FreeBSD: How To fetch the ports from fast servers
Ports randomly gets it's source server list from bsd.sites.mk file located in /usr/ports/Mk/, as defined by the port maintainer. Most of the time downloading the source takes a long time if the remote server is not physically near to us.
In this case, we can tune the ports so that it fetches the sources from the nearest server. A nearer server normally means less latency and a faster connection.
The port fastest_sites will test the latency of the servers listed in /usr/ports/Mk/bsd.sites.mk. The file is suitable to be included in /etc/make.conf which tell ports where to fetch the sources from.
To install fastest_sites, enter the following command:
make install clean -C /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/fastest_sites
Execute fastest_sites and redirect output to a file:
/usr/local/bin/fastest_sites > /usr/local/etc/fastest_servers.conf
To update fastest_servers.conf regularly, you can schedule it in cron :
0 4 * * * /usr/local/bin/fastest_sites > /usr/local/etc/fastest_servers.conf
Include the updated faster server list into /etc/make.conf :
echo ".include \"/usr/local/etc/fastest_servers.conf\"" >> /etc/make.conf
Now, you can proceed with the ports installation.
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