This article includes alist of references,related reading, orexternal links,but its sources remain unclear because it lacksinline citations. Please helpimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(September 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Portsnap is a system written byColin Percival for secure distribution ofcompressed,digitally signed snapshots of theFreeBSD ports tree. The distribution follows theclient–server model and uses thetransport protocolHTTP (pipelined HTTP).

From FreeBSD 6 through 13 (as well as 5.5), portsnap was a part of the base system. In previous versions it was installed from ports. It's a standalone program which can be run manually or in a cron job.

As such, it is one of alternatives to the classiccvsup method. Its advantages include:

• secure transfer - encrypted and signed data stream, not vulnerable toman-in-the-middle attacks
• end-to-end connectivity (as opposed to mirrors with cvsup)
• delta-based distribution - effective for small and frequent updates
• HTTP is used as protocol (as opposed to custom protocol of cvsup)

Another alternative to cvsup isCVSync (used to manage the OpenBSD source tree), it shares cvsup disadvantages, though.

The portsnap package is distributed under the 2-clauseBSD license.As of FreeBSD 14, portsnap is being removed. Its functions have been taken over by a migration togit.

• portsnap in the FreeBSD Handbook
• portsnap at daemonology.net

• FreeBSD

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles lacking in-text citations from September 2019
• All articles lacking in-text citations