Re: Adopting dpkg-ftp
On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Yann Dirson wrote:
> 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.
That is what I was talking about as well. APT does not stop (never did)
but it gives up on that one file, it still tries all other files that have
been queued.
> 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}/)
These have been supported from day 1.
> - 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)
Reparsing the db and preparing to download files is quick in APT [My
486-33 takes 7-15s with the old ver, it is below 8 with the new one], even
faster in APTv3 and all transfers are carefully controlled with a timeout
mechanism.
A single failed file (due to a timeout or otherwise) does not effect all
other files that will be fetched and APTv3 supports an unlimited number of
fallback sources that are tried should the main source fail for any
reason.
> - minimization of the time when the PPP link has to be running (one of
> the worst points in dpkg-ftp 1.5.x BTW)
pon;apt-get update;apt-get -dy upgrade;poff; apt-get upgrade
> - ability to differ the download of some packages selected for upgrade
It can't do this, but you can download single packages by hand with
'apt-get install foo'
> - emulation of MDTM (for timestamp checks) because of dummy firewalls
> rejecting it
I don't think the current APT ftp method does this, in truth most people
using firewalls will probably want to use http urls which don't have that
pesky problem.
Jason
Reply to: