mktool

This is a collection of utilities that provide alternate implementations for parts of the pkgsrc mk infrastructure.

Benchmarks

The main focus is on performance. Here are some real-world numbers showing improvements seen, compared to the baseline shell/awk implementations:

User Improvements

As well as superior performance, where possible mktool also aims to provide an improved user experience. For example the fetch replacement features a significantly better progress bar and streamlined output compared to other available fetch backends (see terminal recording).

Installation

The preferred method of installation is using cargo:

$ cargo install mktool

and adding the following to mk.conf:

FETCH_USING=            mktool
TOOLS_PLATFORM.mktool=  ${HOME}/.cargo/bin/mktool

However there is also a pkgtools/mktool package if you prefer to use that.

You will also need to apply changes to pkgsrc. The easiest method is to just use the TritonDataCenter/pkgsrc fork as your primary repository, where the trunk branch includes the mktool patch, as well as a few other well-tested improvements to pkgsrc, and is synced with upstream NetBSD/pkgsrc every hour.

$ git clone https://github.com/TritonDataCenter/pkgsrc

$ cd pkgsrc
< .. do usual pkgsrc things .. >

# Fetch the latest updates every hour
$ git pull

Alternatively the changes are in the feature/mktool/trunk branch, and you can get them all as a single patch file here.

See the FAQ below for why this is not yet committed.

Commands

These are the commands currently implemented:

All of the replacements are activated upon setting TOOLS_PLATFORM.mktool, with the exception of fetch which also requires FETCH_USING=mktool in case the user has specific requirements for their fetch program.

In addition, packages no longer have build dependencies on pkgtools/digest and pkgtools/mktools (unless specifically requested), which provides a reasonable boost to performance in bulk builds.

FAQ

Why Have The Patches Not Been Merged Into pkgsrc?

I am uncomfortable committing changes that other developers have objections to.

While the overwhelming response has been positive, there are still concerns from some that introducing mktool support will eventually lead to a mandatory requirement on Rust in the future. I have explicitly stated (and have spent over a decade proving by my actions) that this is not going to happen, and I hope that one day people will realise this and the patches can be committed.

Will This Ever Be Mandatory?

No. pkgsrc supports over 20 operating systems, and on NetBSD alone 16 different CPU architectures. I've spent over a decade as the primary advocate for portability in pkgsrc. Rust will never support all of those systems, so the default will always be the portable shell and awk scripts. I would be the first person to reject any move towards a non-portable pkgsrc.

What Is The Minimum Support Rust Version?

Currently 1.74.0.

The edition is set to 2021, so in theory I'd like to have 1.56.0 as the MSRV, but newer releases are currently required due to clap and tokio dependency requirements.