[plug] APT-Proxy/Debian package sharing

[Christian]

Brad Campbell wrote:
> 
> Peter Wright wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 25, 2000 at 09:20:20AM +0000, Christian wrote:
> > > Peter Wright wrote:
> > > > My housemate achieves this with no problems (that I know of) using
> > > > squid. One machine runs squid and caches the files as they are
> > > > apt-got... the others will then get them from the proxy cache when
> > > > they run apt-get install/upgrade/whatever.
> > > >
> > > > Is there any reason that this solution wouldn't work for you?
> > >
> > > I suppose it could work but it relies on the files not being flushed
> > > from the cache in between being used.  For example, I upgrade one
> > > machine with some new unstable packages -- I'll probably want to use
> > > that for a couple of days or so at least to make sure that they don't
> > > break anything.  In between that time squid may very well flush them
> > > from the cache. :(
> 
> Better still, just install cern-httpd on the machine you use to download
> them and alter your other sources files to point to that box..
> I have a machine here with both slink .iso files mounted over loopback
> and cern-httpd installed serving all the files to my other machines..
> Or, even easier, just use the ftp method in apt and point it at the
> required dir..

As far as I can tell cern-httpd is just a web server so this won't
actually help.  The problem is not so much distributing the packages I
have on a CD but rather sharing the packages that I download via APT
(and are cached in /var/cache/apt/archives on that machine) so that
apt-get's on other machines will find these cached packages and use
them.  I don't see how a web server will solve this problem... am I
missing something?

Pete's suggestion of squid is interesting, the major limitation seems to
be being able to manage the apt-gotten files so that they are not
flushed by the cache automatically but rather can be flushed manually
when no longer required.  The squid documentation seems to be a little
thin on the ground but a brief glance over the user's guide doesn't seem
to indicate how this could be done.  If anyone has any suggestions then
please let me know. :)

Regards,

Christian.