12.14 Marking a port not installable with BROKEN, FORBIDDEN, or IGNORE

In certain cases users should be prevented from installing a port. To tell a user that a port should not be installed, there are several make variables that can be used in a port's Makefile. The value of the following make variables will be the reason that is given back to users for why the port refuses to install itself. Please use the correct make variable as each make variable conveys radically different meanings to both users, and to automated systems that depend on the Makefiles, such as the ports build cluster, FreshPorts, and portsmon.

12.14.1 Variables

12.14.2 Implementation Notes

The strings should not be quoted. Also, the wording of the string should be somewhat different due to the way the information is shown to the user. Examples:

BROKEN= this port is unsupported on FreeBSD 5.x
IGNORE= is unsupported on FreeBSD 5.x

resulting in the following output from make describe:

===>  foobar-0.1 is marked as broken: this port is unsupported on FreeBSD 5.x.
===>  foobar-0.1 is unsupported on FreeBSD 5.x.
For questions about the FreeBSD ports system, e-mail <ports@FreeBSD.org>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.