Sharing apt cache across multiple machines

[Drake Diedrich]

On Fri, Nov 23, 2001 at 02:19:52PM +1100, James Macnicol wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> 	I have a laptop with the bleeding-edge Debian on it which I
> occasionally take to a place with readily available bandwidth to
> update to the latest set of packages.  My desktop machine at home,
> unfortunately, only has 56k modem connectivity and thus keeping it up
> to date is a hassle.  Since all the downloaded .deb files are kept in
> /var/cache/apt/archive (or whatever it's called) I would like to use
> this to update my desktop box when it is connected to my laptop via
> Ethernet.  Has anyone seen a definitive set of instructions on how to
> do this ? 

   This is what I do: copy all the .debs to a RW CD (or Zip), and dump them
in a common directory on the home machine.  Then run a pair of scripts
(purgepackages, scanpackages) to regenerate a new Packages.gz file. The
scanpackages file is similar to the one in dpkg-dev, but lists all packages. 
purgepackages just deletes older versions of .debs.  A small tarball will be
at http://www.coyote.com.au/~dld/sneakerdeb.tar.bz2 in a few minutes.
Your own private Debian archive for your home network.
   Adding the following to /etc/apt/apt.conf will keep dselect from purging
your packages.  Do that with apt-get clean after you've copied them off.
	Apt::Clean-Installed {"off";};
	DSelect::Clean {"never";};

-Drake