On Mon, Jul 06, 2015 at 07:15:06PM -0600, Dale Lindskog wrote: > It is discouraged but possible to run pkg_add(1) with -n or -s as a user > other than root. However, if pkg_add(1) does not have write permission to > $PKG_CACHE, then unclear error messages are produced. For example: > > $ ls -ld $PKG_CACHE > drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 3072 Jul 2 12:13 /var/pkg_cache > $ pkg_add -vn gcal > pkg_add should be run as root > Update candidates: quirks-2.54 -> quirks-2.54 > quirks-2.54 signed on 2015-03-08T12:33:05Z > Fatal error: Ustar > [ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/5.7/packages/amd64/gcal-3.6.3p0.tgz][?]: > Error while reading header > at /usr/libdata/perl5/OpenBSD/Ustar.pm line 89. >
Fatal error: Ustar, etc means that the file transfer failed. It happens. If it happens way too much, make a directory and download all the packages with something like wget, which tries many times when connections break. Set that folder as PKG_PATH and another as PKG_CACHE. export PKG_PATH=/home/dude/packages export PKG_CACHE=/home/dude/pkg_cache I do this frequently with gigantic packages such as tex and jdk. I suggest that you change to using an http server. If you want to have a writable PKG_CACHE, why not do something simple like /home/dude/pkg_cache? If you don't have root access, should you really be installing packages? Pass the request upwards. There may be valid reasons NOT to install certain packages. They do not get the full security audit like the base system. If you have cut off remote root access for security reasons, get an IP KVM hooked up for the few times you need root access Chris Bennett
