[arch-general] pkg-proxy ?

[C Anthony Risinger]

On May 17, 2010, at 12:22 PM, Gregory Eric Sanderson
<gzou2000 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 10:45 AM, Rogutės Sparnuotos <rogutes at googlemail.co
> m
>> wrote:
>
>> Andre Osku Schmidt (2010-05-16 13:33):
>>> 2010/5/16 Ng Oon-Ee <ngoonee at gmail.com>:
>>>> On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 23:47 +0200, Andre "Osku" Schmidt wrote:
>>>>> 2010/5/15 Ng Oon-Ee <ngoonee at gmail.com>:
>>>>>> Check out 'pkgd'
>>>>>
>>>>> thanks, works nicely!
>>>>>
>>>>> only couple issues that would be nice if it could do too (or
>>>>> already
>>>>> does, and i just didn't find out how)
>>>>>
>>>>> - not usable from arch installer. i assume i cant use it as proxy
>>>>> setting what is asked in the installer. but maybe i can somehow
>>>>> else
>>>>> use it from the installer?
>>>>
>>>> You would need (AFAIK) to install some packages first to start
>>>> using
>> it.
>>>>>
>>>>> - if the package is not found on the pkgd server, it will be
>>>>> loaded
>>>>> from internet to the client machine. is there a way to tell the
>>>>> pkgd
>>>>> server to download it and serve it to the client ?
>>>>
>>>> Not that I'm aware off. Talk to Xyne.
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps you'd just want to set up your own mirror. There's
>>>> projects for
>>>> that as well in the AUR, just search.
>>>
>>> do you mean a general mirroring tool ?
>>> as i didn't found anything pkg specific mirror tool...
>>>
>>> and wouldn't a mirror tool require my server to have ALL
>>> core/extra/community packages ? how big are those repos ?
>> <...>
>>
>> I don't really remember your initial question, but I use one package
>> directory for 3 computers by simply having a central /var/cache/
>> pacman,
>> which I then mount read-write with samba. To use it from the
>> installer,
>> you would have to install 'smbclient' after booting.
>>
>
> That solution is also mentioned on the wiki, but I see 2
> disadvatages to
> mounting /var/cache/pacman through the network.
> 1. If you're on a laptop and not at home, you don't have access to
> your
> packages, and If you want to install packages anyway you have to
> manually
> unmount, install, and remove the packages from the directory to to
> cause
> problems for when it will be remounted.
> 2. Although rare, if or have frequent network connectivity problems
> (for
> example, your connection goes dead in the middle of copying a file)
> then it
> becomes a hassle

This is the same conclusion I came to, and why I started the
"pacproxy" app... My sshfs mount would be down without me knowing; I
just don't think it's a very good/elegant solution.

I intended pacproxy to be an apt-proxy clone, with ABS "auto
repository" support, and foriegn ABS support (so I could have separate
build machines, and be able to broadcast their ABS tree as an
independent repo) right now though, it works well for simple proxying
and caching, and is a viable solution to the OP's problem.

Perhaps we could make it more feature complete, and include it in the
official repos as a more comprehensive solution to fickle network
mounting.

Else I will finish it eventually :-)

C Anthony