Handbook:Parts/Portage/Variables

Warning
Readers should not try to follow instructions directly from the Handbook:Parts namespace (which is THIS page!). The sections displayed below are used as a skeleton for transcluding information into the computer architecture specific handbooks and are therefore lacking critical information.

Please visit the Handbook list to read instructions for a relevant computer architecture.

Parts Handbook
Installation
About the installation
Choosing the media
Configuring the network
Preparing the disks
The stage file
Installing base system
Configuring the kernel
Configuring the system
Installing tools
Configuring the bootloader
Finalizing
Working with Gentoo
Portage introduction
USE flags
Portage features
Initscript system
Environment variables
Working with Portage
Files and directories
Variables
Mixing software branches
Additional tools
Custom package repository
Advanced features
OpenRC network configuration
Getting started
Advanced configuration
Modular networking
Wireless
Adding functionality
Dynamic management

Portage configuration

As noted previously, Portage is configurable through variables in /etc/portage/make.conf or one of the subdirectories of /etc/portage/. Please refer to the man pages for make.conf and portage for more information:

user $man make.conf

user $man portage

Build-specific options

Configure and compiler options

When Portage builds applications, it passes the contents of the following variables to the compiler and configure script:

CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS

Define the desired compiler flags for C and C++ compiling.

CHOST

Defines the build host information for the application's configure script

MAKEOPTS

Passed to the make command and usually set to define the amount of parallelism used during the compilation. Information about options for make can be found in the make(1) man page.

The USE variable is also used during configure and compilation; refer to previous chapters of this Handbook for details.

Merge options

When Portage has merged a newer version of a certain software title, it will remove the obsoleted files of the older version from the system. Portage gives the user a 5 second delay before unmerging the older version. These 5 seconds are defined by the CLEAN_DELAY variable.

It is possible to tell emerge to use certain options every time it is run by setting EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS. Some useful options include --ask, --verbose, and --tree.

Configuration file protection

Portage protected locations

Portage overwrites files provided by newer versions of a software title if the files aren't stored in a protected location. These protected locations are defined by the CONFIG_PROTECT variable and are generally configuration file locations. The directory listing is space-delimited.

A file that would be written in such a protected location is renamed and the user is warned about the presence of a newer version of the (proposed) configuration file.

To find out about the current CONFIG_PROTECT setting, use the emerge --info output:

user $emerge --info | grep 'CONFIG_PROTECT='

More information about Portage's configuration file protection is available in the CONFIGURATION FILES section of the emerge man page:

user $man emerge

Excluding directories

To 'unprotect' certain subdirectories of protected locations, use the CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK variable.

Download options

Server locations

When the requested information or data is not available on the system, Portage will retrieve it from the Internet. The server locations for the various information and data channels are defined by the following variables:

GENTOO_MIRRORS

Defines a list of server locations which contain source code (distfiles).

PORTAGE_BINHOST

Defines a particular server location containing prebuilt packages for the system.

A third setting involves the location of the rsync server which users use to update their local Gentoo repository. This is defined in the /etc/portage/repos.conf file (or a file inside that directory if it is defined as a directory):

sync-type

Defines the type of server and defaults to rsync.

sync-uri

Defines a particular server which Portage uses to fetch the Gentoo repository.

The GENTOO_MIRRORS, sync-type, and sync-uri variables can be set automatically through the mirrorselect application, provided by the app-portage/mirrorselect package. For more information, refer to mirrorselect's online help:

root #mirrorselect --help

If the environment requires the use of a proxy server, then the http_proxy, ftp_proxy, and RSYNC_PROXY variables can be declared.

Fetch commands

When Portage needs to fetch source code, it uses wget(1) by default. This can be changed through the FETCHCOMMAND variable.

Portage is able to resume partially downloaded source code. It uses wget(1) by default, but this can be altered through the RESUMECOMMAND variable.

Make sure that the FETCHCOMMAND and RESUMECOMMAND store the source code in the correct location. Inside the variables the URI and DISTDIR variables can be used to point to the source code location and distfiles location, respectively.

It is also possible to define protocol-specific handlers with FETCHCOMMAND_HTTP, FETCHCOMMAND_FTP, RESUMECOMMAND_HTTP, RESUMECOMMAND_FTP, and so on.

Rsync settings

It is not possible to alter the rsync command used by Portage to update the Gentoo repository, but it is possible to set some variables related to the rsync command:

PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS

Sets a number of default variables used during sync, each space-separated. These shouldn't be changed unless you know exactly what you're doing. Note that certain absolutely required options will always be used even if PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS is empty.

PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

Used to set additional options when syncing. Each option should be space separated:

--timeout=<number>

This defines the number of seconds an rsync connection can idle before rsync sees the connection as timed-out. This variable defaults to 180 but dialup users or individuals with slow computers might want to set this to 300 or higher.

--exclude-from=/etc/portage/rsync_excludes

This points to a file listing the packages and/or categories rsync should ignore during the update process. In this case, it points to /etc/portage/rsync_excludes.

--quiet

Reduces output to the screen.

--verbose

Prints a complete filelist.

--progress

Displays a progress meter for each file.

PORTAGE_RSYNC_RETRIES

Defines how many times rsync should try connecting to the mirror pointed to by the SYNC variable before bailing out. This variable defaults to 3.

For more information on these options and others, please refer to the rsync(1) man page.

Gentoo configuration

Branch selection

It is possible to change the default branch with the ACCEPT_KEYWORDS variable. It defaults to the architecture's stable branch. More information on Gentoo's branches can be found in the next chapter.

Portage features

It is possible to activate certain Portage features through the FEATURES variable. The Portage features have been discussed in previous chapters.

Portage behavior

Resource management

With the PORTAGE_NICENESS variable users can augment or reduce the nice value Portage will use while running. The PORTAGE_NICENESS value is added to the current nice value of Portage.

For more information about nice values, refer to the Portage niceness page and the nice(1) man page:

user $man nice

Output behavior

The NOCOLOR variable, which defaults to false, determines whether Portage should disable the use of colored output.

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