Daemonless pkg cache

Managed FreeBSD pkg caching appliance — proxies pkg.FreeBSD.org to speed up package fetches across image builds and insulate them from upstream rate limits/outages.

Port	80
Registry	ghcr.io/daemonless/pkg-cache
Source	https://github.com/daemonless/pkg-cache
Website	https://daemonless.io/images/pkg-cache/

Version Tags

Tag	Description	Best For
latest	daemonless Appliance. Managed FreeBSD pkg cache proxy built on nginx-base.	Shared package cache for daemonless builds and FreeBSD hosts.

Prerequisites

Before deploying, ensure your host environment is ready. See the Quick Start Guide for host setup instructions.

Deployment

Podman Compose

services:
  pkg-cache:
    image: "ghcr.io/daemonless/pkg-cache:latest"
    container_name: pkg-cache
    environment:
      - TZ=UTC  # Timezone for the container
      - PKG_UPSTREAM=pkg.FreeBSD.org  # FreeBSD pkg mirror to proxy, e.g. pkg1.us.freebsd.org or pkg0.eu.freebsd.org. Defaults to the primary pkg.FreeBSD.org.
      - PKG_CACHE_SIZE=50g  # Max on-disk cache size (nginx max_size), e.g. 10g, 100g, 500g. 10g is plenty for light use; keep the /cache volume at least this big.
      - ENABLE_STATS=false  # Set to true to enable the GoAccess real-time stats dashboard on port 7890.
    volumes:
      - "/path/to/containers/pkg-cache:/config"
      - "/path/to/containers/pkg-cache/cache:/cache"
      - "/etc/resolv.conf:/etc/resolv.conf:ro"
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "7890:7890"
    restart: unless-stopped

AppJail Director

.env:

# .env

DIRECTOR_PROJECT=pkg-cache
TZ=UTC
PKG_UPSTREAM=pkg.FreeBSD.org
PKG_CACHE_SIZE=50g
ENABLE_STATS=false

appjail-director.yml:

# appjail-director.yml

options:
  - virtualnet: ':<random> default'
  - nat:
services:
  pkg-cache:
    name: pkg_cache
    options:
      - container: 'boot args:--pull'
      - expose: '80:80 proto:tcp' \
      - expose: '7890:7890 proto:tcp' \
    oci:
      user: root
      environment:
        - TZ: !ENV '${TZ}'
        - PKG_UPSTREAM: !ENV '${PKG_UPSTREAM}'
        - PKG_CACHE_SIZE: !ENV '${PKG_CACHE_SIZE}'
        - ENABLE_STATS: !ENV '${ENABLE_STATS}'
    volumes:
      - pkg-cache: /config
      - pkg-cache_cache: /cache
      - etc_resolv_conf: /etc/resolv.conf
volumes:
  pkg-cache:
    device: '/path/to/containers/pkg-cache'
  pkg-cache_cache:
    device: '/path/to/containers/pkg-cache/cache'
  etc_resolv_conf:
    device: '/etc/resolv.conf'

Makejail:

# Makejail

ARG tag=latest

OPTION overwrite=force
OPTION from=ghcr.io/daemonless/pkg-cache:${tag}

Note: Exposing ports in AppJail means that your service can be reached from remote hosts. If that is not your intention, do not expose the ports and communicate with the service using the IPv4 address assigned by the virtual network.

Podman CLI

podman run -d --name pkg-cache \
  -p 80:80 \
  -p 7890:7890 \
  -e TZ=UTC \
  -e PKG_UPSTREAM=pkg.FreeBSD.org \
  -e PKG_CACHE_SIZE=50g \
  -e ENABLE_STATS=false \
  -v /path/to/containers/pkg-cache:/config \
  -v /path/to/containers/pkg-cache/cache:/cache \
  -v /etc/resolv.conf:/etc/resolv.conf:ro \
  ghcr.io/daemonless/pkg-cache:latest

AppJail

appjail oci run -Pd \
  -o overwrite=force \
  -o container="args:--pull" \
  -o virtualnet=":<random> default" \
  -o nat \
  -o expose="80:80 proto:tcp" \
  -o expose="7890:7890 proto:tcp" \
  -e TZ=UTC \
  -e PKG_UPSTREAM=pkg.FreeBSD.org \
  -e PKG_CACHE_SIZE=50g \
  -e ENABLE_STATS=false \
  -o fstab="/path/to/containers/pkg-cache /config <pseudofs>" \
  -o fstab="/path/to/containers/pkg-cache/cache /cache <pseudofs>" \
  -o fstab="/etc/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf <pseudofs>" \
  ghcr.io/daemonless/pkg-cache:latest pkg-cache

Note: Exposing ports in AppJail means that your service can be reached from remote hosts. If that is not your intention, do not expose the ports and communicate with the service using the IPv4 address assigned by the virtual network.

Ansible

- name: Deploy pkg-cache
  containers.podman.podman_container:
    name: pkg-cache
    image: "ghcr.io/daemonless/pkg-cache:latest"
    state: started
    restart_policy: always
    env:
      TZ: "UTC"
      PKG_UPSTREAM: "pkg.FreeBSD.org"
      PKG_CACHE_SIZE: "50g"
      ENABLE_STATS: "false"
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "7890:7890"
    volumes:
      - "/path/to/containers/pkg-cache:/config"
      - "/path/to/containers/pkg-cache/cache:/cache"
      - "/etc/resolv.conf:/etc/resolv.conf:ro"

Access at: http://localhost:80

Parameters

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
TZ	UTC	Timezone for the container
PKG_UPSTREAM	pkg.FreeBSD.org	FreeBSD pkg mirror to proxy, e.g. pkg1.us.freebsd.org or pkg0.eu.freebsd.org. Defaults to the primary pkg.FreeBSD.org.
PKG_CACHE_SIZE	50g	Max on-disk cache size (nginx max_size), e.g. 10g, 100g, 500g. 10g is plenty for light use; keep the /cache volume at least this big.
ENABLE_STATS	false	Set to true to enable the GoAccess real-time stats dashboard on port 7890.

Volumes

Path	Description
/config	Logs and generated stats storage (log/, stats/). The nginx config is appliance-managed at startup.
/cache	Package cache storage (proxy_cache). Size to match max_size in nginx.conf (default 50G; 10G is fine for light use).
/etc/resolv.conf	Host DNS resolver config. Optional but recommended so upstream pkg resolution matches the host.

Ports

Port	Protocol	Description
80	TCP	HTTP — pkg clients point their FreeBSD.conf url here
7890	TCP	GoAccess stats dashboard (HTML) — enabled via ENABLE_STATS=true

How it works

Package files (*.pkg) are cached for 30 days — their filenames are versioned and immutable, so a HIT is always safe. Catalog metadata (meta.conf, packagesite.*, data.*) is cached for 1 minute instead, so pkg keeps resolving the latest updates without serving stale catalogs.

Pointing clients at the cache

On a build host (or any FreeBSD box), drop in /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf:

FreeBSD: {
  url: "pkg+http://<cache-host>/${ABI}/quarterly",
  mirror_type: "none",
  signature_type: "fingerprints",
  fingerprints: "/usr/share/keys/pkg",
  enabled: yes
}

Then pkg update fetches through the cache — first pull is a MISS, everything after is a HIT, and package signatures still verify end-to-end. No nginx config is required; the appliance renders its managed config at startup from environment variables. Size the /cache volume to at least PKG_CACHE_SIZE (default 50G — 10G is plenty for a handful of hosts/images, bump it up if you're caching a large fleet).

Inspired by this video.

Architectures: amd64 User: bsd (UID/GID via PUID/PGID, defaults to 1000:1000) Base: FreeBSD latest

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