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Re: Adopting dpkg-ftp



Jason Gunthorpe writes:
 > 
 > On Tue, 5 Jan 1999, Yann Dirson wrote:
 > 
 > > IIRC, when I checked it mainly missed error recovery for
 > > low-reliability PPP lines - dpkg-ftp offers to try to go on dowloading
 > > a Packages file or a .deb when an error occurs.
 > 
 > This might make a future cut with APT.. right now it aborts the troubled
 > file and goes on to the next one, if you run it again it will resume the
 > troubled file transparently. 

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing.  I'm talking about
an FTP timeout occuring while a .deb or a Packages.gz has been partly
dowloaded.  In this case, dpkg-ftp << 1.4.9.1 just stop, and I don't
recall that the versions of apt I have tried did much better.

 > > Maybe it also misses some of the other features I had added to
 > > dpkg-ftp for hamm - see changelog for details.
 > 
 > I didn't see anything.. The v3 version has support for firewall
 > configuration which should cover the last set of features.

OK.  Here are the main features I'd like to see in apt-ftp before
switching to it.  I would find it very nice if all of them were
already implemented.

- timestamp check to select which Packages.gz to get
- support for experimental-type dists (Packages.gz in ./ not in
binary-${arch}/)
- robustness wrt timeouts (re-parsing the DB's at start of the install
method is slow enough on my 486/33 which has not yet been upgraded to K6/2)
- minimization of the time when the PPP link has to be running (one of
the worst points in dpkg-ftp 1.5.x BTW)
- ability to differ the download of some packages selected for upgrade

Here are accessory features I had added to dpkg-ftp because others
need them:

- emulation of MDTM (for timestamp checks) because of dummy firewalls
rejecting it


You may also be interested in the bug reports I filed against dpkg-ftp
1.5.x for removal of some of these features that Klee probably did not
thought were really features.


Regards,
-- 
Yann Dirson                         |    Why make M$-Bill richer & richer ?
           <ydirson@multimania.com> |   Support Debian GNU/Linux:
debian-email:   <dirson@debian.org> | Cheaper, more Powerful, more Stable !
http://www.multimania.com/ydirson/  | Check <http://www.debian.org/>


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