[arch-general] pkg-proxy ?

[Andre "Osku" Schmidt]

On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 7:35 PM, C Anthony Risinger <anthony at extof.me> wrote:
> 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
>

hi, this sounds perfect!
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=87115

could you put it in a VCS (like gitorious.org) ?
and a more verbose howto ?

like:
- does the code in "how to use" box at the forum post go in the
pacproxy machine configs ?
- what/where do i set/use this in the client(s) ?
- whats /archlinux dir ? should i create it, how ?
- can't i use /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ ?
- does this work with the arch installer ?

these may be "stupid" questions, but i'm still pretty new to Arch way of things.

cheers
.andre