Using other packages or distfiles servers

[Ryan Schmidt]

Is there some entry I can make in a MacPorts config file that will tell it to only use a particular packages server and ignore the rest? I know I can set a preferred packages server by adding its hostname to preferred_hosts in macports.conf, but if the package is not found on that server, I don't want it to check any of the other servers, because I already know in advance that the package will not be on any of those other servers and I don't want to waste time checking them; I want it to go straight to building from source.

Similarly, I want to configure MacPorts so that it only checks a single particular distfiles mirror, and if the file is not found there, then do not check any of the other distfiles mirror servers, but instead go straight to the port's configured master_sites.

I realize I can explicitly list all of the packages and distfiles servers that I don't want to use in the host_blacklist line in macports.conf, and that's what we do in the buildbot (https://trac.macports.org/browser/contrib/mp-buildbot/mpbb-checkout), but it's an inconveniently long list and needs to be updated anytime we add new official mirrors.

I also want to be able to configure MacPorts to use a different distfiles and packages server than the ones that are listed in mirror_sites.tcl and archive_sites.tcl. I'd rather not have to maintain local edits to those files. I'm currently handling this with a local DNS server that advertises a different IP address for distfiles.macports.org and packages.macports.org but this isn't great.