Pkgsrc

---

title: "Pkgsrc" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["console-applications", "free-package-management-systems", "linux-package-management-related-software", "netbsd", "software-using-the-bsd-license", "unix-package-management-related-software", "utility-software-for-linux", "utility-software-for-macos"] description: "Package manager for Unix-like operating systems" topic_path: "technology/operating-systems" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pkgsrc" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Package manager for Unix-like operating systems ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

Field	Value
name	pkgsrc
logo	Pkgsrc.svg
logo size	200px
developer	Alistair Crooks, Hubert Feyrer and Johnny C. Lam
released
latest release version
latest release date
operating system	Unix-like
programming language	C, Unix shell
genre	Package management system
license	BSD License
website
::

| name = pkgsrc | logo = Pkgsrc.svg | logo size = 200px | screenshot = | caption = | author = | developer = Alistair Crooks, Hubert Feyrer and Johnny C. Lam | released = | latest release version = | latest release date = | latest preview version = | latest preview date = | operating system = Unix-like | platform = | programming language = C, Unix shell | genre = Package management system | license = BSD License | website = pkgsrc (package source) is a package management system for Unix-like operating systems. It was forked from the FreeBSD ports collection in 1997 as the primary package management system for NetBSD. Since then it has evolved independently; in 1999, support for Solaris was added, followed by support for other operating systems.

, pkgsrc currently contains over 29,000 packages and includes most popular open-source software. It is the native package manager on NetBSD, SmartOS and MINIX 3, and is portable across 23 different operating systems, including AIX, various BSD derivatives, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, macOS, Solaris, and QNX.

There are multiple ways to install programs using pkgsrc. The pkgsrc bootstrap contains a traditional ports collection that utilizes a series of makefiles to compile software from source. Another method is to install pre-built binary packages via the and tools. A high-level utility named also exists, and is designed to automate the installation, removal, and update of binary packages in a manner similar to Debian's Advanced Packaging Tool.

Several vendors, including MNX.io, provide binary packages for popular operating systems, including macOS and Linux.

Supported platforms

::data[format=table]

Platform	Date added
NetBSD	October 1997
Solaris	March 1999
Linux	June 1999
Darwin and macOS	October 2001
FreeBSD	November 2002
OpenBSD	November 2002
IRIX	December 2002
BSD/OS	December 2003
AIX	December 2003
Interix (for Windows NT)	March 2004
DragonFly BSD	October 2004
OSF/1	November 2004
HP-UX	April 2007
QNX	October 2007
Haiku	January 2010
MINIX 3	August 2010
MirBSD	January 2011
illumos and SmartOS	February 2011
Cygwin	May 2013
GNU/kFreeBSD	July 2013
Bitrig	June 2015
::

History

On October 3, 1997, NetBSD developers Alistair Crooks and Hubert Feyrer created pkgsrc based on the FreeBSD ports system and intended to support the NetBSD packages collection. It was officially released as part of NetBSD 1.3 on January 4, 1998. DragonFly BSD used pkgsrc as its official package system from version 1.4 in 2006, to 3.4 in 2013.

On 2017-09-12, a commit message policy that accommodates DVCS was established by the project.

Packages

The NetBSD Foundation provides official, pre-built binary packages for multiple combinations of NetBSD and pkgsrc releases, and occasionally for certain other operating systems as well.

As of 2018, several vendors provide pre-built binary packages for several platforms:

• Since at least 2014, Joyent has provided binary packages for SmartOS/illumos, macOS, and Enterprise Linux (CentOS/Oracle/Red Hat/Scientific).{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140715002720/http://pkgsrc.joyent.com/ |title=Joyent's packages, available for SmartOS/illumos, Linux, and OSX |archive-date=2014-07-15 |access-date=2018-10-11 |url=http://pkgsrc.joyent.com/ |url-status=live

• Since 2017, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee has provided binary packages for NetBSD, RHEL/CentOS, and Darwin/macOS.{{cite web |url=http://mirror1.hpc.uwm.edu/pkgsrc/packages/sharedapps/ |title=mirror1.hpc.uwm.edu/pkgsrc/ |access-date=2018-10-11 |url=https://uwm.edu/hpc/software-management/ |title=Software Management |publisher=University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, High Performance Computing dept |access-date=2018-10-11 |url=http://mail-index.netbsd.org/pkgsrc-users/2017/08/01/msg025383.html |title=Re: Pkgsrc binary packages now available for scientific computing |mailing-list=pkgsrc-users |publisher=NetBSD |date=2017-08-01 |access-date=2018-10-13

References

References

1. "10 years of pkgsrc - pkgsrc and the concepts of package management 1997-2007 (part 1)". The NetBSD Foundation.
2. Siegert, Benn. (25 September 2025). "pkgsrc-2025Q3 released".
3. "Joyent Packages Documentation - Install On Linux". [[Joyent]].
4. "Joyent Packages Documentation - Install On macOS". [[Joyent]].
5. Perkin, Jonathan. (2018-10-05). "Announcing the pkgsrc-2018Q3 release". [[NetBSD]].
6. "pkgin, a binary package manager for pkgsrc".
7. "Information about NetBSD 1.3".
8. Dillon, Matthew. (2005-08-31). "PKGSRC will be officially supported as of the next release". DragonFly users mailing list.
9. "Index of pub/PKGSRC/Packages/".
10. "Index of /Packages/".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::