pkgsrc binary package repositories must be consistent. They contain a file pkg_summary
which contains metadata about all packages currently in the repository. This file is then used by binary package managers such as pkgin
to offer easy downloading and installing of packages to users.
Unlike many other package managers, pkgsrc will rebuild all dependents of a package if it is rebuilt. This is to ensure consistency and avoid nasty surprises at runtime, and many times this has exposed issues that other package managers would not detect until much later. The drawback is that an update to a package such as OpenSSL means that many thousands of packages are rebuilt against the newer OpenSSL package, even though the packages themselves haven't changed at all.
When packages are rebuilt, the package file itself and the details in pkg_summary
must match, otherwise binary package managers will fail when trying to install packages, either because the package has been changed but the pkg_summary
in