MacPorts should bundle a newer rsync or allow overriding the default rsync

[IRDonch (Roman Donchenko)]

I need to use a SOCKS proxy for rsync. It's normally possible through the RSYNC_CONNECT_PROG variable; however, the version of rsync included with macOS is too old to support it. Moreover, Apple is very unlikely to update it due to their anti-GPLv3 policy. It would be nice if MacPorts included its own build of a newer version of rsync, so that features like this could be used.

Alternatively, MacPorts could at least support overriding the path to rsync. Then I could stick my own build into /usr/local and use that.

[kencu (Ken)]

It looks like the rsync used by MacPorts is specified in two places:

/opt/local/libexec/macports/lib/macports1.0/macports_autoconf.tcl

and

/opt/local/libexec/macports/lib/port1.0/port_autoconf.tcl

You could try, for a test, installing a current rsync using MacPorts, and then edit those two lines to use it instead of the /usr/bin/rsync that is specified in those lines.

Those edits would last until the next MacPorts update, I think.

Of course, if you uninstalled or deactivated rsync, you'd have to change those lines back to the system rsync or things would not work properly.

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

@ kencu: A "Request" ticket type is only for requesting new ports. This was correctly set at "Enhancement".

[kencu (Ken)]

Hah! Thanks :>

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

NP :)

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

As the names of those files imply, they are populated by the configure script, and you can specify a different rsync at configure time when you build from source.

[jmroot (Joshua Root)]

Other workarounds could include running a proxy that can be used via RSYNC_PROXY and which connects to the SOCKS proxy, or syncing via alternate means: wiki:howto/PortTreeTarball wiki:howto/SyncingWithGit

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

So, since MacPorts already supports specifying an alternate rsync program (using the --with-rsync configure flag), there's nothing to do here.

[IRDonch (Roman Donchenko)]

@ryandesign: That's not really sufficient. I don't want to build a custom version of MacPorts.

[kencu (Ken)]

Roman, how would you like it to work?

The custom version of MacPorts just changes the rsync location in those two lines I mentioned, using a configure option. You can edit those lines yourself, as above, instead.

I suppose there could be an environment variable that sets the rsync to use -- MacPorts is pretty cautious about environment variables, though, and sanitizes most of them due to odd busted builds and other similar errors that are hard to debug...

Josh gave a few more ideas in comment 7 above...

Any other ideas come to mind for how you'd like to set the rsync?

[IRDonch (Roman Donchenko)]

An option in macports.conf would be fine.

Although the best outcome would be for MacPorts to bundle the most recent rsync and use that, much like it already bundles Tcl.