FreeBSD “releases” can be built by anyone with a
fast machine and access to a source repository. (That should be
everyone, since we offer Subversion access! See the Subversion section in
the Handbook for details.) The only
special requirement is that the md(4) device must be
available. If the device is not loaded into your kernel, then the
kernel module should be automatically loaded when mdconfig(8)
is executed during the boot media creation phase. All of the
tools necessary to build a release are available from the
Subversion repository in src/release. These
tools aim to provide a consistent way to build FreeBSD releases. A
complete release can actually be built with only a single command,
including the creation of ISO images suitable
for burning to CDROM or DVD, and an FTP install directory.
release(7) fully documents the
src/release/generate-release.sh script which is
used to build a release. generate-release.sh
is a wrapper around the Makefile target: make
release.
release(7) documents the exact commands required to build a FreeBSD release. The following sequences of commands can build an 9.2.0 release:
#cd /usr/src/release#sh generate-release.sh release/9.2.0 /local3/release
After running these commands, all prepared release files are
available in /local3/release/R
directory.
The release Makefile can be broken down
into several distinct steps.
Creation of a sanitized system environment in a separate
directory hierarchy with “make
installworld”.
Checkout from Subversion of a clean version of the system source, documentation, and ports into the release build hierarchy.
Population of /etc and
/dev in the chrooted
environment.
chroot into the release build hierarchy, to make it harder for the outside environment to taint this build.
make world in the chrooted
environment.
Build of Kerberos-related binaries.
Build GENERIC kernel.
Creation of a staging directory tree where the binary distributions will be built and packaged.
Build and installation of the documentation toolchain needed to convert the documentation source (SGML) into HTML and text documents that will accompany the release.
Build and installation of the actual documentation (user manuals, tutorials, release notes, hardware compatibility lists, and so on.)
Package up distribution tarballs of the binaries and sources.
Create FTP installation hierarchy.
(optionally) Create ISO images for CDROM/DVD media.
For more information about the release build infrastructure, please see release(7).
It is important to remove any site-specific settings from
/etc/make.conf. For example, it would be
unwise to distribute binaries that were built on a system with
CPUTYPE set to a specific
processor.
The FreeBSD
Ports collection is a collection of over 24,000
third-party software packages available for FreeBSD. The
Ports Management Team <portmgr@FreeBSD.org> is responsible for maintaining a consistent ports
tree that can be used to create the binary packages that
accompany official FreeBSD releases.
Starting with FreeBSD 4.4, the FreeBSD Project decided to
release all four ISO images that were previously sold on the
BSDi/Wind River Systems/FreeBSD Mall
“official” CDROM distributions. Each of the four
discs must contain a README.TXT file that
explains the contents of the disc, a
CDROM.INF file that provides meta-data for
the disc so that bsdinstall(8) can validate and use the
contents, and a filename.txt file that
provides a manifest for the disc. This
manifest can be created with a simple
command:
/stage/cdrom#find . -type f | sed -e 's/^\.\///' | sort > filename.txt
The specific requirements of each CD are outlined below.
The first disc is almost completely created by
make release. The only changes that should
be made to the disc1 directory are the
addition of a tools directory, and as
many popular third party software packages as will fit on the
disc. The tools directory contains
software that allow users to create installation floppies from
other operating systems. This disc should be made bootable so
that users of modern PCs do not need to create installation
floppy disks.
If a custom kernel of FreeBSD is to be included, then
bsdinstall(8) and release(7) must be updated to
include installation instructions. The relevant code is
contained in src/release and
src/usr.sbin/bsdinstall. Specifically,
the file src/release/Makefile, and
dist.c, dist.h,
menus.c, install.c,
and Makefile will need to be updated
under src/usr.sbin/bsdinstall.
Optionally, you may choose to update
bsdinstall.8.
The second disc is also largely created by make
release. This disc contains a “live
filesystem” that can be used from bsdinstall(8)
to troubleshoot a FreeBSD installation. This disc should be
bootable and should also contain a compressed copy of the CVS
repository in the CVSROOT directory and
commercial software demos in the commerce
directory.
Sysinstall supports multiple
volume package installations. This requires that each disc
have an INDEX file containing all of the
packages on all volumes of a set, along with an extra field
that indicates which volume that particular package is on.
Each volume in the set must also have the
CD_VOLUME variable set in the
cdrom.inf file so that bsdinstall can
tell which volume is which. When a user attempts to install a
package that is not on the current disc, bsdinstall will
prompt the user to insert the appropriate one.
All FreeBSD documents are available for download at https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/doc/
Questions that are not answered by the
documentation may be
sent to <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>.
Send questions about this document to <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org>.