Appendix A. Obtaining FreeBSD

Table of Contents

A.1. Mirrors

The official mirrors of the FreeBSD project are made up of many machines operated by the project cluster administrators and behind GeoDNS to direct users to the closest available mirror. Current locations are Australia, Brazil, Japan (two sites), Malaysia, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, United States of America (California, Illinois - two sites, New Jersey, and Washington).

Official mirrors service:

Service Name Protocols More information

cgit.FreeBSD.org

https

Web interface for the FreeBSD Git repositories.

docs.FreeBSD.org

https

FreeBSD Documentation Portal.

download.FreeBSD.org

https ftp

Same content as ftp.FreeBSD.org , ftp is a legacy name; download.FreeBSD.org is recommended.

git.FreeBSD.org

git over https and ssh

More details on using git section.

pkg.FreeBSD.org

pkg(8) over http and https

Official FreeBSD package repositories used by the pkg(8) program.

vuxml.FreeBSD.org / www.VuXML.org

https

FreeBSD Project VuXML web page. pkg audit fetches the list of vulnerabilities from this service.

www.FreeBSD.org

https

FreeBSD Website.

All official mirrors support IPv4 and IPv6.

http://ftp-archive.FreeBSD.org is not in the GeoDNS Infrastructure, hosted in only one location (US).

The project is looking for new locations; those willing to sponsor, please reach out to the Cluster Administrators team for more information.

Mirror list maintained by the community and other companies:

Country Hostname Protocols

Australia

ftp.au.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 rsync rsync_v6

ftp3.au.FreeBSD.org

http ftp rsync

Austria

ftp.at.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

Brazil

ftp2.br.FreeBSD.org

http rsync rsync_v6

ftp3.br.FreeBSD.org

http ftp rsync

Bulgaria

ftp.bg.FreeBSD.org

ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

Czech Republic

ftp.cz.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 rsync rsync_v6

Denmark

ftp.dk.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

Finland

ftp.fi.FreeBSD.org

ftp

France

ftp.fr.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

ftp3.fr.FreeBSD.org

ftp

ftp6.fr.FreeBSD.org

http ftp rsync

Germany

ftp.de.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 https https_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

ftp1.de.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

ftp2.de.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

ftp5.de.FreeBSD.org

ftp ftp_v6

ftp7.de.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6

Greece

ftp.gr.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6

ftp2.gr.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync

Japan

ftp.jp.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

ftp2.jp.FreeBSD.org

ftp rsync rsync_v6

ftp3.jp.FreeBSD.org

http rsync

ftp4.jp.FreeBSD.org

ftp

ftp6.jp.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

Kazakhstan

mirror.ps.kz

http ftp

mirror.neolabs.kz

http ftp

Korea

ftp.kr.FreeBSD.org

http https ftp rsync

ftp2.kr.FreeBSD.org

rsync

Latvia

ftp.lv.FreeBSD.org

http ftp

Netherlands

ftp.nl.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

ftp2.nl.FreeBSD.org

http ftp rsync

mirror.nl.altushost.com

https

New Zealand

ftp.nz.FreeBSD.org

http ftp

Norway

ftp.no.FreeBSD.org

ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

Poland

ftp.pl.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp rsync rsync_v6

Russia

ftp.ru.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

ftp2.ru.FreeBSD.org

https ftp rsync

Slovenia

ftp.si.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6

South Africa

ftp.za.FreeBSD.org

https https_v6 rsync rsync_v6

ftp2.za.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp_v6

ftp4.za.FreeBSD.org

http ftp rsync

Sweden

ftp.se.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

mirror.se.altushost.com

https

Taiwan

ftp4.tw.FreeBSD.org

https ftp rsync

ftp5.tw.FreeBSD.org

http ftp

Ukraine

ftp.ua.FreeBSD.org

http ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

United Kingdom

ftp.uk.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

ftp2.uk.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 https https_v6 ftp ftp_v6

United States of America

ftp11.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6 rsync rsync_v6

ftp14.FreeBSD.org

ftp rsync (Former official tier 1)

ftp5.FreeBSD.org

http http_v6 ftp ftp_v6

The current list of protocols supported by the community mirrors was last updated on 2022-01-31, and it’s not guaranteed.

A.2. Using Git

A.2.1. Introduction

As of December 2020, FreeBSD uses git as the primary version control system for storing all of FreeBSD’s base source code and documentation. As of April 2021, FreeBSD uses git as the only version control system for storing all of FreeBSD’s Ports Collection.

Git is generally a developer tool. Users may prefer to use freebsd-update ( “FreeBSD Update” ) to update the FreeBSD base system.

This section demonstrates how to install Git on a FreeBSD system and use it to create a local copy of a FreeBSD source code repository.

A.2.2. Installation

Git can be installed from the Ports Collection, or as a package: 

# pkg install git

A.2.3. Running Git

To fetch a clean copy of the sources into a local directory, use git clone . This directory of files is called the working tree .

Git uses URLs to designate a repository. There are three different repositories, src for the FreeBSD system source code, doc for documentation, and ports for the FreeBSD Ports Collection. All three are reachable over two different protocols: HTTPS and SSH. For example, the URL https://git.FreeBSD.org/src.git specifies the main branch of the src repository, using the https protocol.

Table 1. FreeBSD Git Repository URL Table
Item Git URL

Read-only src repo via HTTPS

https://git.FreeBSD.org/src.git

Read-only src repo via anon-ssh

ssh://anongit@git.FreeBSD.org/src.git

Read-only doc repo via HTTPS

https://git.FreeBSD.org/doc.git

Read-only doc repo via anon-ssh

ssh://anongit@git.FreeBSD.org/doc.git

Read-only ports repo via HTTPS

https://git.FreeBSD.org/ports.git

Read-only ports repo via anon-ssh

ssh://anongit@git.FreeBSD.org/ports.git

External mirrors maintained by project members are also available; please refer to the External mirrors section.

To clone a copy of the FreeBSD system source code repository: 

# git clone -o freebsd https://git.FreeBSD.org/src.git /usr/src

The -o freebsd option specifies the origin; by convention in the FreeBSD documentation, the origin is assumed to be freebsd . Because the initial checkout must download the full branch of the remote repository, it can take a while. Please be patient.

Initially, the working tree contains source code for the main branch, which corresponds to CURRENT. To switch to 13-STABLE instead: 

# cd /usr/src
# git checkout stable/13

The working tree can be updated with git pull . To update /usr/src created in the example above, use: 

# cd /usr/src
# git pull --rebase

The update is much quicker than a checkout, only transferring files that have changed.

A.2.4. Web-based repository browser

The FreeBSD project uses cgit as the web-based repository browser: https://cgit.FreeBSD.org/ .

A.2.5. For Developers

For information about write access to repositories see the Committer’s Guide .

A.2.6. External mirrors

Those mirrors are not hosted in FreeBSD.org but still maintained by the project members. Users and developers are welcome to pull or browse repositories on those mirrors. Pull requests for the doc and src GitHub repositories are being accepted; otherwise, the project workflow with those mirrors is still under discussion.

Codeberg
GitHub
GitLab

A.2.7. Mailing lists

The main mailing list for general usage and questions about git in the FreeBSD project is freebsd-git . For more details, including commit messages lists, see the Mailing Lists chapter.

A.2.8. SSH host keys

  • gitrepo.FreeBSD.org host key fingerprints:

    • ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:seWO5D27ySURcx4bknTNKlC1mgai0whP443PAKEvvZA

    • ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:lNR6i4BEOaaUhmDHBA1WJsO7H3KtvjE2r5q4sOxtIWo

    • RSA key fingerprint is SHA256:f453CUEFXEJAXlKeEHV+ajJfeEfx9MdKQUD7lIscnQI

  • git.FreeBSD.org host key fingerprints:

    • ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:/UlirUAsGiitupxmtsn7f9b7zCWd0vCs4Yo/tpVWP9w

    • ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:y1ljKrKMD3lDObRUG3xJ9gXwEIuqnh306tSyFd1tuZE

    • RSA key fingerprint is SHA256:jBe6FQGoH4HjvrIVM23dcnLZk9kmpdezR/CvQzm7rJM

These are also published as SSHFP records in DNS.

A.3. Disc Copies

FreeBSD disc copies are available from several online retailers:

Last modified on : March 31, 2025 by Philip Paeps

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