In base/src/port1.0/resources/fetch/mirror_sites.tcl we define the apache mirror sites this way: set portfetch::mirror_sites::sites(apache) { http://www.apache.org/dist/ http://archive.apache.org/dist/ http://apache.planetmirror.com.au/dist/ ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/apache/dist/ ftp://ftp.is.co.za/Apache/dist/ ftp://ftp.infoscience.co.jp/pub/net/apache/dist/ } But at http://www.apache.org/dist/ it says in bold letters Please do not download from apache.org! And at http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/ it says Download from your nearest mirror site! Do not download from www.apache.org. Please use a mirror site to help us save apache.org bandwidth. There are dozens of mirrors available. Should we add these to our apache mirror sites list? They provide a randomized or perhaps load-balanced download CGI, e.g.: http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/apr/apr-0.9.17.tar.bz2 but that doesn't redirect you to the file; it returns an HTML page which contains a link to download the file. We could write a wrapper PHP script for this and stick it on www.macports.org and use that as the first apache mirror download location. This would make better use of the available mirrors and only fall back to www.apache.org and the rest if the script fails for some reason. I'd be happy to write that script if it's decided it's a good idea.