Table of Contents
The whole pkgsrc system is configured in a single file, usually
called mk.conf. In which directory pkgsrc looks for
that file depends on the installation. On NetBSD, when you use
make(1) from the base system, it is in the directory
/etc/. In all other cases the default location is
${PREFIX}/etc/, depending on where you told the
bootstrap program to install the binary packages.
The format of the configuration file is that of the usual
BSD-style Makefiles. The whole pkgsrc configuration
is done by setting variables in this file. Note that you can define all
kinds of variables, and no special error checking (for example for
spelling mistakes) takes place.
The following variables apply to all
pkgsrc packages. A complete list of the variables that can be
configured by the user is available in
mk/defaults/mk.conf, together with some
comments that describe each variable's intent.
LOCALBASE: Where
packages will be installed. The default is
/usr/pkg. Do not mix binary packages
with different LOCALBASEs!
CROSSBASE: Where
“cross” category packages will be
installed. The default is
${LOCALBASE}/cross.
X11BASE: Where
X11 is installed on the system. The default is
/usr/X11R7.
DISTDIR: Where to store the
downloaded copies of the original source distributions used
for building pkgsrc packages. The default is
${PKGSRCDIR}/distfiles.
PKG_DBDIR: Where the
database about installed packages is stored. The default is
/usr/pkg/pkgdb.
MASTER_SITE_OVERRIDE:
If set, override the packages'
MASTER_SITES with this value.
MASTER_SITE_BACKUP:
Backup location(s) for distribution files and patch files
if not found locally or in
${MASTER_SITES} or
${PATCH_SITES} respectively.
The defaults is
ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/distfiles/${DIST_SUBDIR}/.
BINPKG_SITES:
List of sites carrying binary pkgs. rel and
arch are replaced with OS
release (“2.0”, etc.) and architecture
(“mipsel”, etc.).
ACCEPTABLE_LICENSES:
List of acceptable licenses. License names are case-sensitive.
Whenever you try to build a package whose license is not in this
list, you will get an error message. If the license condition is
simple enough, the error message will include specific
instructions on how to change this variable.
PACKAGES: The top level
directory for the binary packages. The default is
${PKGSRCDIR}/packages.
WRKOBJDIR:
The top level directory where, if defined, the separate
working directories will get created, and symbolically
linked to from ${WRKDIR} (see below).
This is useful for building packages on several
architectures, then ${PKGSRCDIR}
can be NFS-mounted while ${WRKOBJDIR}
is local to every architecture. (It should be noted that
PKGSRCDIR should not be set by the user
— it is an internal definition which refers to the
root of the pkgsrc tree. It is possible to have many
pkgsrc tree instances.)
LOCALPATCHES:
Directory for local patches that aren't part of pkgsrc.
See Section 12.3, “patches/*” for more
information.
PKGMAKECONF: Location of
the mk.conf file used by a package's
BSD-style Makefile. If this is not set,
MAKECONF is set to
/dev/null to avoid picking up
settings used by builds in /usr/src.
PKGSRC_KEEP_BIN_PKGS:
By default, binary packages of built packages are
preserved in ${PACKAGES}/All. Setting
this variable to "no" prevents this.
Packages have to support installation into a
subdirectory of WRKDIR. This allows a package
to be built, before the actual filesystem is touched. DESTDIR
support exists in two variations:
Basic DESTDIR support means that the package installation and packaging is still run as root.
Full DESTDIR support can run the complete build, installation and packaging as normal user. Root privileges are only needed to add packages.
With basic DESTDIR support, make
clean needs to be run as root.
Considering the foo/bar package,
DESTDIR full support can be tested using the following commands
$id uid=1000(myusername) gid=100(users) groups=100(users),0(wheel)$mkdir $HOME/packages$cd $PKGSRCDIR/foo/bar
Verify DESTDIR full support, no root privileges
should be needed
$ make stage-install
Create a package without root privileges
$ make PACKAGES=$HOME/packages package
For the following command, you must be able to gain root privileges using su(1)
$ make PACKAGES=$HOME/packages install
Then, as a simple user
$ make clean
By default, pkgsrc will use GCC to build packages. This may be overridden by setting the following variables in /etc/mk.conf:
PKGSRC_COMPILER:This is a list of values specifying the chain of compilers to invoke when building packages. Valid values are:
ccc:
Compaq C Compilers (Tru64)
ccache:
compiler cache (chainable)
clang:
Clang C and Objective-C compiler
distcc:
distributed C/C++ (chainable)
f2c:
Fortran 77 to C compiler (chainable)
icc:
Intel C++ Compiler (Linux)
ido:
SGI IRIS Development Option cc (IRIX 5)
gcc:
GNU C/C++ Compiler
hp:
HP-UX C/aC++ compilers
mipspro:
Silicon Graphics, Inc. MIPSpro (n32/n64)
mipspro-ucode:
Silicon Graphics, Inc. MIPSpro (o32)
sunpro:
Sun Microsystems, Inc. WorkShip/Forte/Sun ONE Studio
xlc:
IBM's XL C/C++ compiler suite
The default is
“gcc”. You can use
ccache and/or
distcc with an appropriate
PKGSRC_COMPILER setting,
e.g. “ccache gcc”. This
variable should always be terminated with a value for
a real compiler. Note that only one real compiler
should be listed (e.g. “sunpro gcc”
is not allowed).
GCC_REQD:This specifies the minimum version of GCC to use when building packages. If the system GCC doesn't satisfy this requirement, then pkgsrc will build and install one of the GCC packages to use instead.
PYTHON_VERSION_DEFAULT:Specifies which version of python to use when several options are available.
PKGSRC_FORTRAN:Specifies the Fortran compiler to use.
The default is gfortran.
GFORTRAN_VERSION:If PKGSRC_FORTRAN=
gfortran is used, this option specifies which
version to use.
If you wish to set the CFLAGS variable,
please make sure to use the += operator
instead of the = operator:
CFLAGS+= -your -flags
Using CFLAGS= (i.e. without the
“+”) may lead to problems with packages that
need to add their own flags. You may want to take a look
at the devel/cpuflags
package if you're interested in optimization specifically
for the current CPU.
If you want to pass flags to the linker, both in the configure
step and the build step, you can do this in two ways. Either set
LDFLAGS or LIBS. The difference
between the two is that LIBS will be appended to
the command line, while LDFLAGS come earlier.
LDFLAGS is pre-loaded with rpath settings for ELF
machines depending on the setting of USE_IMAKE or
the inclusion of mk/x11.buildlink3.mk. As with
CFLAGS, if you do not wish to override these
settings, use the += operator:
LDFLAGS+= -your -linkerflags
PKG_DEVELOPER:
Run some sanity checks that package developers want:
make sure patches apply with zero fuzz
run check-shlibs to see that all binaries will find their shared libs.
PKG_DEBUG_LEVEL: The level
of debugging output which is displayed whilst making and
installing the package. The default value for this is 0,
which will not display the commands as they are executed
(normal, default, quiet operation); the value 1 will display
all shell commands before their invocation, and the value 2
will display both the shell commands before their invocation,
as well as their actual execution progress with set
-x.
Some packages have build time options, usually to select between different dependencies, enable optional support for big dependencies or enable experimental features.
To see which options, if any, a package supports, and which options are mutually exclusive, run make show-options, for example:
The following options are supported by this package:
ssl Enable SSL support.
Exactly one of the following gecko options is required:
firefox Use firefox as gecko rendering engine.
mozilla Use mozilla as gecko rendering engine.
At most one of the following database options may be selected:
mysql Enable support for MySQL database.
pgsql Enable support for PostgreSQL database.
These options are enabled by default: firefox
These options are currently enabled: mozilla ssl
The following variables can be defined in
mk.conf to select which options to
enable for a package: PKG_DEFAULT_OPTIONS,
which can be used to select or disable options for all packages
that support them, and
PKG_OPTIONS.,
which can be used to select or disable options specifically for
package pkgbasepkgbase. Options listed in
these variables are selected, options preceded by “-”
are disabled. A few examples:
$grep "PKG.*OPTION"mk.confPKG_DEFAULT_OPTIONS= -arts -dvdread -esound PKG_OPTIONS.kdebase= debug -sasl PKG_OPTIONS.apache= suexec
It is important to note that options that were specifically suggested by the package maintainer must be explicitly removed if you do not wish to include the option. If you are unsure you can view the current state with make show-options.
The following settings are consulted in the order given, and the last setting that selects or disables an option is used:
the default options as suggested by the package maintainer
the options implied by the settings of legacy variables (see below)
PKG_DEFAULT_OPTIONS
PKG_OPTIONS.pkgbase
For groups of mutually exclusive options, the last option selected is used, all others are automatically disabled. If an option of the group is explicitly disabled, the previously selected option, if any, is used. It is an error if no option from a required group of options is selected, and building the package will fail.
Before the options framework was introduced, build options
were selected by setting a variable (often named
USE_) in
FOOmk.conf for each option. To ease
transition to the options framework for the user, these legacy
variables are converted to the appropriate options setting
(PKG_OPTIONS.)
automatically. A warning is issued to prompt the user to update
pkgbasemk.conf to use the options framework
directly. Support for the legacy variables will be removed
eventually.