[lug] Debian update

[Hugh Brown]

Nate Duehr wrote:
> David L. Anselmi wrote:
>> Gary Hodges wrote:
>>> I have a remote machine (phone connection only) that I will be 
>>> visiting next week.  I'm going to update the OS (Debian Sarge) while 
>>> I'm there. I have the most recent Sarge on DVD, 3.1r6.
>>
>> Is upgrading a significant benefit?  Sounds like you need to mirror 
>> the security repository.  That shouldn't be too hard.
> 
> It's actually rather large.  Debian's repositories are "pool" based, 
> from changes made years ago.
> 
> ALL security updates for ALL versions are lumped into a directory 
> structure that breaks up directories in the tree by package filenames.
> 
> Then there's hmm, shall we say "index" files (Packages.gz, Packages.bz2) 
> that "point" to which updates are needed for specific release codenames, 
> in codename specific directories that have NO other files in them.
> 
> So to mirror all of security.debian.org, you're mirroring a lot of junk 
> you don't need...
> 
> Nate


Though I did discover debmirror last night which you can use to get a 
specific dist and arch.

For example:

debmirror /local/mirror/debian  --host=ftp.us.debian.org  -p -v 
--passive --dist=sarge --arch=i386

would get you (via passive ftp) everything that ftp.us.debian.org has 
for sarge in i386.

I assume pointing it at security.debian.org would do the same for the 
security updates.

Hugh