Re: Updating Ports on 15.0-RELEASE-p5

On Wed, Apr 22, 2026 at 10:17 AM Philip Paeps <philip@freebsd.org> wrote:

> On 2026-04-22 14:45:25 (+0800), Washington Odhiambo wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 22, 2026 at 8:58 AM Philip Paeps <philip@freebsd.org>
> > wrote:
> >> I just noticed this message from a couple of weeks ago.  The problem
> >> might have been transient but ...
> >>
> >> On 2026-04-04 19:50:48 (+0800), Washington Odhiambo wrote:
> >>> What's going on here?
> >>
> >> It looks like you're getting timeouts because you're talking to a
> >> pkg.FreeBSD.org mirror very far from where you are.
> >>
> >>> pkg: Failed to fetch
> >>> https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/latest/meta.conf: Timeout
> >>> was reached
> >>>
> >>> [...]
> >>>
> >>> root@gw:/home/wash # ping pkg.FreeBSD.org
> >>> PING pkgmir.geo.FreeBSD.org (96.47.72.71): 56 data bytes
> >>> 64 bytes from 96.47.72.71: icmp_seq=0 ttl=52 time=249.443 ms
> >>> 64 bytes from 96.47.72.71: icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=248.192 ms
> >>> ^C
> >>> --- pkgmir.geo.FreeBSD.org ping statistics ---
> >>> 2 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
> >>> round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 248.192/248.817/249.443/0.625 ms
> >>> root@gw:/home/wash # uname -a
> >>> FreeBSD gw.wash.lan 15.0-RELEASE-p5 FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE-p5
> >>> releng/15.0-n281018-0730d5233286 GENERIC amd64
> >>> root@gw:/home/wash #
> >>
> >> It's very odd to see you being sent all the way to New Jersey.  Our
> >> GeoDNS should be sending you to Fastly infrastructure in Cape Town or
> >> our mirror in Johannesburg.  Both are still a long way away but 70ms
> >> is a lot better than 250ms!
> >>
> >> Could you tell me your source IP address please?  I can optimise the
> >> routing.
> >
> > I *was* technically in New Jersey as my VM was routed via my VPN
> > tunnel.
> > I have since routed the VM via my WAN, but the issue still persists:
> >
> > root@gw:/home/wash # !trace
> > traceroute pkg.FreeBSD.org
> > traceroute to pkgmir.geo.FreeBSD.org (96.47.72.71), 64 hops max, 40
> > byte
> > packets
> >  1  192.168.69.1 (192.168.69.1)  0.430 ms  0.428 ms  0.361 ms
> >  2  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  1.037 ms  0.922 ms  1.058 ms
> >  3  192.168.222.1 (192.168.222.1)  2.406 ms  2.685 ms  2.354 ms
> >  4  * * 41.215.131.9 (41.215.131.9)  3.135 ms
>
> This hop is in Nairobi and our GeoDNS would send you to somewhere
> nearby.  Are you perhaps using a DNS server far away, or one that strips
> ECS information?  E.g. 9.9.9.9 will do this - 9.9.9.11 will work much
> better.
>
> See https://quad9.net/service/service-addresses-and-features/#ecssec
>
> Or is your origin network (masked by the NAT hops) in another netblock
> that isn't geolocated to Kenya?
>
> What does this tell you?
>
> % curl http://ip.wtf
>
> > 18  pkg0.nyi.freebsd.org (96.47.72.71)  251.058 ms  251.621 ms
> > 246.661 ms
> > root@gw:/home/wash #
> > root@gw:/home/wash # pkg update
> > Updating FreeBSD-ports repository catalogue...
> > pkg: Failed to fetch
> > https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/latest/meta.conf: Timeout was
> > reached
> > pkg: Failed to fetch
>
> pkg should be robust with high latency but there are a lot of hops on
> the path.  And who knows what those first couple of hops are doing. :)
>
> For what it's worth, from WaveX in Nairobi I get sent to Fastly in Cape
> Town.
>
> Philip
>

root@gw:/home/wash # nslookup
> pkg.freebsd.org
Server:         127.0.0.1
Address:        127.0.0.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
pkg.freebsd.org canonical name = pkgmir.geo.freebsd.org.
Name:   pkgmir.geo.freebsd.org
Address: 96.47.72.71
Name:   pkgmir.geo.freebsd.org
Address: 2610:1c1:1:606c::50:1
>
root@gw:/home/wash # lsof -i -P -n | grep :53
unbound   46811 unbound   3u  IPv4 0xfffff800063af540        0  UDP
127.0.0.1:53->*:*
unbound   46811 unbound   4u  IPv4 0xfffff80006dff540        0  TCP
127.0.0.1:53->*:* (LISTEN)
root@gw:/home/wash # cat /var/unbound/forward.conf
forward-zone:
        name: .
        forward-tls-upstream: yes
        forward-first: no
        forward-addr: 1.0.0.1@53 #cloudflare

root@gw:/home/wash #

I then changed my /etc/resolv.conf to point to 9.9.9.11
root@gw:/home/wash # nslookup
> pkg.freebsd.org
Server:         9.9.9.11
Address:        9.9.9.11#53

Non-authoritative answer:
pkg.freebsd.org canonical name = pkgmir.geo.freebsd.org.
Name:   pkgmir.geo.freebsd.org
Address: 96.47.72.71
Name:   pkgmir.geo.freebsd.org
Address: 2610:1c1:1:606c::50:1
>
root@gw:/home/wash # pkg update
Updating FreeBSD-ports repository catalogue...
pkg: Failed to fetch
https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/latest/data.pkg: Timeout was
reached
pkg: Failed to fetch
https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/latest/data.tzst: Failed writing
received data to disk/application
pkg: Failed to fetch
https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/latest/packagesite.pkg: Timeout
was reached
pkg: Failed to fetch
https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/latest/packagesite.tzst: Failed
writing received data to disk/application
Unable to update repository FreeBSD-ports
Updating FreeBSD-ports-kmods repository catalogue...
pkg: Failed to fetch
https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/kmods_latest_0/meta.conf: Timeout
was reached
pkg: Failed to fetch
https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/kmods_latest_0/meta.txz: Timeout
was reached
repository FreeBSD-ports-kmods has no meta file, using default settings
pkg: Failed to fetch
https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/kmods_latest_0/data.pkg: Timeout
was reached
pkg: Failed to fetch
https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/kmods_latest_0/data.tzst: Failed
writing received data to disk/application
pkg: Failed to fetch
https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/kmods_latest_0/packagesite.pkg:
Timeout was reached
pkg: Failed to fetch
https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:15:amd64/kmods_latest_0/packagesite.tzst:
Failed writing received data to disk/application
Unable to update repository FreeBSD-ports-kmods
Updating FreeBSD-base repository catalogue...


PS: I am using Jamii Telecommunications in Nairobi.



-- 
Best regards,
Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
Nairobi,KE
+254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223
 In an Internet failure case, the #1 suspect is a constant: DNS.
"Oh, the cruft.", egrep -v '^$|^.*#' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :-)
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