How To keep ports collection up to date in FreeBSD

The FreeBSD Ports collection is a package management system for FreeBSD which provides an easy way of installing software packages on the FreeBSD operating system.

1. Updating the ports collection

a.) Using CVSup method

This is a quick method of getting and keeping your ports collection up to date using cvsup protocol. Make sure /usr/ports is empty before you run cvsup for the first time.

If you never updated ports collection you have to install cvsup utility:

# pkg_add -r cvsup-without-gui

Update ports collection:

# cvsup -L 2 -h cvsup.freebsd.org /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile

Above step will take some time to fetch the files.

b.) Using portsnap method

Portsnap is an alternative system for distributing the ports collection.

Install portsnap with the following command:

# pkg_add -r portsnap