Re: APT : Packages file to large to download everytime.

[Steven Hanley <sjh@svana.org>]

On Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 10:05:21AM +0100, Edward Betts wrote:
> How about putting the package file in an SQL database like mysql or postgres,
> it would be harder to mirror, but nobody would be downloading complete package
> files so it would not be a problem. Include a `Last Updated' field in the
> package table, and run:
> 
>  select * from packages where updated > $last
> 
> Where $last is the date + time of the last update.
> 
> With the data from the server and data already on the machine it would be
> possible to build the package file.
> 
> Or the same might be possible using ldap, but I do not have much experience
> with ldap.
> 
> Of course this would require a client of some kind on every Debian machine to
> access this it.

I must say this sounds like a pretty neat idea (well except for the one major
flaw).

Have a Packages.gz still hanging around, but get the majority of people to use
the db based interface, and just have it send to the server the last UTC at
which it checked the archive, the server can then send back the Packages file
entries that have been added since then, the local machine can merge them into
the Packages file it has locally.

This I assume would put a lot less load on the server than trying to rsync a
packages file (assuming of course the packages file was compressed with the
rsycnable gzip)

The major flaw I see is that you are not going to be able to run a database of
some kind and the stuff required to do all this on most debian mirrors, which
would restrict the usage a lot, and people would continue to just grab he
latest Paackges file from their local mirror.

        See You
            Steve

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