apt-p2p8
Apt helper for peer-to-peer downloads of debian packages
Usage
twistd -y
/path/to/apt-p2p
[twistd
options ...]
apt-p2p can
also
be
run
without
twistd
by
executing:
apt-p2p [options ...]
Overview
apt-p2p is a helper for downloading Debian packages files with APT. It will download any needed files from other Apt-P2P peers in a peer-to-peer manner, and so reduce the strain on the Debian mirrors.
Apt setup
In order for APT to send it's requests to apt-p2p, the sources.list entries must be modified to point to the local apt-p2p address. Unless you have changed the default port, then adding "localhost:9977/" to the beginning of each entry should be sufficient. For example, if your sources.list contains a line like this:
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free
then replace it with this:
deb http://localhost:9977/ftp.us.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free
You can do the same with 'deb-src' lines as well, and apt-p2p will be used to download and share your source packages as well.
Port forwarding
It is VERY important that Apt-P2P's ports be reachable by other peers. This is needed both to share files with others, and to connect to others through the DHT to find peers for files. If you aren't accessible by others, you will not only not share anything, but your performance during downloading will be affected.
Apt-P2P uses a default port of 9977, over both TCP and UDP, for it's communication. You can change this port in the /etc/apt-p2p/apt-p2p.conf file, and use different ports for TCP and UDP, if desired. Whatever port you use, make sure to forward it through your NAT or firewall to improve your performance and share with others. Information on port forwarding can be found here:
(link to URL http://portforward.com/)
Private networks
Apt-P2P is not designed to function as a downloader for multiple clients on a private network. Apt-P2P checks the source of incoming requests and only responds to those from the localhost. For more information:
(link to URL http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=481243)
Options
These programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with short options starting with a single dash ('-'), and long options starting with two dashes ('--'). A summary of options is included below.
-
-c filename, --configfile=filename -
the filename to use for the configuration file, options found in this file are combined with those in $HOME/.apt-p2p/apt-p2p.conf and /etc/apt-p2p/apt-p2p.conf (see
apt-p2p.conf(5)for the format of the file)
-
-l filename, --logfile=filename -
the filename to print log messages to, or '-' to log to standard output, if not specified then /var/log/apt-p2p.log will be used
-
-h, --help -
print a help message describing the invocation of the program
-
-v, --version -
print the version of the program
Releases
4 releases since Debian 5.0 (Lenny); the text changed 3 times.