Automating ports update with portmaster

[jaymax]

How can I automate ports update to keep it constantly current or 'near current'. I was thinking of running a cron job but was finally stymied by the realization of the need for considerable manual intervention

I am upgrading ports with portmaster and running in to frequent "Aborts" because of "IGNORE=" condtions in Makefiles or "IGNORE" in ports themselves. These are apparently associated with relocation of the base system of the respective port. These apparently neccesitates removal of the offending IGNORE= containing line in the Makefile and restarting.

Another issue is the need to manually set options in some upgrades.

Perhaps there is a non-interactive version around ?

How can one circumvent these.

Thanks

[kazcor]

Another issue is the need to manually set options in some upgrades.

Perhaps there is a non-interactive version around ? [/INDENT]

How can one circumvent these.

Thanks

ports-mgmt/portconf:

Portconf is a simple framework to set ports options in an
universal way. Knobs set to specific ports are honoured
by portmaster, portupgrade, portmanager and 'make install'.


I prefer using portconf together with ports-mgmt/portsopt to initially get all options that need to be defined for a specific set of ports. To get sure you didn't miss a port you might want to set "BATCH" for all ports - see ports(7) for details.
I'm using portupgrade for upgrades and it comes with an option to hand BATCH over to every port - maybe portmaster provides the same.

[BSDKaffee]

Having ports update themselves automatically is a *bad* idea. There are often steps one must take to prevent dependency chaos. Another good reason is if most of your ports get bumped like they just did with the gettext update, oh what a surprise you will have.

It's best to take the time to read /usr/ports/UPDATING, figure out what you have to do, and do things in small batches if possible.

Also, if a port has IGNORE set in it and won't build, it is probably for a good reason.

[cajunman4life]

Yes, I'll second the notion that updating ports automagically is a bad idea. You don't want that headache. My advice is update only when necessary, and at that, only the ports that need updates. The last thing you want to do is break some user's PHP script because you updated PHP and there was some funky change.

Then again, if this is only a "workstation" you don't necessarily have to worry about that, but it's still a bad idea.