FETCHCOMMAND

FETCHCOMMAND is a variable that defines the command used for fetching package sources from the Internet. It can be set in the /etc/portage/make.conf configuration file.

Syntax

The following placeholders can be used:

Placeholder	Meaning	Example	Required
`\${DISTDIR}`	Location of your local source file repository	/var/cache/distfiles	Yes
`\${FILE}`	Destination file name	example-1.0.tar.xz	Yes
`\${URI}`	Download URL	https://example.com/download/example-1.0.tar.xz	Yes
`\${DIGESTS}`	Space separated list of file digests	blake2b:<hexdigest> sha512:<hexdigest>

Variants

Specific variants of FETCHCOMMAND supported by Portage^[1] are listed below:

Placeholder	Meaning	Example
`FETCHCOMMAND`	Used for HTTP/HTTPS/FTP downloads	`FETCHCOMMAND="wget -t 3 -T 60 --passive-ftp -O \"\${DISTDIR}/\${FILE}\" \"\${URI}\""`
`RESUMECOMMAND`	Used to resume a HTTP/HTTPS/FTP download	`RESUMECOMMAND="wget -c -t 3 -T 60 --passive-ftp -O \"\${DISTDIR}/\${FILE}\" \"\${URI}\""`
`FETCHCOMMAND_FTP`	A more specific variant used exclusively for FTP
`RESUMECOMMAND_FTP`	A more specific variant used exclusively for FTP
`FETCHCOMMAND_RSYNC`	Used for downloading from an rsync mirror	`FETCHCOMMAND_RSYNC="rsync -LtvP \"\${URI}\" \"\${DISTDIR}/\${FILE}\""`
`RESUMECOMMAND_RSYNC`	As above
`FETCHCOMMAND_SSH`	Used for downloading over SSH
`RESUMECOMMAND_SSH`	As above
`FETCHCOMMAND_SFTP`	Used for downloading from a SFTP mirror

Speeding up downloads with Wget2

net-misc/wget2 is the successor to GNU Wget.

In many cases Wget2 downloads much faster than Wget1.x due to HTTP2, HTTP compression, parallel connections and use of If-Modified-Since HTTP header.^[2]

Add the following line to your /etc/portage/make.conf file:

FILE /etc/portage/make.conf

FETCHCOMMAND="wget2 -v --metalink=off --progress=none -t 3 -T 60 -O \"\${DISTDIR}/\${FILE}\" \"\${URI}\""
RESUMECOMMAND="wget2 -v --metalink=off --progress=none -c -t 3 -T 60 -O \"\${DISTDIR}/\${FILE}\" \"\${URI}\""
# Wget2 has no support for FTP
FETCHCOMMAND_FTP="wget -t 3 -T 60 --passive-ftp -O \"\${DISTDIR}/\${FILE}\" \"\${URI}\""
RESUMECOMMAND_FTP="wget -c -t 3 -T 60 --passive-ftp -O \"\${DISTDIR}/\${FILE}\" \"\${URI}\""

Speeding up downloads with aria2

fetchcommandwrapper combines download tool net-misc/aria2 with variable GENTOO_MIRRORS to speed up distfile downloads of Portage by downloading from multiple mirrors at the same time.

Install

root #emerge --ask app-portage/fetchcommandwrapper

Then add the following line to your /etc/portage/make.conf file: