Committer's Guide | FreeBSD Documentation Portal

Committer's Guide | FreeBSD Documentation Portal
Committer's Guide
Copyright © 1999-2022 The FreeBSD Documentation Project
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Table of Contents
Abstract
This document provides information for the FreeBSD committer community.
All new committers should read this document before they start, and existing committers are strongly encouraged to review it from time to time.
Almost all FreeBSD developers have commit rights to one or more repositories.
However, a few developers do not, and some of the information here applies to them as well.
(For instance, some people only have rights to work with the Problem Report database.)
Please see
Issues Specific to Developers Who Are Not Committers
for more information.
This document may also be of interest to members of the FreeBSD community who want to learn more about how the project works.
1. Administrative Details
Login Methods
ssh(1)
, protocol 2 only
Main Shell Host
freefall.FreeBSD.org
Reference Machines
ref*.FreeBSD.org
universe*.freeBSD.org
(see also
FreeBSD Project Hosts
SMTP Host
smtp.FreeBSD.org:587
(see also
SMTP Access Setup
).
src/
Git Repository
ssh://git@gitrepo.FreeBSD.org/src.git
doc/
Git Repository
ssh://git@gitrepo.FreeBSD.org/doc.git
ports/
Git Repository
ssh://git@gitrepo.FreeBSD.org/ports.git
Internal Mailing Lists
developers (technically called all-developers), doc-developers, doc-committers, ports-developers, ports-committers, src-developers, src-committers. (Each project repository has its own -developers and -committers mailing lists. Archives for these lists can be found in the files
/local/mail/repository-name-developers-archive
and
/local/mail/repository-name-committers-archive
on
freefall.FreeBSD.org
.)
Core Team monthly reports
/home/core/public/reports
on the
FreeBSD.org
cluster.
Ports Management Team monthly reports
/home/portmgr/public/monthly-reports
on the
FreeBSD.org
cluster.
Noteworthy
src/
Git Branches:
stable/n
-STABLE),
main
(-CURRENT)
ssh(1)
is required to connect to the project hosts. For more information,
see
SSH Quick-Start Guide
Useful links:
FreeBSD Project Internal Pages
FreeBSD Project Hosts
FreeBSD Project Administrative Groups
2. OpenPGP Keys for FreeBSD
Cryptographic keys conforming to the OpenPGP (
Pretty Good Privacy
) standard are used by the FreeBSD project to authenticate committers.
Messages carrying important information like public SSH keys can be signed with the OpenPGP key to prove that they are really from the committer.
See
PGP & GPG: Email for the Practical Paranoid by Michael Lucas
and
for more information.
2.1. Creating a Key
Existing keys can be used, but should be checked with
documentation/tools/checkkey.sh
first.
In this case, make sure the key has a FreeBSD user ID.
For those who do not yet have an OpenPGP key, or need a new key to meet FreeBSD security requirements, here we show how to generate one.
Install
security/gnupg
. Enter these lines in
~/.gnupg/gpg.conf
to set minimum acceptable defaults for signing and new key preferences (see the
GnuPG options documentation
for more details):
# Sorted list of preferred algorithms for signing (strongest to weakest).
personal-digest-preferences SHA512 SHA384 SHA256 SHA224
# Default preferences for new keys
default-preference-list SHA512 SHA384 SHA256 SHA224 AES256 CAMELLIA256 AES192 CAMELLIA192 AES CAMELLIA128 CAST5 BZIP2 ZLIB ZIP Uncompressed
Generate a key:
% gpg
--full-gen-key
gpg
GnuPG
2.1.8
2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Warning: using insecure memory!
Please
select
what kind of key you want:
RSA and RSA
default
DSA and Elgamal
DSA
sign only
RSA
sign only
Your selection? 1
RSA keys may be between 1024 and 4096 bits long.
What keysize
do
you want?
2048
2048
(1)
Requested keysize is 2048 bits
Please specify how long the key should be valid.
key does not expire

key expires
in
n days
w
key expires
in
n weeks
m
key expires
in
n months
y
key expires
in
n years
Key is valid
for
3y
(2)
Key expires at Wed Nov 4 17:20:20 2015 MST
Is this correct?
y/N
GnuPG needs to construct a user ID to identify your key.

Real name: Chucky Daemon
(3)
Email address: notreal@example.com
Comment:
You selected this USER-ID:
"Chucky Daemon "
Change
ame,
omment,
mail or
kay/
uit? o
You need a Passphrase to protect your secret key.
2048-bit keys with a three-year expiration provide adequate protection at present (2022-10).
A three year key lifespan is short enough to obsolete keys weakened by advancing computer power, but long enough to reduce key management problems.
Use your real name here, preferably matching that shown on government-issued ID to make it easier for others to verify your identity. Text that may help others identify you can be entered in the
Comment
section.
After the email address is entered, a passphrase is requested.
Methods of creating a secure passphrase are contentious.
Rather than suggest a single way, here are some links to sites that describe various methods:
Protect the private key and passphrase.
If either the private key or passphrase may have been compromised or disclosed, immediately notify
accounts@FreeBSD.org
and revoke the key.
Committing the new key is shown in
Steps for New Committers
3. Kerberos and LDAP web Password for FreeBSD Cluster
The FreeBSD cluster requires a Kerberos password to access certain services.
The Kerberos password also serves as the LDAP web password, since LDAP is proxying to Kerberos in the cluster.
Some of the services which require this include:
Bugzilla
To create a new Kerberos account in the FreeBSD cluster, or to reset a Kerberos password for an existing account using a random password generator:
% ssh kpasswd.freebsd.org
This must be done from a machine outside of the FreeBSD.org cluster.
A Kerberos password can also be set manually by logging into
freefall.FreeBSD.org
and running:
% kpasswd
Unless the Kerberos-authenticated services of the FreeBSD.org cluster have been used previously,
Client unknown
will be shown.
This error means that the
ssh kpasswd.freebsd.org
method shown above must be used first to initialize the Kerberos account.
4. Commit Bit Types
The FreeBSD repository has a number of components which, when combined, support the basic operating system source, documentation, third party application ports infrastructure, and various maintained utilities.
When FreeBSD commit bits are allocated, the areas of the tree where the bit may be used are specified.
Generally, the areas associated with a bit reflect who authorized the allocation of the commit bit.
Additional areas of authority may be added at a later date: when this occurs, the committer should follow normal commit bit allocation procedures for that area of the tree, seeking approval from the appropriate entity and possibly getting a mentor for that area for some period of time.
Committer Type
Responsible
Tree Components
src
srcmgr@
src/
doc
doceng@
doc/, ports/, src/ documentation
ports
portmgr@
ports/
Commit bits allocated prior to the development of the notion of areas of authority may be appropriate for use in many parts of the tree.
However, common sense dictates that a committer who has not previously worked in an area of the tree seek review prior to committing, seek approval from the appropriate responsible party, and/or work with a mentor.
Since the rules regarding code maintenance differ by area of the tree, this is as much for the benefit of the committer working in an area of less familiarity as it is for others working on the tree.
Committers are encouraged to seek review for their work as part of the normal development process, regardless of the area of the tree where the work is occurring.
4.1. Policy for Committer Activity in Other Trees
All committers may modify
src/share/misc/committers-*.dot
src/usr.bin/calendar/calendars/calendar.freebsd
, and
ports/astro/xearth/files
doc committers may commit documentation changes to
src
files, such as manual pages, READMEs, fortune databases, calendar files, and comment fixes without approval from a src committer, subject to the normal care and tending of commits.
Any committer may make changes to any other tree with an "Approved by" from a non-mentored committer with the appropriate bit.
Mentored committers can provide a "Reviewed by" but not an "Approved by".
Committers can acquire an additional bit by the usual process of finding a mentor who will propose them to srcmgr, doceng, or portmgr, as appropriate. When approved, they will be added to 'access' and the normal mentoring period will ensue, which will involve a continuing of "Approved by" for some period.
4.1.1. Documentation Implicit (Blanket) Approval
Some types of fixes have "blanket approval" from the Documentation Engineering Team <
doceng@FreeBSD.org
>, allowing any committer to fix those categories of problems on any part of the doc tree.
These fixes do not need approval or review from a doc committer if the author doesn’t have a doc commit bit.
Blanket approval applies to these types of fixes:
Typos
Trivial fixes
Punctuation, URLs, dates, paths and file names with outdated or incorrect information, and other common mistakes that may confound the readers.
Over the years, some implicit approvals were granted in the doc tree.
This list shows the most common cases:
Changes in
documentation/content/en/books/porters-handbook/versions/_index.adoc
__FreeBSD_version Values (Porter’s Handbook)
, mainly used for src committers.
Changes in
doc/shared/contrib-additional.adoc
Additional FreeBSD Contributors
maintenance.
All
Steps for New Committers
, doc related
Security advisories; Errata Notices; Releases;
Used by Security Officer Team <
security-officer@FreeBSD.org
> and Release Engineering Team <
re@FreeBSD.org
>.
Changes in
website/content/en/donations/donors.adoc
Used by Donations Liaison Office <
donations@FreeBSD.org
>.
Before any commit, a build test is necessary; see the 'Overview' and 'The FreeBSD Documentation Build Process' sections of the
FreeBSD Documentation Project Primer for New Contributors
for more details.
5. Git Primer
5.1. Git basics
When one searches for "Git Primer" a number of good ones come up.
Daniel Miessler’s
A git primer
and Willie Willus'
Git - Quick Primer
are both good overviews.
The Git book is also complete, but much longer
There is also this website
for common traps and pitfalls of Git, in case you need guidance to fix things up.
Finally, an introduction
targeted at computer scientists
has proven helpful to some at explaining the Git world view.
This document will assume that you’ve read through it and will try not to belabor the basics (though it will cover them briefly).
5.2. Git Mini Primer
This primer is less ambitiously scoped than the old Subversion Primer, but should cover the basics.
5.2.1. Scope
If you want to download FreeBSD, compile it from sources, and generally keep up to date that way, this primer is for you.
It covers getting the sources, updating the sources, bisecting and touches briefly on how to cope with a few local changes.
It covers the basics, and tries to give good pointers to more in-depth treatment for when the reader finds the basics insufficient.
Other sections of this guide cover more advanced topics related to contributing to the project.
The goal of this section is to highlight those bits of Git needed to track sources.
They assume a basic understanding of Git.
There are many primers for Git on the web, but the
Git Book
provides one of the better treatments.
5.2.2. Getting Started For Developers
This section describes the read-write access for committers to push the commits from developers or contributors.
5.2.2.1. Daily use
In the examples below, replace
${repo}
with the name of the desired FreeBSD repository:
doc
ports
, or
src
Clone the repository:
% git clone
-o
freebsd
--config
remote.freebsd.fetch
'+refs/notes/*:refs/notes/*'
${
repo
.git
Then you should have the official mirrors as your remote:
% git remote
-v
freebsd https://git.freebsd.org/
${
repo
.git
fetch
freebsd https://git.freebsd.org/
${
repo
.git
push
Configure the FreeBSD committer data:
The commit hook in repo.freebsd.org checks the "Commit" field matches the committer’s information in FreeBSD.org.
The easiest way to get the suggested config is by executing
/usr/local/bin/gen-gitconfig.sh
script on freefall:
% gen-gitconfig.sh
...]
% git config user.name
your name
in
gecos
% git config user.email
your login
@FreeBSD.org
Set the push URL:
% git remote set-url
--push
freebsd git@gitrepo.freebsd.org:
${
repo
.git
Then you should have separated fetch and push URLs as the most efficient setup:
% git remote
-v
freebsd https://git.freebsd.org/
${
repo
.git
fetch
freebsd git@gitrepo.freebsd.org:
${
repo
.git
push
Again, note that
gitrepo.freebsd.org
has been canonicalized to
repo.freebsd.org
Install commit message template hook:
For doc repository:
cd
.git/hooks
ln
-s
../../.hooks/prepare-commit-msg
For ports repository:
% git config
--add
core.hooksPath .hooks
For src repository:
cd
.git/hooks
ln
-s
../../tools/tools/git/hooks/prepare-commit-msg
5.2.2.2. "admin" branch
The
access
and
mentors
files are stored in an orphan branch,
internal/admin
, in each repository.
Following example is how to check out the
internal/admin
branch to a local branch named
admin
% git config
--add
remote.freebsd.fetch
'+refs/internal/*:refs/internal/*'
% git fetch
% git checkout
-b
admin internal/admin
Alternatively, you can add a worktree for the
admin
branch:
git worktree add
-b
admin ../
${
repo
-admin
internal/admin
For browsing
internal/admin
branch on web:
For pushing, specify the full refspec:
git push freebsd HEAD:refs/internal/admin
5.2.3. Keeping Current With The FreeBSD src Tree
First step: cloning a tree.
This downloads the entire tree.
There are two ways to download.
Most people will want to do a deep clone of the repository.
However, there are times when you may wish to do a shallow clone.
5.2.3.1. Branch Names
FreeBSD-CURRENT uses the
main
branch.
main
is the default branch.
For FreeBSD-STABLE, branch names include
stable/12
and
stable/13
For FreeBSD-RELEASE, release engineering branch names include
releng/12.4
and
releng/13.2
shows:
main
and
stable/⋯
branches open
releng/⋯
branches, each of which is frozen when a release is tagged.
Examples:
tag
release/13.1.0
on the
releng/13.1
branch
tag
release/13.2.0
on the
releng/13.2
branch.
5.2.3.2. Repositories
Please see the
Administrative Details
for the latest information on where to get FreeBSD sources.
$URL below can be obtained from that page.
Note: The project doesn’t use submodules as they are a poor fit for our workflows and development model.
How we track changes in third-party applications is discussed elsewhere and generally of little concern to the casual user.
5.2.3.3. Deep Clone
A deep clone pulls in the entire tree, as well as all the history and branches.
It is the easiest to do.
It also allows you to use Git’s worktree feature to have all your active branches checked out into separate directories but with only one copy of the repository.
% git clone
-o
freebsd
$URL
-b
branch
]
— will create a deep clone.
branch
should be one of the branches listed in the previous section.
If no
branch
is given: the default (
main
) will be used.
If no

is given: the name of the new directory will match the name of the repo (
doc
ports
or
src
).
You will want a deep clone if you are interested in the history, plan on making local changes, or plan on working on more than one branch.
It is the easiest to keep up to date as well.
If you are interested in the history, but are working with only one branch and are short on space, you can also use --single-branch to only download the one branch
(though some merge commits will not reference the merged-from branch which may be important for some users who are interested in detailed versions of history).
5.2.3.4. Shallow Clone
A shallow clone copies just the most current code, but none or little of the history.
This can be useful when you need to build a specific revision of FreeBSD, or when you are just starting out and plan to track the tree more fully.
You can also use it to limit history to only so many revisions.
However, see below for a significant limitation of this approach.
% git clone
-o
freebsd
-b
branch
--depth
$URL
dir
This clones the repository, but only has the most recent version in the repository.
The rest of the history is not downloaded.
Should you change your mind later, you can do
git fetch --unshallow
to get the old history.
When you make a shallow clone, you will lose the commit count in your uname output.
This can make it more difficult to determine if your system needs to be updated when a security advisory is issued.
5.2.3.5. Building
Once you’ve downloaded, building is done as described in the handbook,
e.g.:
cd
src
% make buildworld
% make buildkernel
% make installkernel
% make installworld
so that won’t be covered in depth here.
If you want to build a custom kernel,
the kernel config section
of the FreeBSD Handbook recommends creating a file MYKERNEL under sys/${ARCH}/conf with your changes against GENERIC.
To have MYKERNEL disregarded by Git, it can be added to .git/info/exclude.
5.2.3.6. Updating
To update both types of trees uses the same commands.
This pulls in all the revisions since your last update.
% git pull
--ff-only
will update the tree.
In Git, a 'fast forward' merge is one that only needs to set a new branch pointer and doesn’t need to re-create the commits.
By always doing a fast forward merge/pull, you’ll ensure that you have an exact copy of the FreeBSD tree.
This will be important if you want to maintain local patches.
See below for how to manage local changes.
The simplest is to use
--autostash
on the
git pull
command, but more sophisticated options are available.
5.2.4. Selecting a Specific Version
In Git,
git checkout
checks out both branches and specific versions.
Git’s versions are the long hashes rather than a sequential number.
When you checkout a specific version, just specify the hash you want on the command line (the git log command can help you decide which hash you might want):
% git checkout 08b8197a74
and you have that checked out.
You will be greeted with a message similar to the following:
Note: checking out
'08b8197a742a96964d2924391bf9fdfeb788865d'
You are
in
'detached HEAD'
state. You can look around, make experimental
changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make
in
this
state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.

If you want to create a new branch to retain commits you create, you may
do
so
now or later
by using
-b
with the checkout
command
again. Example:

git checkout
-b

HEAD is now at 08b8197a742a hook gpiokeys.4 to the build
where the last line is generated from the hash you are checking out and the first line of the commit message from that revision.
The hash can be abbreviated to the shortest unique length.
Git itself is inconsistent about how many digits it displays.
5.2.5. Bisecting
Sometimes, things go wrong.
The last version worked, but the one you just updated to does not.
A developer may ask you to bisect the problem to track down which commit caused the regression.
Git makes bisecting changes easy with a powerful
git bisect
command.
Here’s a brief outline of how to use it.
For more information, you can view
or
for more details.
The man git-bisect page is good at describing what can go wrong, what to do when versions won’t build, when you want to use terms other than 'good' and 'bad', etc, none of which will be covered here.
git bisect start --first-parent
will start the bisection process.
Next, you need to tell a range to go through.
git bisect good XXXXXX
will tell it the working version and
git bisect bad XXXXX
will tell it the bad version.
The bad version will almost always be HEAD (a special tag for what you have checked out).
The good version will be the last one you checked out.
The
--first-parent
argument is necessary so that subsequent
git bisect
commands do not try to check out a vendor branch which lacks the full FreeBSD source tree.
If you want to know the last version you checked out, you should use
git reflog
5ef0bd68b515
HEAD -> main, freebsd/main, freebsd/HEAD
HEAD@
: pull
--ff-only
: Fast-forward
a8163e165c5b
upstream/main
HEAD@
: checkout: moving from b6fb97efb682994f59b21fe4efb3fcfc0e5b9eeb to main
...
shows me moving the working tree to the
main
branch (a816…​) and then updating from upstream (to 5ef0…​).
In this case, bad would be HEAD (or 5ef0bd68b515) and good would be a8163e165c5b.
As you can see from the output, HEAD@{1} also often works, but isn’t foolproof if you have done other things to your Git tree after updating, but before you discover the need to bisect.
Set the 'good' version first, then set the bad (though the order doesn’t matter).
When you set the bad version, it will give you some statistics on the process:
% git bisect start
--first-parent
% git bisect good a8163e165c5b
% git bisect bad HEAD
Bisecting: 1722 revisions left to
test
after this
roughly 11 steps
c427b3158fd8225f6afc09e7e6f62326f9e4de7e] Fixup r361997 by balancing parens. Duh.
You would then build/install that version.
If it’s good you’d type
git bisect good
otherwise
git bisect bad
If the version doesn’t compile, type
git bisect skip
You will get a similar message to the above after each step.
When you are done, report the bad version to the developer (or fix the bug yourself and send a patch).
git bisect reset
will end the process and return you back to where you started (usually tip of
main
).
Again, the git-bisect manual (linked above) is a good resource for when things go wrong or for unusual cases.
5.2.6. Signing the commits, tags, and pushes, with GnuPG
Git knows how to sign commits, tags, and pushes.
When you sign a Git commit or a tag, you can prove that the code you submitted came from you and wasn’t altered while you were transferring it.
You also can prove that you submitted the code and not someone else.
A more in-depth documentation on signing commits and tags can be found in the
Git Tools - Signing Your Work
chapter of the Git’s book.
The rationale behind signing pushes can be found in the
commit that introduced the feature
The best way is to simply tell Git you always want to sign commits, tags, and pushes.
You can do this by setting a few configuration variables:
% git config
--add
user.signingKey LONG-KEY-ID
% git config
--add
commit.gpgSign
true
% git config
--add
tag.gpgSign
true
% git config
--add
push.gpgSign
if
-asked
To avoid possible collisions, make sure you give a long key id to Git.
You can get the long id with:
gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format LONG
To use specific subkeys, and not have GnuPG to resolve the subkey to a primary key, attach
to the key.
For example, to encrypt for the subkey
DEADBEEF
, use
DEADBEEF!
5.2.6.1. Verifying signatures
Commit signatures can be verified by running either
git verify-commit
, or
git log --show-signature
Tag signatures can be verified with
git verify-tag
, or
git tag -v
5.2.7. Ports Considerations
The ports tree operates the same way.
The branch names are different and the repositories are in different locations.
The cgit repository web interface for use with web browsers is at
The production Git repository is at
and at ssh://anongit@git.FreeBSD.org/ports.git (or
anongit@git.FreeBSD.org:ports.git
).
There is also a mirror on GitHub, see
External mirrors
for an overview.
The
latest
branch is
main
The
quarterly
branches are named
yyyyQn
for year 'yyyy' and quarter 'n'.
5.2.7.1. Commit message formats
A hook is available in the ports repository to help you write up your commit messages in
.hooks/prepare-commit-message
It can be enabled by running
git config --add core.hooksPath .hooks
The main point being that a commit message should be formatted in the following way:
category/port: Summary.

Description of why the changes where made.

PR: 12345
The first line is the subject of the commit, it contains what port was changed, and a summary of the commit.
It should contain 50 characters or less.
A blank line should separate it from the rest of the commit message.
The rest of the commit message should be wrapped at the 72 characters boundary.
Another blank line should be added if there are any metadata fields, so that they are easily distinguishable from the commit message.
5.2.8. Managing Local Changes
This section addresses tracking local changes.
If you have no local changes you can skip this section.
One item that is important for all of them: all changes are local until pushed.
Unlike Subversion, Git uses a distributed model.
For users, for most things, there is very little difference.
However, if you have local changes, you can use the same tool to manage them as you use to pull in changes from FreeBSD.
All changes that you have not pushed are local and can easily be modified (git rebase, discussed below does this).
5.2.8.1. Keeping local changes
The simplest way to keep local changes (especially trivial ones) is to use
git stash
In its simplest form, you use
git stash
to record the changes (which pushes them onto the stash stack).
Most people use this to save changes before updating the tree as described above.
They then use
git stash apply
to re-apply them to the tree.
The stash is a stack of changes that can be examined with
git stash list
The git-stash man page (
) has all the details.
This method is suitable when you have tiny tweaks to the tree.
When you have anything non trivial, you’ll likely be better off keeping a local branch and rebasing.
Stashing is also integrated with the
git pull
command: just add
--autostash
to the command line.
5.2.8.2. Keeping a local branch
It is much easier to keep a local branch with Git than Subversion.
In Subversion you need to merge the commit, and resolve the conflicts.
This is manageable, but can lead to a convoluted history that’s hard to upstream should that ever be necessary, or hard to replicate if you need to do so.
Git also allows one to merge, along with the same problems.
That’s one way to manage the branch, but it’s the least flexible.
In addition to merging, Git supports the concept of 'rebasing' which avoids these issues.
The
git rebase
command replays all the commits of a branch at a newer location on the parent branch.
We will cover the most common scenarios that arise using it.
5.2.8.2.1. Create a branch
Let’s say you want to make a change to FreeBSD’s ls command to never, ever do color.
There are many reasons to do this, but this example will use that as a baseline.
The FreeBSD ls command changes from time to time, and you’ll need to cope with those changes.
Fortunately, with Git rebase it usually is automatic.
cd
src
% git checkout main
% git checkout
-b
no-color-ls
cd
bin/ls
% vi ls.c
# hack the changes in
% git diff
# check the changes
diff
--git
a/bin/ls/ls.c b/bin/ls/ls.c
index 7378268867ef..cfc3f4342531 100644
---
a/bin/ls/ls.c
+++ b/bin/ls/ls.c
@@
-66
,6 +66,7 @@ __FBSDID
$FreeBSD
$"
#include
#include
#include
+#undef COLORLS
#ifdef COLORLS
#include
#include
# these look good, make the commit...
% git commit ls.c
The commit will pop you into an editor to describe what you’ve done.
Once you enter that, you have your own
local
branch in the Git repo.
Build and install it like you normally would, following the directions in the handbook.
Git differs from other version control systems in that you have to tell it explicitly which files to commit.
I have opted to do it on the commit command line, but you can also do it with
git add
which many of the more in depth tutorials cover.
5.2.8.2.2. Time to update
When it is time to bring in a new version, it is almost the same as w/o the branches.
You would update like you would above, but there is one extra command before you update, and one after.
The following assumes you are starting with an unmodified tree.
It is important to start rebasing operations with a clean tree (Git requires this).
% git checkout main
% git pull
--ff-only
% git rebase
-i
main no-color-ls
This will bring up an editor that lists all the commits in it.
For this example, do not change it at all.
This is typically what you are doing while updating the baseline (though you also use the Git rebase command to curate the commits you have in the branch).
Once you are done with the above, you have to move the commits to ls.c forward from the old version of FreeBSD to the newer one.
Sometimes there are merge conflicts.
That is OK.
Do not panic.
Instead, handle them the same as any other merge conflicts.
To keep it simple, I will just describe a common issue that may arise.
A pointer to a complete treatment can be found at the end of this section.
Let’s say the includes changes upstream in a radical shift to terminfo as well as a name change for the option.
When you updated, you might see something like this:
Auto-merging bin/ls/ls.c
CONFLICT
content
: Merge conflict
in
bin/ls/ls.c
error: could not apply 646e0f9cda11... no color
ls
Resolve all conflicts manually, mark them as resolved with
"git add/rm "
then
run
"git rebase --continue"
You can instead skip this commit: run
"git rebase --skip"
To abort and get back to the state before
"git rebase"
, run
"git rebase --abort"
Could not apply 646e0f9cda11... no color
ls
which looks scary.
If you bring up an editor, you will see it is a typical 3-way merge conflict resolution that you may be familiar with from other source code systems (the rest of ls.c has been omitted):
<<<<<<
< HEAD
#ifdef COLORLS_NEW
#include
=======
#undef COLORLS
#ifdef COLORLS
#include
>>>>>>>
646e0f9cda11... no color
ls
The new code is first, and your code is second.
The right fix here is to just add a #undef COLORLS_NEW before #ifdef and then delete the old changes:
#undef COLORLS_NEW
#ifdef COLORLS_NEW
#include
save the file.
The rebase was interrupted, so you have to complete it:
% git add ls.c
% git rebase
--continue
which tells Git that ls.c has been fixed and to continue the rebase operation.
Since there was a conflict, you will get kicked into the editor to update the commit message if necessary.
If the commit message is still accurate, just exit the editor.
If you get stuck during the rebase, do not panic.
git rebase --abort will take you back to a clean slate.
It is important, though, to start with an unmodified tree.
An aside: The above mentioned
git reflog
comes in handy here, as it will have a list of all the (intermediate) commits that you can view or inspect or cherry-pick.
For more on this topic,
provides a rather extensive treatment.
It is a good resource for issues that arise occasionally but are too obscure for this guide.
5.2.8.3. Switching to a Different FreeBSD Branch
If you wish to shift from stable/12 to the current branch.
If you have a deep clone, the following will suffice:
% git checkout main
# build and install here...
If you have a local branch, though, there are one or two caveats.
First, rebase will rewrite history, so you will likely want to do something to save it.
Second, jumping branches tends to cause more conflicts.
If we pretend the example above was relative to stable/12, then to move to
main
, I’d suggest the following:
% git checkout no-color-ls
% git checkout
-b
no-color-ls-stable-12
# create another name for this branch
% git rebase
-i
stable/12 no-color-ls
--onto
main
What the above does is checkout no-color-ls.
Then create a new name for it (no-color-ls-stable-12) in case you need to get back to it.
Then you rebase onto the
main
branch.
This will find all the commits to the current no-color-ls branch (back to where it meets up with the stable/12 branch) and then it will
replay them onto the
main
branch creating a new no-color-ls branch there (which is why I had you create a place holder name).
5.3. MFC (Merge From Current) Procedures
5.3.1. Summary
MFC workflow can be summarized as
git cherry-pick -x
plus
git commit --amend
to adjust the commit message.
For multiple commits, use
git rebase -i
to squash them together and edit the commit message.
5.3.2. Single commit MFC
% git checkout stable/X
% git cherry-pick
-x
$HASH
--edit
For MFC commits, for example a vendor import, you would need to specify one parent for cherry-pick purposes.
Normally, that would be the "first parent" of the branch you are cherry-picking from, so:
% git checkout stable/X
% git cherry-pick
-x
$HASH
-m
--edit
If things go wrong, you’ll either need to abort the cherry-pick with
git cherry-pick --abort
or fix it up and do a
git cherry-pick --continue
Once the cherry-pick is finished, push with
git push
If you get an error due to losing the commit race, use
git pull --rebase
and try to push again.
5.3.3. MFC to RELENG branch
MFCs to branches that require approval require a bit more care.
The process is the same for either a typical merge or an exceptional direct commit.
Merge or direct commit to the appropriate
stable/X
branch first before merging to the
releng/X.Y
branch.
Use the hash that’s in the
stable/X
branch for the MFC to
releng/X.Y
branch.
Leave both "cherry picked from" lines in the commit message.
Be sure to add the
Approved by:
line when you are in the editor.
% git checkout releng/13.0
% git cherry-pick
-x
$HASH
--edit
If you forget to add the
Approved by:
line, you can do a
git commit --amend
to edit the commit message before you push the change.
5.3.4. Multiple commit MFC
% git checkout
-b
tmp-branch stable/X
for
in
$HASH_LIST
do
git cherry-pick
-x
$h
done
% git rebase
-i
stable/X
# mark each of the commits after the first as 'squash'
# Update the commit message to reflect all elements of commit, if necessary.
# Be sure to retain the "cherry picked from" lines.
% git push freebsd HEAD:stable/X
If the push fails due to losing the commit race, rebase and try again:
% git checkout stable/X
% git pull
% git checkout tmp-branch
% git rebase stable/X
% git push freebsd HEAD:stable/X
Once the MFC is complete, you can delete the temporary branch:
% git checkout stable/X
% git branch
-d
tmp-branch
5.3.5. MFC a vendor import
Vendor imports are the only thing in the tree that creates a merge commit in the
main
branch.
Cherry picking merge commits into stable/XX presents an additional difficulty because there are two parents for a merge commit.
Generally, you’ll want the first parent’s diff since that’s the diff to
main
(though there may be some exceptions).
% git cherry-pick
-x
-m
$HASH
is typically what you want.
This will tell cherry-pick to apply the correct diff.
There are some, hopefully, rare cases where it’s possible that the
main
branch was merged backwards by the conversion script.
Should that be the case (and we’ve not found any yet), you’d change the above to
-m 2
to pickup the proper parent.
Just do:
% git cherry-pick
--abort
% git cherry-pick
-x
-m
$HASH
to do that. The
--abort
will cleanup the failed first attempt.
5.3.6. Redoing a MFC
If you do a MFC, and it goes horribly wrong and you want to start over,
then the easiest way is to use
git reset --hard
like so:
% git reset
--hard
freebsd/stable/12
though if you have some revs you want to keep, and others you don’t,
using
git rebase -i
is better.
5.3.7. Considerations when MFCing
When committing source commits to stable and releng branches, we have the following goals:
Clearly mark direct commits distinct from commits that land a change from another branch.
Avoid introducing known breakage into stable and releng branches.
Allow developers to determine which changes have or have not been landed from one branch to another.
With Subversion, we used the following practices to achieve these goals:
Using
MFC
and
MFS
tags to mark commits that merged changes from another branch.
Squashing fixup commits into the main commit when merging a change.
Recording mergeinfo so that
svn mergeinfo --show-revs
worked.
With Git, we will need to use different strategies to achieve the same goals.
This document aims to define best practices when merging source commits using Git that achieve these goals.
In general, we aim to use Git’s native support to achieve these goals rather than enforcing practices built on Subversion’s model.
One general note: due to technical differences with Git, we will not be using Git "merge commits" (created via
git merge
) in stable or releng branches.
Instead, when this document refers to "merge commits", it means a commit originally made to
main
that is replicated or "landed" to a stable branch, or a commit from a stable branch that is replicated to a releng branch with some variation of
git cherry-pick
5.3.8. Finding Eligible Hashes to MFC
Git provides some built-in support for this via the
git cherry
and
git log --cherry
commands.
These commands compare the raw diffs of commits (but not other metadata such as log messages) to determine if two commits are identical.
This works well when each commit from
main
is landed as a single commit to a stable branch, but it falls over if multiple commits from
main
are squashed together as a single commit to a stable branch.
The project makes extensive use of
git cherry-pick -x
with all lines preserved to work around these difficulties and is working on automated tooling to take advantage of this.
5.3.9. Commit message standards
5.3.9.1. Marking MFCs
The project has adopted the following practice for marking MFCs:
Use the
-x
flag with
git cherry-pick
. This adds a line to the commit message that includes the hash of the original commit when merging. Since it is added by Git directly, committers do not have to manually edit the commit log when merging.
When merging multiple commits, keep all the "cherry picked from" lines.
5.3.9.2. Trim Metadata?
One area that was not clearly documented with Subversion (or even CVS) is how to format metadata in log messages for MFC commits.
Should it include the metadata from the original commit unchanged, or should it be altered to reflect information about the MFC commit itself?
Historical practice has varied, though some of the variance is by field.
For example, MFCs that are relevant to a PR generally include the PR field in the MFC so that MFC commits are included in the bug tracker’s audit trail.
Other fields are less clear.
For example, Phabricator shows the diff of the last commit tagged to a review, so including Phabricator URLs replaces the main commit with the landed commits.
The list of reviewers is also not clear.
If a reviewer has approved a change to
main
, does that mean they have approved the MFC commit? Is that true if it’s identical code only, or with merely trivial rework? It’s clearly not true for more extensive reworks.
Even for identical code what if the commit doesn’t conflict but introduces an ABI change? A reviewer may have ok’d a commit for
main
due to the ABI breakage but may not approve of merging the same commit as-is.
One will have to use one’s best judgment until clear guidelines can be agreed upon.
For MFCs regulated by re@, new metadata fields are added, such as the Approved by tag for approved commits.
This new metadata will have to be added via
git commit --amend
or similar after the original commit has been reviewed and approved.
We may also want to reserve some metadata fields in MFC commits such as Phabricator URLs for use by re@ in the future.
Preserving existing metadata provides a very simple workflow.
Developers use
git cherry-pick -x
without having to edit the log message.
If instead we choose to adjust metadata in MFCs, developers will have to edit log messages explicitly via the use of
git cherry-pick --edit
or
git commit --amend
However, as compared to svn, at least the existing commit message can be pre-populated and metadata fields can be added or removed without having to re-enter the entire commit message.
The bottom line is that developers will likely need to curate their commit message for MFCs that are non-trivial.
5.4. Vendor Imports with Git
This section describes the vendor import procedure with Git in detail.
5.4.1. Branch naming convention
All vendor branches and tags start with
vendor/
. These branches and tags are visible by default.
This chapter follows the convention that the
freebsd
origin is the origin name for the official FreeBSD Git repository.
If you use a different convention, replace
freebsd
with the name you use instead in the examples below.
We will explore an example for updating NetBSD’s mtree that is in our tree.
The vendor branch for this is
vendor/NetBSD/mtree
5.4.2. Updating an old vendor import
The vendor trees usually have only the subset of the third-party software that is appropriate to FreeBSD.
These trees are usually tiny in comparison to the FreeBSD tree.
Git worktrees are thus quite small and fast and the preferred method to use.
Make sure that whatever directory you choose below (the
../mtree
) does not currently exist.
% git worktree add ../mtree vendor/NetBSD/mtree
5.4.3. Update the Sources in the Vendor Branch
Prepare a full, clean tree of the vendor sources. Import everything but merge only what is needed.
This example assumes the NetBSD source is checked out from their GitHub mirror in
~/git/NetBSD
Note that "upstream" might have added or removed files, so we want to make sure deletions are propagated as well.
net/rsync
is commonly installed, so I’ll use that.
cd
../mtree
% rsync
-va
--del
--exclude
".git"
~/git/NetBSD/usr.sbin/mtree/
% git add
-A
% git status
...
% git diff
--staged
...
% git commit
-m
"Vendor import of NetBSD's mtree at 2020-12-11"
vendor/NetBSD/mtree 8e7aa25fcf1] Vendor import of NetBSD
's mtree at 2020-12-11
7 files changed, 114 insertions(+), 82 deletions(-)
% git tag -a vendor/NetBSD/mtree/20201211
It is critical to verify that the source code you are importing comes from a
trustworthy source. Many open-source projects use cryptographic signatures to
sign code changes, git tags, and/or source code tarballs. Always verify these
signatures, and use isolation mechanisms like jails, chroot, in combination with
a dedicated, non-privileged user account that is different from the one you
regularly use (see the Updating the FreeBSD source tree section below for
more details), until you are confident that the source code you are importing
looks safe. Following the upstream development and occasionally reviewing the
upstream code changes can greatly help in improving code quality and benefit
everyone involved. It is also a good idea to examine the git diff results
before importing them into the vendor area.
Always run the
git diff
and
git status
commands and examine the results
carefully. When in doubt, it is useful to do a
git annotate
on the vendor
branch or the upstream git repository to see who and why a change was made.
In the example above we used
-m
to illustrate, but you should compose a
proper message in an editor (using a commit message template).
It is also important to create an annotated tag using
git tag -a
, otherwise the push will be rejected.
Only annotated tags are allowed to be pushed.
The annotated tag gives you a chance to enter a commit message.
Enter the version you are importing, along with any salient new features or fixes in that version.
5.4.4. Updating the FreeBSD Copy
At this point you can push the import to
vendor
into our repo.
% git push
--follow-tags
freebsd vendor/NetBSD/mtree
--follow-tags
tells
git push
to also push tags associated with the locally committed revision.
5.4.5. Updating the FreeBSD source tree
Now you need to update the mtree in FreeBSD.
The sources live in
contrib/mtree
since it is upstream software.
From time to time, we may have to make changes to the contributed code to
better satisfy FreeBSD’s needs. Whenever possible, please try to contribute
the local changes back to the upstream projects, this helps them to better
support FreeBSD, and also saves your time for future conflict resolutions
when importing updates.
cd
../src
% git subtree merge
-P
contrib/mtree vendor/NetBSD/mtree
This would generate a subtree merge commit of
contrib/mtree
against the local
vendor/NetBSD/mtree
branch.
Examine the diff from the merge result and the contents of the
upstream branch. If the merge reduced our local changes to more
trivial difference like blank line or indenting changes, try amending
the local changes to reduce diff against upstream, or try to
contribute the remaining changes back to the upstream project.
If there were conflicts, you would need to fix them before committing.
Include details about the changes being merged in the merge commit message.
Some open-source software includes a
configure
script that generates files
used to define how the code is built; usually, these generated files like
config.h
should be updated as part of the import process. When doing
this, always keep in mind that these scripts are executable code running
under the current user’s credentials. This process should always be run
in an isolated environment, ideally inside a jail that does not have
network access, and with an unprivileged account; or, at minimum, a
dedicated account that is different from the user account you normally
use for everyday purposes or for pushing to the FreeBSD source
code repository. This minimizes the risk of encountering bugs that can
cause data loss or, in worse cases, maliciously planted code. Using an
isolated jail also prevents the configure scripts from detecting locally
installed software packages, which may lead to unexpected results.
When testing your changes, run them in a chroot or jailed environment,
or even within a virtual machine first, especially for kernel or library
modifications. This approach helps prevent adverse interactions with
your working environment. It can be particularly beneficial for
changes to libraries that many base system components use,
among others.
5.4.6. Rebasing your change against latest FreeBSD source tree
Because the current policy recommends against using merges, if the upstream FreeBSD
main
moved forward before you get a chance to push, you would have to redo the merge.
Regular
git rebase
or
git pull --rebase
doesn’t know how to rebase a merge commit
as a merge commit
so instead of that you would have to recreate the commit.
The following steps should be taken to easily recreate the merge commit as if
git rebase --merge-commits
worked properly:
cd to the top of the repo
Create a side branch
XXX
with the
contents
of the merged tree.
Update this side branch
XXX
to be merged and up-to-date with FreeBSD’s
main
branch.
In the worst case scenario, you would still have to resolve merge conflicts, if there was any, but this should be really rare.
Resolve conflicts, and collapse multiple commits down to 1 if need be (without conflicts, there’s no collapse needed)
checkout
main
create a branch
YYY
(allows for easier unwinding if things go wrong)
Re-do the subtree merge
Instead of resolving any conflicts from the subtree merge, checkout the contents of XXX on top of it.
The trailing
is important, as is being at the top level of the repo.
Rather than switching branches to XXX, it splats the contents of XXX on top of the repo
Commit the results with the prior commit message (the example assumes there’s only one merge on the XXX branch).
Make sure the branches are the same.
Do whatever review you need, including having others check it out if you think that’s needed.
Push the commit, if you 'lost the race' again, just redo these steps again (see below for a recipe)
Delete the branches once the commit is upstream. They are throw-a-way.
The commands one would use, following the above example of mtree, would be like so (the
starts a comment to help link commands to descriptions above):
cd
../src
# CD to top of tree
% git checkout
-b
XXX
# create new throw-away XXX branch for merge
% git fetch freebsd
# Get changes from upstream from upstream
% git merge freebsd/main
# Merge the changes and resolve conflicts
% git checkout
-b
YYY freebsd/main
# Create new throw-away YYY branch for redo
% git subtree merge
-P
contrib/mtree vendor/NetBSD/mtree
# Redo subtree merge
% git checkout XXX
# XXX branch has the conflict resolution
% git commit
-c
XXX~1
# -c reuses the commit message from commit before rebase
% git diff XXX YYY
# Should be empty
% git show YYY
# Should only have changes you want, and be a merge commit from vendor branch
Note: if things go wrong with the commit, you can reset the
YYY
branch by reissuing the checkout command that created it with -B to start over:
% git checkout
-B
YYY freebsd/main
# Create new throw-away YYY branch if starting over is just going to be easier
5.4.7. Pushing the changes
Once you think you have a set of changes that are good, you can push it to a fork off GitHub or GitLab for others to review.
One nice thing about Git is that it allows you to publish rough drafts of your work for others to review.
While Phabricator is good for content review, publishing the updated vendor branch and merge commits lets others check the details as they will eventually appear in the repository.
After review, when you are sure it is a good change, you can push it to the FreeBSD repo:
% git push freebsd YYY:main
# put the commit on upstream's 'main' branch
% git branch
-D
XXX
# Throw away the throw-a-way branches.
% git branch
-D
YYY
Note: I used
XXX
and
YYY
to make it obvious they are terrible names and should not leave your machine.
If you use such names for other work, then you’ll need to pick different names, or risk losing the other work.
There is nothing magic about these names.
Upstream will not allow you to push them, but never the less, please pay attention to the exact commands above.
Some commands use syntax that differs only slightly from typical uses and that different behavior is critical to this recipe working.
5.4.8. How to redo things if need be
If you’ve tried to do the push in the previous section and it fails, then you should do the following to 'redo' things.
This sequence keeps the commit with the commit message always at XXX~1 to make committing easier.
% git checkout
-B
XXX YYY
# recreate that throw-away-branch XXX and switch to it
% git merge freebsd/main
# Merge the changes and resolve conflicts
% git checkout
-B
YYY freebsd/main
# Recreate new throw-away YYY branch for redo
% git subtree merge
-P
contrib/mtree vendor/NetBSD/mtree
# Redo subtree merge
% git checkout XXX
# XXX branch has the conflict resolution
% git commit
-c
XXX~1
# -c reuses the commit message from commit before rebase
Then go check it out as above and push as above when ready.
5.5. Creating a new vendor branch
There are a number of ways to create a new vendor branch.
The recommended way is to create a new repository and then merge that with FreeBSD.
If one is importing
glorbnitz
into the FreeBSD tree, release 3.1415.
For the sake of simplicity, we will not trim this release.
It is a simple user command that puts the nitz device into different magical glorb states and is small enough trimming will not save much.
5.5.1. Create the repo
cd
/some/where
mkdir
glorbnitz
cd
glorbnitz
% git init
% git checkout
-b
vendor/glorbnitz
At this point, you have a new repo, where all new commits will go on the
vendor/glorbnitz
branch.
Git experts can also do this right in their FreeBSD clone, using
git checkout --orphan vendor/glorbnitz
if they are more comfortable with that.
5.5.2. Copy the sources in
Since this is a new import, you can just cp the sources in, or use tar or even rsync as shown above.
And we will add everything, assuming no dot files.
cp
-r
~/glorbnitz/
% git add
At this point, you should have a pristine copy of glorbnitz ready to commit.
% git commit
-m
"Import GlorbNitz frobnosticator revision 3.1415"
As above, I used
-m
for simplicity, but you should likely create a commit message that explains what a Glorb is and why you’d use a Nitz to get it.
Not everybody will know so, for your actual commit, you should follow the
commit log message
section instead of emulating the brief style used here.
5.5.3. Now import it into our repository
Now you need to import the branch into our repository.
cd
/path/to/freebsd/repo/src
% git remote add glorbnitz /some/where/glorbnitz
% git fetch glorbnitz vendor/glorbnitz
Note the vendor/glorbnitz branch is in the repo. At this point the
/some/where/glorbnitz
can be deleted, if you like.
It was only a means to an end.
5.5.4. Tag and push
Steps from here on out are much the same as they are in the case of updating a vendor branch, though without the updating the vendor branch step.
% git worktree add ../glorbnitz vendor/glorbnitz
cd
../glorbnitz
% git tag
--annotate
vendor/glorbnitz/3.1415
# Make sure the commit is good with "git show"
% git push
--follow-tags
freebsd vendor/glorbnitz
By 'good' we mean:
All the right files are present
None of the wrong files are present
The vendor branch points at something sensible
The tag looks good, and is annotated
The commit message for the tag has a quick summary of what’s new since the last tag
5.5.5. Time to finally merge it into the base tree
cd
../src
% git subtree add
-P
contrib/glorbnitz vendor/glorbnitz
# Make sure the commit is good with "git show"
% git commit
--amend
# one last sanity check on commit message
% git push freebsd
Here 'good' means:
All the right files, and none of the wrong ones, were merged into contrib/glorbnitz.
No other changes are in the tree.
The commit messages look
good
. It should contain a summary of what’s changed since the last merge to the FreeBSD
main
branch and any caveats.
RELNOTES
and
UPDATING
should be updated if there is anything of note, such as user visible changes, important upgrade concerns, etc.
This hasn’t connected
glorbnitz
to the build yet.
How so do that is specific to the software being imported and is beyond the scope of this tutorial.
5.5.5.1. Keeping current
So, time passes.
It’s time now to update the tree for the latest changes upstream.
When you checkout
main
make sure that you have no diffs.
It’s a lot easier to commit those to a branch (or use
git stash
) before doing the following.
If you are used to
git pull
, we strongly recommend using the
--ff-only
option, and further setting it as the default option.
Alternatively,
git pull --rebase
is useful if you have changes staged in the
main
branch.
% git config
--global
pull.ff only
You may need to omit the --global if you want this setting to apply to only this repository.
cd
freebsd-src
% git checkout main
% git pull
--ff-only
|--rebase
There is a common trap, that the combination command
git pull
will try to perform a merge, which would sometimes creates a merge commit that didn’t exist before.
This can be harder to recover from.
The longer form is also recommended.
cd
freebsd-src
% git checkout main
% git fetch freebsd
% git merge
--ff-only
freebsd/main
These commands reset your tree to the
main
branch, and then update it from where you pulled the tree from originally.
It’s important to switch to
main
before doing this so it moves forward.
Now, it’s time to move the changes forward:
% git rebase
-i
main working
This will bring up an interactive screen to change the defaults.
For now, just exit the editor.
Everything should just apply.
If not, then you’ll need to resolve the diffs.
This github document
can help you navigate this process.
5.5.5.2. Time to push changes upstream
First, ensure that the push URL is properly configured for the upstream repository.
% git remote set-url
--push
freebsd ssh://git@gitrepo.freebsd.org/src.git
Then, verify that user name and email are configured right.
We require that they exactly match the passwd entry in FreeBSD cluster.
Use
freefall% gen-gitconfig.sh
on freefall.freebsd.org to get a recipe that you can use directly, assuming /usr/local/bin is in the PATH.
The below command merges the
working
branch into the upstream
main
branch.
It’s important that you curate your changes to be just like you want them in the FreeBSD source repo before doing this.
This syntax pushes the
working
branch to
main
, moving the
main
branch forward.
You will only be able to do this if this results in a linear change to
main
(e.g. no merges).
% git push freebsd working:main
If your push is rejected due to losing a commit race, rebase your branch before trying again:
% git checkout working
% git fetch freebsd
% git rebase freebsd/main
% git push freebsd working:main
5.5.5.3. Time to push changes upstream (alternative)
Some people find it easier to merge their changes to their local
main
before pushing to the remote repository.
Also,
git arc stage
moves changes from a branch to the local
main
when you need to do a subset of a branch.
The instructions are similar to the prior section:
% git checkout main
% git merge
--ff-only
working
% git push freebsd
If you lose the race, then try again with
% git pull
--rebase
% git push freebsd
These commands will fetch the most recent
freebsd/main
and then rebase the local
main
changes on top of that, which is what you want when you lose the commit race.
Note: merging vendor branch commits will not work with this technique.
5.5.5.4. Finding the Subversion Revision
You’ll need to make sure that you’ve fetched the notes (see the
Daily use
for details).
Once you have these, notes will show up in the git log command like so:
% git log
If you have a specific version in mind, you can use this construct:
% git log
--grep
revision
XXXX
to find the specific revision.
The hex number after 'commit' is the hash you can use to refer to this commit.
5.6. Git FAQ
This section provides a number of targeted answers to questions that are likely to come up often for users and developers.
We use the common convention of having the origin for the FreeBSD repository being 'freebsd' rather than the default 'origin' to allow
people to use that for their own development and to minimize "whoops" pushes to the wrong repository.
5.6.1. Users
5.6.1.1. How do I track -current and -stable with only one copy of the repository?
Q:
Although disk space is not a huge issue, it’s more efficient to use only one copy of the repository.
With SVN mirroring, I could checkout multiple trees from the same repository.
How do I do this with Git?
A:
You can use Git worktrees.
There’s a number of ways to do this, but the simplest way is to use a clone to track -current, and a worktree to track stable releases.
While using a 'bare repository' has been put forward as a way to cope, it’s more complicated and will not be documented here.
First, you need to clone the FreeBSD repository, shown here cloning into
freebsd-current
to reduce confusion.
$URL is whatever mirror works best for you:
% git clone
-o
freebsd
--config
remote.freebsd.fetch
'+refs/notes/*:refs/notes/*'
$URL
freebsd-current
then once that’s cloned, you can simply create a worktree from it:
cd
freebsd-current
% git worktree add ../freebsd-stable-12 stable/12
this will checkout
stable/12
into a directory named
freebsd-stable-12
that’s a peer to the
freebsd-current
directory.
Once created, it’s updated very similarly to how you might expect:
cd
freebsd-current
% git checkout main
% git pull
--ff-only
# changes from upstream now local and current tree updated
cd
../freebsd-stable-12
% git merge
--ff-only
freebsd/stable/12
# now your stable/12 is up to date too
I recommend using
--ff-only
because it’s safer and you avoid accidentally getting into a 'merge nightmare' where you have an extra change in your tree, forcing a complicated merge rather than a simple one.
Here’s
a good writeup
that goes into more detail.
5.6.2. Developers
5.6.2.1. Ooops! I committed to
main
, instead of another branch.
Q:
From time to time, I goof up and mistakenly commit to the
main
branch. What do I do?
A:
First, don’t panic.
Second, don’t push.
In fact, you can fix almost anything if you haven’t pushed.
All the answers in this section assume no push has happened.
The following answer assumes you committed to
main
and want to create a branch called
issue
% git checkout
-b
issue
# Create the 'issue' branch
% git checkout
-B
main freebsd/main
# Reset main to upstream
% git checkout issue
# Back to where you were
5.6.2.2. Ooops! I committed something to the wrong branch!
Q:
I was working on feature on the
wilma
branch, but accidentally committed a change relevant to the
fred
branch in 'wilma'.
What do I do?
A:
The answer is similar to the previous one, but with cherry picking.
This assumes there’s only one commit on wilma, but will generalize to more complicated situations.
It also assumes that it’s the last commit on wilma (hence using wilma in the
git cherry-pick
command), but that too can be generalized.
# We're on branch wilma
% git checkout fred
# move to fred branch
% git cherry-pick wilma
# copy the misplaced commit
% git checkout wilma
# go back to wilma branch
% git reset
--hard
HEAD^
# move what wilma refers to back 1 commit
If it is not the last commit, you can cherry-pick that one change from wilma onto fred, then use
git rebase -i
to remove the change from wilma.
# We're on branch wilma
% git checkout fred
# move to fred branch
% git cherry-pick HASH_OF_CHANGE
# copy the misplaced commit
% git rebase
-i
main wilma
# drop the cherry-picked change
Q:
But what if I want to commit a few changes to
main
, but keep the rest in
wilma
for some reason?
A:
The same technique above also works if you are wanting to 'land' parts of the branch you are working on into
main
before the rest of the branch is ready (say you noticed an unrelated typo, or fixed an incidental bug).
You can cherry pick those changes into
main
, then push to the parent repository.
Once you’ve done that, cleanup couldn’t be simpler: just
git rebase -i
Git will notice you’ve done this and skip the common changes automatically (even if you had to change the commit message or tweak the commit slightly).
There’s no need to switch back to wilma to adjust it: just rebase!
Q:
I want to split off some changes from branch
wilma
into branch
fred
A:
The more general answer would be the same as the previous.
You’d checkout/create the
fred
branch, cherry pick the changes you want from
wilma
one at a time, then rebase
wilma
to remove those changes you cherry picked.
git rebase -i main wilma
will toss you into an editor, and remove the
pick
lines that correspond to the commits you copied to
fred
If all goes well, and there are no conflicts, you’re done.
If not, you’ll need to resolve the conflicts as you go.
The other way to do this would be to checkout
wilma
and then create the branch
fred
to point to the same point in the tree.
You can then
git rebase -i
both these branches, selecting the changes you want in
fred
or
wilma
by retaining the pick likes, and deleting the rest from the editor.
Some people would create a tag/branch called
pre-split
before starting in case something goes wrong in the split.
You can undo it with the following sequence:
% git checkout pre-split
# Go back
% git branch
-D
fred
# delete the fred branch
% git checkout
-B
wilma
# reset the wilma branch
% git branch
-d
pre-split
# Pretend it didn't happen
The last step is optional.
If you are going to try again to split, you’d omit it.
Q:
But I did things as I read along and didn’t see your advice at the end to create a branch, and now
fred
and
wilma
are all screwed up.
How do I find what
wilma
was before I started.
I don’t know how many times I moved things around.
A:
All is not lost. You can figure out it, so long as it hasn’t been too long, or too many commits (hundreds).
So I created a wilma branch and committed a couple of things to it, then decided I wanted to split it into fred and wilma.
Nothing weird happened when I did that, but let’s say it did.
The way to look at what you’ve done is with the
git reflog
% git reflog
6ff9c25
HEAD -> wilma
HEAD@
: rebase
-i
finish
: returning to refs/heads/wilma
6ff9c25
HEAD -> wilma
HEAD@
: rebase
-i
start
: checkout main
869cbd3 HEAD@
: rebase
-i
start
: checkout wilma
a6a5094
fred
HEAD@
: rebase
-i
finish
: returning to refs/heads/fred
a6a5094
fred
HEAD@
: rebase
-i
pick
: Encourage contributions
1ccd109
freebsd/main, main
HEAD@
: rebase
-i
start
: checkout main
869cbd3 HEAD@
: rebase
-i
start
: checkout fred
869cbd3 HEAD@
: checkout: moving from wilma to fred
869cbd3 HEAD@
: commit: Encourage contributions
...
Here we see the changes I’ve made.
You can use it to figure out where things went wrong.
I’ll just point out a few things here.
The first one is that HEAD@{X} is a 'commitish' thing, so you can use that as an argument to a command.
Although if that command commits anything to the repository, the X numbers change.
You can also use the hash (first column).
Next, 'Encourage contributions' was the last commit I made to
wilma
before I decided to split things up.
You can also see the same hash is there when I created the
fred
branch to do that.
I started by rebasing
fred
and you see the 'start', each step, and the 'finish' for that process.
While we don’t need it here, you can figure out exactly what happened.
Fortunately, to fix this, you can follow the prior answer’s steps, but with the hash
869cbd3
instead of
pre-split
While that seems a bit verbose, it’s easy to remember since you’re doing one thing at a time.
You can also stack:
% git checkout
-B
wilma 869cbd3
% git branch
-D
fred
and you are ready to try again.
The
checkout -B
with the hash combines checking out and creating a branch for it.
The
-B
instead of
-b
forces the movement of a pre-existing branch.
Either way works, which is what’s great (and awful) about Git.
One reason I tend to use
git checkout -B xxxx hash
instead of checking out the hash, and then creating / moving the branch is purely to avoid the slightly distressing message about detached heads:
% git checkout 869cbd3
M faq.md
Note: checking out
'869cbd3'
You are
in
'detached HEAD'
state. You can look around, make experimental
changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make
in
this
state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.

If you want to create a new branch to retain commits you create, you may
do
so
now or later
by using
-b
with the checkout
command
again. Example:

git checkout
-b

HEAD is now at 869cbd3 Encourage contributions
% git checkout
-B
wilma
this produces the same effect, but I have to read a lot more and severed heads aren’t an image I like to contemplate.
5.6.2.3. Ooops! I did a
git pull
and it created a merge commit, what do I do?
Q:
I was on autopilot and did a
git pull
for my development tree and that created a merge commit on
main
How do I recover?
A:
This can happen when you invoke the pull with your development branch checked out.
Many developers use
git pull --rebase
to avoid this situation.
Right after the pull, you will have the new merge commit checked out.
Git supports a
HEAD^#
syntax to examine the parents of a merge commit:
git log
--oneline
HEAD^1
# Look at the first parent's commits
git log
--oneline
HEAD^2
# Look at the second parent's commits
From those logs, you can easily identify which commit is your development work.
Then you simply reset your branch to the corresponding
HEAD^#
git reset
--hard
HEAD^1
In addition, a
git pull --rebase
at this stage will rebase your changes to 'main' to the latest 'freebsd/main'.
Q:
But I also need to fix my
main
branch. How do I do that?
A:
Git keeps track of the remote repository branches in a
freebsd/
namespace.
To fix your
main
branch, just make it point to the remote’s
main
git branch
-f
main freebsd/main
There’s nothing magical about branches in Git: they are just labels on a graph that are automatically moved forward by making commits.
So the above works because you’re just moving a label.
There’s no metadata about the branch that needs to be preserved due to this.
5.6.2.4. Mixing and matching branches
Q:
So I have two branches
worker
and
async
that I’d like to combine into one branch called
feature
while maintaining the commits in both.
A:
This is a job for cherry pick.
% git checkout worker
% git checkout
-b
feature
# create a new branch
% git cherry-pick main..async
# bring in the changes
You now have a new branch called
feature
This branch combines commits from both branches.
You can further curate it with
git rebase
Q:
I have a branch called
driver
and I’d like to break it up into
kernel
and
userland
so I can evolve them separately and commit each branch as it becomes ready.
A:
This takes a little bit of prep work, but
git rebase
will do the heavy
lifting here.
% git checkout driver
# Checkout the driver
% git checkout
-b
kernel
# Create kernel branch
% git checkout
-b
userland
# Create userland branch
Now you have two identical branches.
So, it’s time to separate out the commits.
We’ll assume first that all the commits in
driver
go into either the
kernel
or the
userland
branch, but not both.
% git rebase
-i
main kernel
and just include the changes you want (with a 'p' or 'pick' line) and just delete the commits you don’t (this sounds scary, but if worse comes to worse, you can throw this all away and start over with the
driver
branch since you’ve not yet moved it).
% git rebase
-i
main userland
and do the same thing you did with the
kernel
branch.
Q:
Oh great! I followed the above and forgot a commit in the
kernel
branch.
How do I recover?
A:
You can use the
driver
branch to find the hash of the commit is missing and
cherry pick it.
% git checkout kernel
% git log driver
% git cherry-pick
$HASH
Q:
OK. I have the same situation as the above, but my commits are all mixed up.
I need parts of one commit to go to one branch and the rest to go to the other.
In fact, I have several.
Your rebase method to select sounds tricky.
A:
In this situation, you’d be better off to curate the original branch to separate
out the commits, and then use the above method to split the branch.
So let’s assume that there’s just one commit with a clean tree.
You can either use
git rebase
with an
edit
line, or you can use this with the commit on the tip.
The steps are the same either way.
The first thing we need to do is to back up one commit while leaving the changes uncommitted in the tree:
% git reset HEAD^
Note: Do not, repeat do not, add
--hard
here since that also removes the changes from your tree.
Now, if you are lucky, the change needing to be split up falls entirely along file lines.
In that case you can just do the usual
git add
for the files in each group than do a
git commit
Note: when you do this, you’ll lose the commit message when you do the reset, so if you need it for some reason, you should save a copy (though
git log $HASH
can recover it).
If you are not lucky, you’ll need to split apart files.
There’s another tool to do that which you can apply one file at a time.
git add
-i
foo/bar.c
will step through the diffs, prompting you, one at time, whether to include or exclude the hunk.
Once you’re done,
git commit
and you’ll have the remainder in your tree.
You can run it multiple times as well, and even over multiple files (though I find it easier to do one file at a time
and use the
git rebase -i
to fold the related commits together).
5.6.2.5. Joining the FreeBSD GitHub oranization.
Q:
How do I join the FreeBSD GitHub organization?
A:
Please see
our GitHub Wiki Info
page for details.
Briefly, all FreeBSD committers may join.
Those who are not committers who request joining will be considered on a case by case basis.
5.6.3. Cloning and Mirroring
Q:
I’d like to mirror the entire Git repository, how do I do that?
A:
If all you want to do is mirror, then
% git clone
--mirror
$URL
will do the trick.
However, there are two disadvantages to this if you want to use it for anything other than a mirror you’ll reclone.
First, this is a 'bare repository' which has the repository database, but no checked out worktree.
This is great for mirroring, but terrible for day to day work.
There’s a number of ways around this with
git worktree
% git clone
--mirror
cd
ports.git
% git worktree add ../ports main
% git worktree add ../quarterly branches/2020Q4
cd
../ports
But if you aren’t using your mirror for further local clones, then it’s a poor match.
The second disadvantage is that Git normally rewrites the refs (branch name, tags, etc) from upstream so that your local refs can evolve independently of upstream.
This means that you’ll lose changes if you are committing to this repository on anything other than private project branches.
Q:
So what can I do instead?
A:
Well, you can stuff all of the upstream repository’s refs into a private namespace in your local repository.
Git clones everything via a 'refspec' and the default refspec is:
fetch
+refs/heads/
:refs/remotes/freebsd/
which says just fetch the branch refs.
However, the FreeBSD repository has a number of other things in it.
To see those, you can add explicit refspecs for each ref namespace, or you can fetch everything.
To setup your repository to do that:
git config
--add
remote.freebsd.fetch
'+refs/*:refs/freebsd/*'
which will put everything in the upstream repository into your local repository’s
refs/freebsd/
namespace.
Please note, that this also grabs all the unconverted vendor branches and the number of refs associated with them is quite large.
You’ll need to refer to these 'refs' with their full name because they aren’t in and of Git’s regular namespaces.
git log refs/freebsd/vendor/zlib/1.2.10
would look at the log for the vendor branch for zlib starting at 1.2.10.
5.7. Collaborating with others
One of the keys to good software development on a project as large as FreeBSD is the ability to collaborate with others before you push your changes to the tree.
The FreeBSD project’s Git repositories do not, yet, allow user-created branches to be pushed to the repository, and therefore if you wish to share your changes with others you must use another mechanism, such as a hosted GitLab or GitHub, to share changes in a user-generated branch.
The following instructions show how to set up a user-generated branch, based on the FreeBSD
main
branch, and push it to GitHub.
Before you begin, make sure that your local Git repo is up to date and has the
correct origins set
as shown above
% git remote
-v
freebsd https://git.freebsd.org/src.git
fetch
freebsd ssh://git@gitrepo.freebsd.org/src.git
push
The first step is to create a fork of
FreeBSD
on GitHub following these
guidelines
The destination of the fork should be your own, personal, GitHub account (gvnn3 in my case).
Now add a remote on your local system that points to your fork:
% git remote add github git@github.com:gvnn3/freebsd-src.git
% git remote
-v
github git@github.com:gvnn3/freebsd-src.git
fetch
github git@github.com:gvnn3/freebsd-src.git
push
freebsd https://git.freebsd.org/src.git
fetch
freebsd ssh://git@gitrepo.freebsd.org/src.git
push
With this in place you can create a branch
as shown above
% git checkout
-b
gnn-pr2001-fix
Make whatever modifications you wish in your branch. Build, test, and once you’re ready to collaborate with others it’s time to push your changes into your hosted branch.
Before you can push you’ll have to set the appropriate upstream, as Git will tell you the first time you try to push to your github remote:
% git push github
fatal: The current branch gnn-pr2001-fix has no upstream branch.
To push the current branch and
set
the remote as upstream, use

git push
--set-upstream
github gnn-pr2001-fix
Setting the push as git advises allows it to succeed:
% git push
--set-upstream
github gnn-feature
Enumerating objects: 20486,
done
Counting objects: 100%
20486/20486
done
Delta compression using up to 8 threads
Compressing objects: 100%
12202/12202
done
Writing objects: 100%
20180/20180
, 56.25 MiB | 13.15 MiB/s,
done
Total 20180
delta 11316
, reused 12972
delta 7770
, pack-reused 0
remote: Resolving deltas: 100%
11316/11316
, completed with 247
local
objects.
remote:
remote: Create a pull request
for
'gnn-feature'
on GitHub by visiting:
remote: https://github.com/gvnn3/freebsd-src/pull/new/gnn-feature
remote:
To github.com:gvnn3/freebsd-src.git
new branch] gnn-feature -> gnn-feature
Branch
'gnn-feature'
set
up to track remote branch
'gnn-feature'
from
'github'
Subsequent changes to the same branch will push correctly by default:
% git push
Enumerating objects: 4,
done
Counting objects: 100%
4/4
done
Delta compression using up to 8 threads
Compressing objects: 100%
2/2
done
Writing objects: 100%
3/3
, 314 bytes | 1024 bytes/s,
done
Total 3
delta 1
, reused 1
delta 0
, pack-reused 0
remote: Resolving deltas: 100%
1/1
, completed with 1
local
object.
To github.com:gvnn3/freebsd-src.git
9e5243d7b659..cf6aeb8d7dda gnn-feature -> gnn-feature
At this point your work is now in your branch on GitHub and you can
share the link with other collaborators.
5.8. Landing a github pull request
This section documents how to land a GitHub pull request that’s submitted against the FreeBSD Git mirrors at GitHub.
While this is not an official way to submit patches at this time, sometimes good fixes come in this way and it is easiest just to bring them into a committer’s tree and have them pushed into the FreeBSD’s tree from there.
Similar steps can be used to pull branches from other repositories and land those.
When committing pull requests from others, one should take extra care to examine all the changes to ensure they are exactly as represented.
Before beginning, make sure that the local Git repo is up to date and has the
correct origins set
as shown above
In addition, make sure to have the following origins:
% git remote
-v
freebsd https://git.freebsd.org/src.git
fetch
freebsd ssh://git@gitrepo.freebsd.org/src.git
push
github https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src
fetch
github https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src
fetch
Often pull requests are simple: requests that contain only a single commit.
In this case, a streamlined approach may be used, though the approach in the prior section will also work.
Here, a branch is created, the change is cherry picked, the commit message adjusted, and sanity-checked before being pushed.
The branch
staging
is used in this example but it can be any name.
This technique works for any number of commits in the pull request, especially when the changes apply cleanly to the FreeBSD tree.
However, when there’s multiple commits, especially when minor adjustments are needed,
git rebase -i
works better than
git cherry-pick
Briefly, these commands create a branch; cherry-picks the changes from the pull request; tests it; adjusts the commit messages; and fast forward merges it back to
main
The PR number is
$PR
below.
When adjusting the message, add
Pull Request:
All pull requests committed to the FreeBSD repository should be reviewed by at least one person.
This need not be the person committing it, but in that case the person committing it should trust the other reviewers competence to review the commit.
Committers that do a code review of pull requests before pushing them into the repo should add a
Reviewed by:
line to the commit, because in this case it is not implicit.
Add anybody that reviews and approves the commit on github to
Reviewed by:
as well.
As always, care should be taken to ensure the change does what it is supposed to, and that no malicious code is present.
In addition, please check to make sure that the pull request author name is not anonymous.
Github’s web editing interface generates names like:
Author: github-user <38923459+github-user@users.noreply.github.com>
A polite request to the author for a better name and/or email should be made.
Extra care should be taken to ensure no style issue or malicious code is introduced.
% git fetch github pull/
$PR
/head:staging
% git rebase
-i
main staging
# to move the staging branch forward, adjust commit message here
do
testing here, as needed>
% git checkout main
% git pull
--ff-only
# to get the latest if time has passed
% git checkout main
% git merge
--ff-only
staging
test
again
if
needed>
% git push freebsd
--push-option
confirm-author
For complicated pull requests that have multiple commits with conflicts, follow the following outline.
checkout the pull request
git checkout github/pull/XXX
create a branch to rebase
git checkout -b staging
rebase the
staging
branch to the latest
main
with
git rebase -i main staging
resolve conflicts and do whatever testing is needed
fast forward the
staging
branch into
main
as above
final sanity check of changes to make sure all is well
push to FreeBSD’s Git repository.
This will also work when bringing branches developed elsewhere into the local tree for committing.
Once finished with the pull request, close it using GitHub’s web interface.
It is worth noting that if your
github
origin uses
, the only step you’ll need a GitHub account for is closing the pull request.
6. Version Control History
The project has moved to
git
The FreeBSD source repository switched from CVS to Subversion on May 31st, 2008.
The first real SVN commit is
r179447
The source repository switched from Subversion to Git on December 23rd, 2020.
The last real svn commit is
r368820
The first real git commit hash is
5ef5f51d2bef80b0ede9b10ad5b0e9440b60518c
The FreeBSD
doc/www
repository switched from CVS to Subversion on May 19th, 2012.
The first real SVN commit is
r38821
The documentation repository switched from Subversion to Git on December 8th, 2020.
The last SVN commit is
r54737
The first real git commit hash is
3be01a475855e7511ad755b2defd2e0da5d58bbe
The FreeBSD
ports
repository switched from CVS to Subversion on July 14th, 2012.
The first real SVN commit is
r300894
The ports repository switched from Subversion to Git on April 6, 2021.
The last SVN commit is
r569609
The first real git commit hash is
ed8d3eda309dd863fb66e04bccaa513eee255cbf
7. Setup, Conventions, and Traditions
There are a number of things to do as a new developer.
The first set of steps is specific to committers only.
These steps must be done by a mentor for those who are not committers.
7.1. For New Committers
Those who have been given commit rights to the FreeBSD repositories must follow these steps.
Get mentor approval before committing each of these changes!
All
src
commits go to FreeBSD-CURRENT first before being merged to FreeBSD-STABLE. The FreeBSD-STABLE branch must maintain ABI and API compatibility with earlier versions of that branch. Do not merge changes that break this compatibility.
Steps for New Committers
Add an Author Entity
doc/shared/authors.adoc
- Add an author entity. Later steps depend on this entity, and missing this step will cause the
doc/
build to fail. This is a relatively easy task, but remains a good first test of version control skills.
Update the List of Developers and Contributors
doc/shared/contrib-committers.adoc
- Add an entry, which will then appear in the "Developers" section of the
Contributors List
. Entries are sorted by last name.
doc/shared/contrib-additional.adoc
Remove
the entry. Entries are sorted by first name.
Add a News Item
doc/website/data/en/news/news.toml
- Add an entry. Look for the other entries that announce new committers and follow the format. Use the date from the commit bit approval email.
Add a PGP Key
Dag-Erling Smørgrav <
des@FreeBSD.org
has written a shell script (
doc/documentation/tools/addkey.sh
) to make this easier. See the
README
file for more information.
Use
doc/documentation/tools/checkkey.sh
to verify that keys meet minimal best-practices standards.
After adding and checking a key, add both updated files to source control and then commit them. Entries in this file are sorted by last name.
It is very important to have a current PGP/GnuPG key in the repository. The key may be required for positive identification of a committer. For example, the
FreeBSD Administrators <
admins@FreeBSD.org
might need it for account recovery. A complete keyring of
FreeBSD.org
users is available for download from
Update Mentor and Mentee Information
src/share/misc/committers-.dot
- Add an entry to the current committers section, where
repository
is
doc
ports
, or
src
, depending on the commit privileges granted.
Add an entry for each additional mentor/mentee relationship in the bottom section.
Update git mailmap file
src/.mailmap
doc/.mailmap
, and
ports/.mailmap
- Add an entry for commits you created prior to becoming a FreeBSD committer.
Mapping to your FreeBSD address allows us to track external committers who may be ready for a commit bit more easily.
You can also use this to correct old names, mispelled names, etc in the default
git log
output.
Generate a Kerberos Password
See
Kerberos and LDAP web Password for FreeBSD Cluster
to generate or set a Kerberos account for use with other FreeBSD services like the
bug-tracking database
(you get a bug-tracking account as part of that step).
Optional: Enable Wiki Account
FreeBSD Wiki
Account - A wiki account allows sharing projects and ideas.
Those who do not yet have an account can follow instructions on the
Wiki/About page
to obtain one.
Contact
wiki-admin@FreeBSD.org
if you need help with your Wiki account.
Optional: Update Wiki Information
Wiki Information - After gaining access to the wiki, some people add entries to the
How We Got Here
IRC Nicks
Dogs of FreeBSD
, and or
Cats of FreeBSD
pages.
Optional: Update Ports with Personal Information
ports/astro/xearth/files/freebsd.committers.markers
and
src/usr.bin/calendar/calendars/calendar.freebsd
- Some people add entries for themselves to these files to show where they are located or the date of their birthday.
Optional: Prevent Duplicate Mailings
Subscribers to
Commit messages for all branches of the doc repository
Commit messages for all branches of the ports repository
or
Commit messages for all branches of the src repository
might wish to unsubscribe to avoid receiving duplicate copies of commit messages and followups.
7.2. For Everyone
Introduce yourself to the other developers, otherwise no one will have any idea who you are or what you are working on. The introduction need not be a comprehensive biography, just write a paragraph or two about who you are, what you plan to be working on as a developer in FreeBSD, and who will be your mentor. Email this to the FreeBSD developers mailing list and you will be on your way!
Log into
freefall.FreeBSD.org
and create a
/var/forward/user
(where
user
is your username) file containing the e-mail address where you want mail addressed to
yourusername
@FreeBSD.org to be forwarded. This includes all of the commit messages as well as any other mail addressed to the FreeBSD committer’s mailing list and the FreeBSD developers mailing list. Really large mailboxes which have taken up permanent residence on
freefall
may get truncated without warning if space needs to be freed, so forward it or save it elsewhere.
If your e-mail system uses SPF with strict rules, you should exclude
mx2.FreeBSD.org
from SPF checks.
Due to the severe load dealing with SPAM places on the central mail servers that do the mailing list processing, the front-end server does do some basic checks and will drop some messages based on these checks. At the moment proper DNS information for the connecting host is the only check in place but that may change. Some people blame these checks for bouncing valid email. To have these checks turned off for your email, create a file named
~/.spam_lover
on
freefall.FreeBSD.org
Those who are developers but not committers will not be subscribed to the committers or developers mailing lists. The subscriptions are derived from the access rights.
7.2.1. SMTP Access Setup
For those willing to send e-mail messages through the FreeBSD.org infrastructure, follow the instructions below:
Point your mail client at
smtp.FreeBSD.org:587
Enable STARTTLS.
Ensure your
From:
address is set to
yourusername
@FreeBSD.org
For authentication, you can use your FreeBSD Kerberos username and password
(see
Kerberos and LDAP web Password for FreeBSD Cluster
). The
yourusername
/mail
principal is preferred, as it is only valid for authenticating to mail resources.
Do not include
@FreeBSD.org
when entering in your username.
Additional Notes
Will only accept mail from
yourusername
@FreeBSD.org
. If you are authenticated as one user, you are not permitted to send mail from another.
A header will be appended with the SASL username: (
Authenticated sender:
username
).
Host has various rate limits in place to cut down on brute force attempts.
7.2.1.1. Using a Local MTA to Forward Emails to the FreeBSD.org SMTP Service
It is also possible to use a local MTA to forward locally sent emails to the FreeBSD.org SMTP servers.
Example 1. Using Postfix
To tell a local Postfix instance that anything from
yourusername
@FreeBSD.org
should be forwarded to the FreeBSD.org servers, add this to your
main.cf
sender_dependent_relayhost_maps = hash:/usr/local/etc/postfix/relayhost_maps
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/usr/local/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_use_tls = yes
Create
/usr/local/etc/postfix/relayhost_maps
with the following content:
yourusername@FreeBSD.org [smtp.freebsd.org]:587
Create
/usr/local/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
with the following content:
[smtp.freebsd.org]:587 yourusername:yourpassword
If the email server is used by other people, you may want to prevent them from sending e-mails from your address. To achieve this, add this to your
main.cf
smtpd_sender_login_maps = hash:/usr/local/etc/postfix/sender_login_maps
smtpd_sender_restrictions = reject_known_sender_login_mismatch
Create
/usr/local/etc/postfix/sender_login_maps
with the following content:
yourusername@FreeBSD.org yourlocalusername
Where
yourlocalusername
is the SASL username used to connect to the local instance of Postfix.
Example 2. Using OpenSMTPD
To tell a local OpenSMTPD instance that anything from
yourusername
@FreeBSD.org
should be forwarded to the FreeBSD.org servers, add this to your
smtpd.conf
action "freebsd" relay host smtp+tls://freebsd@smtp.freebsd.org:587 auth
match from any auth yourlocalusername mail-from "_yourusername_@freebsd.org" for any action "freebsd"
Where
yourlocalusername
is the SASL username used to connect to the local instance of OpenSMTPD.
Create
/usr/local/etc/mail/secrets
with the following content:
freebsd yourusername:yourpassword
Example 3. Using Exim
To direct a local Exim instance to forward all mail from
example
@FreeBSD.org
to FreeBSD.org servers, add this to Exim
configuration
Routers section: (at the top of the list):
freebsd_send:
driver = manualroute
domains = !+local_domains
transport = freebsd_smtp
route_data = ${lookup {${lc:$sender_address}} lsearch {/usr/local/etc/exim/freebsd_send}}

Transport Section:
freebsd_smtp:
driver = smtp
tls_certificate=
tls_privatekey=
tls_require_ciphers = EECDH+ECDSA+AESGCM:EECDH+aRSA+AESGCM:EECDH+ECDSA+SHA384:EECDH+ECDSA+SHA256:EECDH+aRSA+SHA384:EECDH+aRSA+SHA256:EECDH+AESGCM:EECDH:EDH+AESGCM:EDH+aRSA:HIGH:!MEDIUM:!LOW:!aNULL:!eNULL:!LOW:!RC4:!MD5:!EXP:!PSK:!SRP:!DSS
dkim_domain =
dkim_selector =
dkim_private_key=
dnssec_request_domains = *
hosts_require_auth = smtp.freebsd.org

Authenticators:
freebsd_plain:
driver = plaintext
public_name = PLAIN
client_send = ^example/mail^examplePassword
client_condition = ${if eq{$host}{smtp.freebsd.org}}
Create
/usr/local/etc/exim/freebsd_send
with the following content:
example@freebsd.org:smtp.freebsd.org::587
7.3. Mentors
All new developers have a mentor assigned to them for the first few months.
A mentor is responsible for teaching the mentee the rules and conventions of the project and guiding their first steps in the developer community.
The mentor is also personally responsible for the mentee’s actions during this initial period.
For committers: do not commit anything without first getting mentor approval.
Document that approval with an
Approved by:
line in the commit message.
When the mentor decides that a mentee has learned the ropes and is ready to commit on their own, the mentor announces it with a commit to
mentors
This file is in the
admin
orphan branch of each repository.
Detailed information on how to access these branches can be found in
admin
8. Pre-Commit Review
Code review is one way to increase the quality of software.
The following guidelines apply to commits to the
main
(-CURRENT) branch of the
src
repository.
Other branches and the
ports
and
docs
trees have their own review policies, but these guidelines generally apply to commits requiring review:
All non-trivial changes should be reviewed before they are committed to the repository.
Reviews may be conducted by email, in Bugzilla, in Phabricator, or by another mechanism. Where possible, reviews should be public.
The developer responsible for a code change is also responsible for making all necessary review-related changes.
Code review can be an iterative process, which continues until the patch is ready to be committed. Specifically, once a patch is sent out for review, it should receive an explicit "looks good" before it is committed. So long as it is explicit, this can take whatever form makes sense for the review method.
Timeouts are not a substitute for review.
Sometimes code reviews will take longer than you would hope for, especially for larger features. Accepted ways to speed up review times for your patches are:
Review other people’s patches. If you help out, everybody will be more willing to do the same for you; goodwill is our currency.
Ping the patch. If it is urgent, provide reasons why it is important to you to get this patch landed and ping it every couple of days. If it is not urgent, the common courtesy ping rate is one week. Remember that you are asking for valuable time from other professional developers.
Ask for help on mailing lists, IRC, etc. Others may be able to either help you directly, or suggest a reviewer.
Split your patch into multiple smaller patches that build on each other. The smaller your patch, the higher the probability that somebody will take a quick look at it.
When making large changes, it is helpful to keep this in mind from the beginning of the effort as breaking large changes into smaller ones is often difficult after the fact.
Developers should participate in code reviews as both reviewers and reviewees.
If someone is kind enough to review your code, you should return the favor for someone else.
Note that while anyone is welcome to review and give feedback on a patch, only an appropriate subject-matter expert can approve a change.
This will usually be a committer who works with the code in question on a regular basis.
In some cases, no subject-matter expert may be available.
In those cases, a review by an experienced developer is sufficient when coupled with appropriate testing.
9. Commit Log Messages
This section contains some suggestions and traditions for how commit logs are formatted.
9.1. Why are commit messages important?
When you commit a change in Git, Subversion, or another version control system (VCS), you’re prompted to write some text describing the commit — a commit message.
How important is this commit message? Should you spend some significant effort writing it? Does it really matter if you write simply
fixed a bug
Most projects have more than one developer and last for some length of time.
Commit messages are a very important method of communicating with other developers, in the present and for the future.
FreeBSD has hundreds of active developers and hundreds of thousands of commits spanning decades of history.
Over that time the developer community has learned how valuable good commit messages are; sometimes these are hard-learned lessons.
Commit messages serve at least three purposes:
Communicating with other developers
FreeBSD commits generate email to various mailing lists.
These include the commit message along with a copy of the patch itself.
Commit messages are also viewed through commands like git log.
These serve to make other developers aware of changes that are ongoing; that other developer may want to test the change, may have an interest in the topic and will want to review in more detail, or may have their own projects underway that would benefit from interaction.
Making Changes Discoverable
In a large project with a long history it may be difficult to find changes of interest when investigating an issue or change in behaviour.
Verbose, detailed commit messages allow searches for changes that might be relevant.
For example,
git log --since 1year --grep 'USB timeout'
Providing historical documentation
Commit messages serve to document changes for future developers, perhaps years or decades later.
This future developer may even be you, the original author.
A change that seems obvious today may be decidedly not so much later on.
The
git blame
command annotates each line of a source file with the change (hash and subject line) that brought it in.
Having established the importance, here are elements of a good FreeBSD commit message:
9.2. Start with a subject line
Commit messages should start with a single-line subject that briefly summarizes the change.
The subject should, by itself, allow the reader to quickly determine if the change is of interest or not.
9.3. Keep subject lines short
The subject line should be as short as possible while still retaining the required information.
This is to make browsing Git log more efficient, and so that git log --oneline can display the short hash and subject on a single 80-column line.
A good rule of thumb is to stay below 67 characters, and aim for about 50 or fewer if possible.
9.4. Prefix the subject line with a component, if applicable
If the change relates to a specific component the subject line may be prefixed with that component name and a colon (:).
If applicable, try to use the same prefix used in previous commits to the same files.
foo: Add -k option to keep temporary data
Include the prefix in the 67-character limit suggested above, so that
git log --oneline
avoids wrapping.
9.5. Capitalize the first letter of the subject
Capitalize the first letter of the subject itself.
The prefix, if any, is not capitalized unless necessary (e.g.,
USB:
is capitalized).
9.6. Do not end the subject line with punctuation
Do not end with a period or other punctuation.
In this regard the subject line is like a newspaper headline.
9.7. Separate the subject and body with a blank line
Separate the body from the subject with a blank line.
Some trivial commits do not require a body, and will have only a subject.
ls: Fix typo in usage text
9.8. Limit messages to 72 columns
git log
and
git format-patch
indent the commit message by four spaces.
Wrapping at 72 columns provides a matching margin on the right edge.
Limiting messages to 72 characters also keeps the commit message in formatted patches below RFC 2822’s suggested email line length limit of 78 characters.
This limit works well with a variety of tools that may render commit messages; line wrapping might be inconsistent with longer line length.
9.9. Use the present tense, imperative mood
This facilitates short subject lines and provides consistency, including with automatically generated commit messages (e.g., as generated by git revert).
This is important when reading a list of commit subjects.
Think of the subject as finishing the sentence "when applied, this change will …​".
foo: Implement the -k (keep) option
foo: Implemented the -k option
This change implements the -k option in foo
-k option added
9.10. Focus on what and why, not how
Explain what the change accomplishes and why it is being done, rather than how.
Do not assume that the reader is familiar with the issue.
Explain the background and motivation for the change.
Include benchmark data if you have it.
If there are limitations or incomplete aspects of the change, describe them in the commit message.
9.11. Consider whether parts of the commit message could be code comments instead
Sometimes while writing a commit message you may find yourself writing a sentence or two explaining some tricky or confusing aspect of the change. When this happens consider whether it would be valuable to have that explanation as a comment in the code itself.
9.12. Write commit messages for your future self
While writing the commit message for a change you have all of the context in mind - what prompted the change, alternate approaches that were considered and rejected, limitations of the change, and so on.
Imagine yourself revisiting the change a year or two in the future, and write the commit message in a way that would provide that necessary context.
9.13. Commit messages should stand alone
You may include references to mailing list postings, benchmark result web sites, or code review links.
However, the commit message should contain all of the relevant information in case these references are no longer available in the future.
Similarly, a commit may refer to a previous commit, for example in the case of a bug fix or revert.
In addition to the commit identifier (revision or hash), include the subject line from the referenced commit (or another suitable brief reference).
With each VCS migration (from CVS to Subversion to Git) revision identifiers from previous systems may become difficult to follow.
9.14. Include appropriate metadata in a footer
As well as including an informative message with each commit, some additional information may be needed.
This information consists of one or more lines containing the key word or phrase, a colon, tabs for formatting, and then the additional information.
For key words where multiple values make sense (e.g.,
PR:
with a comma-separated list of PRs), it is permitted to use the same keyword multiple times to avoid ambiguity or improve readability.
The key words or phrases are:
PR:
The problem report (if any) which is affected (typically, by being closed) by this commit. Multiple PRs may be specified on one line, separated by commas or spaces.
Reported by:
The name and e-mail address of the person that reported the issue; for developers, just the username on the FreeBSD cluster.
Typically used when there is no PR, for example if the issue was reported on
a mailing list.
Submitted by:
(discouraged)
Name of an author who submitted a change without providing a full valid patch, especially without a valid email.
Submitted patches should have the author set by using
git commit --author
with a full name and valid email.
Before the migration to git allowed separate author and committer fields, this was used for contributed patches.
Reviewed by:
The name and e-mail address of the person or people that reviewed the change; for developers, just the username on the FreeBSD cluster. If a patch was submitted to a mailing list for review, and the review was favorable, then just include the list name. If the reviewer is not a member of the project, provide the name, email, and if ports an external role like maintainer:
Reviewed by a developer:
[source,shell]
…​.
Reviewed by: username
…​.
Reviewed by a ports maintainer that is not a developer:
[source,shell]
…​.
Reviewed by: Full Name (maintainer)
…​.
Tested by:
The name and e-mail address of the person or people that tested the change; for developers, just the username on the FreeBSD cluster.
Discussed with:
The name and e-mail address of the person or people that contributed to the patch by providing meaningful feedback; for developers, just the username on the FreeBSD cluster.
Typically used to credit those who did not explicitly review, test, or approve the change, but nevertheless contributed to the discussion surrounding the change, which led to improvements and a better understanding of its impact on the FreeBSD project.
Approved by:
The name and e-mail address of the person or people that approved the change; for developers, just the username on the FreeBSD cluster.
There are several cases where approval is customary:
while a new committer is under mentorship
commits to an area of the tree covered by the LOCKS file (src)
during a release cycle
committing to a repo where you do not hold a commit bit (e.g. src committer committing to docs)
committing to a port maintained by someone else
While under mentorship, get mentor approval before the commit. Enter the mentor’s username in this field, and note that they are a mentor:
Approved by: username-of-mentor
mentor
If a team approved these commits then include the team name followed by the username of the approver in parentheses. For example:
Approved by: re
username
Obtained from:
The name of the project (if any) from which the code was obtained. Do not use this line for the name of an individual person.
Fixes:
The Git short hash and the title line of a commit that is fixed by this change as returned by
git log -n1 --format='%h ("%s")' GIT-COMMIT-HASH
We include the commit title so that the referenced commit can be located even in the case that a future VCS migration invalidates hash references.
MFC after:
To receive an e-mail reminder to MFC at a later date, specify the number of days, weeks, or months after which an MFC is planned.
MFC to:
If the commit should be merged to a subset of stable branches, specify the branch names.
MFH:
If the commit is to be merged into a ports quarterly branch name, specify the quarterly branch. For example
2021Q2
Relnotes:
If the change is a candidate for inclusion in the release notes for the next release from the branch, set to
yes
Candidates are user-visible changes, new features, compatibility breaks, etc..
If you forget to set this line, or want to provide more details, add an entry to the
RELNOTES
file in the root of the src tree.
The
RELNOTES
file is used to generate release notes for the next release.
Do not use the
Relnotes:
line to describe the change: its only valid value is
yes
Security:
If the change is related to a security vulnerability or security exposure, include one or more references or a description of the issue. If possible, include a VuXML URL or a CVE ID.
Event:
The description for the event where this commit was made. If this is a recurring event, add the year or even the month to it. For example, this could be
FooBSDcon 2019
. The idea behind this line is to put recognition to conferences, gatherings, and other types of meetups and to show that these are useful to have. Please do not use the
Sponsored by:
line for this as that is meant for organizations sponsoring certain features or developers working on them.
Sponsored by:
Sponsoring organizations for this change, if any. Separate multiple organizations with commas. If only a portion of the work was sponsored, or different amounts of sponsorship were provided to different authors, please give appropriate credit in parentheses after each sponsor name. For example,
Example.com (alice, code refactoring), Wormulon (bob), Momcorp (cindy)
shows that Alice was sponsored by Example.com to do code refactoring, while Wormulon sponsored Bob’s work and Momcorp sponsored Cindy’s work. Other authors were either not sponsored or chose not to list sponsorship.
Pull Request:
This change was submitted as a pull request or merge request against one of FreeBSD’s public read-only Git repositories.
It should include the entire URL to the pull request, as these often act as code reviews for the code.
For example:
Closes:
This change concludes the patch series discussed at the specified Github pull request, and closes that request.
It should include the entire URL to the pull request, as these often act as code reviews for the code.
For example:
Co-authored-by:
The name and email address of an additional author of the commit.
GitHub has a detailed description of the Co-authored-by trailer at
Signed-off-by:
ID certifies compliance with
Differential Revision:
The full URL of the Phabricator review. This line
must be the last line
. For example:
Example 4. Commit Log for a Commit Based on a PR
The commit is based on a patch from a PR submitted by John Smith.
The commit message "PR" field is filled.
...

PR: 12345
The committer sets the author of the patch with
git commit --author "John Smith <
John.Smith@example.com
>"
Example 5. Commit Log for a Commit Needing Review
The virtual memory system is being changed.
After posting patches to the appropriate mailing list (in this case,
freebsd-arch
) and the changes have been approved.
...

Reviewed by: -arch
Example 6. Commit Log for a Commit Needing Approval
Commit a port, after working with the listed MAINTAINER, who said to go ahead and commit.
...

Approved by: abc (maintainer)
Where
abc
is the account name of the person who approved.
Example 7. Commit Log for a Commit Bringing in Code from OpenBSD
Committing some code based on work done in the OpenBSD project.
...

Obtained from: OpenBSD
Example 8. Commit Log for a Change to FreeBSD-CURRENT with a Planned Commit to FreeBSD-STABLE to Follow at a Later Date.
Committing some code which will be merged from FreeBSD-CURRENT into the FreeBSD-STABLE branch after two weeks.
...

MFC after: 2 weeks
Where
is the number of days, weeks, or months after which an MFC is planned. The
weeks
option may be
day
days
week
weeks
month
months
It is often necessary to combine these.
Consider the situation where a user has submitted a PR containing code from the NetBSD project.
Looking at the PR, the developer sees it is not an area of the tree they normally work in, so they have the change reviewed by the
arch
mailing list.
Since the change is complex, the developer opts to MFC after one month to allow adequate testing.
The extra information to include in the commit would look something like
Example 9. Example Combined Commit Log
PR: 54321
Reviewed by: -arch
Obtained from: NetBSD
MFC after: 1 month
Relnotes: yes
10. Preferred License for New Files
The FreeBSD Project’s full license policy can be found at
The rest of this section is intended to help you get started.
As a rule, when in doubt, ask.
It is much easier to give advice than to fix the source tree.
The FreeBSD Project suggests and uses this text as the preferred license scheme:
/*
* SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause
* Copyright (c) [year] [your name]
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
* are met:
* 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
* documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
* ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
* IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
* ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
* FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
* DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
* OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
* HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
* LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
* OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
* SUCH DAMAGE.
* [id for your version control system, if any]
*/
The FreeBSD project strongly discourages the so-called "advertising clause" in new code.
Due to the large number of contributors to the FreeBSD project, complying with this clause for many commercial vendors has become difficult.
If you have code in the tree with the advertising clause, please consider removing it.
In fact, please consider using the above license for your code.
The FreeBSD project discourages completely new licenses and variations on the standard licenses.
New licenses require the approval of
core@FreeBSD.org
to reside in the
src
repository.
The more different licenses that are used in the tree, the more problems that this causes to those wishing to utilize this code, typically from unintended consequences from a poorly worded license.
Project policy dictates that code under some non-BSD licenses must be placed only in specific sections of the repository, and in some cases, compilation must be conditional or even disabled by default.
For example, the GENERIC kernel must be compiled under only licenses identical to or substantially similar to the BSD license.
GPL, APSL, CDDL, etc, licensed software must not be compiled into GENERIC.
Developers are reminded that in open source, getting "open" right is just as important as getting "source" right, as improper handling of intellectual property has serious consequences.
Any questions or concerns should immediately be brought to the attention of the core team.
11. Keeping Track of Licenses Granted to the FreeBSD Project
Various software or data exist in the repositories where the FreeBSD project has been granted a special license to be able to use them.
A case in point are the Terminus fonts for use with
vt(4)
Here the author Dimitar Zhekov has allowed us to use the "Terminus BSD Console" font under a 2-clause BSD license rather than the regular Open Font License he normally uses.
It is clearly sensible to keep a record of any such license grants.
To that end, the
core@FreeBSD.org
has decided to keep an archive of them.
Whenever the FreeBSD project is granted a special license we require the
core@FreeBSD.org
to be notified.
Any developers involved in arranging such a license grant, please send details to the
core@FreeBSD.org
including:
Contact details for people or organizations granting the special license.
What files, directories etc. in the repositories are covered by the license grant including the revision numbers where any specially licensed material was committed.
The date the license comes into effect from. Unless otherwise agreed, this will be the date the license was issued by the authors of the software in question.
The license text.
A note of any restrictions, limitations or exceptions that apply specifically to FreeBSD’s usage of the licensed material.
Any other relevant information.
Once the
core@FreeBSD.org
is satisfied that all the necessary details have been gathered and are correct, the secretary will send a PGP-signed acknowledgment of receipt including the license details.
This receipt will be persistently archived and serve as our permanent record of the license grant.
The license archive should contain only details of license grants; this is not the place for any discussions around licensing or other subjects.
Access to data within the license archive will be available on request to the
core@FreeBSD.org
12. SPDX Tags in the tree
The project uses
SPDX
tags in our source base.
At present, these tags are indented to help automated tools reconstruct license requirements mechanically.
All
SPDX-License-Identifier
tags in the tree should be considered to be informative.
All files in the FreeBSD source tree with these tags also have a copy of the license which governs use of that file.
In the event of a discrepancy, the verbatim license is controlling.
The project tries to follow the
SPDX Specification, Version 2.2
How to mark source files and valid algebraic expressions are found in
Annex D
and
Annex E
The project draws identifiers from SPDX’s list of valid
short license identifiers
The project uses only the
SPDX-License-Identifier
tag.
As of March 2021, approximately 25,000 out of 90,000 files in the tree have been marked.
13. Developer Relations
When working directly on your own code or on code which is already well established as your responsibility, then there is probably little need to check with other committers before jumping in with a commit.
When working on a bug in an area of the system which is clearly orphaned (and there are a few such areas, to our shame), the same applies.
When modifying parts of the system which are maintained, formally or informally, consider asking for a review just as a developer would have before becoming a committer.
For ports, contact the listed
MAINTAINER
in the
Makefile
To determine if an area of the tree is maintained, check the MAINTAINERS file at the root of the tree.
If nobody is listed, scan the revision history to see who has committed changes in the past.
To list the names and email addresses of all commit authors for a given file in the last 2 years and the number of commits each has authored, ordered by descending number of commits, use:
% git
-C
/path/to/repo shortlog
-sne
--since
"2 years"
--
relative/path/to/file
If queries go unanswered or the committer otherwise indicates a lack of interest in the area affected, go ahead and commit it.
Avoid sending private emails to maintainers.
Other people might be interested in the conversation, not just the final output.
If there is any doubt about a commit for any reason at all, have it reviewed before committing.
Better to have it flamed then and there rather than when it is part of the repository.
If a commit does results in controversy erupting, it may be advisable to consider backing the change out again until the matter is settled.
Remember, with a version control system we can always change it back.
Do not impugn the intentions of others.
If they see a different solution to a problem, or even a different problem, it is probably not because they are stupid, because they have questionable parentage, or because they are trying to destroy hard work, personal image, or FreeBSD, but basically because they have a different outlook on the world.
Different is good.
Disagree honestly.
Argue your position from its merits, be honest about any shortcomings it may have, and be open to seeing their solution, or even their vision of the problem, with an open mind.
Accept correction.
We are all fallible.
When you have made a mistake, apologize and get on with life.
Do not beat up yourself, and certainly do not beat up others for your mistake.
Do not waste time on embarrassment or recrimination, just fix the problem and move on.
Ask for help.
Seek out (and give) peer reviews.
One of the ways open source software is supposed to excel is in the number of eyeballs applied to it; this does not apply if nobody will review code.
14. If in Doubt…​
When unsure about something, whether it be a technical issue or a project convention be sure to ask.
If you stay silent you will never make progress.
If it relates to a technical issue ask on the public mailing lists.
Avoid the temptation to email the individual person that knows the answer.
This way everyone will be able to learn from the question and the answer.
For project specific or administrative questions ask, in order:
Your mentor or former mentor.
An experienced committer on IRC, email, etc.
Any team with a "hat", as they can give you a definitive answer.
If still not sure, ask on FreeBSD developers mailing list.
Once your question is answered, if no one pointed you to documentation that spelled out the answer to your question, document it, as others will have the same question.
15. Bugzilla
The FreeBSD Project utilizes Bugzilla for tracking bugs and change requests.
If you commit a fix or suggestion found in the PR database, be sure to close the PR.
It is also considered nice if you take time to close any other PRs associated with your commits.
Committers with non-
FreeBSD.org
Bugzilla accounts can have the old account merged with the
FreeBSD.org
account by following these steps:
Log in using your old account.
Open new bug. Choose
Services
as the Product, and
Bug Tracker
as the Component. In bug description list accounts you wish to be merged.
Log in using
FreeBSD.org
account and post comment to newly opened bug to
confirm ownership. See
Kerberos and LDAP web Password for FreeBSD Cluster
for more details on how to generate or set a password for your
FreeBSD.org
account.
If there are more than two accounts to merge, post comments from each of them.
You can find out more about Bugzilla at:
FreeBSD Problem Report Handling Guidelines
16. Phabricator
The FreeBSD Project utilizes
Phabricator
for code review requests.
See the
Phabricator wiki page
for details.
Please use the
git arc
command provided by
devel/freebsd-git-arc
(install the port or package, then type
git help arc
for documentation) to create and update Phabricator reviews.
This will make it easier for others to review and test your patches.
Committers with non-
FreeBSD.org
Phabricator accounts can have the old account renamed to the
FreeBSD.org
account by following these steps:
Change your Phabricator account email to your
FreeBSD.org
email.
Open new bug on our bug tracker using your
FreeBSD.org
account, see
Bugzilla
for more information. Choose
Services
as the Product, and
Code Review
as the Component. In bug description request that your Phabricator account be renamed, and provide a link to your Phabricator user. For example,
Phabricator accounts cannot be merged, please do not open a new account.
17. Who’s Who
Besides the repository meisters, there are other FreeBSD project members and teams whom you will probably get to know in your role as a committer. Briefly, and by no means all-inclusively, these are:
Documentation Engineering Team <
doceng@FreeBSD.org
doceng is the group responsible for the documentation build infrastructure, approving new documentation committers, and ensuring that the FreeBSD website and documentation on the FTP site is up to date with respect to the Subversion tree.
It is not a conflict resolution body.
The vast majority of documentation related discussion takes place on the
FreeBSD documentation project mailing list
More details regarding the doceng team can be found in its
charter
Committers interested in contributing to the documentation should familiarize themselves with the
Documentation Project Primer
Sergio Carlavilla Delgado <
carlavilla@FreeBSD.org
>, Dave Cottlehuber <
dch@FreeBSD.org
>, Marc Fonvieille <
blackend@FreeBSD.org
>, Craig Leres <
leres@FreeBSD.org
>, Xin Li <
delphij@FreeBSD.org
>, Ed Maste <
emaste@FreeBSD.org
>, Colin Percival <
cperciva@FreeBSD.org
>, Muhammad Moinur Rahman <
bofh@FreeBSD.org
>, Vladlen Popolitov <
vladlen@FreeBSD.org
>, Lexi Winter <
ivy@FreeBSD.org
>, Alexander Ziaee <
ziaee@FreeBSD.org
These are the members of the
Release Engineering Team <
re@FreeBSD.org
This team is responsible for setting release deadlines and controlling the release process.
During code freezes, the release engineers have final authority on all changes to the system for whichever branch is pending release status.
If there is something you want merged from FreeBSD-CURRENT to FreeBSD-STABLE (whatever values those may have at any given time), these are the people to talk to about it.
Gordon Tetlow <
gordon@FreeBSD.org
Gordon Tetlow
is the
FreeBSD Security Officer
and oversees the
Security Officer Team <
security-officer@FreeBSD.org
FreeBSD committer’s mailing list
{dev-src-all}, {dev-ports-all} and {dev-doc-all} are the mailing lists that the version control system uses to send commit messages to.
Never
send email directly to these lists.
Only send replies to this list when they are short and are directly related to a commit.
FreeBSD developers mailing list
All committers are subscribed to -developers.
This list was created to be a forum for the committers "community" issues.
Examples are Core voting, announcements, etc.
The FreeBSD developers mailing list is for the exclusive use of FreeBSD committers.
To develop FreeBSD, committers must have the ability to openly discuss matters that will be resolved before they are publicly announced.
Frank discussions of work in progress are not suitable for open publication and may harm FreeBSD.
All FreeBSD committers are expected not to not publish or forward messages from the FreeBSD developers mailing list outside the list membership without permission of all of the authors.
Violators will be removed from the FreeBSD developers mailing list, resulting in a suspension of commit privileges.
Repeated or flagrant violations may result in permanent revocation of commit privileges.
This list is
not
intended as a place for code reviews or for any technical discussion.
In fact using it as such hurts the FreeBSD Project as it gives a sense of a closed list where general decisions affecting all of the FreeBSD using community are made without being "open".
Last, but not least
never, never ever, email the FreeBSD developers mailing list and CC:/BCC: another FreeBSD list
Never, ever email another FreeBSD email list and CC:/BCC: the FreeBSD developers mailing list.
Doing so can greatly diminish the benefits of this list.
18. SSH Quick-Start Guide
If you do not wish to type your password in every time you use
ssh(1)
, and you use keys to authenticate,
ssh-agent(1)
is there for your convenience. If you want to use
ssh-agent(1)
, make sure that you run it before running other applications. X users, for example, usually do this from their
.xsession
or
.xinitrc
. See
ssh-agent(1)
for details.
Generate a key pair using
ssh-keygen(1)
. The key pair will wind up in your
$HOME/.ssh/
directory.
Only ECDSA, Ed25519 or RSA keys are supported.
Send your public key (
$HOME/.ssh/id_ecdsa.pub
$HOME/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
, or
$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
) to the person setting you up as a committer so it can be put into
yourlogin
in
/etc/ssh-keys/
on
freefall
Now
ssh-add(1)
can be used for authentication once per session.
It prompts for the private key’s pass phrase, and then stores it in the authentication agent (
ssh-agent(1)
).
Use
ssh-add -d
to remove keys stored in the agent.
Test with a simple remote command:
ssh freefall.FreeBSD.org ls /usr
For more information, see
security/openssh-portable
ssh(1)
ssh-add(1)
ssh-agent(1)
ssh-keygen(1)
, and
scp(1)
For information on adding, changing, or removing
ssh(1)
keys, see
this article
19. Coverity® Availability for FreeBSD Committers
All FreeBSD developers can obtain access to Coverity analysis results of all FreeBSD Project software.
All who are interested in obtaining access to the analysis results of the automated Coverity runs, can sign up at
Coverity Scan
The FreeBSD wiki includes a mini-guide for developers who are interested in working with the Coverity® analysis reports:
Please note that this mini-guide is only readable by FreeBSD developers, so if you cannot access this page, you will have to ask someone to add you to the appropriate Wiki access list.
Finally, all FreeBSD developers who are going to use Coverity® are always encouraged to ask for more details and usage information, by posting any questions to the mailing list of the FreeBSD developers.
20. The FreeBSD Committers' Big List of Rules
Everyone involved with the FreeBSD project is expected to abide by the
Code of Conduct
available from
As committers, you form the public face of the project, and how you behave has a vital impact on the public perception of it.
This guide expands on the parts of the
Code of Conduct
specific to committers.
Respect other committers.
Respect other contributors.
Discuss any significant change
before
committing.
Respect existing maintainers (if listed in the
MAINTAINER
field in
Makefile
or in
MAINTAINER
in the top-level directory).
Any disputed change must be backed out pending resolution of the dispute if requested by a maintainer. Security related changes may override a maintainer’s wishes at the Security Officer’s discretion.
Changes go to FreeBSD-CURRENT before FreeBSD-STABLE unless specifically permitted by the release engineer or unless they are not applicable to FreeBSD-CURRENT. Any non-trivial or non-urgent change which is applicable should also be allowed to sit in FreeBSD-CURRENT for at least 3 days before merging so that it can be given sufficient testing. The release engineer has the same authority over the FreeBSD-STABLE branch as outlined for the maintainer in rule #5.
Do not fight in public with other committers; it looks bad.
Respect all code freezes and read the
committers
and
developers
mailing lists in a timely manner so you know when a code freeze is in effect.
When in doubt on any procedure, ask first!
Test your changes before committing them.
Do not commit to contributed software without
explicit
approval from the respective maintainers.
As noted, breaking some of these rules can be grounds for suspension or, upon repeated offense, permanent removal of commit privileges.
Individual members of core have the power to temporarily suspend commit privileges until core as a whole has the chance to review the issue.
In case of an "emergency" (a committer doing damage to the repository), a temporary suspension may also be done by the repository meisters.
Only a 2/3 majority of core has the authority to suspend commit privileges for longer than a week or to remove them permanently.
This rule does not exist to set core up as a bunch of cruel dictators who can dispose of committers as casually as empty soda cans, but to give the project a kind of safety fuse.
If someone is out of control, it is important to be able to deal with this immediately rather than be paralyzed by debate.
In all cases, a committer whose privileges are suspended or revoked is entitled to a "hearing" by core, the total duration of the suspension being determined at that time.
A committer whose privileges are suspended may also request a review of the decision after 30 days and every 30 days thereafter (unless the total suspension period is less than 30 days).
A committer whose privileges have been revoked entirely may request a review after a period of 6 months has elapsed.
This review policy is
strictly informal
and, in all cases, core reserves the right to either act on or disregard requests for review if they feel their original decision to be the right one.
In all other aspects of project operation, core is a subset of committers and is bound by the
same rules
Just because someone is in core this does not mean that they have special dispensation to step outside any of the lines painted here; core’s "special powers" only kick in when it acts as a group, not on an individual basis.
As individuals, the core team members are all committers first and core second.
20.1. Details
Respect other committers.
This means that you need to treat other committers as the peer-group developers that they are.
Despite our occasional attempts to prove the contrary, one does not get to be a committer by being stupid and nothing rankles more than being treated that way by one of your peers.
Whether we always feel respect for one another or not (and everyone has off days), we still have to
treat
other committers with respect at all times, on public forums and in private email.
Being able to work together long term is this project’s greatest asset, one far more important than any set of changes to the code, and turning arguments about code into issues that affect our long-term ability to work harmoniously together is just not worth the trade-off by any conceivable stretch of the imagination.
To comply with this rule, do not send email when you are angry or otherwise behave in a manner which is likely to strike others as needlessly confrontational.
First calm down, then think about how to communicate in the most effective fashion for convincing the other persons that your side of the argument is correct, do not just blow off some steam so you can feel better in the short term at the cost of a long-term flame war.
Not only is this very bad "energy economics", but repeated displays of public aggression which impair our ability to work well together will be dealt with severely by the project leadership and may result in suspension or termination of your commit privileges.
The project leadership will take into account both public and private communications brought before it.
It will not seek the disclosure of private communications, but it will take it into account if it is volunteered by the committers involved in the complaint.
All of this is never an option which the project’s leadership enjoys in the slightest, but unity comes first.
No amount of code or good advice is worth trading that away.
Respect other contributors.
You were not always a committer.
At one time you were a contributor.
Remember that at all times.
Remember what it was like trying to get help and attention.
Do not forget that your work as a contributor was very important to you.
Remember what it was like. Do not discourage, belittle, or demean contributors.
Treat them with respect. They are our committers in waiting.
They are every bit as important to the project as committers.
Their contributions are as valid and as important as your own.
After all, you made many contributions before you became a committer.
Always remember that.
Consider the points raised under
Respect other committers
and apply them also to contributors.
Discuss any significant change
before
committing.
The repository is not where changes are initially submitted for correctness or argued over, that happens first in the mailing lists or by use of the Phabricator service.
The commit will only happen once something resembling consensus has been reached.
This does not mean that permission is required before correcting every obvious syntax error or manual page misspelling, just that it is good to develop a feel for when a proposed change is not quite such a no-brainer and requires some feedback first.
People really do not mind sweeping changes if the result is something clearly better than what they had before, they just do not like being
surprised
by those changes.
The very best way of making sure that things are on the right track is to have code reviewed by one or more other committers.
When in doubt, ask for review!
Respect existing maintainers if listed.
Many parts of FreeBSD are not "owned" in the sense that any specific individual will jump up and yell if you commit a change to "their" area, but it still pays to check first.
One convention we use is to put a maintainer line in the
Makefile
for any package or subtree which is being actively maintained by one or more people; see
Source Tree Guidelines and Policies
for documentation on this.
Where sections of code have several maintainers, commits to affected areas by one maintainer need to be reviewed by at least one other maintainer.
In cases where the "maintainer-ship" of something is not clear, look at the repository logs for the files in question and see if someone has been working recently or predominantly in that area.
Any disputed change must be backed out pending resolution of the dispute if requested by a maintainer. Security related changes may override a maintainer’s wishes at the Security Officer’s discretion.
This may be hard to swallow in times of conflict (when each side is convinced that they are in the right, of course) but a version control system makes it unnecessary to have an ongoing dispute raging when it is far easier to simply reverse the disputed change, get everyone calmed down again and then try to figure out what is the best way to proceed.
If the change turns out to be the best thing after all, it can be easily brought back.
If it turns out not to be, then the users did not have to live with the bogus change in the tree while everyone was busily debating its merits.
People
very
rarely call for back-outs in the repository since discussion generally exposes bad or controversial changes before the commit even happens, but on such rare occasions the back-out should be done without argument so that we can get immediately on to the topic of figuring out whether it was bogus or not.
Changes go to FreeBSD-CURRENT before FreeBSD-STABLE unless specifically permitted by the release engineer or unless they are not applicable to FreeBSD-CURRENT. Any non-trivial or non-urgent change which is applicable should also be allowed to sit in FreeBSD-CURRENT for at least 3 days before merging so that it can be given sufficient testing. The release engineer has the same authority over the FreeBSD-STABLE branch as outlined in rule #5.
This is another "do not argue about it" issue since it is the release engineer who is ultimately responsible (and gets beaten up) if a change turns out to be bad.
Please respect this and give the release engineer your full cooperation when it comes to the FreeBSD-STABLE branch.
The management of FreeBSD-STABLE may frequently seem to be overly conservative to the casual observer, but also bear in mind the fact that conservatism is supposed to be the hallmark of FreeBSD-STABLE and different rules apply there than in FreeBSD-CURRENT.
There is also really no point in having FreeBSD-CURRENT be a testing ground if changes are merged over to FreeBSD-STABLE immediately.
Changes need a chance to be tested by the FreeBSD-CURRENT developers, so allow some time to elapse before merging unless the FreeBSD-STABLE fix is critical, time sensitive or so obvious as to make further testing unnecessary (spelling fixes to manual pages, obvious bug/typo fixes, etc.) In other words, apply common sense.
Changes to the security branches (for example,
releng/9.3
) must be approved by a member of the
Security Officer Team <
security-officer@FreeBSD.org
, or in some cases, by a member of the
Release Engineering Team <
re@FreeBSD.org
Do not fight in public with other committers; it looks bad.
This project has a public image to uphold and that image is very important to all of us, especially if we are to continue to attract new members.
There will be occasions when, despite everyone’s very best attempts at self-control, tempers are lost and angry words are exchanged.
The best thing that can be done in such cases is to minimize the effects of this until everyone has cooled back down.
Do not air angry words in public and do not forward private correspondence or other private communications to public mailing lists, mail aliases, instant messaging channels or social media sites.
What people say one-to-one is often much less sugar-coated than what they would say in public, and such communications therefore have no place there - they only serve to inflame an already bad situation.
If the person sending a flame-o-gram at least had the grace to send it privately, then have the grace to keep it private yourself.
If you feel you are being unfairly treated by another developer, and it is causing you anguish, bring the matter up with core rather than taking it public. Core will do its best to play peace makers and get things back to sanity.
In cases where the dispute involves a change to the codebase and the participants do not appear to be reaching an amicable agreement, core may appoint a mutually-agreeable third party to resolve the dispute.
All parties involved must then agree to be bound by the decision reached by this third party.
Respect all code freezes and read the
committers
and
developers
mailing list on a timely basis so you know when a code freeze is in effect.
Committing unapproved changes during a code freeze is a really big mistake and committers are expected to keep up-to-date on what is going on before jumping in after a long absence and committing 10 megabytes worth of accumulated stuff.
People who abuse this on a regular basis will have their commit privileges suspended until they get back from the FreeBSD Happy Reeducation Camp we run in Greenland.
When in doubt on any procedure, ask first!
Many mistakes are made because someone is in a hurry and just assumes they know the right way of doing something.
If you have not done it before, chances are good that you do not actually know the way we do things and really need to ask first or you are going to completely embarrass yourself in public.
There is no shame in asking "how in the heck do I do this?" We already know you are an intelligent person; otherwise, you would not be a committer.
Test your changes before committing them.
If your changes are to the kernel, make sure you can still compile both GENERIC and LINT.
If your changes are anywhere else, make sure you can still compile userspace via
make buildworld
If your changes are to a branch, make sure your testing occurs with a machine which is running that code.
If you have a change which also may break another architecture, be sure and test on all supported architectures.
Please ensure your change works for
supported toolchains
Please refer to the
FreeBSD Internal Page
for a list of available resources.
As other architectures are added to the FreeBSD supported platforms list, the appropriate shared testing resources will be made available.
Do not commit to contributed software without
explicit
approval from the respective maintainers.
Contributed software is anything under the
src/contrib
src/crypto
, or
src/sys/contrib
trees.
The trees mentioned above are for contributed software usually imported onto a vendor branch.
Committing something there may cause unnecessary headaches when importing newer versions of the software.
As a general consider sending patches upstream to the vendor.
Patches may be committed to FreeBSD first with permission of the maintainer.
Reasons for modifying upstream software range from wanting strict control over a tightly coupled dependency to lack of portability in the canonical repository’s distribution of their code.
Regardless of the reason, effort to minimize the maintenance burden of fork is helpful to fellow maintainers.
Avoid committing trivial or cosmetic changes to files since it makes every merge thereafter more difficult: such patches need to be manually re-verified every import.
If a particular piece of software lacks a maintainer, you are encouraged to take up ownership.
If you are unsure of the current maintainership email
FreeBSD architecture and design mailing list
and ask.
20.2. Policy on Multiple Architectures
In an effort to make it easier to keep FreeBSD portable across the platforms we support, core has developed this mandate:
Major design work (including major API and ABI changes) must prove itself on at least one Tier 1 platform before it may be committed to the source tree.
Developers should also be aware of our Tier Policy for the long term support of hardware architectures.
The rules here are intended to provide guidance during the development process, and are distinct from the requirements for features and architectures listed in that section.
The Tier rules for feature support on architectures at release-time are more strict than the rules for changes during the development process.
20.3. Policy on Multiple Compilers
The FreeBSD base system builds with both Clang and GCC.
The project does this in a careful and controlled way to maximize benefits from this extra work, while keeping the extra work to a minimum.
Supporting both Clang and GCC improves the flexibility our users have.
These compilers have different strengths and weaknesses, and supporting both allows users to pick the best one for their needs.
Clang and GCC support similar dialects of C and C++, necessitating a relatively small amount of conditional code.
The project gains increased code coverage and improves the code quality by using features from both compilers.
The project is able to build in more user environments and leverage more CI environments by supporting this range, increasing convenience for users and giving them more tools to test with.
By carefully constraining the range of versions supported to modern versions of these compilers, the project avoids unduly increasing the testing matrix.
Older and obscure compilers, as well as older dialects of the languages, have extremely limited support that allow user programs to build with them, but without constraining the base system to being built with them.
The exact balance continues to evolve to ensure the benefits of extra work remain greater than the burdens it imposes.
The project used to support really old Intel compilers or old GCC versions, but we traded supporting those obsolete compilers for a carefully selected range of modern compilers.
This section documents where we use different compilers, and the expectations around that.
The FreeBSD base system includes an in-tree Clang compiler.
Due to being in the tree, this compiler is the most supported compiler.
All changes must compile with it, prior to commit.
Complete testing, as appropriate for the change, should be done with this compiler.
The FreeBSD base system also supports various versions of Clang and GCC as out-of-tree compilers.
For large or risky changes, committers should do a test build with a
supported version of GCC.
Out of tree compilers are available as packages.
GCC compilers are available as
${TARGET_ARCH}-gcc${VERSION}
packages, such as
aarch64-gcc14
Clang compilers are available as
llvm${VERSION}
packages, such as
llvm18
The project runs automated CI jobs to build everything with these compilers.
Committers are expected to fix the jobs they break with their changes.
Committers may test builds of userspace or individual kernels by setting
CROSS_TOOLCHAIN
to the package name, for example
CROSS_TOOLCHAIN=aarch64-gcc14
or
CROSS_TOOLCHAIN=llvm18
For universe or tinderbox builds,
USE_GCC_TOOLCHAINS=gcc${VERSION}
builds all architectures using the appropriate GCC compiler packages.
For universe or tinderbox builds using an out-of-tree Clang, pass
CROSS_TOOLCHAIN=llvm${VERSION}
Note that while all architectures in the base system can be compiled by Clang,
only a few architectures can be fully built by GCC.
The FreeBSD project also has some CI pipelines on github.
For pull requests on github and some branches pushed to github forks, a number of cross compilation jobs run.
These test FreeBSD building using versions of Clang that lag the in-tree compiler by one or more major versions.
The FreeBSD project is also upgrading compilers.
Both Clang and GCC are fast moving targets.
Some work to change things in the tree, for example removing the old-style K&R function declarations and definitions, will land in the tree prior to the compiler landing.
Committers should try to be mindful about this and be receptive to looking into problems with their code or changes with these new compilers.
Also, just after a new compiler version hits the tree, people may need to compile things with the old version if there was an undetected regression suspected.
In addition to the compiler, LLVM’s LLD and GNU’s binutils are used indirectly by the compiler.
Committers should be mindful of variations in assembler syntax and features of the linkers and ensure both variants work.
These components will be tested as part of FreeBSD’s CI jobs for Clang or GCC.
The FreeBSD project provides headers and libraries that allow other compilers to be used to build software not in the base system.
These headers have support for making the environment as strict as the standard, supporting prior dialects of ANSI-C back to C89, and other edge cases our large ports collection has uncovered.
This support constrains retirement of older standards in places like header files, but does not constrain updating the base system to newer dialects.
Nor does it require the base system to compile with these older standards as a whole.
Breaking this support will cause packages in the ports collection to fail, so should be avoided where possible, and promptly fixed when it is easy to do so.
The FreeBSD build system currently accommodates these different environments.
As new warnings are added to compilers, the project tries to fix them.
However, sometimes these warnings require extensive rework, so are suppressed in some way by using make variables that evaluate to the proper thing depending on the compiler version.
Developers should be mindful of this, and ensure any compiler specific flags are properly conditionalized.
20.3.1. Current Compiler Versions
The versions of supported compilers for a given branch such as
main
or
stable/X
varies over time.
The authoritative source for supported compiler versions are automated CI jobs tested in GitHub’s cross-build actions and Jenkins.
Branch
In-tree Compiler
llvm12
llvm13
llvm14
llvm15
llvm18
amd64-gcc12
amd64-gcc13
amd64-gcc14
amd64-gcc15
riscv64-gcc15
main
llvm 19
stable/15
llvm 19
stable/14
llvm 19
stable/13
llvm 19
GCC toolchains are tested for amd64 and riscv64 via CI jobs in Jenkins.
LLVM toolchains are tested for aarch64 and amd64 in GitHub’s cross-build actions.
20.4. Other Suggestions
When committing documentation changes, use a spell checker before committing.
For all XML docs, verify that the formatting directives are correct by running
make lint
and
textproc/igor
For manual pages, run
sysutils/manck
and
textproc/igor
over the manual page to verify all of the cross references and file references are correct and that the man page has all of the appropriate
MLINKS
installed.
Do not mix style fixes with new functionality.
A style fix is any change which does not modify the functionality of the code.
Mixing the changes obfuscates the functionality change when asking for differences between revisions, which can hide any new bugs.
Do not include whitespace changes with content changes in commits to
doc/
The extra clutter in the diffs makes the translators' job much more difficult.
Instead, make any style or whitespace changes in separate commits that are clearly labeled as such in the commit message.
20.5. Deprecating Features
When it is necessary to remove functionality from software in the base system, follow these guidelines whenever possible:
Mention is made in the manual page and possibly the release notes that the option, utility, or interface is deprecated. Use of the deprecated feature generates a warning.
The option, utility, or interface is preserved until the next major (point zero) release.
The option, utility, or interface is removed and no longer documented. It is now obsolete. It is also generally a good idea to note its removal in the release notes.
20.6. Privacy and Confidentiality
Most FreeBSD business is done in public.
FreeBSD is an
open
project.
Which means that not only can anyone use the source code, but that most of the development process is open to public scrutiny.
Certain sensitive matters must remain private or held under embargo.
There unfortunately cannot be complete transparency.
As a FreeBSD developer you will have a certain degree of privileged access to information.
Consequently you are expected to respect certain requirements for confidentiality.
Sometimes the need for confidentiality comes from external collaborators or has a specific time limit.
Mostly though, it is a matter of not releasing private communications.
The Security Officer has sole control over the release of security advisories.
Where there are security problems that affect many different operating systems, FreeBSD frequently depends on early access to be able to prepare advisories for coordinated release.
Unless FreeBSD developers can be trusted to maintain security, such early access will not be made available.
The Security Officer is responsible for controlling pre-release access to information about vulnerabilities, and for timing the release of all advisories.
He may request help under condition of confidentiality from any developer with relevant knowledge to prepare security fixes.
Communications with Core are kept confidential for as long as necessary.
Communications to core will initially be treated as confidential.
Eventually however, most of Core’s business will be summarized into the monthly or quarterly core reports.
Care will be taken to avoid publicising any sensitive details.
Records of some particularly sensitive subjects may not be reported on at all and will be retained only in Core’s private archives.
Non-disclosure Agreements may be required for access to certain commercially sensitive data.
Access to certain commercially sensitive data may only be available under a Non-Disclosure Agreement.
The FreeBSD Foundation legal staff must be consulted before any binding agreements are entered into.
Private communications must not be made public without permission.
Beyond the specific requirements above there is a general expectation not to publish private communications between developers without the consent of all parties involved.
Ask permission before forwarding a message onto a public mailing list, or posting it to a forum or website that can be accessed by other than the original correspondents.
Communications on project-only or restricted access channels must be kept private.
Similarly to personal communications, certain internal communications channels, including FreeBSD Committer only mailing lists and restricted access IRC channels are considered private communications.
Permission is required to publish material from these sources.
Core may approve publication.
Where it is impractical to obtain permission due to the number of correspondents or where permission to publish is unreasonably withheld, Core may approve release of such private matters that merit more general publication.
21. Support for Multiple Architectures
FreeBSD is a highly portable operating system intended to function on many different types of hardware architectures.
Maintaining clean separation of Machine Dependent (MD) and Machine Independent (MI) code, as well as minimizing MD code, is an important part of our strategy to remain agile with regards to current hardware trends.
Each new hardware architecture supported by FreeBSD adds substantially to the cost of code maintenance, toolchain support, and release engineering.
It also dramatically increases the cost of effective testing of kernel changes.
As such, there is strong motivation to differentiate between classes of support for various architectures while remaining strong in a few key architectures that are seen as the FreeBSD "target audience".
21.1. Statement of General Intent
The FreeBSD Project targets "production quality commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) workstation, server, and high-end embedded systems".
By retaining a focus on a narrow set of architectures of interest in these environments, the FreeBSD Project is able to maintain high levels of quality, stability, and performance, as well as minimize the load on various support teams on the project, such as the ports team, documentation team, security officer, and release engineering teams.
Diversity in hardware support broadens the options for FreeBSD consumers by offering new features and usage opportunities, but these benefits must always be carefully considered in terms of the real-world maintenance cost associated with additional platform support.
The FreeBSD Project differentiates platform targets into four tiers.
Each tier includes a list of guarantees consumers may rely on as well as obligations by the Project and developers to fulfill those guarantees.
These lists define the minimum guarantees for each tier.
The Project and developers may provide additional levels of support beyond the minimum guarantees for a given tier, but such additional support is not guaranteed.
Each platform target is assigned to a specific tier for each stable branch.
As a result, a platform target might be assigned to different tiers on concurrent stable branches.
21.2. Platform Targets
Support for a hardware platform consists of two components: kernel support and userland Application Binary Interfaces (ABIs).
Kernel platform support includes things needed to run a FreeBSD kernel on a hardware platform such as machine-dependent virtual memory management and device drivers.
A userland ABI specifies an interface for user processes to interact with a FreeBSD kernel and base system libraries.
A userland ABI includes system call interfaces, the layout and semantics of public data structures, and the layout and semantics of arguments passed to subroutines.
Some components of an ABI may be defined by specifications such as the layout of C++ exception objects or calling conventions for C functions.
A FreeBSD kernel also uses an ABI (sometimes referred to as the Kernel Binary Interface (KBI)) which includes the semantics and layouts of public data structures and the layout and semantics of arguments to public functions within the kernel itself.
A FreeBSD kernel may support multiple userland ABIs.
For example, FreeBSD’s amd64 kernel supports FreeBSD amd64 and i386 userland ABIs as well as Linux x86_64 and i386 userland ABIs.
A FreeBSD kernel should support a "native" ABI as the default ABI.
The native "ABI" generally shares certain properties with the kernel ABI such as the C calling convention, sizes of basic types, etc.
Tiers are defined for both kernels and userland ABIs. In the common case, a platform’s kernel and FreeBSD ABIs are assigned to the same tier.
21.2.1. Tier 1: Fully-Supported Architectures
Tier 1 platforms are the most mature FreeBSD platforms.
They are supported by the security officer, release engineering, and Ports Management Team.
Tier 1 architectures are expected to be Production Quality with respect to all aspects of the FreeBSD operating system, including installation and development environments.
The FreeBSD Project provides the following guarantees to consumers of Tier 1 platforms:
Official FreeBSD release images will be provided by the release engineering team.
Binary updates and source patches for Security Advisories and Errata Notices will be provided for supported releases.
Source patches for Security Advisories will be provided for supported branches.
Binary updates and source patches for cross-platform Security Advisories will typically be provided at the time of the announcement.
Changes to userland ABIs will generally include compatibility shims to ensure correct operation of binaries compiled against any stable branch where the platform is Tier 1. These shims might not be enabled in the default install. If compatibility shims are not provided for an ABI change, the lack of shims will be clearly documented in the release notes.
Changes to certain portions of the kernel ABI will include compatibility shims to ensure correct operation of kernel modules compiled against the oldest supported release on the branch. Note that not all parts of the kernel ABI are protected.
Official binary packages for third party software will be provided by the ports team. For embedded architectures, these packages may be cross-built from a different architecture.
Most relevant ports should either build or have the appropriate filters to prevent inappropriate ones from building.
New features which are not inherently platform-specific will be fully functional on all Tier 1 architectures.
Features and compatibility shims used by binaries compiled against older stable branches may be removed in newer major versions. Such removals will be clearly documented in the release notes.
Tier 1 platforms should be fully documented. Basic operations will be documented in the FreeBSD Handbook.
Tier 1 platforms will be included in the source tree.
Tier 1 platforms should be self-hosting either via the in-tree toolchain or an external toolchain. If an external toolchain is required, official binary packages for an external toolchain will be provided.
To maintain maturity of Tier 1 platforms, the FreeBSD Project will maintain the following resources to support development:
Build and test automation support either in the FreeBSD.org cluster or some other location easily available for all developers. Embedded platforms may substitute an emulator available in the FreeBSD.org cluster for actual hardware.
Inclusion in the
make universe
and
make tinderbox
targets.
Dedicated hardware in one of the FreeBSD clusters for package building (either natively or via qemu-user).
Collectively, developers are required to provide the following to maintain the Tier 1 status of a platform:
Changes to the source tree should not knowingly break the build of a Tier 1 platform.
Tier 1 architectures must have a mature, healthy ecosystem of users and active developers.
Developers should be able to build packages on commonly available, non-embedded Tier 1 systems. This can mean either native builds if non-embedded systems are commonly available for the platform in question, or it can mean cross-builds hosted on some other Tier 1 architecture.
Changes cannot break the userland ABI. If an ABI change is required, ABI compatibility for existing binaries should be provided via use of symbol versioning or shared library version bumps.
Changes merged to stable branches cannot break the protected portions of the kernel ABI. If a kernel ABI change is required, the change should be modified to preserve functionality of existing kernel modules.
21.2.2. Tier 2: Developmental and Niche Architectures
Tier 2 platforms are functional, but less mature FreeBSD platforms.
They are not supported by the security officer, release engineering, and Ports Management Team.
Tier 2 platforms may be Tier 1 platform candidates that are still under active development.
Architectures reaching end of life may also be moved from Tier 1 status to Tier 2 status as the availability of resources to continue to maintain the system in a Production Quality state diminishes.
Well-supported niche architectures may also be Tier 2.
The FreeBSD Project provides the following guarantees to consumers of Tier 2 platforms:
The ports infrastructure should include basic support for Tier 2 architectures sufficient to support building ports and packages. This includes support for basic packages such as ports-mgmt/pkg, but there is no guarantee that arbitrary ports will be buildable or functional.
New features which are not inherently platform-specific should be feasible on all Tier 2 architectures if not implemented.
Tier 2 platforms will be included in the source tree.
Tier 2 platforms should be self-hosting either via the in-tree toolchain or an external toolchain. If an external toolchain is required, official binary packages for an external toolchain will be provided.
Tier 2 platforms should provide functional kernels and userlands even if an official release distribution is not provided.
To maintain maturity of Tier 2 platforms, the FreeBSD Project will maintain the following resources to support development:
Inclusion in the
make universe
and
make tinderbox
targets.
Collectively, developers are required to provide the following to maintain the Tier 2 status of a platform:
Changes to the source tree should not knowingly break the build of a Tier 2 platform.
Tier 2 architectures must have an active ecosystem of users and developers.
While changes are permitted to break the userland ABI, the ABI should not be broken gratuitously. Significant userland ABI changes should be restricted to major versions.
New features that are not yet implemented on Tier 2 architectures should provide a means of disabling them on those architectures.
21.2.3. Tier 3: Experimental Architectures
Tier 3 platforms have at least partial FreeBSD support.
They are
not
supported by the security officer, release engineering, and Ports Management Team.
Tier 3 platforms are architectures in the early stages of development, for non-mainstream hardware platforms, or which are considered legacy systems unlikely to see broad future use.
Initial support for Tier 3 platforms may exist in a separate repository rather than the main source repository.
The FreeBSD Project provides no guarantees to consumers of Tier 3 platforms and is not committed to maintaining resources to support development.
Tier 3 platforms may not always be buildable, nor are any kernel or userland ABIs considered stable.
21.2.4. Unsupported Architectures
Other platforms are not supported in any form by the project.
The project previously described these as Tier 4 systems.
After a platform transitions to unsupported, all support for the platform is removed from the source, ports and documentation trees.
Note that ports support should remain as long as the platform is supported in a branch supported by ports.
21.3. Policy on Changing the Tier of an Architecture
Systems may only be moved from one tier to another by approval of the FreeBSD Core Team, which shall make that decision in collaboration with the Security Officer, Release Engineering, and ports management teams.
For a platform to be promoted to a higher tier, any missing support guarantees must be satisfied before the promotion is completed.
22. Ports Specific FAQ
22.1. Adding a New Port
22.1.1. How do I add a new port?
Adding a port to the tree is relatively simple. Once the port is ready to be
added, as explained later
here
, you need to add the port’s directory entry in the category’s
Makefile
In this
Makefile
, ports are listed in alphabetical order and added to the
SUBDIR
variable, like this:
SUBDIR += newport
Once the port and its category’s Makefile are ready, the new port can be committed:
% git add category/Makefile category/newport
% git commit
% git push
Don’t forget to
setup git hooks for the ports tree as explained here
; a specific hook has been developed to verify the category’s
Makefile
22.1.2. Any other things I need to know when I add a new port?
Check the port, preferably to make sure it compiles and packages correctly.
The
Porters Handbook’s Testing Chapter
contains more detailed instructions.
See the
Portclippy / Portfmt
and the
poudriere
sections.
You do not necessarily have to eliminate all warnings but make sure you have fixed the simple ones.
If the port came from a submitter who has not contributed to the Project before, add that person’s name to the
Additional Contributors
section of the FreeBSD Contributors List.
Close the PR if the port came in as a PR.
To close a PR, change the state to
Issue Resolved
and the resolution as
Fixed
If for some reason using
poudriere
to test the new port is not possible, the bare minimum of testing includes this sequence:
# make install
# make package
# make deinstall
# pkg add package you built above
# make deinstall
# make reinstall
# make package
Note that poudriere is the reference for package building, it the port does not build in poudriere, it will be removed.
22.2. Removing an Existing Port
22.2.1. How do I remove an existing port?
First, please read the section about repository copies. Before you remove the port, you have to verify there are no other ports depending on it.
Make sure there is no dependency on the port in the ports collection:
The port’s PKGNAME appears in exactly one line in a recent INDEX file.
No other ports contains any reference to the port’s directory or PKGNAME in their Makefiles
When using Git, consider using
git-grep(1)
, it is much faster than
grep -r
Then, remove the port:
Remove the port’s files and directory with
git rm
Remove the
SUBDIR
listing of the port in the parent directory
Makefile
Add an entry to
ports/MOVED
Remove the port from
ports/LEGAL
if it is there.
Alternatively, you can use the rmport script, from
ports/Tools/scripts
This script was written by Vasil Dimov <
vd@FreeBSD.org
>.
When sending questions about this script to the
FreeBSD ports mailing list
, please also CC Chris Rees <
crees@FreeBSD.org
>, the current maintainer.
22.3. How do I move a port to a new location?
Perform a thorough check of the ports collection for any dependencies on the old port location/name, and update them. Running
grep
on
INDEX
is not enough because some ports have dependencies enabled by compile-time options. A full
git-grep(1)
of the ports collection is recommended.
Remove the
SUBDIR
entry from the old category Makefile and add a
SUBDIR
entry to the new category Makefile.
Add an entry to
ports/MOVED
Search for entries in xml files inside
ports/security/vuxml
and adjust them accordingly. In particular, check for previous packages with the new name which version could include the new port.
Move the port with
git mv
Commit the changes.
22.4. How do I copy a port to a new location?
Copy port with
cp -R old-cat/old-port new-cat/new-port
Add the new port to the
new-cat/Makefile
Change stuff in
new-cat/new-port
Commit the changes.
22.5. Ports Freeze
22.5.1. What is a “ports freeze”?
A “ports freeze” was a restricted state the ports tree was put in before a release.
It was used to ensure a higher quality for the packages shipped with a release.
It usually lasted a couple of weeks.
During that time, build problems were fixed, and the release packages were built.
This practice is no longer used, as the packages for the releases are built from the current stable, quarterly branch.
For more information on how to merge commits to the quarterly branch, see
What is the procedure to request authorization for merging a commit to the quarterly branch?
22.6. Quarterly Branches
22.6.1. What is the procedure to request authorization for merging a commit to the quarterly branch?
As of November 30, 2020, there is no need to seek explicit approval to commit to the quarterly branch.
22.6.2. What is the procedure for merging commits to the quarterly branch?
Merging commits to the quarterly branch (a process we call MFH for a historical reason) is very similar to MFC’ing a commit in the src repository, so basically:
% git checkout 2021Q2
% git cherry-pick
-x
$HASH
verify everything is OK,
for
example by doing a build
test
% git push
where
$HASH
is the hash of the commit you want to copy over to the quarterly branch.
The
-x
parameter ensures the hash
$HASH
of the
main
branch is included in the new commit message of the quarterly branch.
22.7. Creating a New Category
22.7.1. What is the procedure for creating a new category?
Please see
Proposing a New Category
in the Porter’s Handbook.
Once that procedure has been followed and the PR has been assigned to the Ports Management Team <
portmgr@FreeBSD.org
>, it is their decision whether or not to approve it.
If they do, it is their responsibility to:
Perform any needed moves. (This only applies to physical categories.)
Update the
VALID_CATEGORIES
definition in
ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk
Assign the PR back to you.
22.7.2. What do I need to do to implement a new physical category?
Upgrade each moved port’s
Makefile
. Do not connect the new category to the build yet.
To do this, you will need to:
Change the port’s
CATEGORIES
(this was the point of the exercise, remember?) The new category is listed first. This will help to ensure that the PKGORIGIN is correct.
Run a
make describe
. Since the top-level
make index
that you will be running in a few steps is an iteration of
make describe
over the entire ports hierarchy, catching any errors here will save you having to re-run that step later on.
If you want to be really thorough, now might be a good time to run
portlint(1)
Check that the
PKGORIGIN
s are correct. The ports system uses each port’s
CATEGORIES
entry to create its
PKGORIGIN
, which is used to connect installed packages to the port directory they were built from. If this entry is wrong, common port tools like
pkg-version(8)
and
portupgrade(1)
fail.
To do this, use the
chkorigin.sh
tool:
env PORTSDIR=/path/to/ports sh -e /path/to/ports/Tools/scripts/chkorigin.sh
. This will check every port in the ports tree, even those not connected to the build, so you can run it directly after the move operation. Hint: do not forget to look at the
PKGORIGIN
s of any slave ports of the ports you just moved!
On your own local system, test the proposed changes: first, comment out the SUBDIR entries in the old ports' categories'
Makefile
s; then enable building the new category in
ports/Makefile
. Run make checksubdirs in the affected category directories to check the SUBDIR entries. Next, in the
ports/
directory, run make index. This can take over 40 minutes on even modern systems; however, it is a necessary step to prevent problems for other people.
Once this is done, you can commit the updated
ports/Makefile
to connect the new category to the build and also commit the
Makefile
changes for the old category or categories.
Add appropriate entries to
ports/MOVED
Update the documentation by modifying:
the
list of categories
in the Porter’s Handbook
Only once all the above have been done, and no one is any longer reporting problems with the new ports, should the old ports be deleted from their previous locations in the repository.
22.7.3. What do I need to do to implement a new virtual category?
This is much simpler than a physical category. Only a few modifications are needed:
the
list of categories
in the Porter’s Handbook
22.8. Miscellaneous Questions
22.8.1. Are there changes that can be committed without asking the maintainer for approval?
Blanket approval for most ports applies to these types of fixes:
Most infrastructure changes to a port (that is, modernizing, but not changing the functionality). For example, the blanket covers converting to new
USES
macros, enabling verbose builds, and switching to new ports system syntaxes.
Trivial and
tested
build and runtime fixes.
Documentations or metadata changes to ports, like
pkg-descr
or
COMMENT
Exceptions to this are anything maintained by the Ports Management Team <
portmgr@FreeBSD.org
>, or the Security Officer Team <
security-officer@FreeBSD.org
>.
No unauthorized commits may ever be made to ports maintained by those groups.
22.8.2. How do I know if my port is building correctly or not?
The packages are built multiple times each week.
If a port fails, the maintainer will receive an email from
pkg-fallout@FreeBSD.org
Reports for all the package builds (official, experimental, and non-regression) are aggregated at
pkg-status.FreeBSD.org
22.8.3. I added a new port. Do I need to add it to the
INDEX
No. The file can either be generated by running
make index
, or a pre-generated version can be downloaded with
make fetchindex
22.8.4. Are there any other files I am not allowed to touch?
Any file directly under
ports/
, or any file under a subdirectory that starts with an uppercase letter (
Mk/
Tools/
, etc.).
In particular, the Ports Management Team <
portmgr@FreeBSD.org
> is very protective of
ports/Mk/bsd.port*.mk
so do not commit changes to those files unless you want to face their wrath.
22.8.5. What is the proper procedure for updating the checksum for a port distfile when the file changes without a version change?
When the checksum for a distribution file is updated due to the author updating the file without changing the port revision, the commit message includes a summary of the relevant diffs between the original and new distfile to ensure that the distfile has not been corrupted or maliciously altered.
If the current version of the port has been in the ports tree for a while, a copy of the old distfile will usually be available on the ftp servers; otherwise the author or maintainer should be contacted to find out why the distfile has changed.
22.8.6. How can an experimental test build of the ports tree (exp-run) be requested?
An exp-run must be completed before patches with a significant ports impact are committed.
The patch can be against the ports tree or the base system.
Full package builds will be done with the patches provided by the submitter, and the submitter is required to fix detected problems
(fallout)
before commit.
Go to the
Bugzilla new PR page
Select the product your patch is about.
Fill in the bug report as normal. Remember to attach the patch.
If at the top it says “Show Advanced Fields” click on it. It will now say “Hide Advanced Fields”. Many new fields will be available. If it already says “Hide Advanced Fields”, no need to do anything.
In the “Flags” section, set the “exp-run” one to
. As for all other fields, hovering the mouse over any field shows more details.
Submit. Wait for the build to run.
Ports Management Team <
portmgr@FreeBSD.org
> will reply with a possible fallout.
Depending on the fallout:
If there is no fallout, the procedure stops here, and the change can be committed, pending any other approval required.
If there is fallout, it
must
be fixed, either by fixing the ports directly in the ports tree, or adding to the submitted patch.
When this is done, go back to step 6 saying the fallout was fixed and wait for the exp-run to be run again. Repeat as long as there are broken ports.
23. Issues Specific to Developers Who Are Not Committers
A few people who have access to the FreeBSD machines do not have commit bits.
Almost all of this document will apply to these developers as well (except things specific to commits and the mailing list memberships that go with them).
In particular, we recommend that you read:
Administrative Details
For Everyone
Get your mentor to add you to the "Additional Contributors" (
doc/shared/contrib-additional.adoc
), if you are not already listed there.
Developer Relations
SSH Quick-Start Guide
The FreeBSD Committers' Big List of Rules
24. Information About Google Analytics
As of December 12, 2012, Google Analytics was enabled on the FreeBSD Project website to collect anonymized usage statistics regarding usage of the site.
As of March 3, 2022, Google Analytics was removed from the FreeBSD Project.
25. Miscellaneous Questions
25.1. How do I access people.FreeBSD.org to put up personal or project information?
people.FreeBSD.org
is the same as
freefall.FreeBSD.org
Just create a
public_html
directory. Anything you place in that directory will automatically be visible under
25.2. Where are the mailing list archives stored?
The mailing lists are archived under
/local/mail
on
freefall.FreeBSD.org
25.3. I would like to mentor a new committer. What process do I need to follow?
See the
New Account Creation Procedure
document on the internal pages.
26. Benefits and Perks for FreeBSD Committers
26.1. Recognition
Recognition as a competent software engineer is the longest lasting value.
In addition, getting a chance to work with some of the best people that every engineer would dream of meeting is a great perk!
26.2. FreeBSD Mall
FreeBSD committers can get a free 4-CD or DVD set at conferences from
FreeBSD Mall, Inc.
26.3.
Gandi.net
Gandi
provides website hosting, cloud computing, domain registration, and X.509 certificate services.
Gandi offers an E-rate discount to all FreeBSD developers.
To streamline the process of getting the discount first set up a Gandi account, fill in the billing information and select the currency.
Then send an mail to
non-profit@gandi.net
using your
@freebsd.org
mail address, and indicate your Gandi handle.
26.4.
rsync.net
rsync.net
provides cloud storage for offsite backup that is optimized for UNIX users. Their service runs entirely on FreeBSD and ZFS.
rsync.net offers a free-forever 500 GB account to FreeBSD developers. Simply sign up at
using your
@freebsd.org
address to receive this free account.
Last modified on
: March 23, 2026 by
Po Han Chen
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