my cheat sheet on emacs packages

• M-x package-install

• M-x package-delete

• M-x describe-package (C-h P)

• M-x package-reinstall

I could not install a package, nor update the list of packages with an error:

• "could not contact https://melpa.org/package

The full message in the *Messages buffer was:

 Error retrieving: https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/archive-contents \ 
(error connection-failed "connect" :host "elpa.gnu.org" :service 443)

See fix.

Some tips:

To refresh the package list contents with the latest versions available from your providers:

• M-x package-refresh-contents

This is especially useful if you get errors like

• file error "https://melpa.org/packages/fooboar-20215151.tar" "Not Found"

It is probably because some internal variables corresponding to the cached list of packages is out of sync.

This is the same as U from within M-x list-packages.

Look here:

/etc[3444]
$ brew install libressl       
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/libressl/manifests/3.4.3
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Downloading https://ghcr.io/v2/homebrew/core/libressl/blobs/sha256:579393d...
==> Downloading from https://pkg-containers.githubusercontent.com/ghcr1/blobs/sh...
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> Pouring libressl--3.4.3.monterey.bottle.tar.gz
==> Regenerating CA certificate bundle from keychain, this may take a while...
==> Caveats
A CA file has been bootstrapped using certificates from the SystemRoots
keychain. To add additional certificates (e.g. the certificates added in
the System keychain), place .pem files in
  /usr/local/etc/libressl/certs

and run
  /usr/local/opt/libressl/bin/openssl certhash /usr/local/etc/libressl/certs

libressl is keg-only, which means it was not symlinked into /usr/local,
because macOS already provides this software and installing another version in
parallel can cause all kinds of trouble.

If you need to have libressl first in your PATH, run:
  echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/libressl/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc

For compilers to find libressl you may need to set:
  export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/libressl/lib"
  export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/libressl/include"

For pkg-config to find libressl you may need to set:
  export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/local/opt/libressl/lib/pkgconfig"

==> Summary
🍺  /usr/local/Cellar/libressl/3.4.3: 3,335 files, 15.8MB
==> Running `brew cleanup libressl`...
Disable this behaviour by setting HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_CLEANUP.
Hide these hints with HOMEBREW_NO_ENV_HINTS (see `man brew`).
/etc[3445]

1. identify what emacs sees as valid path expression by doing a Meta-! pwd. This revealed on my system that - at least this part of emacs - uses the Cygwin paths (I have it installed since the beginning, much earlier than the problems with ELPA, so don't ask me why that turned into a problem suddenly) like cygdrive/c/emacs/bin. Switching package-gnupghome-dir to the respective loacation (/cygdrive/c…/.emacs.d/elpa/gnupg) solved the issue for me. It seems the key there was still valid as I didn't need to refresh it.

(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives
             '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/") t)
(package-initialize)

; Bootstrap 'use-package'
(eval-after-load 'gnutls
  '(add-to-list 'gnutls-trustfiles "/etc/ssl/cert.pem"))
(unless (package-installed-p 'use-package)
  (package-refresh-contents)
  (package-install 'use-package))
(eval-when-compile
  (require 'use-package))
(require 'bind-key)
(setq use-package-always-ensure t)

;;}}}

1. First we load the package package,
2. add MELPA, and
3. initialize package.

Then we add certs to gnutls. Next we test if Emacs thinks that use-package is installed, and install it otherwise. Note this is different than just seeing the package on our filesystem or in our load-path.

• copy your certificates inside /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors then run the following command
• update-ca-trust

Find *.pem file and place it to the anchors sub-directory or just simply link the *.pem file to there.

1. yum install -y ca-certificates
2. update-ca-trust force-enable
3. sudo ln -s /etc/ssl/your-cert.pem /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/your-cert.pem
4. update-ca-trust

---
QUICK HELP 1: To add a certificate in the simple PEM or DER file formats to the list of CAs trusted on the system:
     •	add it as a new file to directory /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/anchors/ 
     •	run update-ca-trust extract
QUICK HELP 2: If your certificate is in the extended BEGIN TRUSTED file format (which may contain distrust/blacklist trust flags, or trust flags for usages other than TLS) then:
     •	add it as a new file to directory /etc/pki/ca-trust/source/
     •	run update-ca-trust extract
and of course:  man update-ca-trust