Change default for periodic/weekly/400.status-pkg ?

[Miroslav Lachman]

Oliver Fromme wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Currently, the periodic/weekly/400.status-pkg script uses
> the ports' INDEX file if it exists.  On my machines, the
> INDEX file exists, and the periodic script produces output
> like this:
>
>      $ /etc/periodic/weekly/400.status-pkg
>
>      Check for out of date packages:
>      $
>
> That is, apparently everything is up to date, so I don't
> have to do anything.  But this is wrong.  When I change it
> to use /nonexistent in place of the INDEX file, I get this
> output:
>
>      $ /etc/periodic/weekly/400.status-pkg
>
>      Check for out of date packages:
>        netpbm-manpages-10.35.85 was orphaned: LOCAL/netpbm-manpages
>        pkg-config-0.25_1 was orphaned: devel/pkg-config
>      $
>
> A-ha!  The first line is to be expected (netpbm-manpages
> is a "fake" port that I maintain locally), but the second
> line about pkg-config is much more important.  Now this
> makes me look at ports/UPDATING, revealing that pkg-config
> was replaced by pkgconf.
>
> Therefore I propose to change the default for the periodic
> script to use /nonexistent.  It does not change the output
> that usually appears, it only produces _additional_ output
> for installed packages whose origin disappeared.  This is
> valuable information, I think.  Also, the INDEX file could
> be outdated, which might lead to wrong results, so using
> the INDEX file by default is probably not a good idea anyway.

On the other hand - we are using daily `portsnap -I update` so we have 
updated INDEX on all our machines, but outdated ports tree. (freezed in 
some point in time, so we can have same versions installed on all 
servers in a group)

I think it should be user configurable in /etc/periodic.conf if somebody 
want to use INDEX or not. Or the hack with /nonexistent should be 
mentioned in a comment in /etc/defaults/periodic.conf and in a manpage.

Miroslav Lachman