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   <TITLE>OpenBSD ports mechanism</TITLE>
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<H2>
OpenBSD ports mechanism</H2>

<H3>
<B>History</B></H3>
OpenBSD is a fairly complete system of its own, but still there is a lot
of software that one might want see added. However there is the problem
on where to draw the line on what to include and not in a small unix-like
operating system, as well as licensing and export restrictions problems.
Some things just can't be shipped with the system.
We wanted to find a way for users to easily get software we don't provide
and started to look around. We didn't have to look far as a sibling project,
<A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</A>, had an excellent mechanism
for exactly this purpose called <A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/ports/">"The
ports collection"</A>.
After thinking about it for a while we decided to try to use their
collection as is, but due to incompatibility problems between FreeBSD
and OpenBSD we decided to branch out and create our very own OpenBSD
Ports Project using FreeBSD's as a starting point.
<BR>&nbsp;
<H3>
<B>Short description and setup</B></H3>
The ports idea is to have, for each piece of software, a Makefile that
describes where to fetch it, how to do the fetch, what it is depending
upon (if anything), how to alter the sources (if needed) and how to configure,
build and install it. Furthermore some patches will have to be kept in
the "port" as well as some administration files for the package registry
utilities. Normally this information is kept in an hierarchy under /usr/ports
(however, this is configurable).
<p>
We recommend reading the <A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/ports.html">ports
chapter</A> in the <A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/">FreeBSD handbook</A>
to get information on how to setup this hierarchy until OpenBSD can complete
its own ports.helpfile
<H3>
<B>Example</B></H3>
Let's say you managed to get a ports tree sitting under /usr/ports, then
you should be able to something like this:
<PRE>
% cd /usr/ports/archivers/unzip
% make
% su
# make install
# exit
</PRE>
Easy, huh?
<H3>
<B>Problems and contacts</B></H3>
Our <A HREF="mailto:joey@openbsd.org">ports coordinator</A> is currently
working on a ports statues page - what is done, what is being worked on
right now, on what architecture, etc.
If you have trouble with ports contact either
<A HREF="mailto:joey@openbsd.org">Ejovi Nuwere</A> (preferably),
<A HREF="mailto:gene@openbsd.org">Gene Skonicki</A>, or
<A HREF="mailto:todd@openbsd.org">Todd Tyrone Fries</A>
and provide either patches or details for how to fix things or,
if you cannot do this, point us at the problematic port and tell
us what fails and we shall try to fix it.
<BR>
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<A HREF="mailto:www@openbsd.org">www@openbsd.org</A>
<BR><FONT SIZE=-1>$OpenBSD: ports.html,v 1.8 1997/11/18 08:12:33 deraadt
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