David Rosenstrauch wrote:
David C. Rankin wrote:
If I want to clone my package selection to another box, is there a better way to do it other than just parsing the files in /var/cache/pacman/pkg to generate a list to feed to pacman after install on the second box?
One option is to have the first box serve as an Arch package mirror for the rest of the boxes. i.e., box #1's mirrorlist file points to an external Arch mirror, box #'s 2 through n's mirrorlist files point to box #1.
I've implemented 2 ways of caching packages in my LAN for saving bandwidth: One, by running a squid on a box, with a cache_dir size of around 1 GB and a maximum_object_size large enough to accommodate huge packages like openoffice. The rest of my archboxen use the squid box as a proxy (note: the mirrorlist servers order needs to be the same everywhere). This way, if a package is downloaded once, it will be cached for the rest to download at speeds over 6 MB/s :-) The downside is that I end up having the same packages occupying disk space in many places and if I neglect to update a machine for some time, the packages expire from the squid cache. Two, by mounting the /var/cache/pacman/pkg directory of the masterbox with sshfs at the local /var/cache/pacman/pkg before pacman install operations. Pacman happily finds most packages already in place and only downloads the ones missing. Method number two is mirrorlist/proxy agnostic and has become my favorite, especially since I've started using the powerpill/aria2 combination. -- ##### # ##### ####### ##### # ##### "I find your lack of faith disturbing."