Numerous ftp timeouts - why?

[RW]

On Sunday 09 April 2006 19:59, Michael D. Norwick wrote:
> New to FreeBSD not new to *nix.  Have the docs/handbook/faq, etc.  Using
> freebsd 6.0 RELEASE on Compaq Proliant 2500R.
> Why when trying to install various apps from ports do the ftp sessions
> frequently timeout?  If I manually fetch packages from
> sites the download goes ok, but this means I have to copy files to
> /usr/ports/distfiles manually.  did 'man fetch' but still no clue
> as to why this happens.


Try adding 

MASTER_SORT_REGEX?= ^file:  ^https?:

to make.conf.  This tells the ports system  to prefer http where availible. If 
things don't improve  then you have ruled-out its being ftp specific.

I've never made any specific firewall provision for ftp, and fetch claims to 
default to active mode. As it works for me I guess it must be honouring the 
FTP_PASSIVE_MODE="YES"  that's in the default environment.