How can I work around not being able to use rsync?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Aug 21, 2007, at 19:00, Scott Prahl wrote:

> I cannot use rsync because of our firewall.  How do I set things up  
> so that I can have an svn repository of the dports files and use  
> macports?  I am using MacPorts 1.5
>
> Ultimately, I would like to be able to 'svn up' to get the latest  
> portfiles and then be able to use 'port install foo' as usual.

Sure, that works. I do that. You don't need to "svn up" either; "port  
sync" will work just fine, even if your ports tree is a Subversion  
working copy. You may need the below edit to sources.conf for that to  
work:

> I got things working somewhat.  I downloaded the portfiles using
>
>    svn co http://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/trunk/dports/  
> dports
>
> and then sym-linked dports to
>
>    /opt/local/var/macports/sources/rsync.macports.org/release/ports

Ok. You could also have edited the location of your ports tree in / 
opt/local/etc/macports/sources.conf. For example, I commented out the  
line beginning with "rsync://" and added a line pointing to my  
working copy. (In my case, "file:///Users/rschmidt/macports/dports")

> I can now type
>
>    port list
>
> and things work.  Installing fails.  For example,
>
>    sudo port install ghostscript
>
> gives
>
>    Error: Unable to execute port: invalid command name  
> "destroot.violate_mtree"

You need to update MacPorts base. We're currently at 1.5.2. However,  
"port selfupdate" requires rsync, so you won't be able to use that.  
But you can download the MacPorts 1.5.2 source code from the repository:

http://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/tags/release_1_5_2/base/

And build it yourself with "./configure", "make" and "sudo make install"