[tex-live] MacTex Bug: wget.x86_64-darwin is missing HTTPS support

[Sebastian Gerecke]

> Am 17.05.2018 um 00:55 schrieb Reinhard Kotucha <reinhard.kotucha at web.de>:
> 
> On 2018-05-16 at 17:19:14 +0200, Sebastian Gerecke wrote:
> 
>> As you said, that's the version from MacPorts. TexLive uses its own
>> version of wget. You'll find it under
>> 
>> /usr/local/texlive/2018/tlpkg/installer/wget/wget.x86_64-darwin
>> 
>> The problem is, that the bundled version does not support
>> HTTPS. Therefore, tlmgr update fails when using a repository using
>> https.
>> 
>> As I said, I consider this to be a bug since the Windows version
>> doesn't have that problem.
> 
> The problem is that wget doesn't support SSL by itself.  If it's
> compiled with +https it just expects external libraries and maybe
> other resources to be installed.
> 
> Missing SSL support is annoying, of course.  But it doesn't make sense
> to add stuff to TeX Live which is provided by the operating system
> already.  Instead of spending a lot of time in order to provide nasty
> workarounds, it's better to adapt the installer and tlmgr to use curl
> on systems where wget is not available.  I suppose that curl is always
> installed on OS X and *BSD while wget is ubiquitous on Linux.
> 
> For the time being I recommend to install a separate wget if SSL
> support is required.  It certainly takes some time until TeX Live
> supports curl but volunteers are always welcome.
> 
> Regards,
>  Reinhard


Thanks for your reply.

If it doesn’t make sense to support SSL in the bundled version of wget for
MacTeX, then why does the Windows version of TexLive come with a wget that does
support SSL? Using a HTTPS-enabled repository with Windows TexLive works like a
charm whilst MacTeX produces error messages when updating the packet list.
Shouldn't the behaviour of the two systems at least be consistent?

Steps to reproduce: (MacTeX 2018)

1) Use HTTPS-enabled repository $ tlmgr option repository
https://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/ctan/systems/texlive/tlnet

2) Update fails
$ tlmgr update --self
No connection to the internet.  Unable to
download the checksum of the remote TeX Live database, but found a local copy
so using that.  […]

This is simply wrong, the system has an internet connection. So the user
doesn’t know whats actually wrong or how to fix the problem.


Additionally, (this might be a different bug) even though I have a version of
wget installed that supports HTTPS, it isn’t being used. tlmgr (specifically
TLUtils.pm) defaults to using the bundled version of wget as it has higher
precedence.

Regards,
Sebastian