I've recently started using portmaster for upgrading my FreeBSD ports. It seems to work quite well, and it's well documented—so well that it takes a bit of reading to find out what to do. Here are a couple of short cuts for what I use. They may change, and of course it'll be without notice.

Updating all ports:

The flags mean:

• G: Don't run make config.

• a: Update all installed ports.

• b: Build a backup of the previous port.

• w: Save all shared libraries before removing (“deinstalling”) old port.

• --no-confirm: Don't stop in some places to ask questions. Unfortunately, it still stops in other places.

Updating a single port:

The flags mean:

• G: Don't run make config.

• b: Build a backup of the previous port.

• w: Save all shared libraries before removing (“deinstalling”) old port.

• --no-confirm: Don't stop in some places to ask questions. Unfortunately, it still stops in other places.

I still need to find a way to stop it rebuilding the port if it doesn't need changing.