migration hickup

[James]

> On 9 Mar 2021, at 4:12 am, joerg van den hoff <veedeehjay at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 08.03.21 21:01, Rainer Müller wrote:
>> On 08/03/2021 17.44, joerg van den hoff wrote:
>>> Now, after the data transfer completed, on the new machine I do have a
>>> (seemingly/so far) working Macports installation: Migration Assistant actually
>>> transferred the stuff in /opt, too.
>>> 
>>> BUT, when now trying to selfupdate on the new machine, I get the message/warning:
>>> 
>>> Warning: Failed to copy com.apple.dt.Xcode.plist to
>>> /opt/local/var/macports/home/Library/Preferences: could not set owner for file
>>> "/opt/local/var/macports/home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dt.Xcode.plist":
>>> user "macports" does not exist
>>> 
>>> although `finger macports' reports for the new machine that the user is known
>>> 
>>> Login: macports                   Name: MacPorts
>>> Directory: /opt/local/var/macports/home    Shell: /usr/bin/false
>>> Never logged in.
>>> No Mail.
>>> No Plan.
>>> 
>>> as does `id macports'.
>>> 
>>> what am I missing?
> 
> thanks for your reply.
> 
>> I am not sure, but it might be that the message shown above is a bit inaccurate
>> and it is the "macports" group that is missing?
> 
> the message says it can't set the *owner* so it seems to actually mean _user_ does not exist, no?
> 
>> Please check that the user and group do exist for dscl (Directory Services):
>>   dscl . -read /Users/macports
>>   dscl . -read /Groups/macports
> 
> yes, they do (no error messages, some reporting of properties). so I really don't see what is missing or has been broken by an seemingly incomplete transfer of information from the old machine.... basically, I don't understand how the machine can complain about "non-existent user macports" despite this seemingly not being true.
> 
>> In any case, running the MacPorts install either from the .dmg or from source
>> once again should recreate both the user and group named "macports".
> 
> just to be sure: re-installing will not confuse/corrupt the database regarding what is already installed via macports? I would prefer to keep /opt/local intact and usable...

Jorge you are brave, perhaps foolhardy. The wiki tells you exactly what to do. Basically

* get a list of ports from the old machine
* install macports on new
* restore your ports

I have found this to be far less time consuming than troubleshooting. That said a timemachine backup (on the same os version) works perfectly.

James
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