MK.CONF(5)

🎀 mk.conf(5) — File Formats Manual 🎀

okay so bestie, this is the mk.conf(5) page from the File Formats Manual, and it's literally the make configuration file. group-chat voice: we're about to go through every single variable, no skipping, periodt. 💅

✨ NAME ✨

mk.conf — make configuration file

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

The mk.conf file overrides various parameters used during the build of the system. that's the whole vibe. ✨

🦋 NETBSD SYSTEM VARIABLES 🦋

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. buckle up, bestie 🫶

• BSDOBJDIR — the real path to the object directory tree for the NetBSD source tree.
  • Default: /usr/obj.
• BSDSRCDIR — the real path to the NetBSD source tree, if NETBSDSRCDIR isn't defined.
  • Default: /usr/src.
• BUILD — 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make install checks that the make(1) targets in the source directories are up-to-date and re-makes them if they are out of date, instead of blindly trying to install out of date or non-existent make(1) targets.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.
• BUILDID — 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.
• BUILDINFO — 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.
• BUILDSEED — 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-(majorversion). 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.
• CDEXTRA — a space-separated list of files or directories that will be added to the CD-ROM image that may be created 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.
• CONFIGOPTS — additional options to config(1) when building kernels.
  • Default: Unset.
• COPTS — extra options for the C compiler. Should be appended to (e.g., COPTS+=-g), rather than explicitly set.
  • Note: CPUFLAGS, not COPTS, should be used for compiler options that select CPU-related options.
  • Note: CFLAGS should never be set in mk.conf.
• CPUFLAGS — 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.
• DESTDIR — 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 /usr/include, /usr/lib, 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 USETOOLS=yes; otherwise unset.
• EXTERNAL_TOOLCHAIN — 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 MKGCC=no, 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 HAVE_GCC 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.
• INSTALLBOOT_BOARDS — 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 board=name option of installboot(8).
  • Default: Unset.
• INSTALLWORLDDIR — directory for the top-level make(1) installworld target to install to. If specified, must be an absolute path.
  • Default: /.
• KERNARCHDIR — directory under KERNSRCDIR containing the machine dependent kernel sources.
  • Default: arch/MACHINE.
• KERNCONFDIR — directory containing the kernel configuration files.
  • Default: KERNSRCDIR/KERNARCHDIR/conf.
• KERNEL_DIR (experimental) — can be set to yes or no. Indicates if a top-level directory /netbsd/ 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.
• KERNOBJDIR — directory for kernel builds. For example, the kernel GENERIC will be compiled in KERNOBJDIR/GENERIC.
  • Default: MAKEOBJDIRPREFIX/KERNSRCDIR/KERNARCHDIR/compile if it exists or the make(1) obj target is being made; otherwise KERNSRCDIR/KERNARCHDIR/compile.
• KERNSRCDIR — directory at the top of the kernel source.
  • Default: NETBSDSRCDIR/sys.
• LOCALTIME — the name of the tzfile(5) timezone file in the directory /usr/share/zoneinfo to symbolically link DESTDIR/etc/localtime to.
  • Default: UTC.
• MAKEVERBOSE — 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: 2.
• MKAMDGPUFIRMWARE — 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.
• MKARGON2 — can be set to yes or no. Indicates whether the Argon2 hash is enabled in libcrypt.
  • Default: yes.
• MKARZERO — can be set to yes or no. Indicates whether ar(1) should zero the timestamp, uid, and gid in the archive for reproducible builds.
• MKATF — can be yes or no, and it's the vibe check for whether the Automated Testing Framework (ATF) gets built and installed. Plot twist: this also controls whether the NetBSD test suite gets built and installed, because the tests literally cannot exist without ATF — they'd be nothing. 💀

Forced to no if MKCXX=no.

Default: yes.

• MKBINUTILS — yes or no, bestie. Says whether any of the binutils tools or libraries get built and installed. Like, the libraries libbfd, libiberty, or literally anything that depends on them, e.g. as(1), ld(1), dbsym(8), or mdsetimage(8).

Forced to no if TOOLCHAIN_MISSING!=no.

Default: yes.

• MKBSDGREP — yes or no, and it's a whole "which one of you is the main character" moment for grep(1). If yes, you get the BSD implementation. If no, you get the GNU implementation. Choose your fighter. ✨

Default: no.

• MKBSDTAR — yes or no. This one decides which implementation of cpio(1) and tar(1) gets built and installed. yes = the libarchive-based implementations. no = the pax(1) based ones. Iconic either way. 🎀

Default: yes.

• MKCATPAGES — yes or no. Indicates whether preformatted plaintext manual pages get created and installed. Extremely retro of them.

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

Default: no.

• MKCLEANSRC — yes or no. Indicates whether ‘make clean’ and ‘make cleandir’ will delete file names in CLEANFILES or CLEANDIRFILES from both the object directory, .OBJDIR, and the source directory, .SRCDIR.

If yes, then those file names get deleted relative to both .OBJDIR and .CURDIR. If no, the deletion happens relative to .OBJDIR only. Context matters, bestie.

Default: yes.

• MKCLEANVERIFY — yes or no. Controls whether ‘make clean’ and ‘make cleandir’ verify that files have actually been deleted. If yes, file deletions get verified using ls(1). If no, no verification, we just trust the process. 🙈

Default: yes.

• MKCOMPAT — yes or no. Indicates whether support for multiple ABIs is to be built and installed.

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

Default: yes on aarch64 (without gcc), earm* (to support compatibility between OABI and EABI binaries), mips64, powerpc64, riscv64, sparc64, and x86_64; no on other platforms.

• MKCOMPATMODULES — yes or no. Indicates whether the compat kernel modules get built and installed.

Forced to no if MKCOMPAT=no.

Default: yes on evbppc-powerpc and mips64; no on other platforms.

• MKCOMPATTESTS — yes or no. Indicates whether the NetBSD test suite for src/compat gets built and installed.

Forced to no if MKCOMPAT=no.

Default: no.

• MKCOMPATX11 — yes or no. Indicates whether the X11 libraries get built and installed.

Forced to no if MKCOMPAT=no.

Default: no.

• MKCOMPLEX — yes or no. Indicates whether the Math Library (libm, -lm) is compiled with support for <complex.h>. Math girlies rise. 🧚

Default: yes.

• MKCROSSGDB — yes or no. Create a cross-gdb as a host tool.

Default: no.

• MKCTF — yes or no. Indicates whether CTF tools are to be built and installed. If yes, the tools get used to generate and manipulate CTF data of ELF binaries during build.

Forced to no if NOCTF 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.

• MKCVS — yes or no. Indicates whether cvs(1) gets built and installed.

Default: yes.

• MKCXX — yes or no. Indicates whether C++ support is enabled.

If no, C++ compilers and software will not be built, and it acts as MKATF=no MKGCCCMDS=no MKGDB=no MKGROFF=no MKKYUA=no. One switch, so much drama. 💅

Default: yes.

• MKDEBUG — yes or no. Indicates whether debug information should be generated for all userland binaries. The result gets collected as an additional debug and xdebug set and installed in DESTDIR/usr/libdata/debug.

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

If yes, it acts as MKSTRIPSYM=no.

Default: no.

• MKDEBUGKERNEL — yes or no. Indicates whether debugging symbols get built for kernels by default; basically pretend as if makeoptions DEBUG="-g" is specified in kernel configuration files. This will also put the debug kernel netbsd.gdb in the kernel sets. See options(4) for the details. Super useful if a cross-gdb is built as well (see MKCROSSGDB). 🫶

Default: no.

• MKDEBUGLIB — yes or no. Indicates whether debug libraries (lib*_g.a) get built and installed. Debug libraries are compiled with -g -DDEBUG.

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

Default: no.

• MKDEBUGTOOLS — yes or no. Indicates whether debug information (lib*_g.a) gets included in the build toolchain.

Default: no.

• MKDEPINCLUDES — 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. Tradeoffs, babes.

Default: no.

• MKDOC — yes or no. Indicates whether system documentation destined for DESTDIR/usr/share/doc gets installed.

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

Forced to no if MKSHARE=no.

Default: yes.

• MKDTB — yes or no. Indicates whether the devicetree blobs get built and installed.

Default: yes on aarch64, armv6, armv7, riscv32, and riscv64; no on other platforms.

• MKDTC — yes or no. Indicates whether the Device Tree Compiler (dtc) gets built and installed.

Default: yes.

• MKDTRACE — 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.

• MKDYNAMICROOT — yes or no. Indicates whether all programs should be dynamically linked, and whether to install the 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. Static era. ⭐

Default: no on ia64; yes on other platforms.

• MKFIRMWARE — 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. That's a whole roster, ngl. 🔥

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

• MKGCC — yes or no. Indicates whether gcc(1) or any related libraries (libg2c, libgcc, libobjc, libstdc++) will be built and installed.

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

Default: yes.

• MKGCCCMDS — yes or no. Indicates whether gcc(1) gets built and installed. If no, then MKGCC controls whether the GCC libraries get built and installed.

Forced to no if MKCXX=no.

Default: no on m68000; yes on other platforms.

• MKGDB — yes or no. Indicates whether gdb(1) will be built and installed.

(okay so we're mid-variable, bestie — here's the tail end of the last one, no heading needed, just vibes 💅)

• Forced to "no" if MKCXX=no or TOOLCHAIN_MISSING!=no.
• Default: "no" on ia64 and or1k; "yes" on other platforms.

---

• MKGROFF — set it to "yes" or "no". It's the switch for whether groff(1) gets built, installed, and used to format some of the PostScript and PDF documentation. 📄
  • Forced to "no" if MKCXX=no.
  • Default: "yes".
• MKGROFFHTMLDOC — "yes" or "no". Controls whether groff(1) is used to generate HTML for miscellaneous articles, which sometimes needs software that isn't in the base installation. Heads up: this does not affect the generation of HTML man pages.
  • Default: "no".
• MKHESIOD — "yes" or "no". Says whether the Hesiod infrastructure (that's the libraries and support programs) gets built and installed. 🐝
  • Default: "yes".
• MKHOSTOBJ — "yes" or "no". Here's the tea: 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".
• MKHTML — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether the HTML manual pages are created and installed. 🌐
  • Forced to "no" if NOHTML is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • Forced to "no" if MKMAN=no or MKSHARE=no.
  • Default: "yes".
• MKIEEEFP — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether code for IEEE754/IEC60559 conformance will be built and installed. Lowkey it has no effect on most platforms.
  • Default: "yes".
• MKINET6 — "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 MKX11!=no.
  • Default: "yes".
• MKINFO — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether GNU Info files — the ones used for the documentation for most of the compilation tools — will be built and installed. 📚
  • Forced to "no" if NOINFO is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • Forced to "no" if MKSHARE=no.
  • Default: "yes".
• MKIPFILTER — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether the ipf(4) programs, headers, and other components will be built and installed. 🛡️
  • Default: "yes".
• MKISCSI — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether the iSCSI library and applications are built and installed.
  • Default: "no" on m68000; "yes" on other platforms.
• MKKERBEROS — "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".
• MKKMOD — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether kernel modules will be built and installed. 🧩
  • Default: "no" on or1k; "yes" on other platforms.
• MKKYUA — "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.
• MKLDAP — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) infrastructure (libraries and support programs) will be built and installed. 📇
  • Default: "yes".
• MKLIBCSANITIZER — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether to use the sanitizer for libc, using the sanitizer defined by USE_LIBCSANITIZER. 🧼
  • Forced to "no" if NOLIBCSANITIZER is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • Default: "no".
• MKLIBCXX — "yes" or "no". Indicates if libc++ will be built and installed (usually for clang++(1)). 🧁
  • Default: "yes" if MKLLVM=yes; otherwise "no".
• MKLIBSTDCXX — "yes" or "no". Indicates if libstdc++ will be built and installed (usually for g++(1)).
  • Default: "yes".
• MKLINKLIB — "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 *_pic.a libraries on PIC systems
    • building of *.a libraries on PIC systems
    • installation of .so symlinks on ELF systems
  • I.e, only install the shared library (and the .so.major symlink on ELF).
  • Forced to "no" if NOLINKLIB is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • If "no", acts as MKLINT=no MKPICINSTALL=no MKPROFILE=no.
  • Default: "yes".
• MKLINT — "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 NOLINT is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • Forced to "no" if MKLINKLIB=no.
  • Default: "no".
• MKLLVM — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether clang(1) is installed as a host tool and target compiler. 🐉
  • If "yes", acts as MKLIBCXX=yes.
  • > Note: Use of clang(1) as the system compiler is controlled by HAVE_LLVM.
  • Default: "no".
• MKLLVMRT — "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 HAVE_MESA_VER>=19, "yes" on aarch64, amd64, and i386; otherwise "no".
• MKLVM — "yes" or "no". If not "no", build and install the logical volume manager. 💽
  • Default: "yes".
• MKMAKEMANDB — "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".
• MKMAN — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether manual pages will be installed. (Hi, that's the thing you're reading rn 💖)
  • Forced to "no" if NOMAN 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".
• MKMANDOC — "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".
• MKMANZ — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether manual pages should be compressed with gzip(1) at installation time. 🗜️
  • Only used if MKMAN=yes.
  • Default: "no".
• MKMDNS — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether the mDNS (Multicast DNS) infrastructure (libraries and support programs) will be built and installed. 📡
  • Default: "yes".
• MKNLS — "yes" or "no". Indicates whether Native Language System (NLS) locale zone files will be built and installed. 🌍
  • Forced to "no" if NONLS is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • Forced to "no" if MKSHARE=no.
  • Default: "yes".
• MKNOUVEAUFIRMWARE — "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. 💅 (that was the tail end of the last one — we move, we don't dwell 🫶)

---

• MKNPF — can be yes or no. Says whether the NPF packet filter gets built and installed. Default: yes. ✨
• MKNSD — can be yes or no. Says whether the Name Server Daemon (NSD) gets built and installed. Default: no.
• MKOBJ — can be yes or no. Says whether object directories get created when you run make obj. If it's no, then like, all the built files just live inside the regular source tree. Messy but ok.
  • Forced to no if NOOBJ is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • If no, it acts as MKOBJDIRS=no.
  • Default: yes.

⚠️ Note: setting MKOBJ to no is not recommended and may cause problems when updating the tree with cvs(1). Like, please don't, bestie 😭

• MKOBJDIRS — can be yes or no. Says whether object directories get created automatically (via a make obj pass) at the start of a build.
  • Forced to no if MKOBJ=no.
  • Default: no.

🎀 Note: if you're using build.sh, the default is yes. You can set it to no by giving build.sh the -o option.

• MKPAM — can be yes or no. Says whether the pam(8) framework (libraries and support files) gets built and installed. Heads up: the pre-PAM code is not supported and may be removed in the future. 💀 Default: no on m68000; yes on other platforms.
• MKPCC — can be yes or no. Says whether pcc(1) or any related libraries (libpcc, libpccsoftfloat) get built and installed. Default: no.
• MKPF — can be yes or no. Says whether the pf(4) programs, headers, and LKM get built and installed. Default: yes.
• MKPIC — can be yes or no. Says whether shared objects and libraries get created and installed. If it's no, the entire built system is statically linked. (big chonky binaries, we love her 🌸)
  • Forced to no if NOPIC is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • If no, it acts as MKPICLIB=no.
  • Default: no on m68000; yes on other platforms.
• MKPICINSTALL — can be yes or no. Says whether the ar(1) format libraries (lib*_pic.a) — the ones used to generate shared libraries — actually get installed.
  • Forced to no if NOPICINSTALL is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • Forced to no if MKLINKLIB=no.
  • Default: no.
• MKPICLIB — can be yes or no. Says whether the ar(1) format libraries (lib*_pic.a), used to generate shared libraries, are a thing. 🦋
  • Forced to no if MKPIC=no.
  • Default: no on vax; yes on other platforms.
• MKPIE — can be yes or no. Says whether Position Independent Executables (PIE) get built and installed. 👑
  • Forced to no if NOPIE 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, m68k, mips, sh3, sparc64, and x86_64; no on other platforms.
• MKPIGZGZIP — can be yes or no. If it's no, the pigz(1) utility is not installed as gzip(1). Default: no.
• MKPOSTFIX — can be yes or no. Says whether Postfix gets built and installed. Default: yes.
• MKPROFILE — can be yes or no. Says whether profiled libraries (lib*_p.a) get built and installed.
  • Forced to no if NOPROFILE 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.
• MKRADEONFIRMWARE — can be yes or no. Says 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.
• MKRELRO — says whether to enable support for Relocation Read-Only (RELRO). The supported values are, like, a whole little menu:
  • 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 NOFULLRELRO is defined and not no (usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives).
  • no — disable RELRO.
  • Forced to no if NORELRO is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • Default: partial on aarch64, i386, and x86_64; no on other platforms.
• MKREPRO — can be yes or no. Says whether builds are meant to be reproducible. If it's yes, two builds from the same source tree will produce the same build results. same energy fr fr ✨
  • Used as the default for MKARZERO.
  • Default: no.

💖 Note: this may be set to yes by giving build.sh the -P option.

• MKREPRO_TIMESTAMP — a Unix timestamp. When MKREPRO is set, the timestamp of all files in the sets gets set to this value.
  • Default: unset.

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

• MKRUMP — can be yes or no. Says whether the rump(3) headers, libraries, and programs are to be installed.
  • Forced to no if COVERITY_TOP_CONFIG is defined.
  • See also the variables that start with RUMPUSER_ or RUMP_.
  • Default: yes.
• MKSANITIZER — can be yes or no. Says whether to use the sanitizer to compile userland programs, using the sanitizer defined by USE_SANITIZER.
  • Forced to no if NOSANITIZER is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • Default: no.
• MKSHARE — can be yes or no. Says whether files destined to reside in DESTDIR/usr/share get built and installed.
  • Forced to no if NOSHARE is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • If no, it acts as MKCATPAGES=no MKDOC=no MKINFO=no MKHTML=no MKMAN=no MKNLS=no. (one switch, six breakups 💀)
  • Default: yes.
• MKSKEY — can be yes or no. Says whether the S/key infrastructure (libraries and support programs) gets built and installed. Default: yes.
• MKSLJIT — can be yes or no. Says 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.
• MKSOFTFLOAT — can be yes or no. Says whether the compiler generates output containing library calls for floating point and possibly soft-float library support.
  • Forced to yes on arm without 'hf', coldfire, emips, or1k, and sh3.
  • Default: yes on mips64; no on other platforms.
• MKSTATICLIB — can be yes or no. Says whether the normal static libraries (lib*_g.a) get built and installed.
  • Forced to no if NOSTATICLIB is defined, usually in the Makefile before any make(1) .include directives.
  • Default: yes.
• MKSTATICPIE — can be yes or no. Says whether support for static PIE binaries gets 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.
• MKSTRIPIDENT — can be yes or no. Says whether RCS IDs, for use with ident(1), should be stripped from program binaries and shared libraries. Default: no.
• MKSTRIPSYM — set it to yes or no, bestie. It's the vibe check for whether all local symbols get stripped from shared libraries. yes = strip every local symbol, which hits exactly like the -x option of ld(1). no = only temporary local symbols get the boot, just like the -X option of ld(1). And why would you ever want no? Because keeping non-temporary local symbols (think static function names) is genuinely useful when you're using DTrace on userland libraries and trying to get a backtrace out of a rumpkernel(7) kernel that's loading shared libraries. 🫶

Heads up: this gets forced to no if MKDEBUG=yes. No arguing, it's the rules.

Default: yes. ✨

• MKTEGRAFIRMWARE — yes or no, your call. Controls whether the /libdata/firmware/nvidia directory gets installed — and yes, that's the directory the NVIDIA Tegra XHCI driver literally needs to function. 🎀

Default: yes on evbarm; no on every other platform.

• MKTPM — yes or no. Do we install the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) infrastructure or not? 🙈

Default: no.

• MKUNBOUND — yes or no. Tells you whether the unbound(8) DNS resolver gets built and installed. 🔥

Default: yes.

• MKUNPRIVED — yes or no. This one's giving main character energy: it says whether an unprivileged install will happen. When it's on, the user, group, permissions, and file flags won't be set on the installed items. Instead, all that info gets appended to a file called METALOG in DESTDIR. Then the METALOG contents get used while generating the distribution tar files, so the right file ownership is still stored. Net effect? You can do a non-root make install and it just works. 💅

Default: no.

• MKUPDATE — yes or no. When it's yes, every install operation that's meant to write to DESTDIR first compares file timestamps and skips the install entirely if the destination files are already up-to-date. Obsessed with not doing redundant work, honestly. ⭐

For top-level builds this implies the effects of NOCLEANDIR — i.e., make cleandir is avoided.

Note: this may be set to yes by handing build.sh the -u option. 🎀

Default: no.

• MKX11 — yes or no. Indicates whether X11 gets built and installed from X11SRCDIR, and whether the X sets get created. 🌈

Note: if yes, it requires MKINET6=yes.

Default: no.

• MKX11FONTS — yes or no. If no, don't build and install the X fonts. The xfont set still gets created though — it'll just be empty (sad, hollow little set 😭). Only used if MKX11=yes.

Default: yes.

• MKX11MOTIF — yes or no. If yes, build the native Xorg libGLw with Motif stubs. This one requires that Motif can be found via X11MOTIFPATH. 🔍

Default: no.

• MKXORG_SERVER — yes or no. Tells you whether the Xorg(7) X server and its drivers get built and installed. 🖥️

Default: yes on alpha, amd64, amiga, bebox, cats, dreamcast, ews4800mips, evbarm, evbmips, evbppc, hp300, hpcarm, hpcmips, hpcsh, hppa, i386, ibmnws, iyonix, luna68k, mac68k, macppc, netwinder, newsmips, pmax, prep, ofppc, sgimips, shark, sparc, sparc64, vax, and zaurus; no on other platforms. (That list ate, fr fr. 👑)

• MKYP — yes or no. Indicates whether the YP (NIS) infrastructure — the libraries and support programs — gets built and installed. 💜

Default: yes.

• MKZFS — yes or no. Says whether the ZFS kernel module, plus the utilities and libraries used to manage the ZFS system, are to be built and installed. 🌸

Note: ZFS requires 64-bit atomic operations. That's not a vibe, that's a requirement.

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

• NETBSDSRCDIR — the path to the top level of the NetBSD sources. 🗂️

Default: the 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.

• NETBSD_OFFICIAL_RELEASE — yes or no. Tells you whether the build creates an official NetBSD release, the kind that's going to be available from ftp.NetBSD.org and/or cdn.NetBSD.org locations. It 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 tell daily builds apart from the real-deal releases. 💖

Default: Unset. (I.e., no.)

• NETBSD_REVISIONID — a tree-wide revision identifier, like a Mercurial or Git commit hash or something similar. If it's set, it gets included in program notes wherever __RCSID(3) and __KERNEL_RCSID(3) are used, and it'll be reported by ident(1). ✨

Default: Unset.

• NOCLEANDIR — if set, it dodges the make cleandir phase of a full build. The effect: only changed files in a source tree get recompiled. Which is a huge slay when you're only updating a few files in the tree and don't want to wait forever. 🦋

See also MKUPDATE.

Default: Unset.

• NODISTRIBDIRS — if set, it dodges the make distrib-dirs phase of a full build. That means it skips running mtree(8) on DESTDIR — super useful on systems where you're building as an unprivileged user, or where you already know the system-wide mtree(8) files haven't changed. 😌

Default: Unset.

• NOINCLUDES — if set, it dodges the make includes phase of a full build. That stops make(1) from thinking some programs are out-of-date just because the system include files changed.

But bestie, listen: don't use this when you're updating the entire NetBSD source tree arbitrarily. In that case the suggestion is to use MKUPDATE=yes instead. 🙏

Default: Unset.

• OBJMACHINE — if defined, it creates objdirs of the form obj.MACHINE, where MACHINE is the current architecture (as per uname -m). 🎀

Default: Unset.

• RELEASEDIR — if set, it specifies the directory that a release(7) layout gets written to at the end of a make release. If you do specify it, it must be an absolute path. ⚠️

Note: build.sh will provide a default of releasedir (in the top-level .OBJDIR) unless it's run in expert mode with the -E option.

Default: Unset.

• RUMPUSER_THREADS — 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. 🧵

• RUMP_CURLWP — defines how curlwp is obtained in the rumpkernel(7) kernel. curlwp is a very frequently accessed thread-local variable, so optimizing access has a significant performance impact — like, this matters. 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 the value via thread local storage (TLS).

Default: hypercall. 🔥

• RUMP_DEBUG — if defined, indicates whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with -DDEBUG. 🐛

Default: Unset.

• RUMP_DIAGNOSTIC — yes or no. Indicates whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with -DDIAGNOSTIC. 🩺

Default: yes.

• RUMP_KTRACE — yes or no. Indicates whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with -DKTRACE. 👑

Default: yes.

• RUMP_LOCKDEBUG — if defined, indicates whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with -DLOCKDEBUG. 🔐

Default: Unset.

• RUMP_LOCKS_UP — 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. 🌸

• RUMP_NBCOMPAT — selects which NetBSD userland binary compatibility COMPAT_ver kernel options are enabled in the rumpkernel(7) kernels. This option is only useful when you're building rumpkernel(7) kernels for NetBSD userspace — and an empty value may be supplied elsewhere. Supported values (one or more, comma-separated):
  • 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”. 💖

• RUMP_VIRTIF — okay so this one takes “yes” or “no”, and it tells you whether rumpkernel(7) kernels get built with support for the virt(4) network interface.

If it's “no”, then no virt(4) support gets built — and ngl, that's sometimes literally necessary on systems that are missing the headers it needs, like musl libc based Linux. 😭

Default: “yes”.

• RUMP_VNODE_LOCKDEBUG — if it's defined, this says whether rumpkernel(7) kernels are built with -DVNODE_LOCKDEBUG.

Default: Unset. (so, vibes only, no lockdebug 🫶)

• TOOLCHAIN_MISSING — can be “yes” or “no”. If it's not “no”, that means the platform MACHINE_ARCH you're building doesn't have a working in-tree toolchain. 💀

If it's not “no”, it acts as MKBINUTILS=no MKGCC=no MKGDB=no.

Default: “no”.

• TOOLDIR — the directory that holds the host tools once they're built. If you set it, it must be an absolute path, no exceptions, periodt. This directory should be unique to a given host system and NetBSD source tree. (But like — multiple target architectures can share the same TOOLDIR, because the target-architecture-dependent files have unique names. icon behavior ✨) If you leave it unset, a default gets created in the .OBJDIR of src, based on the uname(1) info of the host platform.

Default: Unset.

• USETOOLS — “yes” or “no”. Says whether the tools specified by TOOLDIR should be used as part of a build that's in progress. Must be set to “yes” if you're 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 it doesn't verify that the compilation tools in use are up-to-date enough to build the tree successfully. ⚠️ Heads up: this may cause build or runtime problems when you're building the whole NetBSD source tree.

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

• USE_FORT — “yes” or “no”. Says whether the so-called “FORTIFY_SOURCE” security(7) extensions are enabled; see ssp(3) for the deets. Lowkey this imposes some performance penalty, just so you know. 🐢

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

Default: “no”.

• USE_HESIOD — “yes” or “no”. Says whether Hesiod support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if MKHESIOD=no.

Default: “yes”.

• USE_INET6 — “yes” or “no”. Says whether INET6 (IPv6, the future, the main character 🌈) support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if MKINET6=no.

Default: “yes”.

• USE_JEMALLOC — “yes” or “no”. Says whether the jemalloc allocator (designed for improved performance with threaded applications, iykyk) is used instead of the phkmalloc allocator (which was the default until NetBSD 5.0, rip bozo 💀).

Default: “yes”.

• USE_KERBEROS — “yes” or “no”. Says whether Kerberos v5 support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if MKKERBEROS=no.

Default: “yes”.

• USE_LDAP — “yes” or “no”. Says whether LDAP support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if MKLDAP=no.

Default: “yes”.

• USE_LIBCSANITIZER — picks the sanitizer in libc to compile userland programs and libraries with. 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 differs from the UBSan available in MKSANITIZER. The runtime is stripped down from C++ features, and is invoked with -fsanitize=no-vptr because that sanitizer is not supported. The runtime configuration is restricted to the LIBC_UBSAN environment variable, which is designed to be safe for hardening. 🛡️

The value of USE_LIBCSANITIZER gets passed to the C and C++ compilers as the argument to -fsanitize=. You can pass additional sanitizer arguments through LIBCSANITIZERFLAGS.

Disabled if MKLIBCSANITIZER=no.

Default: “undefined”.

• USE_PAM — “yes” or “no”. Says whether pam(8) support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if MKPAM=no.

Default: “yes”.

• USE_PIGZGZIP — “yes” or “no”. Says whether pigz(1) is used instead of gzip(1) for multi-threaded gzip compression of the distribution tar sets. 🐷⚡

Default: “no”.

• USE_SANITIZER — picks the sanitizer to compile userland programs and libraries with. Supported values (you can have one or more, comma-separated):
  • 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 gets passed to the C and C++ compilers as the argument to -fsanitize=. Additional sanitizer arguments can be passed through SANITIZERFLAGS.

Fr fr the list of supported features and their valid combinations depends on the compiler version and the target CPU architecture — so don't @ me if your fave combo isn't there. 🙈

Disabled if MKSANITIZER=no.

Default: “address”.

• USE_SKEY — “yes” or “no”. Says whether S/key support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if MKSKEY=no.

Note: this is mutually exclusive to USE_PAM!=no. 💅 pick a lane bestie.

Default: “no”.

• USE_SSP — “yes” or “no”. Says whether GCC stack-smashing protection (SSP) support is enabled — that's the thing that detects stack overflows and aborts the program. This imposes some performance penalty (approximately 5%, so yeah, real money).

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

Forced to “no” if NOSSP 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 USE_FORT=yes; otherwise “no”.

• USE_XZ_SETS — “yes” or “no”. Says whether the distribution tar files get compressed with xz(1) instead of gzip(1) or pigz(1).

Forced to “no” if USE_PIGZGZIP=yes.

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

• USE_YP — “yes” or “no”. Says whether YP (NIS) support is enabled in the various applications that support it.

Forced to “no” if MKYP=no.

Default: “yes”.

• X11MOTIFPATH — path of the Motif installation to use if MKX11MOTIF=yes.

Default: “/usr/pkg”.

• X11SRCDIR — the directory containing the modular Xorg source. If you specify it, it 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”.

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🌸 PKGSRC SYSTEM VARIABLES 🌸

okay bestie, for this part you gotta go read the pkgsrc guide — it lives at https://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/ — or peep pkgsrc/doc/pkgsrc.txt for all the extra variables used internally by the package system. And if you want package-specific examples, ${PKGSRCDIR}/mk/defaults/mk.conf is literally right there waiting for you. 🫶✨

🗑️ OBSOLETE VARIABLES 🗑️

okay so these ones? they're obsolete, bestie — like they had their moment and now they're retired. do not use them, periodt. 💅

• EXTSRCSRCDIR — obsolete. gone. bye. 🙈
• MKBFD — use MKBINUTILS instead, bestie.
• MKCRYPTO — obsolete. it's giving ghost of mk.conf past. 💀
• MKEXTSRC — obsolete. not the main character anymore.
• MKKDEBUG — use MKDEBUGKERNEL instead.
• MKKERBEROS4 — obsolete. retired fr fr.
• MKLLD — obsolete. lowkey ancient.
• MKLLDB — obsolete. also ancient.
• MKMCLINKER — obsolete. no cap.
• MKPERFUSE — obsolete. bye bestie. 🦋
• MKTOOLSDEBUG — use MKDEBUGTOOLS instead.
• NBUILDJOBS — use the build.sh and make(1) option -j instead.
• SHAREDSTRINGS — obsolete. it's not slaying anymore.
• USE_COMBINE — obsolete. don't let it back in the group chat. 🙅
• USE_NEW_TOOLCHAIN — the new toolchain is now the default, slay. to disable it, use TOOLCHAIN_MISSING=yes.

---

📁 FILES 📁

these are the spots where mk.conf and friends hang out, iykyk:

• /etc/mk.conf — the mk.conf file resides in /etc. that's the whole vibe. ✨
• ${PKGSRCDIR}/mk/defaults/mk.conf — examples for settings regarding the pkgsrc collection. very demure, very mindful. 🎀

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

if you wanna go deeper (and you should, you're a main character), check out all these:

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/

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📜 HISTORY 📜

fun fact: the mk.conf file appeared in NetBSD 1.2. iconic behavior from day one. 👑

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and that's a wrap, bestie! this iconic page is from Debian, dated May 3, 2025, and it's page MK.CONF(5) — periodt. 🫶💖✨