Introduction

pkg is the package manager on FreeBSD and can be used to install applications.

Installation

pkg will be automatically bootstrapped the first time you use it. When your jail was created the pkg configuration files were changed to use the Point Park pkg repository.

Usage

Installing an application is as simple as running

sudo pkg install application

where application should be replaced with the name of the software you would like to install. Most other tutorials make use of pkg and you can simply follow those instructions.

If you are looking for an application but do not know the exact name or version, you could search for it, for example

pkg search php

will list all the packages with php in the name.

Finally, it is important to keep your packages up to date. To check for security vulnerabilities you can run

sudo pkg audit -F

If there is a vulnerability, you should update your packages (assuming the vulnerability is fixed in the repository). First, update the repository

sudo pkg update

then upgrade your packages

sudo pkg upgrade

Finally, you should restart your services because they may have been upgraded (note that it is even better to stop the services before upgrading and restart them after the upgrade is completed):

sudo service -R

References

For more information, check the man page:

man pkg