MikeL's FreeBSD howto

MikeL's FreeBSD howto - pkg itself

[20200331]
I'm seeing warnings at the end of my "daily security run" email like the following:

Checking for packages with security vulnerabilities:
spamassassin-3.4.3
python27-2.7.17_1: Tag: expiration_date Value: 2020-12-31
python27-2.7.17_1: Tag: deprecated Value: EOLed upstream

so it's time for a package update.

pkg upgrade

  
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue...
FreeBSD repository is up to date.
All repositories are up to date.
Checking for upgrades (11 candidates): 100%
Processing candidates (11 candidates): 100%
The following 11 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked):

Installed packages to be UPGRADED:
        php73-simplexml: 7.3.14 -> 7.3.15
        php73-session: 7.3.14 -> 7.3.15
        php73-mysqli: 7.3.14 -> 7.3.15
        php73-mbstring: 7.3.14 -> 7.3.15
        php73-filter: 7.3.14 -> 7.3.15
        php73: 7.3.14 -> 7.3.15
        nspr: 4.24 -> 4.25
        mod_php73: 7.3.14 -> 7.3.15
        librsvg2: 2.40.20 -> 2.40.21
        glib: 2.56.3_6,1 -> 2.56.3_7,1
        ca_root_nss: 3.50 -> 3.51

Number of packages to be upgraded: 11

8 MiB to be downloaded.

Proceed with this action? [y/N]: y
pkg: http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:12:i386/quarterly/All/php73-simplexml-7.3.15.txz: Not Found

Two issues; the packages with the problems that started me down this path are not addressed, and it blew chunks. Oh well, we've identified something that still needs to be done, so we'll go ahead and do it.
To fix the blowing chunks problem, several google searchs got me to the answer.
find / -name FreeBSD.conf -print
I found it at:   /var/db/etcupdate/current/etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf
cd /usr/local/etc
mkdir pkg
cd pkg
mkdir repos
cd repos
cp /var/db/etcupdate/current/etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf .
Now edit that file, and insert "us-west" or "us-east" into URL:
  url: "pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/quarterly"
becomes:
  url: "pkg+http://pkg.us-west.FreeBSD.org/${ABI}/quarterly"