From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 5 12:57:03 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 848D41065672 for ; Sat, 5 Apr 2008 12:57:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org) Received: from be-well.ilk.org (dsl092-078-145.bos1.dsl.speakeasy.net [66.92.78.145]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 38D848FC14 for ; Sat, 5 Apr 2008 12:57:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org) Received: from Lowell-Desk.lan (Lowell-Desk.lan [172.30.250.6]) by be-well.ilk.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B2E3C2842E; Sat, 5 Apr 2008 08:57:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: by Lowell-Desk.lan (Postfix, from userid 1147) id AD3361CC23; Sat, 5 Apr 2008 08:56:58 -0400 (EDT) To: Subhro References: From: Lowell Gilbert Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 08:56:57 -0400 In-Reply-To: (Subhro's message of "Thu\, 3 Apr 2008 13\:14\:12 +0530") Message-ID: <44lk3s1mue.fsf@Lowell-Desk.lan> User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.1 (berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Local package mirror X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2008 12:57:03 -0000 Subhro writes: > I am trying to get a Network install working on my local network. I > have been able to successfully create a NFS export of the installation > disk and perform a install from there. The target machines boot over > PXE and fetch "stuff" from the NFS. > > However I am unable to figure out how to get the packages working. I > have a list of about 180 packages which needs to be installed. But I > am unable to figure out how to go about it. I would like to use > precompiled packages, but the CD do not contain the packages I am > looking for. One of the option is to mirror the whole package > directory from the freebsd mirrors, but that story involves a lot of > data transfer and bandwidth. Is there something obvious I am missing? > > Any help would be highly appreciated. There are a number of ways to do this general sort of thing. For the base system approach, with pkg_add(1), setting PACKAGEROOT (or possibly PACKAGESITE depending on exactly how you configure the server for network fetch, or PKG_PATH if the clients have the NFS directory mounted) should be good enough. On the other hand, the way I do it is to have a master server, where I build everything (or fetch everything, if I don't want to build it myself). Then the other machines mount /usr/ports from the master server. I use portupgrade to do the installs from the clients, which knows how to use packages when available locally and only fetch them if they aren't. I hope this helps.