Summary and Info:
I have configured pacman to download its databases and packages from rsync mirrors using a custom XferCommand. Pacman itself has no problem with this, but pkgfile appears to be unable to download its database in the same way. I am getting the following errors when running

sudo pkgfile -u

:: Updating 4 repos...
warning: download failed: rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/core/os/x86_64/core.files: Protocol "rsync" not supported or disabled in libcurl
warning: download failed: rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/extra/os/x86_64/extra.files: Protocol "rsync" not supported or disabled in libcurl
warning: download failed: rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/community/os/x86_64/community.files: Protocol "rsync" not supported or disabled in libcurl
warning: download failed: rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/multilib/os/x86_64/multilib.files: Protocol "rsync" not supported or disabled in libcurl

These errors appear to indicate that pkgfile, although it uses libalpm and /etc/pacman.conf, it is attempting to use libcurl to download its databases rather than the custom XferCommand set in /etc/pacman.conf.

Steps to Reproduce:

* Use the reflector package to get the fastest rsync mirrors available. Run a command similar to

sudo reflector -c <country> -f 5 -l 20 -p rsync --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

* Add the following custom XferCommand line in /etc/pacman.conf

XferCommand = /usr/bin/rsync --no-motd -L --progress %u %o

* Add the following SigLevel line in /etc/pacman.conf to avoid database signature errors

SigLevel = Required DatabaseNever

* test settings by running

sudo pacman -Syy

All databases should be downloaded correctly from the first mirror available in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.

* Install pkgfile and run

sudo pkgfile -u

the errors should appear as above, although it may attempt to use a different mirror based on the information saved when using the reflector command.