Frequently Asked Questions - Statistics



Which Statistics Are Collected?


The MacPorts statistics collects and submits the following information to the server:

How Often Are Statistics Sent?


The statistics daemon runs once a week, and tries to make a submission to ports.macports.org/statistics/submit. If the daemon fails to send the data, the error is silently ignored.

To manually make a submission, run the command: /opt/local/libexec/mpstats submit

Why Do You Need Statistics?


We'd like to improve our understanding of how MacPorts and its ports are used. The statistics will help us determine which operating systems, build architectures and Xcode versions we need to support and test to provide a better overall experience for our users and less unexpected failures. The stats will also help us understand how quickly new MacPorts releases or port updates are adopted and how long we should wait before we can start using new features. The variant statistics will hopefully reveal ports where variants other than the default ones are popular choices and for which ports it might be advisable to test non-standard variants when updating a port, or even which variants should become defaults. We hope to use the variants data to build binary packages for non-default, but popular variants in the future.

How Can I Submit Statistics?


To start submitting statistics, install the mpstats port in your MacPorts installation.

sudo port install mpstats

How Do I Stop Submitting Statistics?


Uninstalling the mpstats port will prevent your system from submitting further statistics. Note that MacPorts will never default to submitting statistics. If you didn't explicitly opt-in, MacPorts does not send statistics.