I added "FETCH_PACKAGES=yes" to /etc/mk.conf, executed `make depends` and several dependencies began building rather than installing via pkg_add.
After further digging around I discovered that while I had "installpath" defined in /etc/pkg.conf I had no PKG_PATH defined. If I export PKG_PATH, then the dependencies are installed as packages. Is this expected behavior or should the ports-make system pick-up the value of "installpath"? Also, the error that's reported when the ports-make system can't find a package locally is a bit misleading. I kept getting: -------------------- $ make depends ===> dovecot-2.2.24p0 depends on: mariadb-client-* - not found ===> Verifying install for mariadb-client-* in databases/mariadb install: /home/usr/packages/amd64/all: Operation not permitted install: /home/usr/packages/amd64/tmp/: Operation not permitted install: /home/usr/packages/amd64/cache/: Operation not permitted ===> Looking for mariadb-client-10.0.25v1.tgz in $PKG_PATH - not found *** Error 1 in /usr/ports/databases/mariadb (/usr/ports/infrastructure/mk/bsd.port.mk:1881 '/home/usr/packages/amd64/cache//mariadb-client-10.0.25v1.tgz') install: /home/usr/packages/amd64/all: Operation not permitted install: /home/usr/packages/amd64/tmp/: Operation not permitted -------------------- All the error go away when I export PKG_PATH so I don't think it's anything to do with permissions. Cheers, --Aaron