alpha/75637: Packages/INDEX not found when trying to install packages via FTP from sysintall.

[Angus MacGyver]

>Number:         75637
>Category:       alpha
>Synopsis:       Packages/INDEX not found when trying to install packages via FTP from sysintall.
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-alpha
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Wed Dec 29 23:00:45 GMT 2004
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Angus MacGyver
>Release:        5.3-RELEASE
>Organization:
>Environment:
FreeBSD test3bsd 5.3-RELEASE FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE #0: Fri Nov  5 11:30:09 UTC 2004     root at ds10.wbnet:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  alpha

>Description:
Unable to install any pre-built packages from FTP using sysinstall program.

Choose the FTP site (I am choosing ftp.frebsd.org, as got same problems with the UK and US mirrors)

The program then looks up the IP, and appears to login to the FTP server..

Then the error message appears as follows.

Unable to get packages/INDEX file from selected media
This may be because the packages collection is not available on the distribution media you've chosen, most likely an FTP site without the packages collection mirrored.  Please verify that your media, or your path to the media, is correct and try again. 

>How-To-Repeat:
Completely minimum install from either CD or FTP and do a mimimum installation, and let it complete.

At any point after the initial installation or after the initial reboot after installation, try to use sysinstall to install pre-built packages via FTP.

The X86 version of 5.3 does not exhibit this problem.
>Fix:
If only I knew :(


>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: