MACPORTS.CONF(5)

NAME
macports.conf - Configuration file of the MacPorts system

DESCRIPTION
macports.conf is the configuration file used to bootstrap the MacPorts system. This file is read by the port command and determines how it behaves. Lines beginning with '#' are comments, empty lines are ignored. The format is that of a simple key/value space or tab separated pair.

The file contains entries of the form:

    <key> <value>

The value of any given key can be referred to by the '${<keyname>}' abstraction, where <keyname> expands to the key in question.

KEYS
The following keys are used by port itself:

prefix
    Sets the directory where ports are installed. Any path may be used but those with spaces and/or non ascii characters should be avoided, as this can break some ports. This key is often referred to as '${prefix}'.
    Default: /opt/local

portdbpath
    Directory where MacPorts keeps working data such as downloaded sources, installed ports' receipts and the main registry. The same path restrictions apply as for '${prefix}'.
    Default: ${prefix}/var/macports

portdbformat
    Storage type to use for the MacPorts registry. The preferred format is "sqlite", with "flat" also available as a legacy format.
    Default: sqlite

applications_dir
    Directory containing Applications installed from ports.
    Default: /Applications/MacPorts

frameworks_dir
    Directory containing Frameworks installed from ports.
    Default: ${prefix}/Library/Frameworks

sources_conf
    Location of the sources file. This file enables rsync synchronization of the default ports tree with the MacPorts rsync server (through the "sync" target of the port command) and any other local tree(s) you might have.
    Default: ${prefix}/etc/macports/sources.conf

variants_conf
    Location of the optional global variants definition file, listing those that should be used in all installed ports if available.
    Default: ${prefix}/etc/macports/variants.conf

buildfromsource
    Controls whether ports are built from source or downloaded as pre-built archives. Setting to 'always' will never use archives, 'never' will always try to use an archive and fail if one is not available. 'ifneeded' will try to fetch an archive and fall back to building from source if that isn't possible.
    Default: ifneeded

portarchivetype
    Format of archives in which to store port images. This controls both the type of archive created locally after building from source, and the type to request from remote servers. Changing this will not affect the usability of already installed archives; they can be of any supported type.
    Supported types are: tgz, tar, tbz, tbz2, tlz, txz, xar, zip, cpgz, cpio
    Default: tbz2

configureccache
    Use ccache (C/C++ compiler cache). Requires that ccache has been installed.
    Default: no

ccache_dir
    Location where ccache stores its files
    Default: ${portdbpath}/build/.ccache

ccache_size
    Maximum size ccache may use.
    Use 'G', 'M', or 'K' suffix for giga-, mega- or kilobytes.
    Default: 2G

configuredistcc
    Use distcc (distributed compiler). Requires that distcc has been installed.
    Default: no

configurepipe
    Use pipes rather than intermediate files when compiling C/C++/etc (gcc -pipe)
    Default: yes

buildnicevalue
    Lowered scheduling priority (0-20) to use for make when building ports
    Default: 0

buildmakejobs
    Number of simultaneous make jobs (commands) to use when building ports. 0 is a special value meaning "the number of CPU cores or the number of GB of physical memory plus one, whichever is less."
    Default: 0

portautoclean
    Automatic cleaning of the build directory of a given port after it has been installed.
    Default: yes

keeplogs
    Keep logs for ports
    Default: no

build_arch
    The machine architecture to try to build for in normal use
    Regular architectures include: ppc, i386, ppc64, x86_64
    Default (10.6): x86_64 or i386 depending on hardware
    Default (10.5 and earlier): i386 or ppc depending on hardware

universal_archs
    The machine architectures to use for +universal variant (multiple architecture entries should be space separated)
    Regular architectures include: ppc, i386, ppc64, x86_64
    Default (10.6): x86_64 i386
    Default (10.5 and earlier): i386 ppc

startupitem_type
    Set the default type of startupitems to be generated, overridable by Portfiles that explicitly state a startupitem.type key. If set to "default", then a type will be selected that's appropriate to the OS. Supported types are: none, SystemStarter, launchd, default, rcNG.
    Default: default

destroot_umask
    Umask value to use during the destrooting of a port.
    Default: 022

rsync_server
    Default rsync server to connect to when running "selfupdate" through the port command to update your base MacPorts infrastructure. While selfupdate also syncs the ports tree, it uses the settings from ${sources_conf} to do so.
    Default: rsync.macports.org

rsync_dir
    Rsync directory from which to pull MacPorts sources from the rsync server.
    Default: release/base/ (which pulls sources for the currently shipping MacPorts release)

rsync_options
    Default rsync options to use when connecting to the rsync server.
    Default: -rtzv --delete-after

binpath
    Sets the directory search path for locating system executables used by MacPorts. This variable should contain the paths for locating utilities such as rsync, tar, cvs and others. Changing this is unsupported; don't do so unless you understand and accept the consequences.
    Default: ${prefix}/bin:${prefix}/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin

extra_env
    List of extra environment variables MacPorts should keep in the user's environment when sanitizing it. Changing this is unsupported.

revupgrade_autorun
    Controls whether the rev-upgrade action will be run automatically after upgrading ports.
    Default: yes

revupgrade_mode
    Controls the rev-upgrade functionality which checks for broken linking and can rebuild ports to fix it. 'rebuild' means ports will automatically be rebuilt when broken linking is detected in their files, while 'report' means broken files will be scanned for and reported but the ports will not be rebuilt.
    Default: rebuild

default_compiler
    Default value for configure.compiler. This can be a space-separated list. Later entries will be used if earlier entries are unavailable or blacklisted by a port. Setting this is unsupported.
    Default: none (internal list based on Xcode version is normally used)

FILES

${prefix}/etc/macports/macports.conf
    Standard system-wide MacPorts configuration file.

~/.macports/macports.conf
    User-specific configuration override. This file, if found, will be used instead of the default file at ${prefix}/etc/macports/macports.conf.

SEE ALSO
port(1), portfile(7), portgroup(7), portstyle(7) porthier(7),

AUTHORS
Juan Manuel Palacios <jmpp@macports.org> Matt Anton <matt@opendarwin.org>