Macports/rvm/svn connection issue behind a proxy and firewall

I am behind a corporate firewall that won't let me rsync out, and requires a proxy for HTTP/HTTPS. I'm having trouble with rvm breaking at the macports step in this environment.

To summarise:

I am trying to do rvm install ruby-1.9.3-p286
rvm wants to use macports.
macports wants to update using rsync, but I can't rsync out.
I set up a local macports source repo, but it doesn't seem to help - macports still wants to use rsync.
A suggestion on a similar question suggested changing port selfupdate to port sync in rvm's scripts. But that didn't help - macports then dies trying to do an svn update
But I can do the svn update manually fine, so I don't understand where the problem is.

Here are the details:

I followed this guide for using macports behind a firewall, by checking out the repo locally, and setting the following in /opt/local/etc/macports/sources.conf.

    #rsync://rsync.macports.org/release/tarballs/ports.tar [default]
    file:///opt/local/var/macports/sources/svn.macports.org/trunk/dports/ [default]

The only place I differed from the guide was I installed macports for 10.8 rather than 10.5.

However, rvm's macports seems to still use rsync for some reason:

$ rvm install ruby-1.9.3-p286
Searching for binary rubies, this might take some time.
No binary rubies available for: osx/10.8/x86_64/ruby-1.9.3-p286.
Continuing with compilation. Please read 'rvm help mount' to get more information on binary rubies.
Installing requirements for osx, might require sudo password.
Password:
DEBUG: Copying /Users/tim/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dt.Xcode.plist to 
    /opt/local/var/macports/home/Library/Preferences
DEBUG: MacPorts sources location: 
/opt/local/var/macports/sources/rsync.macports.org/release/tarballs --->  Updating MacPorts base sources using rsync
rsync: failed to connect to rsync.macports.org: Connection refused (61)
rsync error: error in socket IO (code 10) at /SourceCache/rsync/rsync-42/rsync/clientserver.c(105) [receiver=2.6.9]
Command failed: /usr/bin/rsync -rtzv --delete-after     rsync://rsync.macports.org/release/tarballs/base.tar     /opt/local/var/macports/sources/rsync.macports.org/release/tarballs
Exit code: 10
DEBUG: Error synchronizing MacPorts sources: command execution failed
while executing
"macports::selfupdate [array get global_options] base_updated"
Error: /opt/local/bin/port: port selfupdate failed: Error synchronizing MacPorts sources: command execution failed

This is very similar to this question, where the answer suggested the following change:

$ diff -u .rvm/scripts/functions/requirements/osx_port.org .rvm/scripts/functions/requirements/osx_port
--- .rvm/scripts/functions/requirements/osx_port.org    2013-05-28 16:58:37.000000000 +0900
+++ .rvm/scripts/functions/requirements/osx_port    2013-05-28 16:58:50.000000000 +0900
@@ -82,7 +82,7 @@

 requirements_osx_port_update_system()
 {
-  __rvm_try_sudo port -dv selfupdate || return $?
+  __rvm_try_sudo port -dv sync || return $?
 }

 requirements_osx_port_define()

Unfortunately, that results in the following:

$ rvm install ruby-1.9.3-p286
Searching for binary rubies, this might take some time.
No binary rubies available for: osx/10.8/x86_64/ruby-1.9.3-p286.
Continuing with compilation. Please read 'rvm help mount' to get more information on binary rubies.
Installing requirements for osx, might require sudo password.
Password:
DEBUG: Copying /Users/tim/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dt.Xcode.plist to /opt/local/var/macports/home/Library/Preferences
--->  Updating the ports tree
Synchronizing local ports tree from file:///opt/local/var/macports/sources/svn.macports.org/trunk/dports/
DEBUG: /usr/bin/svn update --non-interactive /opt/local/var/macports/sources/svn.macports.org/trunk/dports
DEBUG: changing euid/egid - current euid: 0 - current egid: 0
svn: OPTIONS of 'http://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/trunk/dports': could not connect to server (http://svn.macports.org)
Command failed: /usr/bin/svn update --non-interactive /opt/local/var/macports/sources/svn.macports.org/trunk/dports
Exit code: 1
DEBUG: command execution failed
    while executing
"system $svn_commandline"
Error: Synchronization of the local ports tree failed doing an svn update
DEBUG: Synchronization of 1 source(s) failed
    while executing
"mportsync [array get global_options]"
port sync failed: Synchronization of 1 source(s) failed

Trying directly with macports:

$ port -d sync
--->  Updating the ports tree
Synchronizing local ports tree from file:///opt/local/var/macports/sources/svn.macports.org/trunk/dports/
DEBUG: /usr/bin/svn update --non-interactive /opt/local/var/macports/sources/svn.macports.org/trunk/dports
svn: OPTIONS of 'http://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/trunk/dports': could not connect to server (http://svn.macports.org)
Command failed: /usr/bin/svn update --non-interactive /opt/local/var/macports/sources/svn.macports.org/trunk/dports
Exit code: 1
DEBUG: command execution failed
    while executing
"system $svn_commandline"
Error: Synchronization of the local ports tree failed doing an svn update
DEBUG: Synchronization of 1 source(s) failed
    while executing
"mportsync [array get global_options]"
port sync failed: Synchronization of 1 source(s) failed

This is strange, because I can run that svn command fine:

 $ /usr/bin/svn update --non-interactive /opt/local/var/macports/sources/svn.macports.org/trunk/dports
 At revision 107532.

It's not a user permissions/profile issue, because root can run that svn command fine too:

 $ sudo /usr/bin/svn update --non-interactive /opt/local/var/macports/sources/svn.macports.org/trunk/dports
 At revision 107532.

I assume something in the chain isn't seeing the proxy correctly. However:

My proxy is correctly set in the http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables
It is also set in ~/.subversion/servers (as the variables http-proxy-host and http-proxy-port in the [global] section)
And it is also set in /opt/local/etc/macports/macports.conf (as the variables proxy_http and proxy_https)

Other information:

ruby 1.8.7
rvm 1.21.4
OSX 10.8.3
MacPorts 2.1.3

Let me know if there's any other information that could be useful.

My question is How can I get port sync to work in this environment? (Which I am hoping will also fix rvm)

Solution

As a workaround to get you going try:

rvm autolbs read-fail

It will not install packages automatically - it will fail in case any packages are missing and will let you know names of this packages, just install them manually with macports and it should be fine.