apt-cacher

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Apt-cacher quickstart

If you have two or more Debian GNU/Linux machines on a fast local network and you wish to upgrade packages from the Internet, you don't want to download every package several times.

— http://www.nick-andrew.net/projects/apt-cacher/

Apt-cacher performs caching of .deb packages which have been downloaded by local users. When a package is requested, the cache checks whether it already has the latest version, in which case it sends the package to the user immediately. If not, it downloads the package while streaming it to the user at the same time. A local copy is then kept for use by other users.

— http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/apt-cacher

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Installing

# apt-get install apt-cacher
# vi /etc/apt-cacher/apt-cacher.conf
# /etc/init.d/apt-cacher start

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Testing

Open the local apt-cacher page http://localhost:3142/ and you'll get a nifty page with usage information (change 3142 to the value for daemon_port in apt-cacher.conf).

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Using

If your sources.list file reads:

 deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free
 deb http://fatboy.umng.edu.co/debian/ testing main non-free contrib

you just have to prepend the apt-cacher machine's hostname or IP address and /apt-cacher to each line:

 deb http://127.0.0.1:3124/security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free
 deb http://127.0.0.1:3124/fatboy.umng.edu.co/debian/ testing main non-free contrib

Then do an apt-get update and you're ready to rock and roll.

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References

http://www.debianuniverse.com/readonline/chapter/19