HOWTO: Share updates across multiple machines

[coolen]

It's all in the howto. The line you need is this:

Acquire::http::Proxy "http://hostname:3142";

This instructs APT to use the proxy method through your server, and this will automatically apply to all requests.

I'm Waley Scum, I'm afraid ^_^

[stanna]

so its safe to assume its

Acquire::http:roxy "http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/:3142";

sorry you have to dumb it down soo much. but im trying soo hard lol. still quite new to all this and i feel this is a great opportunity to get something fun under my belt, even tho i have 5 pcs here runing different ubuntu's.. i still love it, soo much more satisfying when things work than with windows (which i fix all day).

[coolen]

Sorry, I misunderstood what you were trying to do.

Apt-cacher will not be able to do what you're trying to do unless the servers you're using have apt-cacher. Apt-cacher is a third-party service, so this is unlikely.

The setup here is done entirely on your own network. For example, in your case, it would mean that any packages common to all your PCs would be downloaded from the internet only once, and then any other machines that request it would get a copy direct from your chosen server machine.

To use the internode mirrors, you would need to put them in /etc/apt/sources.list

It may be possible to instruct APT to always look for those mirrors, but unofficial repositories (such as Medibuntu) would be a problem. I'll play around a bit and see if I can get that working, if that's what you want to do. If not, apt-cacher could still save you a fair bit of bandwidth, especially with 5 machines.

Don't worry about being new. We've all been there. Once you get into that mode of thinking, things make a lot more sense, and in doing so, you learn a lot. When I first started using Linux (Debian, four years ago) I spent hours looking through man pages and configuration files. It took me a week to match my screen resolution to my desktop size. It was fantastic.

[coolen]

I've looked into your problem a bit more.

Turns out it's ludicrously easy to set up APT to use the internode mirrors. System -> Administration -> Software Sources -> Download From -> Other...

Select Internode from that list.

Never occured to me to try the GUI way ^_^. I sometimes forget that Ubuntu is easy to use for the administrative stuff, too.

That should work for your official repos (Main, Restricted, Universe, and Multiverse). Not sure if it'll work for Security and Backports, but it's likely.

Anyway, if you're still interested, apt-cacher could save you bandwidth on third-party repos.

[stanna]

thanks coolen, i appreciate you going to the ultimate effort and giving it to me on a silver platter. i hope i have some time over the weekend to implement it..

cheers... ill come back and post if it works

[coolen]

I just wish I hadn't spent so much time looking for the stone platter

Good luck in your endeavours. I hope this can help you in some way.

[mssever]

Thanks for this HOWTO. It should enable me to upgrade to Hardy without exceeding my bandwidth limit.

[coolen]

Glad to hear it ^_^

I've not upgraded using this method, although I maintain a Hardy and Gutsy machine using the same cache without issue. I see no reason why it shouldn't work, but if you do run into trouble, let me know.

[Skip Da Shu]

Wow, sorry I let this go. Life kind of caught up with me.

Anyway, I can now confirm that it works with different versions of Ubuntu. I have my server running Hardy, and my brother's desktop on Gutsy.

Apt-cacher should keep meta-information on different packages and should be able to deliver the requested version without conflict.

You probably either discovered this yourself or gave up. My bad. Anyway, it works, as far as I know.

Ditto, server is v8.04 64b Xubuntu, 1 client is(was) Xubuntu v7.10 32b (now 64b), 1 client v7.10 64b Xubuntu, 5 clients v8.04 64b Xubuntu, 1 client v8.04 64b (was 32b) Ubuntu. Generally all working fine... fixin to post one warning error question. Most on Gigabit LAN so the client "download" of HIT packages... well don't blink.

This is SOOOO much nicer than mucking about with the sources.list files.

[Skip Da Shu]

I've looked into your problem a bit more.

Turns out it's ludicrously easy to set up APT to use the internode mirrors. System -> Administration -> Software Sources -> Download From -> Other...

Select Internode from that list.

Never occured to me to try the GUI way ^_^. I sometimes forget that Ubuntu is easy to use for the administrative stuff, too.

That should work for your official repos (Main, Restricted, Universe, and Multiverse). Not sure if it'll work for Security and Backports, but it's likely.

Anyway, if you're still interested, apt-cacher could save you bandwidth on third-party repos.

Hmmmm... what I was thinking he'd want to do is to set the 01proxy on his CLIENTS ONLY to point to his apt-cache server (192.168.xxx.xxx:3142) and then point the apt-cache server to the internode thingie in sources.list as he has... but maybe as you describe above on but... on the SERVER ONLY.

Make any sense or am I missing the point?

PS: Hmmm guess it doesn't make any difference if the clients point to internode or not as long as they are proxied back to the server... never mind.