MacPorts is a powerful package manager for macOS, but by default it uses Fastly CDN infrastructure which can be slow for users in the United States. By configuring MacPorts to use the fcix.net mirror, you can significantly improve download speeds. This guide covers the three configuration files needed to optimize your …

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The packer_macOS_26 repository contains Packer templates for building customized macOS virtual machines using Tart, a macOS virtualization tool. These VMs are specifically designed to serve as base images for GitHub Actions self-hosted runners, particularly for the jibb-runners tool used in the BlakePorts repository. …

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BlakePorts is my personal MacPorts repository that serves multiple purposes: maintaining custom ports, providing automated CI/CD workflows, and solving the challenge of connecting to legacy macOS systems that require deprecated SSH algorithms. The Legacy SSH Problem Modern macOS systems ship with OpenSSH 10+, which …

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With the October 2021 update to this macOS packer template, it now supports 11.0.1 through 12.0 versions. Changing the username and password used to build the images is more straightforward, and quite a few new options have been parameterized. One change I have been chasing for a while is approving the VMware tools …

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With the release of a new ARM based processer for Apple Mac computers, an interesting transition is happening. People who depend on using virtual machines for tasks will need to adapt to new requirements for running them. Aside from VMware Fusion, Parallels and qemu a few other options have popped up. In this post, …

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I’m publishing this script that configures macports from the github source. This method gets you the ports base and ports themselvs from the master branch of git. I have found that using mac ports this way enables support for bleeding edge OS versions or CPU architectures. Grab the code : …

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