# $FreeBSD: docs/README.TXT 117 2013-01-13 22:58:33Z gjb $

This directory contains FreeBSD installation snapshots for the head/ and
stable/ branches.  The snapshot installation media are organized in the
same hierarchy as the FreeBSD release installers, for example:

        snapshots/i386/i386/ISO-IMAGES/
        snapshots/amd64/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/

Please note: currently non-x86 architecture builds are cross-built,
not natively generated on their respective platform.

The FTP structure is also available for bootonly.iso installers.

These snapshots do not include a package distribution, and do not
include the release notes documentation.

Snapshots are expected to be generated weekly.  Snapshot retention is
expected to be the current week and three prior weeks.  The FTP directory
will always contain the distribution sets for the most recent snapshot.

Snapshots are named as:

        FreeBSD-{BRANCH}-{ARCH}-{DATE}-{SVNREV}

where BRANCH is the official branch name (such as 10.0-CURRENT, or
9.2-STABLE), ARCH is the target architecure the release was built,
DATE is the day the snapshot was built in YYYYMMDD format, and
SVNREV is the svn revision number at the point in time the snapshot
was generated.

The CHECKSUM.MD5 and CHECKSUM.SHA256 files are suffixed with the
date the snapshots were generated.

In general, it can be expected that all snapshots will be built with
the same subversion revision, as to avoid inconsistencies between images
built on the same day.

Be sure to check the mailing lists for those architectures (e.g.,
freebsd-sparc64 mailing list for the sparc64 architecure) before
taking one of those snapshots.  The specific testing purpose that
snapshot was generated for should be mentioned there.  The snapshot
ISOs in those architecture directories may not be suitable for
general use.

Those who wish to keep up-to-date on the latest snapshot availability
are advised to subscribe to the freebsd-snapshots@ mailing list, where
new snapshots will be announced, including the image checksums and
any notable information regarding a particular snapshot set.