serenity/Ports

Ports for SerenityOS

What's this?

Serenity has software patched to run on it. These shell scripts will allow you to build that sort of software, easily. Note that you must have already built Serenity, and be in a Serenity build environment.

Available ports

A list of all available ports can be found here.

External ports

Third party ports might need additional dependencies from another location. In this case, you can point the SERENITY_PORT_DIRS variable to a local ports directory.

For example:

export SERENITY_PORT_DIRS="/path/to/port/dir/:/other/path/"

Using ports scripts

Each port has a script called package.sh which defines a name and version, its dependencies, the required files that will be downloaded as well as configuration/compilation options, and some other things (see Writing ports scripts for details).

• To install a certain port, cd into its directory and run ./package.sh
• To install all available ports, run the build_all.sh script in this directory. Pass clean as first argument to remove old build files beforehand.
• To reinstall all currently installed ports, run the build_installed.sh script in this directory. This is sometimes required when LibC changes, for example. Pass clean as first argument to remove old build files beforehand.

Installed ports are being tracked in Build/x86_64/Root/usr/Ports/packages.db (a simple text file). You can delete this file at any time, in fact it must be edited or removed when clearing the build directory as port dependencies may not be installed again otherwise.

Not giving an option is equivalent to installdepends, fetch, patch, configure, build and install, in that order. This is recommended for a regular install.

Options

The following options are available:

fetch

By default, download, verify, and extract the port's files.

patch

Apply the port's patches (patches/*.patch). A file .foo_applied is created in workdir upon success to ensure a certain patch is only applied once.

configure

By default, run the port's configscript (usually configure) with configopts.

build

By default, run make with the port's makeopts.

install

By default, run make install with the port's installopts.

shell

Open a shell in the $workdir with the build environment set.

installdepends

Install all ports from the port's depends list.

clean

By default, remove all .out files from the port's workdir.

clean_dist

By default, remove everything that's been downloaded from the port's files list.

clean_all

By default, clean and clean_dist combined.

uninstall

Remove the port's files from the Serenity build directory, if it has a plist file.

dev

Start a development session with guided patch importing. This mode has a bunch of nice features:

• Drops the user in a git repository backed by another (local) git repository that acts as the "clean", patched version of the port that is ready to be built
• The "remote" repository can be pushed to, pulled from and generally anything that you'd want to do with a remote repo.
• After leaving the dev shell, all patches are updated and the user will be prompted whether they wish to generate a new patch readme file.

This mode takes an extra --no-depends option, that if given, will cause the dependency fetch and build steps to be skipped.

This mode can also assist in migrating old patches to new versions through a guided semi-automated process.

--auto

Same as no option, but mark the port as having been installed automatically. This is used for dependencies.

Writing ports scripts

The package.sh file is a simple Bash script that's required for each port. Patches and other files are optional. The most basic version of such a port script simply defines some well-known variables and looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/env -S bash ../.port_include.sh

port="foo"
version="1.2.3"
useconfigure="true"
files="https://example.com/foo-${version}.tar.gz foo-${version}.tar.gz"
depends=("bar" "baz")

The script in the shebang, .port_include.sh, is where all the magic happens.

Variables

The following variables have special functionality:

configopts

Options passed to the port's configscript in the default configure function.

--host=x86_64-pc-serenity is always passed, override the configure function if that's undesirable.

use_fresh_config_sub

Boolean option (false by default), will replace the config.sub pointed to by config_sub_path as part of the patching process if set to true.

config_sub_paths

Paths to the config.sub files used by autoconf, starting at $workdir. This is set to (config.sub) by default.

configscript

Name of the script that will be run in the default configure function when useconfigure is true.

Defaults to configure.

depends

An array of other SerenityOS ports the port depends on and which will be installed during the installdepends step.

For example:

depends=("ncurses" "gettext")

files

A list of external files required by the port, one per line. The format of each line is as follows:

URL NAME HASH

Where URL is the URL from where the file will be downloaded (using curl), NAME is the output name of the downloaded file, and HASH is an SHA256 hash that will be used for verification.

For example:

files="https://example.com/foo-${version}.tar.xz foo-${version}.tar.xz 9acd50f9a2af37e471f761c3fe7b8dea5617e51dac802fe6c177b74abf0abb5a"

If a file is a compressed tar archive, a gzip compressed file or a zip compressed file, it will be extracted.

icon_file

The file to use for the port launcher icon. The icon file is assumed to have a 16x16 as well as a 32x32 layer.

installopts

Options passed to make install in the default install function.

DESTDIR="${SERENITY_INSTALL_ROOT}" ("${SERENITY_SOURCE_DIR}/Build/${SERENITY_ARCH}/Root") is always passed, override the install function if that's undesirable.

makeopts

Options passed to make in the default build function.

Defaults to -j$(nproc).

patchlevel

The value for patch's -p / --strip option, see man patch for details.

Defaults to 1.

port

The "package name" of the port, usually the same as the directory this script is placed in.

prefix

The location of the ports directory, only used for the package.db file for now. Don't override this in ports contributed to Serenity.

Defaults to $SERENITY_SOURCE_DIR/Ports.

useconfigure

The configure step will run pre_configure and configure when this is set to true, and simply skip them otherwise.

Defaults to false.

version

The version of the port. Written to package.db, and usually used with variable interpolation in files where the version is part of the filename.

workdir

The working directory used for executing other commands via run as well as cleanup. Usually the directory name of the unpacked source archive.

Defaults to $port-$version.

Functions

The various steps of the port installation process are split into individual Bash functions, some of which can be overridden to provide custom behavior, like this:

build() {
    run mybuildtool --foo --bar
}

The following can be overridden, the names should be self-explanatory as they mostly match the available options:

• pre_fetch
• post_fetch
• pre_patch
• pre_configure
• configure
• post_configure
• build
• pre_install
• install
• post_install
• clean
• clean_dist
• clean_all

A few (non-overridable) util functions are available as well:

run

Log the command and run it in the port's workdir.

run_nocd

Log the command and run it in the current working directory (i.e. Ports/$port).

run_replace_in_file

Replace something in a file (using a Perl regular expression), like this:

run_replace_in_file "s/define FOO 1/undef FOO/" config.h

How do I contribute?

You can either:

• Add new ports - just get the software to build and add the necessary patches and package.sh script
• Update an existing port: bumping its version, getting functionality to work that wasn't available so far etc. Make sure to update the patches accordingly.

Some videos of Andreas adding new ports can be found on YouTube, they might help you understand how this usually works:

• OS hacking: Porting the Bash shell (2019-05-20)
• OS hacking: Porting DOOM to Serenity (2019-09-09)
• OS hacking: Let's port git to SerenityOS! (2020-02-19)
• OS hacking: Fixing a resize bug with the vim port (2020-06-03)