Re: Apt and rsync... I know...
Doug Holland wrote:
> I suggest that rsync files be precalculated, so rsync downloads don't
> have to be crunched on the fly. The servers would store .deb files -
> foo-x.y.z.deb, and they would store the rsync diffs between it and the
> previous version - foo.x.y.z-1_x.y.z.rsdeb. That way, if the user
> doing an apt-get upgrade has the previous .deb file in his cache, apt
> would download the rsync diff file instead of the full .deb, saving
> loads of bandwidth, and since the rsyncs are precomputed and cached,
> the servers don't get hosed.
I'm not sure if rsync is the right format for that. VCDIFF (RFC 3284)
should result in smaller deltas and less CPU overhead. However, I don't
know of any free implementation (Subversion has code that does something
very similar, though). The format itself is not encumbered by patents,
AFAIK.
Reply to: