portsnap fetch : "snapshot is corrupt"

[andrew clarke]

On Fri 2015-05-15 19:18:20 UTC+0530, Avinash Sonawane (rootkea at gmail.com) wrote:

> On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 7:01 AM, andrew clarke <mail at ozzmosis.com> wrote:
> > On Thu 2015-05-14 20:13:53 UTC+0530, Avinash Sonawane (rootkea at gmail.com) wrote:
> >
> >> Hello!
> >>
> >> I am using FreeBSD 10.1 RELEASE
> >>
> >> Whenever I try to fetch the portsnap it says "snapshot is corrupt". I
> >> rmed `/var/db/portsnap/*` to start from fresh but then too when I
> >> issue `portsnap fetch` it says the same.
> >>
> >> Here is the complete error message : http://pastebin.com/AiLn8QdE
> >>
> >> Anybody has any idea how do I get that missing gz?
> >
> > I've noticed this happen in the past on the odd occasion. I ruled out
> > hardware error on my machine and put it down to some sort of
> > corruption (or more likely syncronisation problem) with the snapshot
> > server(s). If I waited a while (a few hours) then re-ran portsnap the
> > errors went away.
> 
> Same here. Now I can fetch the portsnap without any "sync" errors.
> 
> But from browsing the web and from the mailing list archives I found
> this same problem to be quite frequent and having the only apparent
> solution "just to wait few hours"
> 
> Is this specific issue is bound to happen? I mean it seems as if
> community has adjusted with it. Is this "sync" issue is inherent in
> portsnap design?

I think the problem is more down to how the portsnap servers are
synchronised, not portsnap itself.

The person(s) responsible for the portsnap servers are probably aware
of the issue but don't see a fix as very high priority. Or maybe the
problem is difficult to replicate. There may be a PR on Bugzilla for
it if you do a search.

I probably see portsnap errors about once a year, running it a few
times a day, and they do fix themselves, so it's not really a big
deal. On the other hand it can cause the local sysadmin to wonder if
the problem is on their system, which does cause unnecessary anxiety
and time wastage. I've noticed the freebsd-update utility is similarly
occasionally prone to oddball errors that can make you scratch your
head a bit, but usually end up being mostly harmless.

I think you were just unlucky, but if it really bothers you, you could
switch to using SVN instead for ports tree updates, although I think
there may be some caveats in doing that. (disk space?)

Myself, I just stick with portsnap. (Actually, portsnap run from Poudriere.)

> I am sorry but I am new to BSD world (Just completed a week!) so have
> no idea how things work here.

Welcome :-)

> Thank you.
> 
> Avinash Sonawane (RootKea)
> PICT, Pune
> http://rootkea.wordpress.com

Regards
Andrew