Re: [gentoo-user] How to update portage offline with minimal impact?

[BRM <bm_witness@yahoo.com>]

--- Per-Erik Westerberg <per-erik.westerberg@bredband.net> wrote:
> tor 2008-01-03 klockan 13:16 -0800 skrev BRM:
> > I have a couple Sparc systems. One has been running Gentoo for a
> long
> > time - installed using Gentoo 2006, not updated since due to the
> issue
> > I'm about the discuss - and the other is a near identical system
> that
> > might get Gentoo 2007 installed. Both are on two separate networks
> and
> > have no communication between them.
> > 
> > The first system does have some Internet access through a firewall,
> but
> > it doesn't really work, at least for this purpose; so it's just as
> good
> > as not having any access at all for this purpose.
<snip>
> > In either case, I can't update portage using the normal method of
> > 'emerge --sync'. So, I'm trying to figure out a solution that would
> > enable me to update the systems. Under Slackware, I'd just point
> > pkgtool to the CD media and install from that, just like during
> > installation. Is there a similar approach for Gentoo? How do I
> overcome
> > the source mirror issue too so that the systems don't try to
> download
> > stuff from the web?
> > 
> Have you tried to use a proxy (adjust accordingly)?
> export http_proxy=http://proxy.company.com:8080
> export ftp_proxy=http://proxy.company.com:8080
> export RSYNC_PROXY=proxy.company.com:8080

Yes, I tried using the proxy on the one system. (The other system won't
even have that as an option.) The problem came there that the proxy is
an authenticated proxy, primarily designed to work with Windows. It
works fine from Firefox/Netscape in X Windows, but causes problems for
command-line tools and console browsers. So, in addition to my trying
to find a solution where a proxy is not an option, it is, for all
intents and purposes, a non-option any way.

Additionally, because it is an authenticated proxy, it is not an ideal
solution as it would leave the username/password for a user in plain
site of all users on the system as the info would be either in the
environment variables and/or the command-line options of a program. So,
from a security stand-point, it's not an option either since it
sometimes takes a day or so to perform updates.

TIA,

Ben
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