RELEASE(7)					       BSD Miscellaneous Information Manual						RELEASE(7)

NAME

     release -- release building infrastructure

DESCRIPTION

     FreeBSD provides a complete build environment suitable for users to make full releases of the FreeBSD operating system.  All of the tools
     necessary to build a release are available from the FreeBSD source code repository in src/release.  A complete release can actually be built
     with only a single command, including the creation of ISO images suitable for burning to CD-ROM, memory stick images, and an FTP install
     directory.  This command is aptly named ``make release''.

     For some users, it may be desirable to provide an absolutely clean build environment, with no local modifications to the source tree or to
     make.conf(5), and with clean checkouts of specific versions of the doc, src, and ports trees.  For this purpose, a script
     (src/release/release.sh) is provided to automate these checkouts and then execute ``make release'' in a clean chroot(8).

     Before attempting to build a release, the user is expected to be familiar with the contents of build(7), and should have experience upgrading
     systems from source.

     The release build process requires that /usr/obj be populated with the output of ``make buildworld'' and ``make buildkernel''.  This is nec-
     essary to provide the object files for the release or, when using release.sh, so that the object files for a complete system can be installed
     into a clean chroot(8) environment.

     If the target release build is for a different architecture or machine type, the TARGET and TARGET_ARCH variables must be used.  See the sup-
     ported release.conf variables for more information.

     The release procedure on some architectures may also require that the md(4) (memory disk) device driver be present in the kernel (either by
     being compiled in or available as a module).

     This document does not cover source code management, quality assurance, or other aspects of the release engineering process.

CLEAN RELEASE GENERATION

     Official releases of FreeBSD are produced in a totally clean environment to ensure consistency between the versions of the src, ports, and
     doc trees and to avoid contamination from the host system (such as local patches, changes to make.conf(5), etc.).	This is accomplished using
     the wrapper script src/release/release.sh.

     release.sh [-c release.conf]

     release.sh checks out the src/, ports/, and doc/ trees to CHROOTDIR, then calls ``make buildworld'' and ``make installworld'' to generate a
     chroot(8) environment.  Next, ``make release'' is run within the chroot(8) environment and places the result in $CHROOTDIR/R.

     The optional release.conf configuration file supports the following variables:

     CHROOTDIR	      The directory within which the release will be built.

     CHROOT_MAKEENV   Additional make(1) arguments to pass through, which directly affect the tuning of the build chroot.

     SVNROOT	      The svn(1) host used to check out the various trees.  Defaults to svn://svn.FreeeBSD.org.

     SRCBRANCH	      The src/ branch to use.  Defaults to head/@rHEAD.

     DOCBRANCH	      The doc/ branch to use.  Defaults to head/@rHEAD.

     PORTBRANCH       The ports/ branch to use.  Defaults to head/@rHEAD.

     TARGET	      The target machine type for cross-building a release.

     TARGET_ARCH      The target machine architecture for cross-building a release.

		      For the supported list of TARGET and TARGET_ARCH combinations, consult the output of ``make targets'' as documented in
		      build(7).

     KERNEL	      The target kernel configuration to use.  Defaults to GENERIC.  Multiple KERNEL entries may be specified.

     MAKE_CONF	      The make.conf(5) to use for the release build.  Defaults to /dev/null to prevent polluting the release with local system
		      changes.

     SRC_CONF	      The src.conf(5) to use for the release build.  Defaults to /dev/null to prevent polluting the release with local system
		      changes.

     MAKE_FLAGS       Additional flags to pass to make(1).

     WORLD_FLAGS      Additional flags to pass to make(1) during the ``buildworld'' phase.  Defaults to setting the number of make(1) jobs (-j) to
		      the number of CPUs available on a SMP-capable system.

     KERNEL_FLAGS     Additional flags to pass to make(1) during the ``buildkernel'' phase.  Defaults to setting the number of make(1) jobs (-j)
		      to half the number of CPUs available on a SMP-capable system.

     NODOC	      Set to a non-empty value to skip the doc/ tree checkout.	When set, NODOC will prevent the doc.txz distribution package from
		      being created.

     NOPORTS	      Set to a non-empty value to skip the ports/ tree checkout.  When set, NOPORTS will prevent the ports.txz distribution pack-
		      age from being created.  Setting this also sets NODOC.

     WITH_DVD	      Set to a non-empty value to include the dvdrom target.

     WITH_COMPRESSED_IMAGES
		      Set to a non-empty value to compress the release images with xz(1).  The original (uncompressed) images are not removed.

     VCSCMD	      The command run to obtain the source trees.  Defaults to "svn checkout".

     CHROOTBUILD_SKIP
		      If defined, the buildworld, installworld, and distribution stages of the chroot(8) build environment setup are skipped.
		      This is intended solely for cases where the chroot(8) userland are provided by alternate means.

     SRC_UPDATE_SKIP  Set to a non-empty value to prevent checkout or update of /usr/src within the chroot(8).	This is intended for use only when
		      /usr/src is expected to exist by alternative means.

     DOC_UPDATE_SKIP  Set to a non-empty value to prevent checkout or update of /usr/doc within the chroot(8).	This is intended for use only when
		      /usr/doc is expected to exist by alternative means.

     PORTS_UPDATE_SKIP
		      Set to a non-empty value to prevent checkout or update of /usr/ports within the chroot(8).  This is intended for use only
		      when /usr/ports is expected to exist by alternative means.

EMBEDDED BUILDS

     The following release.conf variables are relevant only to release builds for embedded systems:

     EMBEDDEDBUILD    Set to a non-null value to enable functionality for embedded device release builds.  (This option is considered highly
		      experimental.)

		      When set, WITH_DVD is unset, and NODOC is defined.  Additionally, XDEV and XDEV_ARCH must also be defined.  When the build
		      environment is created, release.sh runs a separate build script located in an architecture-specific directory in
		      src/release/${XDEV}/.

     EMBEDDEDPORTS    Set to the list of any ports that are required for the target device in the format of category/port.  The devel/subversion
		      port is built by default.

     CROCHETSRC       Set to the source URL for the Crochet build tool.

     CROCHETBRANCH    Set to the subversion branch from ${CROCHETSRC} to use.  Defaults to trunk.

     UBOOTSRC	      Set to the source URL of u-boot, if required.

     UBOOTBRANCH      Set to the subversion branch from ${UBOOTSRC} to use.  Defaults to trunk.

     UBOOTDIR	      Set to the target directory within ${CHROOTDIR} to check out ${UBOOTSRC}/${UBOOTBRANCH}.

VIRTUAL MACHINE DISK IMAGES

     The following release.conf variables are relevant only to virtual machine disk image builds:

     WITH_VMIMAGES    Set to a non-null value to build virtual machine disk images as part of the release build.  WITH_VMIMAGES may also be speci-
		      fied as an envirionment variable passed to make(1).

		      The option requires mkimg(1) version 20140927 or later.

     WITH_COMPRESSED_VMIMAGES
		      Set to a non-null value to compress the virtual machine disk images with xz(1) as part of the install make(1) target.  Note
		      that compressing virtual machine disk images may take a very long time on some systems.

     VMBASE	      Set to change the name of the resulting virtual machine disk image file.	The default value is vm.

     VMSIZE	      Set to change the size of the virtual machine disk capacity.  The default value is 20G.  See truncate(1) for valid values.

		      Virtual machine disk images are, by default, created as sparse images.  When WITH_COMPRESSED_VMIMAGES is used, the resulting
		      files compressed with xz(1) compress to roughly the same size, regardless of the specified disk image size.

     VMFORMATS	      Set to the target virtual disk image format(s) to create.  By default, the vhdf, vmdk, qcow2, and raw formats are created.
		      See mkimg(1) for valid format values (requires version 20140927 or later).

     For a list of supported VMFORMATS values (including cloud hosting provider formats) along with a brief description, run:

	   cd /usr/src
	   make -C release list-vmtargets

CLOUD HOSTING MACHINE IMAGES

     The FreeBSD release build tools support building virtual machine images for various cloud hosting providers, each with their own specific
     configuration to include support for each hosting provider by default.

     The following make(1) environment variables are supported:

     CLOUDWARE	      Set to a list of one or more cloud hosting providers, enclosed in quotes.  Requires WITH_CLOUDWARE to also be set.

     WITH_CLOUDWARE   Set to a non-empty value to enable building virtual machine images for various cloud hosting providers.  Requires CLOUDWARE
		      to also be set.

     Additionally, the CLOUDWARE and WITH_CLOUDWARE variables can be added to release.conf, and used in conjunction with release.sh.

     For a list of supported CLOUDWARE values, run:

	   cd /usr/src
	   make -C release list-cloudware

MAKEFILE TARGETS

     The release makefile (src/release/Makefile) is fairly abstruse.  Most developers will only be concerned with the release and install targets.

     release	    Meta-target to build all release media and distributions applicable to this platform.

     install	    Copy all produced release media to ${DESTDIR}.

     cdrom	    Builds installation CD-ROM images.	This may require the md(4) (memory disk) device driver be present in the kernel (either by
		    being compiled in or available as a module).  This target produces files called disc1.iso and bootonly.iso as its output.

     dvdrom	    Builds installation DVD-ROM images.  This may require the md(4) (memory disk) device driver be present in the kernel (either
		    by being compiled in or available as a module).  This target produces the dvd1.iso file as its output.

     memstick	    Builds an installation memory stick image named memstick.img.  Not applicable on all platforms.  Requires that the md(4)
		    (memory disk) device driver be present in the kernel (either by being compiled in or available as a module).

     mini-memstick  Similar to memstick, with the exception that the installation distribution sets are not included.

     ftp	    Creates a directory named ftp containing the distribution files used in network installations and suitable for upload to an
		    FTP mirror.

     vm-image	    Creates virtual machine disk images in various formats.  The vm-image target requires the WITH_VMIMAGES make(1) envirionment
		    variable to be set to a non-null value.

     vm-cloudware   Builds FreeBSD virtual machine images for various cloud hosting providers.	See "CLOUD HOSTING MACHINE IMAGES" for implementa-
		    tion details.

     list-cloudware
		    Displays the list of valid CLOUDWARE values.

     list-vmtargets
		    Displays the list of valid VMFORMAT and CLOUDWARE values.

     Major subtargets called by targets above:

     packagesystem  Generates all the distribution archives (base, kernel, ports, doc) applicable on this platform.

     disc1	    Builds a bootable installation system containing all the distribution files packaged by the packagesystem target, and suitable
		    for imaging by the cdrom, dvdrom and memstick targets.

     reldoc	    Builds the release documentation.  This includes the release notes, hardware guide, and installation instructions.	Other doc-
		    umentation, such as the Handbook, is built during the base.txz target invoked by packagesystem.

ENVIRONMENT

     Optional variables:

     OSRELEASE	  Optional base name for generated media images (e.g., FreeBSD-9.0-RC2-amd64).	Defaults to the output of `uname -s`-`uname
		  -r`-`uname -p` within the chroot.

     WORLDDIR	  Location of a directory containing the src tree.  By default, the directory above the one containing the makefile (src).

     PORTSDIR	  Location of a directory containing the ports tree.  By default, /usr/ports.  If it is unset or cannot be found, ports will not
		  be included in the release.

     DOCDIR	  Location of a directory containing the doc tree.  By default, /usr/doc.  If it is unset or cannot be found, most documentation
		  will not be included in the release; see NODOC below.

     NOPORTS	  If defined, the Ports Collection will be omitted from the release.

     NOSRC	  If set, do not include system source code in the release.

     NODOC	  If defined, the XML-based documentation from the FreeBSD Documentation Project will not be built.  However, the ``doc'' distri-
		  bution will still be created with the minimal documentation set provided in src/share/doc.

     TARGET	  The target hardware platform.  This is analogous to the ``uname -m'' output.	This is necessary to cross-build some target
		  architectures.  For example, cross-building for PC98 machines requires TARGET_ARCH=i386 and TARGET=pc98.  If not set, TARGET
		  defaults to the current hardware platform.

     TARGET_ARCH  The target machine processor architecture.  This is analogous to the ``uname -p'' output.  Set this to cross-build for a differ-
		  ent architecture.  If not set, TARGET_ARCH defaults to the current machine architecture, unless TARGET is also set, in which
		  case it defaults to the appropriate value for that platform.	Typically, one only needs to set TARGET.

FILES

     /usr/doc/Makefile
     /usr/doc/share/mk/doc.project.mk
     /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.port.mk
     /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.sites.mk
     /usr/share/examples/etc/make.conf
     /usr/src/Makefile
     /usr/src/Makefile.inc1
     /usr/src/release/Makefile
     /usr/src/release/Makefile.vm
     /usr/src/release/release.sh
     /usr/src/release/release.conf.sample
     /usr/src/release/tools/*.conf
     /usr/src/release/tools/vmimage.subr

EXAMPLES

     The following sequence of commands can be used to build a ``-CURRENT snapshot'':

	   cd /usr
	   svn co svn://svn.freebsd.org/base/head src
	   cd src
	   make buildworld buildkernel
	   cd release
	   make release
	   make install DESTDIR=/var/freebsd-snapshot

     After running these commands, all produced distribution files (tarballs for FTP, CD-ROM images, etc.) are available in the
     /var/freebsd-snapshot directory.

     The following sequence of commands can be used to build a ``-CURRENT snapshot'' in a clean environment, including ports and documentation:

	   cd /usr/src/release
	   sh release.sh

     Optionally, a configuration file can be used customize the release build, such as the subversion revision to use, the branch of the subver-
     sion tree for src/, ports/, and doc/.

	   cd /usr/src/release
	   sh release.sh -c $HOME/release.conf

     After running these commands, all prepared release files are available in the /scratch directory.	The target directory can be changed by
     specifying the CHROOTDIR variable in release.conf.

SEE ALSO

     cc(1), install(1), make(1), svn(1) (ports/devel/subversion), uname(1), md(4), make.conf(5), build(7), ports(7), chroot(8), mtree(8),
     sysctl(8)

     FreeBSD Release Engineering, http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/releng/.

     FreeBSD Release Engineering of Third Party Packages, http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/releng-packages/.

     FreeBSD Developers' Handbook, http://www.FreeBSD.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/developers-handbook/.

HISTORY

     FreeBSD 1.x used a manual checklist, compiled by Rod Grimes, to produce a release.  Apart from being incomplete, the list put a lot of spe-
     cific demands on available file systems and was quite torturous to execute.

     As part of the FreeBSD 2.0 release engineering effort, significant effort was spent getting src/release/Makefile into a shape where it could
     at least automate most of the tediousness of building a release in a sterile environment.

     For the FreeBSD 9.0 release, src/release/Makefile was overhauled and the wrapper script src/release/generate-release.sh introduced to support
     the introduction of a new installer.

     For the FreeBSD 9.2 release, src/release/release.sh was introduced to support per-build configuration files.  src/release/release.sh is heav-
     ily based on the src/release/generate-release.sh script.

     At near 1000 revisions spread over multiple branches, the svn(1) log of src/release/Makefile contains a vivid historical record of some of
     the hardships release engineers go through.

AUTHORS

     src/release/Makefile was originally written by Rod Grimes, Jordan Hubbard, and Poul-Henning Kamp.

     This manual page was originally written by Murray Stokely <murray@FreeBSD.org>.

     It was updated by Nathan Whitehorn <nwhitehorn@FreeBSD.org> to include the generate-release.sh script used for the FreeBSD 9.0 release cycle.

     It was later updated by Glen Barber <gjb@FreeBSD.org> to include the release.sh script used for the FreeBSD 9.2 release cycle.

BSD
								 January 28, 2015							       BSD