pkg_add(1) no address record? – FreeBSD

If you do not have a source of local packages (such as a FreeBSD CD-ROM set) then it will probably be easier to use the -r option to pkg_add(1). This will cause the utility to automatically determine the correct object format and release and then fetch and install the package from an FTP site.

But if you are using old FreeBSD releases, like 6.2 the , the pkg_add may show you the following error.

“Error: FTP Unable to get ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6.2-release/Latest/vim6.tbz: No address record
pkg_add: unable to fetch ‘ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6.2-release/Latest/vim6.tbz’ by URL”

This is because the old tbzs where moved from the default ftp site ‘ftp.freebsd.org‘. So we need to specify an alternative ftp site that contains old tbzs.

These sites still contains 6.2 tbzs

ftp.cn.freebsd.org
ftp.nz.freenbsd.org

Set the PACKAGEROOT veriable before calling pkg_add.

Example: installing vim6 on 6.2
# export PACKAGEROOT=”ftp://ftp.nz.freebsd.org” ; pkg_add -r vim6.tbz

You can find more mirror sites at http://mirrorlist.freebsd.org.