The FreeBSD Diary

I think it is fairly important to mention that since ftp.freebsd.org is hosed [ed. note. this article was written back on 2 May 2000, shortly after ftp.freebsd.org went offline. see this message from the FreeBSD Mailing list archives for details.] (only allows 200 users) ports that take files off of it are, well, broken.

To save the trouble of having the makefile hunt all over for a tarball that doesn't exist, add the following lines to your /etc/make.conf [create the file if it doesn't already exist]:

MASTER_SITE_BACKUP?=   \
ftp://ftp7.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/${DIST_SUBDIR}/

MASTER_SITE_OVERRIDE?=  ${MASTER_SITE_BACKUP}

The first assignment tells the ports system to check the specified site as a final resort. The second will tell it to look there first. Of course, you're welcome to use any FreeBSD mirror site [ed. note I use Official Mirrors to choose my mirrors], however I would advise making sure that the mirror you choose has the distfiles you will be looking for, because some of them don't.

Additionally, it should be said that if you're doing your own local mirror, or installing the same thing on many machines, there's nothing wrong with putting a local address instead of a freebsd mirror.

NOTE: If you use pkg_add, you can use something similar. See man pkg_add and look under environmental variables for details.