===== Building Packages Through Emulation =====

:!: This is an updated version of the presentation by [[/SeanBruno|SeanBruno]] entitled [[http://www.slideshare.net/eurobsdcon/sean-bruno-building-packages-through-emulation|Building Packages Through Emulation]] at [[https://eurobsdcon.org/|EuroBSDCon]].

If you have a system with limited resources (for example, the Raspberry Pi), you may find that building your own packages on the native machine is very slow.  Your options are:

  * use packages from the [[http://pkg.freebsd.org/|existing FreeBSD repository]].  This is recommended if they are available, and the defaults are sufficient for you.  Otherwise:
  * build packages on a more powerful system.

For building packages, the most attractive option is to use [[https://github.com/freebsd/poudriere/wiki|poudriere]] on a more powerful machine (e.g. an amd64) building under emulation via [[http://wiki.qemu.org/Main_Page|Qemu]].

Note that this is not **true** native cross-building; however, the Ports Collection does not yet widely support that.  There Be Dragons.

===== What you need =====

  * [[http://www.freshports.org/ports-mgmt/poudriere|ports-mgmt/poudriere]]
  * [[http://www.freshports.org/emulators/qemu-user-static|emulators/qemu-user-static]]
  * [[http://www.freshports.org/devel/git|devel/git]]

===== Very highly recommended =====

  * ZFS

===== Getting started =====

Once the above ports are installed, you need to enable the binary image activtors for QEMU via [[https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=binmiscctl&sektion=8&manpath=freebsd-release-ports|binmisctl(8)]]. To do so, add the following line to your ''%%/etc/rc.conf%%'':

''%%qemu_user_static_enable="YES"%%''

Unless you are planning to reboot before proceeding, manually start the script via ''%%service qemu_user_static onestart%%'' as root.  Ignore any errors about 'not unique in activator list'; that just means you ran the script twice.

==== Checking out a ports tree via git ====

''%%poudriere ports -c%%''

===== Examples =====

The following examples should be enough to get you started.  You do not necessarily need to use the exact same names for the jails (**-j** parameter).

==== Checking out and building the world that qemu will use ====

:!: The arguments to the **-a** parameter must appear exactly as below.  These are derived from the output of ''%%make targets%%''.

These examples assume you are building %%FreeBSD%% 13.0-RELEASE jails from %%FreeBSD%% 14 (**-CURRENT**).

^ architecture ^ command ^
| 32-bit ARM | ''%%poudriere jail -c -j 130armv6 -m git+https -v releng/13.0 -a arm.armv6 -x%%'' |
| 64-bit ARM | ''%%poudriere jail -c -j 130aarch64 -m http -v13.0-RELEASE -a arm64.aarch64 -x%%'' |
| 32-bit MIPS | ''%%poudriere jail -c -j 130mips32 -m git+https -v releng/13.0 -a mips.mips -x%%'' |
| 64-bit MIPS | ''%%poudriere jail -c -j 130mips64 -m git+https -v releng/13.0 -a mips.mips64 -x%%'' |

To build jails for other %%FreeBSD%% versions, replace the **-v** parameter with the branch name corresponding to that version.

Although QEMU claims to support them, at the moment, it is believed not to work with powerpc.powerpc, powerpc.powerpc64, or sparc64.sparc64.

==== Building packages ====

This example assumes you want to build every single package on armv6.  This is how the ports build cluster builds packages.

XXX TODO fill in more information here.

''%%poudriere bulk -a -j 13armv6%%''.

==== Things you do not need to worry about ====

  * installing poudriere-devel instead of poudriere.  This is no longer required.
  * fiddling around with binmiscctl(8).  The instructions above take care of this for you.
  * chrooting into the qemu-built world, unless you really want to.

==== Things you do need to worry about ====

  * There are still many ports that do not build under emulation, in particular, things that need X11.  More help is needed!

==== See also ====

  * [[https://github.com/freebsd/poudriere/wiki|poudriere wiki]]
  * [[/PkgPrimer|pkg primer]]
  * [[/QemuUserModeHowTo|How to build and use QEMU User Mode on FreeBSD]]
  * [[/QemuUserModeToDo|Qemu User Mode for FreeBSD ToDo List]]
  * [[/QemuRecipes|QemuRecipes]]
  * [[arm64/QEMU]]
  * [[arm64/ports]]