Official FreeBSD Binary Packages now available for pkgng

[Michael Gmelin]

On Sun, 03 Nov 2013 10:41:33 +1100
Dewayne Geraghty <dewayne.geraghty at heuristicsystems.com.au> wrote:

> 
> On 3/11/2013 9:37 AM, Lars Engels wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 03, 2013 at 12:36:54AM +0200, Kimmo Paasiala wrote:
> >> On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 12:34 AM, Lars Engels
> >> <lars.engels at 0x20.net> wrote:
> >>> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 05:22:44PM -0500, Bryan Drewery wrote:
> >>>> On 10/31/2013 4:54 PM, Freddie Cash wrote:
> >>>>> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:39 PM, Mehmet Erol Sanliturk <
> >>>>> m.e.sanliturk at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 4:58 PM, Bryan Drewery
> >>>>>> <bdrewery at freebsd.org> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> At present , the packages information and themselves are
> >>>>>> available from , such as :
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> ftp://ftp1.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It seems that new pkg compatible packages will not be exposed
> >>>>>> to the Internet such as
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> http://avalon.dragonflybsd.org/dports/
> >>>>>> http://pkg.wolfpond.org/
> >>>>>> http://mirror.exonetric.net/pub/pkgng/
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> This will be a very significant inconvenience for the possible
> >>>>>> users because without an installed FreeBSD , they will not be
> >>>>>> able to see what are the available packages there .
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> ???From the original message:
> >>>>> Mirrors you may use instead of the global
> >>>>> pkg.FreeBSD.org<http://pkg.freebsd.org/>
> >>>>> :
> >>>>>
> >>>>>     pkg.eu.FreeBSD.org <http://pkg.eu.freebsd.org/>
> >>>>>     pkg.us-east.FreeBSD.org <http://pkg.us-east.freebsd.org/>
> >>>>>     pkg.us-west.FreeBSD.org <http://pkg.us-west.freebsd.org/>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> pkg.freebsd.org is, basically, an alias for the above (and any
> >>>>> other mirrors that come online) and the pkg(1) tool will pick a
> >>>>> "local" mirror based on the DNS response for pkg.freebsd.org.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> However, you are free to manually enter any of the above
> >>>>> mirrors into your pkg.conf.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> And, you are free to browse any of the above mirrors via HTTP
> >>>>> in any web browser.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It's not nearly as convenient as just browsing pkg.freebsd.org,
> >>>>> but it's still possible to do so.
> >>>> These are still SRV hosts as well. The real hosts can be found
> >>>> with
> >>>>
> >>>> dig SRV _http._tcp.HOST HOST being the host from above lists.
> >>>>
> >>> Please add this to pkg.conf(5) as this it not intuitive and the
> >>> syntax is a bit cumbersome.
> >>
> >> You will never have to know that syntax unless you're one of the
> >> few that are behind a very restrictive firewall/proxy. The pkg
> >> client does all this SRV record magic internally to find out a
> >> suitable mirror.
> >>
> > Right, but I actually happen to fall into that group at work. ;-)
> +1
> Unless you track the mailing list, and know to use
> 
> dig SRV _http._tcp.pkg.freebsd.org
> 
> the inevitable questions will be asked - "Why can't I ...."
> 
> Particularly as the availability of prebuilt packages is targeted at
> relatively new FreeBSD folk, or those that don't customise their
> ports. Thank-you.

What about implementing something like "pkg ping" to check if pkg can
connect to the configured repository (or make it an option in pkg
rquery)? Could also be a useful command for scripting and
auto-configuration. pkg-ping(8) could then serve as a place to document
the exact repo look-up algorithm as well and pkg.conf(5) could
reference this under PACKAGESIZE (see pkg-ping(8) for details on the
service look-up algorithm).

-- 
Michael Gmelin