Table of Contents

FreeBSD Ports

The term Ports when used without qualification may refer to any of the following:

  1. The Ports Git Repository
    • Contains many branches of the “Ports Collection”, the two supported versions at any one time being: main and Quarterly
  2. The Ports Collection
    • Conceptually: The entire set of individuals ports a user can install
    • Technically: Everything you get with Git or gitup of a branch, or, all the things in /usr/ports
    • Also known as: The Ports Tree
    • Includes the framework
  3. The Ports Framework: The set of files within the Mk/ subdirectory that provide features for individual ports to use.
    • Ports does not work without the framework

ASCII diagrams are always useful: 

/usr/ports         <-- "Ports Collection" or "Ports Tree"      (2)
|- Mk              <-- "Ports Framework"                       (3)
`- category
   `---- port      <-- "A Port"

Further Information

The main page was removed in October 2023. For posterity, in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine:

About FreeBSD Ports — The FreeBSD Project

With the removal:

In the FreeBSD Handbook:

See Also

Usage in this wiki

Info about particular ports or files in the ports tree may be placed under Ports/category/portname, or Ports/pathto/anyfile.

Ports-related articles may be placed under Ports/ and categorized with CategoryPorts

The following entries currently reside under this one: