Bug#563737: smarter cleaning of /var/lib/apt/lists

[Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b@web.de>]

Julian Andres Klode <jak@debian.org> writes:

> On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 05:59:21PM +0100, Goswin von Brederlow wrote:
>> Julian Andres Klode <jak@debian.org> writes:
>> > 
>> So maybe index files should be referenced by their checksum instead of
>> host,port,path. That way apt would download Packages.gz from my local
>> mirror and then reuse that file for the near mirror and
>> ftp.debian.org. It would only download the Release[.gpg] file from the
>> remote mirrors.
>> 
>> So
>> /var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.debian.org_debian_dists_sid_main_source_Sources
>> could become
>> /var/lib/apt/lists/537f0e9373ce078e6af6cd9a000218c4d4c477fc.
>
> As far as I know, this would require patches for 
> 	apt-pkg/deb/debindexfile.{cc,h}
> 	apt-pkg/deb/debmetaindex.{cc,h}
> and probably some others. debIndexFile classes would need a field for the
> checksum and e.g. debPackagesIndex::IndexFile needs to return the filename
> with checksum. 

I just thought of something.

If there is a Release file apt has a simple way to map from the
sources.list entry to the hash of the index file. But what if there is
no Release file? That is still allowed, right?

MfG
        Goswin