options used to compile packages

[Lowell Gilbert]

Michael Powell <nightrecon at hotmail.com> writes:

> David Arendt wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> 
>> well I don't actually now which package it was, but I compiled gdm (so
>> it should be one of it's dependencies). A compilation resulted in a non
>> working gdm (something with pam support not found on execution). Upon
>> installing gdm and is dependencies from packages, everything worked
>> correctly. Therefore I thought there might be other default options. I
>> am sorry that I cannot be more precise, but I tried it 2 months ago, so
>> I do not remember exactly. I think I will try it again from scratch with
>> latest ports tree and give you more precise information.
>> 
> [snip]
>
> As you probably know, make config will open a previously saved 
> configuration. The first time a port that has options is built you will get 
> the options screen where you can select/deselect options. Make config 
> recursive will also walk the dependency tree and pull up all the config 
> screens for dependencies as well.
>
> These options are saved in /var/db/ports. Each port will have a directory 
> containing an 'options' file. Deleting these will remove what make config 
> saved and reset it back to as if the port hadn't been built previously with 
> the options screen once again appearing. These would be the defaults.
>
> A shotgun approach would be to wipe all of the content from /var/db/ports 
> and then it would be like starting from scratch; all ports would present 
> default options. Kind of an ugly thing to do, better if you could identify a 
> subset and only remove what's needed. Wiping everything will reset your 
> entire ports tree to beginning with default options. As a backup you could 
> also copy/save the contents of /var/db/ports somewhere else for future 
> reference. 

There is a "PORT_DBDIR" environment variable that is supposed to
override the location of the ports options (I read about it in ports(7),
but haven't used it myself).  That should avoid the need to mess with
the system's real ports options.