pkgsrc is a framework for building software for a variety of UNIX-like systems.

It produces binary packages, which can be managed with tools such as pkgin. pkgsrc is highly configurable, supporting building packages for an arbitrary installation prefix (the default is /usr/pkg), allowing multiple branches to coexist on one machine, a build options framework, and a compiler transformation framework, among other advanced features. Unprivileged use and installation is also supported.

pkgsrc is the default package manager for NetBSD and SmartOS. It's also supported as a first-class option in OmniOS CE and Oasis Linux.

To use pkgsrc on operating systems other than NetBSD, you first need to bootstrap:

cd pkgsrc/bootstrap
./bootstrap

Note that this is only for the most simple case, using pkgsrc's defaults.

Please consult bootstrap/README and bootstrap/README.OS for detailed information about bootstrapping.

cd pkgsrc/category/package-name
$PREFIX/bin/bmake install

Where $PREFIX is where you've chosen to install packages (typically /usr/pkg)

On NetBSD, bmake is simply the built-in make tool.

To build packages in bulk, tools such as pkgtools/pbulk and pkgtools/pkg_comp can be used.

• Join the community IRC channel #pkgsrc @ libera.chat.
• Join the community Matrix room #pkgsrc:netbsd.org
• Subscribe to the pkgsrc-users mailing list
• Send bugs and patches via web form (use the pkg category).

To fetch the main CVS repository:

cvs -d anoncvs@anoncvs.NetBSD.org:/cvsroot checkout -P pkgsrc

To work in the Git mirror, which is updated every few hours from CVS:

git clone https://github.com/NetBSD/pkgsrc.git

• pkgsrc guide - the authoritative document on pkgsrc, also available as doc/pkgsrc.txt
• pkgsrc in the NetBSD Wiki - miscellaneous articles and tutorials
• pkgsrc.se - a searchable web index of pkgsrc
• pkgsrc-wip - a project to get more people actively involved with creating packages for pkgsrc
• pkgsrc on Twitter - announcements to the world
• BulkTracker - a web application that tracks pkgsrc bulk builds