apt-get connect takes forever, download instantaneous
First, hello and thanks. Please be gentle, this is my first debian-users
post.
Whilst installing debian-stable I am encountering the most bizarre
behavior: During the apt-setup stage, using ftp or http,
the "Connecting" stage of opening an apt mirror takes upwards of a
minute, but the actual file transfers happen quite fast over my DSL.
First I thought this might be alleviated by forcing apt to do passive
ftp transfers using the apt.conf line 'Acquire::ftp::passive "true";',
but this didn't help.
Because the linux machine is behind a NAT firewall that might have
been causing grief, I tried setting apt-setup to use http, though
this didn't help. So I set apt.conf to include 'Acquire::http::Proxy'
of my firewall's http proxy. While apt was happy to now use my proxy,
it still took about a minute to connect.
Now, I've been watching my firewall's debug output, and after the
apt-setup program DNS queries the mirror's name, nothing happens
for a minute or so, then suddenly a burst of http requests flow by
as it retrieves the files.
I've tried looking through the archive and searched google a million
different ways, but have failed utterly to find an answer to this.
Also! If anyone is still reading: The debian install guide makes
absolutely no mention of the apt.conf options and I had to look
far and wide to stumble on the apt.conf man page because by that
stage of my net install man pages were not yet available...
Reply to: