How to maintain a macports installation

I've used the apt family of package managers for some time and started using macports last year when I got a laptop. I'm at a bit of a loss at the best way to keep packages up-to-date though, and any other maintenance tasks I should be looking out for.

My question is, beside periodically using port upgrade on specific packages, what is the workflow for getting regular security and package updates?

From serverfault Dana the Sane

• The easiest way to find out what packages are out of date is to run port outdated. I'm not aware (and couldn't find when researching my facts) of an RSS feed or something similar to let you know when ports are updated. However you could run a script every week or something similar to check to see what is outdated and let you know.

  Personally I check my port installations once a month or so manually.

  Nerdling : How do you update the list of outdated ports? `port selfupdate`

  Chealion : I run `sudo port upgrade outdated`
  From Chealion

• Every week or two, I do

  port selfupdate
  port upgrade installed
  

  This is basically the equivalent of

  apt-get update
  apt-get upgrade
  

  if you are familiar with Debian/Ubuntu.

  From Josh K

• I run the following

  port -v sync # sync the latest definitions
  port -v outdated # see what's outdated
  port -v upgrade outdated # upgrade what's outdated
  

  You can run

  port -v selfupdate
  

  every so once in a while to upgrade the MacPorts software itself. It's only infrequently updated, so I only do this when I know there is a new release.

  Dana the Sane : Thanks, I tried out your method. The compile is taking forever after 10 months of no updates though :-\

  Blair Zajac : You don't mean the compile, but the update check? If you don't have many ports installed, then you won't see many updates. Also, not all packages update frequently. Also, you could subscribe to an RSS feed off of commits to see what packages have been updated http://trac.macports.org/timeline

  Dana the Sane : I have a fair number of ports installed to make my system closer to a recent linux distro. The compile ended up taking at least 12 hours.

  Nerdling : There's no harm in always running selfupdate in place of sync.
  From Blair Zajac

• Sync and update if newer version of MacPorts itself is released.

  sudo port -v -d selfupdate
  

  List new packages

  port outdated
  

  Update all packages

  sudo port -v upgrade outdated
  

  After update old versions are not removed but set "inactiv". To clean up:

  sudo port -v uninstall inactive
  

  From time to time I run this. It cleans up downloads and left over files from previous builds.

  sudo port clean -f --all "*"
  

  Nerdling : If you happen to use archive mode, clean --all is probably not something you want to use.
  From Paidhi