NAME
development —
introduction to
FreeBSD development process
DESCRIPTION
FreeBSD development is split into three major suprojects: doc, ports, and src. Doc is the documentation, such as the FreeBSD Handbook. To read more, see:https://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en/books/fdp-primer/
Ports, described further in ports(7), are the way to build, package, and install third party software. To read more, see:
https://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en/books/porters-handbook/
The last one, src, revolves around the source code for the base system, consisting of the kernel, and the libraries and utilities commonly called the world.
The Committer's Guide, describing topics relevant to all committers, can be found at:
https://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en/articles/committers-guide/
FreeBSD src development takes place in the project-hosted Git repository, located at:
https://git.FreeBSD.org/src.git
The push URL is:
ssh://git@gitrepo.FreeBSD.org/src.git
There is also a public, read-only GitHub mirror at:
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src
The ‘main’ Git branch
represents CURRENT; all changes are first committed to CURRENT and then
usually cherry-picked back to STABLE, which refers to Git branches such as
‘stable/13’. Every few years the
CURRENT branch is renamed to STABLE, and a new CURRENT is branched, with an
incremented major version number. Releases are then branched off STABLE and
numbered with consecutive minor numbers.
Layout of the source tree is described in
hier(7). Build instructions can be found in
build(7) and
release(7). Kernel programming interfaces (KPIs) are documented in
section 9 manual pages; use ‘apropos -s 9
.’ for a list. Regression test suite is described in
tests(7). For coding conventions, see
style(9).
To ask questions regarding development, use the mailing lists, such as freebsd-arch@ and freebsd-hackers@:
To get your patches integrated into the main FreeBSD repository use Phabricator; it is a code review tool that allows other developers to review the changes, suggest improvements, and, eventually, allows them to pick up the change and commit it:
To check the latest FreeBSD build and test status of CURRENT and STABLE branches, the continuous integration system is at:
EXAMPLES
Check out the CURRENT branch, build it, and install, overwriting the current system:
git clone https://git.FreeBSD.org/src.git src cd src make -sj8 buildworld buildkernel installkernel shutdown -r now
After reboot:
cd src make -j8 installworld reboot
Rebuild and reinstall a single piece of userspace, in this case ls(1):
cd src/bin/ls make clean all install
Quickly rebuild and reinstall the kernel, only recompiling the files changed since last build; note that this will only work if the full kernel build has been completed in the past, not on a fresh source tree:
cd src make -sj8 kernel KERNFAST=1
To rebuild parts of FreeBSD for another CPU architecture, first prepare your source tree by building the cross-toolchain:
cd src make -sj8 toolchain TARGET_ARCH=armv6
Afterwards, to build and install a single piece of userspace, use:
cd src/bin/ls make buildenv TARGET_ARCH=armv6 make clean all install DESTDIR=/clients/arm
Likewise, to quickly rebuild and reinstall the kernel, use:
cd src make buildenv TARGET_ARCH=armv6 make -sj8 kernel KERNFAST=1 DESTDIR=/clients/arm
SEE ALSO
git(1), witness(4), build(7), hier(7), ports(7), release(7), tests(7), locking(9), style(9)
HISTORY
The development manual page was originally
written by Matthew Dillon
<dillon@FreeBSD.org>
and first appeared in FreeBSD 5.0, December 2002. It
was since extensively modified by Eitan Adler
<eadler@FreeBSD.org>
to reflect the repository conversion from
cvs(1) to svn(1). It was rewritten from scratch by
Edward Tomasz Napierala
<trasz@FreeBSD.org>
for FreeBSD 12.0.