NAME¶
apt-spy - program to generate a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/apt-spy.list file
SYNOPSIS¶
apt-spy -d
distribution [
-a area ] [
-c
config ] [
-e number ] [
-f file ] [
-i file ] [
-m mirror-list ] [
-o
output-file ] [
-p proxy ] [
-s
country-list ] [
-t time ] [
-u
update-URL ] [
-w file ] [
-n number ] [
-h ]
[
-v ] [
update ]
DESCRIPTION¶
This manual page briefly documents the
apt-spy command.
apt-spy is a program that tests all of the Debian archive mirrors the
user specifies for bandwith and writes, by default, to
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/apt-spy.list the fastest server.
The user can select which of the many Debian sites to benchmark by geographical
location.
apt-spy does not need to be run by root if the user provides a
configuration file, a place where to store the mirror list and an output file.
See examples for more details.
OPTIONS¶
- -d distribution
- Debian distribution to use. Sensible values would be
`stable', `testing' or `unstable'. Distribution names can also be used.
This value is directly used in the generated sources.list, and is required
unless updating.
- -a area
- This will cause only servers in the specified area to be
benchmarked. By default, valid values for area are `Africa',
`Asia', `Europe', `North-America', `Oceania' and `South-America'. It is
very easy to define your own areas or subset of servers to benchmark. For
further details see apt-spy.conf(5).
- -c config
- configuration file to use instead of
/etc/apt-spy.conf.
- -e number
- `early finish'. Stop benchmarking after number of
servers have been completed. Act as if all servers were benchmarked upon
completion.
- -f file
- file to grab from the Debian servers. By default
apt-spy will test the servers by getting part of the `ls-lR' file
in the base of the Debian tree on the mirror. This tells apt-spy to
get file instead. It is assumed that this file is also relative to
the Debian base directory.
- -i file
- use file as input for apt-spy. You should
generate this input file using the -w option.
- -m mirror-list
- where to load the mirrors list from or where to save it to.
The default location is /var/lib/apt-spy/mirrors.txt. Using this
option allows you to specify a different location. When updating, this
defines where the updated mirrors list will be saved.
- -o output-file
- location for the new sources.list. By default the
new file is created as /etc/apt/sources.list.
- -p proxy
- use proxy as a proxy server. This should be
specified as `hostname:port'.
- -s country-list
- A comma-separated list of countries to benchmark. At the
moment, this cannot be used with the "area" option.
- -t time
- how long (approximately) in seconds to download for. By
default time is 15 seconds. How long the benchmark actually
downloads for varies due to the way libcurl works. With the default 15
seconds, the benchmark generally takes beween 10 and 25 seconds. Each
server has potentially two protocols (ftp and http) so roughly one minute
per server would be a reasonable estimate of how long it should take. Be
aware that this does vary considerably, and that benchmarking any more
than a very few servers takes considerable time (possibly several hours
for `-a All').
- -u update-URL
- specify custom URL to get an updated mirrors list from.
This can be http, ftp, file, or any other URL type supported by
libcurl.
- -w file
- write a number of top servers to file in a format
suitable for use with the -i option. The number of servers to output can
be specified with the -n option, and defaults to 5.
- -n number
- the number of top servers to write with the -w option.
- update
- connect to http.us.debian.org and download the
mirror list to /var/lib/apt-spy/mirrors.txt. The -u or -m options
may be used to respectively specify a different URL for the mirrors list
or a different location for the downloaded file.
- -v
- output a version number.
- -h
- print a short usage message.
EXAMPLES¶
Non root usage:
apt-spy -d stable -a Europe -m ./mirror.txt -o apt-spy.list -c apt-spy.conf
Above command tests European mirrors for stable Debian release saving
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/README.mirrors.txt into mirror.txt, writing
source file into apt-spy.list using configuration from apt-spy.conf. Note that
not root users need to specified all these parameters.
Updating mirror list file:
apt-spy update
Creating the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/apt-spy.list file:
apt-spy -d stable
SEE ALSO¶
sources.list(5),
apt-spy.conf(5),
apt(8).
AUTHOR¶
apt-spy and this manual page was written by Steven Holmes
<steg@bsdeviant.org> and updated by Stefano Canepa <sc@linux.it>.
The original version of
apt-spy was written by Danny Rodriguez
<messiah@optonline.net>.
This version is a total rewrite.