MK.CONF(5) File Formats Manual MK.CONF(5)

mk.conf — make configuration file

The mk.conf file overrides various parameters used during the build of the system.

Listed below are the mk.conf variables that may be set that affect the NetBSD system build, the values to which each may be set, a brief description of what each variable does, references to relevant manual pages, notes (including any interaction with build.sh), and the default value of each variable.

The real path to the object directory tree for the NetBSD source tree.

Default: “/usr/obj”.

The real path to the NetBSD source tree, if NETBSDSRCDIR isn't defined.

Default: “/usr/src”.

If defined, ‘make install’ checks that the make(1) targets in the source directories are up-to-date and re-makes them if they are out of date, instead of blindly trying to install out of date or non-existent make(1) targets.

Default: Unset.

Identifier for the build. If set, this should be a short string that is suitable for use as part of a file or directory name. The identifier will be appended to object directory names; if OBJMACHINE is also set, then .BUILDID is appended after .MACHINE. The identifier will also be used as part of the kernel version string, which can be shown by “uname -v”.

Default: Unset.

Optional multi-line string containing information about the build. This will appear in DESTDIR/etc/release, and it will be stored in the buildinfo variable in any kernels that are built. When such kernels are booted, the sysctl(7) kern.buildinfo variable will report this value. The string may contain backslash escape sequences, such as “\\” (representing a backslash character) and “\n” (representing a newline).

Default: Unset.

g++(1) uses random numbers when compiling C++ code. This variable seeds the g++(1) random number generator using -frandom-seed with this value. By default, it is set to “NetBSD-()”. Using a fixed value causes C++ binaries to be the same when built from the same sources, resulting in identical (reproducible) builds. Additional information is available in the g++(1) documentation of -frandom-seed.

Default: Unset.

A space-separated list of files or directories that will be added to the CD-ROM image that may be create by the build.sh “iso-image” or “iso-image-source” operations. Files will be added to the root of the CD-ROM image, whereas directories will be copied recursively. If relative paths are specified, they will be converted to absolute paths before being used. Note: If using build.sh, multiple paths may be specified via multiple -C options, or via a single option whose argument contains multiple space-separated paths.

Default: Unset.

Additional options to config(1) when building kernels.

Default: Unset.

Extra options for the C compiler. Should be appended to (e.g., ), rather than explicitly set.

Note: CPUFLAGS, not COPTS, should be used for compiler options that select CPU-related options.

Note: should never be set in mk.conf.

Additional options passed to the compiler/assembler to select CPU instruction set options, CPU tuning options, etc.

Note: Such options should not be specified in COPTS, because some parts of the build process need to override CPU-related compiler options.

Default: Unset.

Directory to contain the built NetBSD system. If set, special options are passed to the compilation tools to prevent their default use of the host system's , , and so forth. This pathname must be an absolute path, and should not end with a slash (/) character. (For installation into the system's root directory, set DESTDIR to an empty string, not to “/”). The directory must reside on a file system which supports long file names and hard links.

Note: build.sh will provide a default of “destdir.MACHINE” (in the top-level .OBJDIR) unless run in ‘expert’ mode with the -E option.

Default: Empty string if ; otherwise unset.

If defined, this variable indicates the root directory of an external toolchain which will be used to build the tree. For example, if a platform is a TOOLCHAIN_MISSING platform, EXTERNAL_TOOLCHAIN can be used to re-enable the cross-compile framework.

If EXTERNAL_TOOLCHAIN is defined, act as , since the external version of the compiler may not be able to build the library components of the in-tree compiler.

This variable should be used in conjunction with an appropriate or HAVE_LLVM setting to control the compiler options.

Note: This variable is not yet used in as many places as it should be. Expect the exact semantics of this variable to change in the short term as parts of the cross-compile framework continue to be cleaned up.

Default: Unset.

A list of evbarm boards for which to create bootable images. If corresponding U-Boot packages are installed, bootable images are created as part of a release. See the -o name option of installboot(8).

Default: Unset.

Directory for the top-level make(1) “installworld” target to install to. If specified, must be an absolute path.

Default: “/”.

Directory under KERNSRCDIR containing the machine dependent kernel sources.

Default: “arch/MACHINE”.

Directory containing the kernel configuration files.

Default: “KERNSRCDIR/KERNARCHDIR/conf”.

(experimental)
Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates if a top-level directory is created. If “yes”, the directory will contain a kernel file /netbsd/kernel and a corresponding modules directory /netbsd/modules/. System bootstrap procedures will be modified to search for the kernel and modules in the /netbsd/ directory. This is intended to simplify system upgrade and rollback procedures by keeping the kernel and its associated modules together in one place.

If “no”, the kernel file will be stored in /netbsd and the modules will be stored within the /stand/${ARCH}/ directory hierarchy.

The KERNEL_DIR option is currently available only for amd64 and i386 platforms. It is a work-in-progress, and is highly experimental. It is also subject to change without notice.

Default: “no”.

Directory for kernel builds. For example, the kernel will be compiled in KERNOBJDIR/GENERIC.

Default: “/KERNSRCDIR/KERNARCHDIR/compile” if it exists or the make(1) “obj” target is being made; otherwise “KERNSRCDIR/KERNARCHDIR/compile”.

Directory at the top of the kernel source.

Default: “NETBSDSRCDIR/sys”.

The name of the tzfile(5) timezone file in the directory /usr/share/zoneinfo to symbolically link DESTDIR/etc/localtime to.

Default: “UTC”.

Level of verbosity of status messages. Supported values:
0
No descriptive messages or commands executed by make(1) are shown.
1
Brief messages are shown describing what is being done, but the actual commands executed by make(1) are not shown.
2
Descriptive messages are shown as above (prefixed with a ‘#’), and ordinary commands performed by make(1) are shown.
3
In addition to the above, all commands performed by make(1) are shown, even if they would ordinarily have been hidden through use of the “@” prefix in the relevant makefile.
4
In addition to the above, commands executed by make(1) are traced through use of the sh(1) “-x” flag.

Default: .

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to install the /libdata/firmware/amdgpu directory, which is necessary for the amdgpu(4) AMD RADEON GPU video driver.

Default: “yes” on i386 and x86_64; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the Argon2 hash is enabled in libcrypt.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether ar(1) should zero the timestamp, uid, and gid in the archive for reproducible builds.

Default: The value of MKREPRO (if defined), otherwise “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the Automated Testing Framework (ATF) will be built and installed. This also controls whether the NetBSD test suite will be built and installed, as the tests rely on ATF and cannot be built without it.

Forced to “no” if MKCXX=no.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether any of the binutils tools or libraries will be built and installed. That is, the libraries , , or any of the things that depend upon them, e.g. as(1), ld(1), dbsym(8), or mdsetimage(8).

Forced to “no” if TOOLCHAIN_MISSING!=no.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Determines which implementation of grep(1) will be built and installed. If “yes”, use the BSD implementation. If “no”, use the GNU implementation.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Determines which implementation of cpio(1) and tar(1) will be built and installed. If “yes”, use the -based implementations. If “no”, use the pax(1) based implementations.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether preformatted plaintext manual pages will be created and installed.

Forced to “no” if MKMAN=no or MKSHARE=no.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether ‘make clean’ and ‘make cleandir’ will delete file names in or from both the object directory, .OBJDIR, and the source directory, .

If “yes”, then these file names will be deleted relative to both .OBJDIR and . If “no”, then the deletion will be performed relative to .OBJDIR only.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Controls whether ‘make clean’ and ‘make cleandir’ will verify that files have been deleted. If “yes”, then file deletions will be verified using ls(1). If “no”, then file deletions will not be verified.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether support for multiple ABIs is to be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Default: “yes” on aarch64 (without gcc), (to support compatibility between OABI and EABI binaries), mips64, , riscv64, sparc64, and x86_64; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the compat kernel modules will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if MKCOMPAT=no.

Default: “yes” on and mips64; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the NetBSD test suite for src/compat will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if MKCOMPAT=no.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the X11 libraries will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if MKCOMPAT=no.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the Math Library (libm, -lm) is compiled with support for <complex.h>.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Create a cross-gdb as a host tool.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether CTF tools are to be built and installed. If “yes”, the tools will be used to generate and manipulate CTF data of ELF binaries during build.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

This is disabled internally for standalone programs in /usr/mdec.

Default: “yes” on aarch64, amd64, and i386; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether cvs(1) will be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether C++ support is enabled.

If “no”, C++ compilers and software will not be built, and acts as .

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether debug information should be generated for all userland binaries. The result is collected as an additional and set and installed in DESTDIR/usr/libdata/debug.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

If “yes”, acts as .

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether debugging symbols will be built for kernels by default; pretend as if is specified in kernel configuration files. This will also put the debug kernel netbsd.gdb in the kernel sets. See options(4) for details. This is useful if a cross-gdb is built as well (see MKCROSSGDB).

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether debug libraries (lib*_g.a) will be built and installed. Debug libraries are compiled with “-g -DDEBUG”.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether debug information (lib*_g.a) will be included in the build toolchain.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to add .include statements in the .depend files instead of inlining the contents of the *.d files. This is useful when stale dependencies are present, to list the exact files that need refreshing, but it is possibly slower than inlining.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether system documentation destined for DESTDIR/usr/share/doc will be installed.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Forced to “no” if MKSHARE=no.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the devicetree blobs will be built and installed.

Default: “yes” on aarch64, , , riscv32, and riscv64; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the Device Tree Compiler (dtc) will be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the kernel modules, utilities, and libraries for dtrace(1) support are to be built and installed.

Default: “yes” on aarch64, amd64, and i386; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether all programs should be dynamically linked, and to install shared libraries required by /bin and /sbin and the shared linker ld.elf_so(1) into /lib. If “no”, link programs in /bin and /sbin statically.

Default: “no” on ia64; “yes” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to install the /libdata/firmware directory, which is necessary for various drivers, including: athn(4), bcm43xx(4), bwfm(4), ipw(4), iwi(4), iwm(4), iwn(4), otus(4), ral(4), rtwn(4), rum(4), run(4), urtwn(4), wpi(4), zyd(4), and the Tegra 124 SoC.

Default: “yes” on amd64, , evbarm, evbmips, evbppc, hpcarm, hppa, i386, mac68k, macppc, , and sparc64; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether gcc(1) or any related libraries (, , , ) will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if TOOLCHAIN_MISSING!=no or EXTERNAL_TOOLCHAIN is defined.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether gcc(1) will be built and installed. If “no”, then MKGCC controls if the GCC libraries will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if MKCXX=no.

Default: “no” on m68000; “yes” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether gdb(1) will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if MKCXX=no or TOOLCHAIN_MISSING!=no.

Default: “no” on ia64 and or1k; “yes” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether groff(1) will be built, installed, and used to format some of the PostScript and PDF documentation.

Forced to “no” if MKCXX=no.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to use groff(1) to generate HTML for miscellaneous articles which sometimes requires software not in the base installation. Does not affect the generation of HTML man pages.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the Hesiod infrastructure (libraries and support programs) will be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. If “yes”, then for programs intended to be run on the compile host, the name, release, and architecture of the host operating system will be suffixed to the name of the object directory created by “make obj”. (This allows multiple host systems to compile NetBSD for a single target architecture.) If “no”, then programs built to be run on the compile host will use the same object directory names as programs built to be run on the target architecture.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the HTML manual pages are created and installed.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Forced to “no” if MKMAN=no or MKSHARE=no.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether code for IEEE754/IEC60559 conformance will be built and installed. Has no effect on most platforms.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether INET6 (IPv6) infrastructure (libraries and support programs) will be built and installed.

Note: MKINET6 must not be set to “no” if .

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether GNU Info files, used for the documentation for most of the compilation tools, will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Forced to “no” if MKSHARE=no.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the ipf(4) programs, headers, and other components will be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the iSCSI library and applications are built and installed.

Default: “no” on m68000; “yes” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the Kerberos v5 infrastructure (libraries and support programs) will be built and installed. Caution: the default pam(8) configuration requires that Kerberos be present even if not used. Do not install a userland without Kerberos without also either updating the pam.conf(5) files or disabling PAM via MKPAM. Otherwise all logins will fail.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether kernel modules will be built and installed.

Default: “no” on or1k; “yes” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether Kyua (the testing infrastructure used by NetBSD) will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if MKCXX=no.

Note: This does not control the installation of the tests themselves. The tests rely on the ATF libraries and therefore their build is controlled by the MKATF variable.

Default: “no” until the import of Kyua is done and validated.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) infrastructure (libraries and support programs) will be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to use the sanitizer for libc, using the sanitizer defined by USE_LIBCSANITIZER.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates if libc++ will be built and installed (usually for clang++(1)).

Default: “yes” if ; otherwise “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates if libstdc++ will be built and installed (usually for g++(1)).

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether all of the shared library infrastructure will be built and installed.

If “no”, prevents:

  • installation of the *.a libraries
  • installation of the libraries on PIC systems
  • building of *.a libraries on PIC systems
  • installation of symlinks on ELF systems

I.e, only install the shared library (and the .so.major symlink on ELF).

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

If “no”, acts as .

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether lint(1) will be run against portions of the NetBSD source code during the build, and whether lint libraries will be installed into DESTDIR/usr/libdata/lint.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Forced to “no” if MKLINKLIB=no.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether clang(1) is installed as a host tool and target compiler.

If “yes”, acts as .

Note: Use of clang(1) as the system compiler is controlled by HAVE_LLVM.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to build the LLVM PIC libraries necessary for the various Mesa backend and the native JIT of the target architecture, if supported. (Radeon R300 and newer, LLVMPIPE for most.)

Default: If MKX11=yes and , “yes” on aarch64, amd64, and i386; otherwise “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. If not “no”, build and install the logical volume manager.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates if the whatis tools (apropos(1), whatis(1), getNAME(8), makemandb(8), and makewhatis(8)), should be built, installed, and used to create and install the whatis.db.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether manual pages will be installed.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Forced to “no” if MKSHARE=no.

If “no”, acts as MKCATPAGES=no MKHTML=no.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether mandoc(1) will be built and installed, and used to create and install catman and HTML pages.

If “no”, use groff(1) instead of mandoc(1).

Forced to “no” if NOMANDOC or NOMANDOC.target (for a given make(1) target target) is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Only used if MKMAN=yes.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether manual pages should be compressed with gzip(1) at installation time.

Only used if MKMAN=yes.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the mDNS (Multicast DNS) infrastructure (libraries and support programs) will be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether Native Language System (NLS) locale zone files will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Forced to “no” if MKSHARE=no.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to install the /libdata/firmware/nouveau directory, which is necessary for the nouveau(4) NVIDIA video driver.

Default: “yes” on aarch64, i386, and x86_64, “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the NPF packet filter is to be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the Name Server Daemon (NSD) is to be built and installed.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether object directories will be created when running “make obj”. If “no”, then all built files will be located inside the regular source tree.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

If “no”, acts as .

Note: Setting MKOBJ to “no” is not recommended and may cause problems when updating the tree with cvs(1).

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether object directories will be created automatically (via a “make obj” pass) at the start of a build.

Forced to “no” if .

Note: If using build.sh, the default is “yes”. This may be set to “no” by giving build.sh the -o option.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the pam(8) framework (libraries and support files) will be built and installed. The pre-PAM code is not supported and may be removed in the future.

Default: “no” on m68000; “yes” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether pcc(1) or any related libraries (, ) will be built and installed.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the pf(4) programs, headers, and LKM will be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether shared objects and libraries will be created and installed. If “no”, the entire built system will be statically linked.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

If “no”, acts as .

Default: “no” on m68000; “yes” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the ar(1) format libraries (lib*_pic.a), used to generate shared libraries, are installed.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Forced to “no” if MKLINKLIB=no.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the ar(1) format libraries (lib*_pic.a), used to generate shared libraries.

Forced to “no” if .

Default: “no” on vax; “yes” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether Position Independent Executables (PIE) will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Forced to “no” if COVERITY_TOP_CONFIG is defined.

This is disabled internally for standalone programs in /usr/mdec.

Default: “yes” on aarch64, arm, i386, , mips, sh3, sparc64, and x86_64; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. If “no”, the pigz(1) utility is not installed as gzip(1).

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether Postfix will be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether profiled libraries () will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Forced to “no” if MKLINKLIB=no.

Default: “no” on or1k, riscv32, and riscv64 (due to toolchain problems with profiled code); “yes” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to install the /libdata/firmware/radeon directory, which is necessary for the radeon(4) AMD RADEON GPU video driver.

Default: “yes” on aarch64, i386, and x86_64, “no” on other platforms.

Indicates whether to enable support for Relocation Read-Only (RELRO). Supported values:
partial
Set the non-PLT GOT to read-only.
full
Set the non-PLT GOT to read-only and also force immediate symbol binding, unless is defined and not “no” (usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives).
no
Disable RELRO.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Default: “partial” on aarch64, i386, and x86_64; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether builds are to be reproducible. If “yes”, two builds from the same source tree will produce the same build results.

Used as the default for MKARZERO.

Note: This may be set to “yes” by giving build.sh the -P option.

Default: “no”.

Unix timestamp. When MKREPRO is set, the timestamp of all files in the sets will be set to this value.

Note: This may be set automatically to the latest source tree timestamp using cvslatest(1) by giving build.sh the -P option.

Default: Unset.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the rump(3) headers, libraries, and programs are to be installed.

Forced to “no” if COVERITY_TOP_CONFIG is defined.

See also variables that start with or .

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to use the sanitizer to compile userland programs, using the sanitizer defined by USE_SANITIZER.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether files destined to reside in DESTDIR/usr/share will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

If “no”, acts as MKCATPAGES=no MKDOC=no MKINFO=no MKHTML=no MKMAN=no MKNLS=no.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the S/key infrastructure (libraries and support programs) will be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to enable support for sljit (stack-less platform-independent Just in Time (JIT) compiler) private library and tests.

Default: “yes” on i386, sparc, and x86_64; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the compiler generates output containing library calls for floating point and possibly soft-float library support.

Forced to “yes” on arm without ‘hf’, , , or1k, and sh3.

Default: “yes” on mips64; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the normal static libraries (lib*_g.a) will be built and installed.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether support for static PIE binaries will be built and installed. These binaries use a special support in crt0.o for resolving relative relocations and require linker support.

Default: “yes” on i386 and x86_64; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether RCS IDs, for use with ident(1), should be stripped from program binaries and shared libraries.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether all local symbols should be stripped from shared libraries. If “yes”, strip all local symbols from shared libraries; the effect is equivalent to the -x option of ld(1). If “no”, strip only temporary local symbols; the effect is equivalent to the -X option of ld(1). Keeping non-temporary local symbols such as static function names is useful on using DTrace for userland libraries and getting a backtrace from a rumpkernel(7) kernel loading shared libraries.

Forced to “no” if .

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to install the /libdata/firmware/nvidia directory, which is necessary for the NVIDIA Tegra XHCI driver.

Default: “yes” on evbarm; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether to install the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) infrastructure.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the unbound(8) DNS resolver will be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether an unprivileged install will occur. The user, group, permissions, and file flags, will not be set on the installed items; instead the information will be appended to a file called METALOG in DESTDIR. The METALOG contents are used during the generation of the distribution tar files to ensure that the appropriate file ownership is stored. This allows a non-root ‘make install’.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether all install operations intended to write to DESTDIR will compare file timestamps before installing, and skip the install phase if the destination files are up-to-date.

For top-level builds this implies the effects of NOCLEANDIR (i.e., “make cleandir” is avoided).

Note: This may be set to “yes” by giving build.sh the -u option.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether X11 will be built and installed from X11SRCDIR, and whether the X sets will be created.

Note: If “yes”, requires .

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. If “no”, do not build and install the X fonts. The xfont set is still created but will be empty.

Only used if MKX11=yes.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. If “yes”, build the native Xorg libGLw with Motif stubs. Requires that Motif can be found via X11MOTIFPATH.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the Xorg(7) X server and drivers will be built and installed.

Default: “yes” on alpha, amd64, , , , , , evbarm, evbmips, evbppc, , hpcarm, , , hppa, i386, , , , mac68k, macppc, , , , , , , , sparc, sparc64, vax, and ; “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the YP (NIS) infrastructure (libraries and support programs) will be built and installed.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the ZFS kernel module and the utilities and libraries used to manage the ZFS system are to be built and installed.

Note: ZFS requires 64-bit atomic operations.

Default: “yes” on aarch64, amd64, and sparc64; “no” on other platforms.

The path to the top level of the NetBSD sources.

Default: Top level of the NetBSD source tree (as determined by the presence of build.sh and tools/) if make(1) is run from within that tree; otherwise BSDSRCDIR will be used.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the build creates an official NetBSD release which is going to be available from ftp.NetBSD.org and/or cdn.NetBSD.org locations. This variable modifies a few default paths in the installer and also creates different links in the install documentation. The auto-build cluster uses this variable to distinguish ‘daily’ builds from real releases.

Default: Unset. (I.e., “no”).

Tree-wide revision identifier, such as a Mercurial or Git commit hash or similar. If set, will be included in program notes where __RCSID(3) and __KERNEL_RCSID(3) are used, and will be reported by ident(1).

Default: Unset.

If set, avoids the “make cleandir” phase of a full build. This has the effect of allowing only changed files in a source tree to be recompiled. This can speed up builds when updating only a few files in the tree.

See also MKUPDATE.

Default: Unset.

If set, avoids the “make distrib-dirs” phase of a full build. This skips running mtree(8) on DESTDIR, useful on systems where building as an unprivileged user, or where it is known that the system-wide mtree(8) files have not changed.

Default: Unset.

If set, avoids the “make includes” phase of a full build. This has the effect of preventing make(1) from thinking that some programs are out-of-date simply because the system include files have changed. However, this option should not be used when updating the entire NetBSD source tree arbitrarily; it is suggested to use instead in that case.

Default: Unset.

If defined, creates objdirs of the form obj.MACHINE, where MACHINE is the current architecture (as per ‘uname -m’).

Default: Unset.

If set, specifies the directory to which a release(7) layout will be written at the end of a “make release”. If specified, must be an absolute path.

Note: build.sh will provide a default of “releasedir” (in the top-level .OBJDIR) unless run in ‘expert’ mode with the -E option.

Default: Unset.

Defines the threading implementation used by the rumpuser(3) hypercall implementation. Supported values:
fiber
Use a fiber interface, with cooperatively scheduled contexts.
none
Do not support kernel threads.
pthread
Use pthread(3) to implement threads.

Default: “pthread”.

Defines how curlwp is obtained in the rumpkernel(7) kernel. curlwp is a very frequently accessed thread-local variable, and optimizing access has a significant performance impact. Note that all options are not available on hosts/machine architectures. Supported values:
hypercall
Use a hypercall to fetch the value.
register
Use a dedicated register. (Implies compiling with -ffixed-reg).
__thread
Use the __thread feature to fetch value via thread local storage (TLS).

Default: “hypercall”.

If defined, indicates whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with -DDEBUG.

Default: Unset.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with -DDIAGNOSTIC.

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with -DKTRACE.

Default: “yes”.

If defined, indicates whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with -DLOCKDEBUG.

Default: Unset.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with uniprocess-optimized locking or not.

If “yes”, build with uniprocess-optimized locking, which requires RUMP_NCPU=1 in the environment at runtime.

If “no”, build with multiprocessor-capable locking.

Default: “no”.

Selects which NetBSD userland binary compatibility COMPAT_ver kernel options are enabled in the rumpkernel(7) kernels. This option is useful only when building rumpkernel(7) kernels for NetBSD userspace, and an empty value may be supplied elsewhere. Supported (one or more, comma-separated) values:
all
All supported release versions. Equivalent to “50,60,70,80,90”.
default
Default value. Equivalent to “all”, although this default may change in the future.
none
No compatibility options are enabled.
50
NetBSD 5.x compatibility, via COMPAT_50 kernel option.
60
NetBSD 6.x compatibility, via COMPAT_60 kernel option.
70
NetBSD 7.x compatibility, via COMPAT_70 kernel option.
80
NetBSD 8.x compatibility, via COMPAT_80 kernel option.
90
NetBSD 9.x compatibility, via COMPAT_90 kernel option.

Default: “all”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with support for the virt(4) network interface.

If “no”, don't build with virt(4) support, which may be necessary on systems that lack the necessary headers, such as musl libc based Linux.

Default: “yes”.

If defined, indicates whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with -DVNODE_LOCKDEBUG.

Default: Unset.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. If not “no”, this indicates that the platform “” being built does not have a working in-tree toolchain.

If not “no”, acts as .

Default: “no”.

Directory to hold the host tools, once built. If specified, must be an absolute path. This directory should be unique to a given host system and NetBSD source tree. (However, multiple target architectures may share the same TOOLDIR; the target-architecture-dependent files have unique names.) If unset, a default based on the uname(1) information of the host platform will be created in the .OBJDIR of src.

Default: Unset.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the tools specified by TOOLDIR should be used as part of a build in progress. Must be set to “yes” if cross-compiling. Supported values:
yes
Use the tools from TOOLDIR.
no
Do not use the tools from TOOLDIR, but refuse to build native compilation tool components that are version-specific for that tool.
never
Do not use the tools from TOOLDIR, even when building native tool components. This is similar to the traditional NetBSD build method, but does not verify that the compilation tools in use are up-to-date enough in order to build the tree successfully. This may cause build or runtime problems when building the whole NetBSD source tree.

Default: “no” when using ⟨bsd.*.mk⟩ outside the NetBSD source tree (detected automatically) or if TOOLCHAIN_MISSING=yes; otherwise “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the so-called “FORTIFY_SOURCE” security(7) extensions are enabled; see ssp(3) for details. This imposes some performance penalty.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether Hesiod support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if .

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether INET6 (IPv6) support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if .

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the allocator (which is designed for improved performance with threaded applications) is used instead of the allocator (that was the default until NetBSD 5.0).

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether Kerberos v5 support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if .

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether LDAP support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if .

Default: “yes”.

Selects the sanitizer in libc to compile userland programs and libraries. Supported values:
undefined
Enables the micro-UBSan in the user mode (uUBSan) undefined behaviour sanitizer. The code is shared with the kernel mode variation (kUBSan). The runtime runtime differs from the UBSan available in MKSANITIZER. The runtime is stripped down from C++ features, and is invoked with -fsanitize=no-vptr as that sanitizer is not supported. The runtime configuration is restricted to the LIBC_UBSAN environment variable, that is designed to be safe for hardening.

The value of USE_LIBCSANITIZER is passed to the C and C++ compilers as the argument to -fsanitize=. Additional sanitizer arguments can be passed through .

Disabled if .

Default: “undefined”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether pam(8) support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if .

Default: “yes”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether pigz(1) is used instead of gzip(1) for multi-threaded gzip compression of the distribution tar sets.

Default: “no”.

Selects the sanitizer to compile userland programs and libraries. Supported (one or more, comma-separated) values:
address
A memory error detector.
cfi
A control flow detector.
dataflow
A general data flow analysis.
leak
A memory leak detector.
memory
An uninitialized memory read detector.
safe-stack
Protect against stack-based corruption.
scudo
The Scudo Hardened Allocator.
thread
A data race detector.
undefined
An undefined behavior detector.

The value of USE_SANITIZER is passed to the C and C++ compilers as the argument to -fsanitize=. Additional sanitizer arguments can be passed through .

The list of supported features and their valid combinations depends on the compiler version and target CPU architecture.

Disabled if .

Default: “address”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether S/key support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if .

Note: This is mutually exclusive to .

Default: “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether GCC stack-smashing protection (SSP) support, which detects stack overflows and aborts the program, is enabled. This imposes some performance penalty (approximately 5%).

This is disabled internally for standalone programs in /usr/mdec.

Forced to “no” if is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.

Forced to “no” if COVERITY_TOP_CONFIG is defined.

Default: “no” on alpha, hppa, ia64, and mips; “yes” on other platforms if ; otherwise “no”.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether the distribution tar files are to be compressed with xz(1) instead of gzip(1) or pigz(1).

Forced to “no” if .

Default: “yes” on aarch64, amd64, and sparc64, “no” on other platforms.

Can be set to “yes” or “no”. Indicates whether YP (NIS) support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if .

Default: “yes”.

Path of the Motif installation to use if .

Default: “/usr/pkg”.

Directory containing the modular Xorg source. If specified, must be an absolute path. The main modular Xorg source is found in X11SRCDIR/external/mit.

Default: NETBSDSRCDIR/../xsrc, if that exists; otherwise “/usr/xsrc”.

Please see the pkgsrc guide at https://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/ or pkgsrc/doc/pkgsrc.txt for more variables used internally by the package system and ${PKGSRCDIR}/mk/defaults/mk.conf for package-specific examples.

These variables are obsolete.

Obsolete.
Use MKBINUTILS.
Obsolete.
Obsolete.
Use MKDEBUGKERNEL.
Obsolete.
Obsolete.
Obsolete.
Obsolete.
Obsolete.
Use MKDEBUGTOOLS.
Use the build.sh and make(1) option -j instead.
Obsolete.
Obsolete.
The new toolchain is now the default. To disable, use TOOLCHAIN_MISSING=yes.

/etc/mk.conf
The mk.conf file resides in /etc.
${PKGSRCDIR}/mk/defaults/mk.conf
Examples for settings regarding the pkgsrc collection.

apropos(1), ar(1), as(1), clang(1), clang++(1), config(1), cpio(1), cvs(1), cvslatest(1), dtrace(1), g++(1), gcc(1), gdb(1), groff(1), gzip(1), ident(1), ld(1), ld.elf_so(1), lint(1), ls(1), make(1), mandoc(1), pax(1), pcc(1), pigz(1), sh(1), tar(1), uname(1), whatis(1), xz(1), rump(3), rumpuser(3), ssp(3), amdgpu(4), athn(4), bcm43xx(4), bwfm(4), ipf(4), ipw(4), iwi(4), iwm(4), iwn(4), nouveau(4), options(4), otus(4), pf(4), radeon(4), ral(4), rtwn(4), rum(4), run(4), urtwn(4), virt(4), wpi(4), zyd(4), pam.conf(5), release(7), rumpkernel(7), security(7), Xorg(7), dbsym(8), getNAME(8), installboot(8), makemandb(8), makewhatis(8), mdsetimage(8), mtree(8), pam(8), unbound(8), /usr/share/mk/bsd.README, src/BUILDING, pkgsrc/doc/pkgsrc.txt, https://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/

The mk.conf file appeared in NetBSD 1.2.

May 3, 2025 NetBSD 11.0