Re: package pool and big Packages.gz file
Sam Vilain <sam@vilain.net> writes:
> On Fri, 5 Jan 2001 19:08:38 +0200
> ressu@uusikaupunki.fi (Sami Haahtinen) wrote:
>
> > Or, can rsync sync binary files?
> > hmm.. this sounds like something worth implementing..
>
> rsync can, but the problem is with a compressed stream if you insert
> or alter data early on in the stream, the data after that change is
> radically different.
>
> But... you could use it successfully against the .tar files inside
> the .deb, which are normally compressed. This would probably
> require some special implementation of rsync, or to have the
> uncompressed packages on the server and put the magic in apt.
>
> [...]
>
> Either that or keep a number of patch files or .xd files for a
> couple of old revs per packages against the uncompressed contents of
> packages to allow small changes to packages to be quick. Or perhaps
> implement this as patch packages, which are a special .deb that only
> contain the changed files and upgrade the package.
I suggest you have a look at 'tje' by Joost Witteveen
(http://joostje.op.het.net/tje/index.html). It is specifically written
with the goal in mind to sync Debian mirrors with minimum bandwidth
use. It doesn't use the rsync algorithm, but something similar. It
understands .debs and claims to have less server CPU usage than rsync,
since it caches diffs and md5sums. It would be really nice if anybody
with an up-to-date mirror could volunteer to provide a machine to set
up a tje server to test it a little more...
Falk
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