To check out all the gotchas when building a package, here are the steps that I do in order to get a package working. Please note this is basically the same as what was explained in the previous sections, only with some debugging aids. Be sure to set PKG_DEVELOPER=yes in &mk.conf;. Install pkgtools/url2pkg, create a directory for a new package, change into it, then run url2pkg: &cprompt; mkdir /usr/pkgsrc/category/examplepkg &cprompt; cd /usr/pkgsrc/category/examplepkg &cprompt; url2pkg http://www.example.com/path/to/distfile.tar.gz Edit the Makefile as requested. Fill in the DESCR file Run make configure Add any dependencies glimpsed from documentation and the configure step to the package's Makefile. Make the package compile, doing multiple rounds of &cprompt; make &cprompt; pkgvi ${WRKSRC}/some/file/that/does/not/compile &cprompt; mkpatches &cprompt; patchdiff &cprompt; mv ${WRKDIR}/.newpatches/* patches &cprompt; make mps &cprompt; make clean Doing this step as non-root user will ensure that no files are modified that shouldn't be, especially during the build phase. mkpatches, patchdiff and pkgvi are from the pkgtools/pkgdiff package. Look at the Makefile, fix if necessary; see . Generate a PLIST: &rprompt; make install &rprompt; make print-PLIST >PLIST &rprompt; make deinstall &rprompt; make install &rprompt; make deinstall You usually need to be root to do this. Look if there are any files left: &rprompt; make print-PLIST If this reveals any files that are missing in PLIST, add them. Now that the PLIST is OK, install the package again and make a binary package: &rprompt; make reinstall &rprompt; make package Delete the installed package: &rprompt; pkg_delete examplepkg Repeat the above make print-PLIST command, which shouldn't find anything now: &rprompt; make print-PLIST Reinstall the binary package: &rprompt; pkg_add .../examplepkg.tgz Play with it. Make sure everything works. Run pkglint from pkgtools/pkglint, and fix the problems it reports: &rprompt; pkglint Submit (or commit, if you have cvs access); see .