pkg_add -r does not find packages FreeBSD 9.0 rc1

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 03:36:05PM +0100, Kenneth Hatteland wrote:
> I have installed RC1 and after getting confused with the new install routines, I have my system up. But when I try to install packages like nano and cvsup-without-gui to build my machine up from base the system reports no packages found. This have only rarely happened on my other systems and never on a fresh install.....any clues ???

Chances are the FTP mirrors (which are what pkg_add -r relies on) do not
have binary packages build specifically for 9.x at this point in time.

$ ftp ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/amd64/
...
ftp> dir
227 Entering Passive Mode (204,152,184,73,207,75).
150 Here comes the directory listing.
lrwxrwxrwx    1 633      493            15 Apr 19  2007 packages -> packages-stable
drwxrwxr-x   95 967      100          2048 Nov 29  2010 packages-6-stable
drwxrwxr-x   95 967      100          2048 Nov 07 18:57 packages-7-stable
drwxrwxr-x   95 967      100          2048 Feb 09  2011 packages-7.4-release
drwxrwxr-x   95 967      100          2048 Nov 06 17:07 packages-8-stable
drwxrwxr-x   95 967      100          2048 Feb 10  2011 packages-8.2-release
drwxrwxr-x   95 967      100          2048 Nov 09 17:38 packages-9-stable
lrwxr-xr-x    1 967      100            17 Aug 28  2009 packages-current -> packages-8-stable
lrwxr-xr-x    1 967      100            17 Nov 07 07:51 packages-stable -> packages-9-stable
226 Directory send OK.

So there's a packages-9-stable directory dated 2-3 days ago.  Whether or
not your pkg_add client is actually trying to access that directory is
unknown to me; you provided absolutely no output from pkg_add -r so I
have to speculate.  Without details I'm forced to make assumptions.

Furthermore, some FTP mirrors may not update their mirror data as often
as others.  To work around this, you can specify a full URL of the
package to pkg_add -r and it will work.

Also be aware that ftp.freebsd.org actually returns multiple A records
(3 specifically), so which actual server you get varies.  "dig a
ftp.freebsd.org" will show you what I mean.

Finally, please be aware that a cvsup replacement, csup(1), has been in
the base system since FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE.  It works the same as cvsup,
parses the same files, near-identical flags, etc..  If there is a
feature of cvsup that csup doesn't have, please tell us what that is so
someone can implement it or provide a workaround; the less crap you have
to install on your system the better (and I for one do not care for the
language cvsup is written in, while csup is purely C).

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                   Mountain View, CA, US |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.               PGP 4BD6C0CB |