cargo-vendor

This is a proof-of-concept Cargo subcommand which is used to vendor all crates.io dependencies into a local directory.

Leveraging file:// URLs, this subcommand will construct a custom registry index which only contains the necessary packages, cache all necessary crate files, and then place everything in a structure that Cargo expects.

Installation

Currently this can be installed with:

$ git clone https://github.com/alexcrichton/cargo-vendor
$ cd cargo-vendor
$ cargo build --release

Then move the binary target/release/cargo-vendor into your PATH or add target/release to your PATH.

Example Usage

First, cd into a Cargo project's root directory, then run the following command:

$ cargo vendor
Create a `.cargo/config` with this entry to use the vendor cache:

    [registry]
    index = "file:///home/foo/code/bar/vendor/index"

$ cargo build
    Updating registry `file:///home/foo/code/bar/vendor/index`
 Downloading rustc-serialize v0.3.16 (registry file:///home/foo/code/bar/vendor/index)
   Compiling rustc-serialize v0.3.16 (registry file:///home/foo/code/bar/vendor/index)
   Compiling ...

This will populate the vendor directory (generating an error it if it already exists) with the index for the "custom registry" as well as a copy of all the crates needed. The configuration printed can be placed in any .cargo/config to point your project at that index, and then all future builds will use that index.

Drawbacks

• Currently the Cargo.lock will change depending on whether the index is crates.io or the local vendor'd copy. This is not always desired and may require the crates.io Cargo.lock to be stored next to the vendor'd Cargo.lock.

• Updating dependencies currently requires going back to the crates.io Cargo.lock and then re-vendoring all dependencies.

• The vendor directory may not be suitable for checking into a VCS as it contains a git repo itself and also contains tarballs, not checked out contents.