Le 01/02/2025 à 02:33, onefang a écrit :
> So why is rsync included, when apt doesn't support rsync? Why not
> include the obscure protocols that apt does support? There are
> apt-transport packages for Tor, AWS S3, plus whatever in-toto and
> Spacewalk are. FTP is supported natively by apt, but disabled by
> default, and you get a message telling you that using HTTP or HTTPS is
> better. There is no apt-transport-rsync and no built in support.
>
> Maybe ancient Devuan's have FTP enabled in apt by default, dunno didn't
> check. Don't think we ever had a Devuan installer that setup
> sources.list with anything other than HTTP or HTTPS?
>
> The use of non apt things IS what I'm looking for. So far the only
> relevant thing mentioned is rsyncing a local package mirror, which makes
> sense, but not a common use case. A couple of other package mirrors
> rsync off sledjhamr, but they should be rsyncing off pkgmaster like the
> other mirrors. Note that local package mirrors can't rsync from
> pkgmaster, only our official mirrors can do that.
>
> The advantages of rsync do not apply to downloading a single ISO, or apt
> updating / installing packages. You're gonna download the entire file
> anyway, if you don't that's coz you already had it. It would help if we
> could apply it to the contents of updated packages and point release
> ISOs, but that's not how it works. Might help with the metadata files
> during an apt update. Wont help if the only change in an updated 30 MB
> package is a tiny part of a 2KB file, you're gonna download that entire
> 30 MB package anyway.
>
> So apart from those package mirrors that should be using pkgmaster, the
> only other "users" of my rsync server seem to be good / bad security
> scanners and Yandex, which recently started hitting it badly. Dunno if
> Yandex is now indexing rsync servers, or if it REALLY wants to update
> it's own half dozen mirrors by having them ALL rsync from me at the same
> time.

    There's one application widely used in the free software world to
download packages, which doesn't rely on a package manager belonging to
a particular distro, like apt: it is git. I've never found a good
documentation on it and didin't make big efforts to understand it, but
there are simple recipes.

    For what regards apt, I've always used http, then https, probably
ftp 20 years or more ago.

    And for what regards an Rsync server, I've set up one, pretty long
ago, in my professional life. I can't remember for what, though I'm
pretty sure it was a good reason. Certainly not related to package
transport. An Rsync server permits detailed configuration of what can be
accessed in each direction, compared to Rsync on top of ssh.

--     Didier