Andrew Pollock wrote:
base-config runs apt-get autoclean.Well, thanks for making that clear. I'd like to have the option to skip that. I had packages from releases other than that defined in the current sources.list and would have liked to keep them.It's a bit late now, but it's probably a good reason to export that directory read-only, so your installations can't go frigging with your file server...
But then it would not be possible (unless the sticky bit (?) or such automatically creates read only files) to write to /var/cache/apt/archives and installation of new packages would fail. The archive would not collect packages and be of no use.
A suggested solution is a caching http proxy but that would disable smart cache purging with apt-get autoclean. However, apt-get autoclean is somewhat limited, as apt-get update runs out of memory with too much data (e.g. stable+testing+unstable), but that bug will hopefully be fixed.
Bernhard --Low end Serverhousing ab 25 e inkl. 1x 11 e/GB, etc.: http://www.bksys.at