Bug 255426

Summary:	Document why it is not possible to list packages on the pkg mirror website
Product:	Documentation	Reporter:	Mateusz Piotrowski <0mp>
Component:	Website	Assignee:	freebsd-doc (Nobody) <doc>
Status:	Open ---
Severity:	Affects Only Me	CC:	c, clusteradm, grahamperrin, lwhsu
Priority:	---	Keywords:	needs-patch
Version:	Latest
Hardware:	Any
OS:	Any

Description Mateusz Piotrowski freebsd_committer

2021-04-26 16:22:39 UTC

In the past, we offered users a way to list and browse the packages available on the pkg mirror, e.g., at http://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:12:amd64/quarterly/All/.

Due to the cost of handling such requests, the site now returns 403 instead.

We should either present users with a static website explaining the change or at least document what happened in, e.g., FAQ.

Comment 1 Li-Wen Hsu freebsd_committer

2021-04-26 16:55:59 UTC

(In reply to Mateusz Piotrowski from comment #0)
Yes and I think it would be a good idea to create an index.html in those directories, and instruct people that the same information can be retrieved by downloading and parsing https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:12:amd64/quarterly/packagesite.txz

I believe this need to slightly modify the pkg mirror scripts to put that static page. It may take a while to research how to do so (or asking one knows) but it is worthwhile to do so.

Comment 2 Pierre 2022-04-18 08:27:29 UTC

Is this still current? I'd be interested to look into it.

Comment 3 Mateusz Piotrowski freebsd_committer

2022-04-19 21:50:04 UTC

(In reply to Pierre from comment #2)
I think it is still current, yes.