Specifying alternative port download sites
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.