The ports collection can also use an auto-fetch system to keep your ports collection source tree up to date, updating the central ``distfiles'' version for you the next time you compile the port.
Of course, this assumes you have a permanent network link or don't
mind heavy usage of your telephone. If you don't want heavy network
usage when you compile your ports tree, you can pre-fetch the
necessary tarballs beforehand and put them into /usr/ports/distfiles
by hand. A good way to see what files a port is going to need is to
cd to that ports' directory and do a make fetch-list to see what
it does. The output of make fetch-list can also be used as a
shell script to fetch the ports' tarballs at a well-connected machine.
You can also chose to get the source files either from the master
FTP site as defined in the relevant Makefile (in the MASTER_SITES
line), or some FreeBSD mirror site also carrying a set of distfiles,
as does the master FTP site on ftp.FreeBSD.org (aka ftp.cdrom.com) in
the directory /pub/FreeBSD/distfiles. Note that the files in
that directory are not guaranteed to be kept up to date - this is a
volunteer project! We can't make any guarantees about the mirror
sites either - they are obviously under independent control and don't
even have to mirror the distfiles directory.
If you have a non-permanent link, you can fetch all the distfiles by going to the top of the tree and typing ``make fetch''.