Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2025 08:35:05 +0000 From: Lexi Winter <ivy@freebsd.org> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Trying to understand base system packages Message-ID: <aTkwuRmEMIpc7UF1@amaryllis.le-fay.org> In-Reply-To: <20251205122830.cb88058f193987b47a95a77c@gmail.com> References: <20251205122830.cb88058f193987b47a95a77c@gmail.com>
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Sad Clouds wrote in <20251205122830.cb88058f193987b47a95a77c@gmail.com>:
> 1. Does "pkg upgrade" now upgrade both base and ports packages?
yes.
> If yes then what is the best way to override it and specify explicitly
> either base or ports?
use the -r flag to pkg upgrade.
> Is this the correct approach:
> # pkg upgrade -r FreeBSD-ports
yes.
> 2. Does "pkg upgrade" for base packages also merge etc files
yes, it will attempt a three-way merge. if this fails, it will print
"pkg: Impossible to merge /etc/somefile" during the upgrade, and you
need to merge the file manually. this message is very easy to miss, so
i suggest that after every upgrade, you search the entire filesystem for
files named '*.pkgsave' or '*.pkgnew'.
we intend to improve this UX in a later release.
> or do I need to manually execute etcupdate?
never run etcupdate on a pkgbase system.
> 3. In /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf FreeBSD-base is disabled by default. What
> is the reason for that?
because we don't want to enable this repository for non-pkgbase users.
the installer enables the repository in /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos for
pkgbase installs.
> Do I need to manually enable it if I want "pkg upgrade" to upgrade
> base packages in the future?
no, because the installer does this for you.
> 5. When building from source and executing "make release" this creates
> the traditional *.txz files. In addition to these, how do I also
> generate all of the base packages as part of the release?
"make -C release disc1.iso" will generate the pkgbase repository for the
installer media.
if you only want to generate packages, not release media, then use
"make update-packages". you may want to set REPODIR before running
this; see build(7).
> There is release/pkgbase-repo directory that gets created but it is
> left empty.
this will not be empty if you build a release media that includes
packages. note that bootonly does not include packages.
> Is running "make packages" a prerequisite before "make release" for
> this to happen
no.
> or is there a different release target for base packages?
no.
> 6. If I need to modify src.conf and build my own set of base packages,
> what is the recommended way to install/upgrade with these packages?
use "pkg install" to install them.
if upgrading a system installed from packages which used a different
src.conf, and you did not update the package version, you may need
"pkg upgrade -f" to replace the existing packages.
> Can I tell pkg to fetch the packages from a local directory?
yes:
FreeBSD-base: {
url: "file:///build/packages/base/${ABI}/latest",
enabled: yes
}
> The pkg(8) command supports options like -c (chroot dir), -r (root
> dir), etc, but I'm confused on how it should be used. For example:
>
> I build a release for arm64/aarch64 on amd64, create a partition on
> microSD card and mount it under /mnt. I then execute
> "tar -C /mnt -xpUf base.txz" to install the base system.
>
> How do I replicate the above with pkg? Can anyone provide a quick
> example?
pkg -r /mnt install FreeBSD-set-minimal
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