libpkg.so.3: Undefined symbol "utimensat" 18 Feb 2017

TL;DR
Fix your pkgng repo url to prevent pkg from installing incompatible binaries, e.g. http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/release_2 for x.2.

When installing a binary package on FreeBSD 10.2 I got the following error.

# sudo pkg install -y tmux
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up-to-date.
All repositories are up-to-date.
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
The following 2 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):

New packages to be INSTALLED:
  tmux: 2.3_1
  libevent2: 2.1.8

Number of packages to be installed: 2

The process will require 3 MiB more space.
[1/2] Installing libevent2-2.1.8...
[1/2] Extracting libevent2-2.1.8:   0%/usr/local/lib/libpkg.so.3: Undefined symbol "utimensat"

The internet will tell you that, of course, 10.2 is EOL, that packages are being built for 10.3 by now and to better upgrade to the latest version of FreeBSD.

While all of this is true and running the latest versions is generally good advise, in most cases it is unfeasible to do an entire OS upgrade just to be able to install a package.

The Real Story

You probably have a FreeBSD package repo which points to the latest branch in the packages repo:

# cat /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf
FreeBSD: {
  url: "pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/latest",
  enabled: yes
}

Note the ABI variable which is resolved to the Application Binary Interface version of your OS at run-time:

# pkg config abi
FreeBSD:10:amd64

This means the repo url ends up being http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:10:amd64/latest.
Now, if you have 10.2 installed and 10.3 is the current latest FreeBSD version, this url will point to packages built for 10.3 resulting in the problem that, when running pkg upgrade pkg it’ll go ahead and install the latest version of pkg build for 10.3 onto your 10.2 system.

# pkg --version
1.9.4

Yikes! FreeBSD 10.3 and pkgng broke the ABI by introducing new symbols, like utimensat.

The Real Solution

Have a look at the actual repo url http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:10:amd64… there’s repo’s for each release!

Instead of going through the tedious process of upgrading FreeBSD you just need to

Use a repo url that fits your FreeBSD release:

FreeBSD: {
  url: "pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/release_2",
  enabled: yes
}

Update the package cache:

# pkg update

Downgrade pkgng (in case you accidentally upgraded it already)

# pkg --version
1.9.4

# pkg delete -f pkg
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
Deinstallation has been requested for the following 1 packages (of 0 packages in the universe):

Installed packages to be REMOVED:
  pkg-1.9.4_1

Number of packages to be removed: 1

The operation will free 10 MiB.

Proceed with deinstalling packages? [y/N]: y
[1/1] Deinstalling pkg-1.9.4_1...
[1/1] Deleting files for pkg-1.9.4_1: 100%

# pkg install -y pkg
The package management tool is not yet installed on your system.
Do you want to fetch and install it now? [y/N]: y
Bootstrapping pkg from pkg+http://pkg.eu.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:10:amd64/release_2, please wait...
pkg-static: warning: database version 33 is newer than libpkg(3) version 31, but still compatible
Installing pkg-1.5.4...
Extracting pkg-1.5.4: 100%
Message for pkg-1.5.4:
If you are upgrading from the old package format, first run:

  # pkg2ng
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
pkg: Unable to downgrade "FreeBSD" repo schema version 2013 (target version 2011) -- change not found
pkg: need to re-create repo FreeBSD to upgrade schema version
Fetching meta.txz: 100%    944 B   0.9kB/s    00:01
Fetching packagesite.txz: 100%    5 MiB 892.0kB/s    00:06
Processing entries: 100%
FreeBSD repository update completed. 24162 packages processed.
pkg: warning: database version 33 is newer than libpkg(3) version 31, but still compatible
Updating database digests format: 100%
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
The most recent version of packages are already installed

# pkg --version
1.5.4

Install your package

# pkg install -y tmux
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up-to-date.
All repositories are up-to-date.
pkg: warning: database version 33 is newer than libpkg(3) version 31, but still compatible
Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting)
The following 2 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):

New packages to be INSTALLED:
  tmux: 2.0
  libevent2: 2.0.22_1

The process will require 2 MiB more space.
[1/2] Installing libevent2-2.0.22_1...
[1/2] Extracting libevent2-2.0.22_1: 100%
[2/2] Installing tmux-2.0...
[2/2] Extracting tmux-2.0: 100%

There you go. Don’t fret. But upgrade your OS soon ;)

Tagged with tech, FreeBSD, pkgng