Defects in apt-spy and associated documentation
2009-09-13
Defects in apt-spy and associated documentation
1. [normal] Man apt-spy states that the default location for the -m
argument is /var/lib/apt-spy/mirrors.txt. That statement is false. I
found the file in /var/cache/apt-spy/mirrors.txt.
2. [normal] Man apt-spy state that the -i option defines the location
of the input file and that the input file should be created with the
-w option. But the description fails to mention any purpose or use of
"the input file". There appears to be no such purpose given that -f,
-m, and -u define all of the files that apt-spy is supposed to use as
inputs.
3. [normal] When run as "apt-spy -d lenny -s us" it tests one single
url, that being ftp.us.debian.org despite the fact that mirrors.txt
many mirrors and lists several members of the ftp.us.debian.org pool.
And when run with "-d lenny -s ca,us" it tests all of the canadian
mirrors, but only ftp.us.debian.org in the United States.
4. [important] It only tests with ftp. There appears to be no
method to persuate it to test with http as the man documentation
suggests it should.
5. [normal] None of the output files contain any of the metric
information on which a user might based decisions regarding the
contents of sources.list.
6. [important] Some configurations, which I cannot reliably cause,
produce entries of the form "(null)" in
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/apt-spy.list. There are no error or warning
messages associated with the error condition.
Submitted by
Lee Winter
NP Engineering
Nashua, New Hampshire
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