On Jan 6, 2016, at 4:44 AM, Russell Jones wrote:

> I was thinking you might use git+https://github.com/python/cpython.git/Doc 
> with a set checkout id using the GitHub PortGroup, but that would require 
> building the docs.
> 
> How about using https://docs.python.org and relying on python.org's SSL cert 
> to ensure the integrity rather than the MacPorts checksum?

An SSL certificate does not guarantee the user is getting the same files the 
maintainer did. It only guarantees the user is talking to the same server. The 
server could be compromised, or (as is the case here) the developers could 
issue stealth updates.


One solution is to let the MacPorts distfiles mirror mirror the file, then 
switch the portfile to only look at the distfiles mirror, not the original 
server. This would need to be done every time you update the port. See the 
history of the graphviz-devel port for an example of this; their automated 
tarball generation system was recently changed and it now sometimes 
inadvertently repackages the current version with a stealth update. If this is 
going to happen often, as seems to be the case with py-htmldocs, it can be 
automated in the Portfile, to a degree. See the curl-ca-bundle subport of the 
curl port for an example of that. 

The ideal would be to work with the developers to convince them not to issue 
stealth updates.


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