How to update ports for portmaster?

[Lowell Gilbert]

Ben Brink via freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org> writes:

> While trying to install git with:
>
> portmaster -a
> portmaster -D --no-confirm devel/git
>
> This error occurs:
>
> htmlxref.cnf doesn't seem to exist in /usr/ports/distfiles//texinfo/6.5.

And presumably, it goes on to try to fetch that file, but you don't show
what happens when you do.

> Apparently, I need to update ports, per this "bug" report[1].

That's not terribly relevant to anything you've shown, but okay, let's
assume you have a ports tree that you need to update.

> And yet, these don't fix the issue:
>
> portmaster -af    
> portmaster --clean-distfiles-all    
> portmaster --check-port-dbdir    
> portmaster -Faf 

None of those are supposed to update your ports tree. At this point, it
sounds like needing to update a ports tree isn't what you think the
issue *is*.

> # and have also tried variations on direct install, like:
> portmaster -D --no-confirm print/texinfo    

And again, you don't describe what you expected to happen *or* what
actually did happen, so there's no way to tell you what might work
better. We're not psychic.

> I've also tried:
> portsnap update
> # but it complains that I need to portsnap extract also.. And yet, I
> don't want to create voluminous storage.. and have two ports
> management systems in use.

Well, portsnap update doesn't update your ports tree. Only the extract
step does that. Do you even have an existing ports tree?

It's not clear which the two "ports management systems" you mention
are. The pkg(8) database is tracking the installed ports in any
case. How did you install portmaster in the first place?

> So, what is the system expecting to update ports for portmaster in this case?

There are several ways, but the most common are to use portsnap with
update followed by extract, or to check out the ports tree with Subversion.

I think your fastest path to getting the software you want installed on
your system is to go back and read the "Installing Applications:
Packages and Ports" chapter of the FreeBSD Handbook again. At the very
least, you should be able to ask more sensical questions.
[ https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports.html ]

Good luck.