to use both a custom repository along side of the official repository, sometimes it is useful to disable the official repository.This is done by creating a configuration file that overrides and disables the official configuration file.Create/usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf that contains the following:

Usually it is easiest to serve a poudriere repository to the client machines via HTTP.Set up a webserver to serve up the package directory, for instance:/usr/local/poudriere/data/packages/13amd64, where13amd64 is the name of the build.

If the URL to the package repository is:https://pkg.example.com/13amd64,then the repository configuration file in/usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/custom.conf would look like:

If exposing the package repository to the internet is not desired, thefile:// protocol can be used to point to the repository directly: