Re: [Apt-proxy-users] mirror features

[Chris H. <ha...@de...>]

On Tuesday 01 Feb 2005 02:20, Micha wrote:
> i have another issue that might be my very own wish, but maybe others find
> it useful too. Perhaps you can give a short feedback if this is the case.
>
> It's the fact that my base station serves a dozen roaming customer laptops
> which i update when the owners are here for service or maintainance or
> whatever. I am aware that is not the standard situation ap2 is designed
> for, but it's still a situation where ap2 prooves most useful. It's
> importasnt to note that my bandwith has limits, and there are good and bad
> times to suck much stuff.
>
> I try to keep my ap cache up to date completely, but to my knowledge this
> means i have to keep the packages installed on the main box. Where most of
> them naturally doesn't belong here. There also are some packages i just
> like to have quickly available in case i'll decide (or need) to install,
> like kernel sources, but again i don't need them installed yet.
>
> There's the 'apt' option to only download packages, without actually
> install them and it's also a feature of aptitude (i don't know about the
> other GUIs). But it's still a circumstance to always maintain the 'order'
> list, and do the aptitude cache cleaning.
>
> I imagine there could be an optional configuration file with a list of
> packages that ap2 should update always at a specified frequency. When there
> is a user request, then this 'additional stock' downlaodeds should get a
> lower priority than that user requested  download. For more diverse needs,
> this list could of course be autogenerated by a custom script, inserting
> effectivly all installed packages that are not on 'hold', or whatever
> selection you'd prefer. This 'additional stock' could be downloaded eg. by
> night (with a cronjob) or whenever the best time would be, in terms of
> bandwidth costs.
>
> This would be a way to manage the ap cache content independent of user
> requests, to the extend of a real mirror.

I was thinking of a similar feature, that is not quite as flexible but would 
do the same thing but without needing to maintain a config file.

The idea is to use the Packages files and file databases to decide when to 
download new versions.  Any packages that had been downloaded by a client 
within a certain time (e.g. 2 months, settable by a parameter) could be 
automatically updated if a new version appeared in the Packages file for the 
backend.  If no client requested the package anymore after a certain period, 
ap would stop updating that package automatically.

It's not quite as flexible as your method, but would perhaps be easier from 
the user point of view, because there would be only 1 parameter to tweak 
instead of having to maintain a list of packages.

But whichever version you prefer, if you have time to implement it please go 
ahead and I'd gladly add it.

Chris