After configuration, initialize poudriere so that it installs a jail with the required FreeBSD tree and a ports tree. Specify a name for the jail using -j and the FreeBSD version with -v. On systems running FreeBSD/amd64, the architecture can be set with -a to either i386 or amd64. The default is the architecture shown by uname.

# poudriere jail -c -j 11amd64 -v 11.4-RELEASE
[00:00:00] Creating 11amd64 fs at /poudriere/jails/11amd64... done
[00:00:00] Using pre-distributed MANIFEST for FreeBSD 11.4-RELEASE amd64
[00:00:00] Fetching base for FreeBSD 11.4-RELEASE amd64
/poudriere/jails/11amd64/fromftp/base.txz              125 MB 4110 kBps    31s
[00:00:33] Extracting base... done
[00:00:54] Fetching src for FreeBSD 11.4-RELEASE amd64
/poudriere/jails/11amd64/fromftp/src.txz               154 MB 4178 kBps    38s
[00:01:33] Extracting src... done
[00:02:31] Fetching lib32 for FreeBSD 11.4-RELEASE amd64
/poudriere/jails/11amd64/fromftp/lib32.txz              24 MB 3969 kBps    06s
[00:02:38] Extracting lib32... done
[00:02:42] Cleaning up... done
[00:02:42] Recording filesystem state for clean... done
[00:02:42] Upgrading using ftp
/etc/resolv.conf -> /poudriere/jails/11amd64/etc/resolv.conf
Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 3 mirrors found.
Fetching public key from update4.freebsd.org... done.
Fetching metadata signature for 11.4-RELEASE from update4.freebsd.org... done.
Fetching metadata index... done.
Fetching 2 metadata files... done.
Inspecting system... done.
Preparing to download files... done.
Fetching 124 patches.....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100....110....120.. done.
Applying patches... done.
Fetching 6 files... done.
The following files will be added as part of updating to
11.4-RELEASE-p1:
/usr/src/contrib/unbound/.github
/usr/src/contrib/unbound/.github/FUNDING.yml
/usr/src/contrib/unbound/contrib/drop2rpz
/usr/src/contrib/unbound/contrib/unbound_portable.service.in
/usr/src/contrib/unbound/services/rpz.c
/usr/src/contrib/unbound/services/rpz.h
/usr/src/lib/libc/tests/gen/spawnp_enoexec.sh
The following files will be updated as part of updating to
11.4-RELEASE-p1:
[…]
Installing updates...Scanning //usr/share/certs/blacklisted for certificates...
Scanning //usr/share/certs/trusted for certificates...
 done.
11.4-RELEASE-p1
[00:04:06] Recording filesystem state for clean... done
[00:04:07] Jail 11amd64 11.4-RELEASE-p1 amd64 is ready to be used

# poudriere ports -c -p local -m svn+https
[00:00:00] Creating local fs at /poudriere/ports/local... done
[00:00:00] Checking out the ports tree... done

On a single computer, poudriere can build ports with multiple configurations, in multiple jails, and from different port trees. Custom configurations for these combinations are called sets. See the CUSTOMIZATION section of poudriere(8) for details after ports-mgmt/poudriere or ports-mgmt/poudriere-devel is installed.

The basic configuration shown here puts a single jail-, port-, and set-specific make.conf in /usr/local/etc/poudriere.d. The filename in this example is created by combining the jail name, port name, and set name: 11amd64-local-workstation-make.conf. The system make.conf and this new file are combined at build time to create the make.conf used by the build jail.

Packages to be built are entered in 11amd64-local-workstation-pkglist:

editors/emacs
devel/git
ports-mgmt/pkg
...

Options and dependencies for the specified ports are configured:

# poudriere options -j 11amd64 -p local -z workstation -f 11amd64-local-workstation-pkglist

Finally, packages are built and a package repository is created:

# poudriere bulk -j 11amd64 -p local -z workstation -f 11amd64-local-workstation-pkglist

While running, pressing Ctrl+t displays the current state of the build. Poudriere also builds files in /poudriere/logs/bulk/jailname that can be used with a web server to display build information.

After completion, the new packages are now available for installation from the poudriere repository.

For more information on using poudriere, see poudriere(8) and the main web site, https://github.com/freebsd/poudriere/wiki.

While it is possible to use both a custom repository along side of the official repository, sometimes it is useful to disable the official repository. This is done by creating a configuration file that overrides and disables the official configuration file. Create /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf that contains the following:

FreeBSD: {
	enabled: no
}

Usually it is easiest to serve a poudriere repository to the client machines via HTTP. Set up a webserver to serve up the package directory, for instance: /usr/local/poudriere/data/packages/11amd64, where 11amd64 is the name of the build.

If the URL to the package repository is: http://pkg.example.com/11amd64, then the repository configuration file in /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/custom.conf would look like:

custom: {
	url: "http://pkg.example.com/11amd64",
	enabled: yes,
}