                         Apt-Cacher-NG User Manual
                         =========================

Apt-Cacher NG is a caching proxy for software packages which are downloaded
by Unix/Linux system distribution mechanisms from mirror servers accessible
via HTTP.

This manual provides an overview of Apt-Cacher-NG's features and a walk
through the required configuration steps for server administrators and
users of the proxy.

Chapter 1: Introduction
-----------------------

       apt-cacher-ng attempts to achieve the same goals as related proxies
       - it acts as a proxy which is used by clients in the local network
       to share the data that has been downloaded. It monitors the state of
       packages and is capable of merging downloads of the same packages
       from different locations (real or simulated).

       The program reuses many ideas behind the other famous proxy, its
       predecessor apt-cacher 1.x (which has been written in Perl). In
       contrast to apt-cacher, different aspects have been declared as
       primary targets during the development of apt-cacher-ng:

        -  lightweight implementation - allow use on systems with low
           memory and processing resources

        -  internal (native) threading - avoiding process fork'ing wherever
           possible, avoiding kludges for pseudo-thread synchronization,
           avoiding relying on special file system features for internal
           operations where possible

        -  real (effective) support of HTTP pipelining, using an internal
           client with native stream control (having the nice side effect:
           reduction of resource overhead and minimization of possible
           points of failure)

        -  avoiding featuritis where they cause too much bloat and the
           functionality can be provided by native OS features

        -  reliable but efficient content merging in the local package
           pool, avoiding delivering of wrong data.

       As with apt-cacher, explicit tracking of dynamically changed
       and unchanged files is established, and the use in non-Debian
       environment is supported.

       Long story: Not all goals have been achieved. The initial plan of
       using background databases to merge any download from any arbitrary
       location has been dropped because of complexity and performance
       considerations, reliable heuristics could not be found either.
       Instead, a semi-automated solution has been created which used
       machine-parsable files with mirror information, like the one
       available for Debian mirrors in Debian's CVS repository.

Chapter 2: Running apt-cacher-ng
--------------------------------

       Run "build/apt-cacher-ng -c conf" when configured where conf is the
       configuration directory. See section 4.2 for details on possible and
       required contents of this directory.

       Most options from the configuration file can also be passed through
       command line parameters. Just append them with the same format as in
       the configuration file but without separating spaces inside, e.g.

         Port:4855 ForeGround=1

       For convenience, the colon can also be replaced with the equals sign
       and letter case does not matter, so this is also possible:

         port=4855 foreground:1.

Chapter 3: Basic Configuration
------------------------------

   3.1 Server Configuration

       Unlike some rumors on the internet claim, there should be no need
       for exhausting configuration work to just test apt-cacher-ng and run
       it with default parameters. It's actually designed to bootstrap most
       of its working environment without additional help.

       The package setup scripts used by distributions should already
       prepare working initial settings for apt-cacher-ng. Check the
       file `/etc/apt-cacher-ng/acng.conf' file where most settings are
       explained. For the beginning they should not be changed, the only
       interesting setting present there is the TCP port. See Advanced
       Server Configuration for details.

       There is also a daily cron job which executes some maintenance work.
       Additional automated control commands can be added by administrator.

   3.2 Client Configuration

       From the client side, apt-cacher-ng can be used as a drop-in
       replacement for apt-cacher. The same rules apply, e.g. Debian/Ubuntu
       users should EITHER:

        -  Specify the caching machine as HTTP Proxy for APT, e.g.
           putting a line like the following into a file like
           /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/02proxy:

             Acquire::http { Proxy "http://CacheServerIp:3142"; };

       OR:

        -  Replace all mirror hostnames with cachinghost/hostname in
           sources.list, so

             deb http://ftp.uni-kl.de/debian etch main

           should now become:

             deb http://192.168.0.17:3142/ftp.uni-kl.de/debian etch main

        (assuming that CacheServerIp is 192.168.0.17 and the service port
       is 3142) .

       Mixing both configuration methods is not recommended and will lead
       to obscure APT failures in most cases.

       Additionally, leading path component containing "apt-cacher/"
       or "apt-cacher?/" might be ignored by the server during the URL
       processing. This is intended behavior and exists to maintain
       backwards compatibility to sources.list entries configured for early
       versions of Apt-Cacher (based on CGI technology).

Chapter 4: Advanced Server Configuration
----------------------------------------

   4.1 Vocabulary

       This chapter introduces some terminology which is needed to
       understand the functionality of apt-cacher-ng; it's recommended to
       understand it before continuing with the advanced configuration.

        -  "Backend": a text file consisting of a list of mirror URLs, one
           per line (a more complex RFC822-like format is also supported).
           Used for URL remapping; see section 4.3.

        -  "Volatile files": nothing to do with debian-volatile, volatile
           here only means that they are volatile, i.e. their contents are
           expected to be regularly changed on the server. For example,
           metadata pertaining to package files stored in a remote archive
           is classified as 'volatile'. They are usually 'index files'
           known as Packages, Sources, Release, Pdiff and the like.

        -  "Package files": files that contain software packages and other
           "solid" data: DEBs, source files for their creation (.tar.gz,
           .diff, .dsc), various metadata which is not subject to change
           after first appearance on the server.

        -  "Configuration line": one single line in the configuration file.
           Some examples in this chapter may contain wrapped lines but
           should be stored as a single line in the configuration.

   4.2 Configuration file types

       By default, the /etc/apt-cacher-ng directory (or the one specified
       with program options) contains all config files, HTML page
       templates, the stylesheet and other text-based support files used by
       apt-cacher-ng. The contents may vary depending on the installation
       of apt-cacher-ng, refer to the package documentation for Linux
       Distribution packages.

       There are a few certain file types distinguished by apt-cacher-ng:

        1. Main configuration files:

           *.conf files are assumed to contain configuration directives
           in the form of "key: value" pairs. The package comes with a
           commented example configuration file. apt-cacher-ng reads all
           files matching *.conf in alphabetical order and merges the
           contents. For options documentation, see commented example file
           shipped with apt-cacher-ng (conf/ directory in original source).

           For security reasons, the files can be made readable only to
           the daemon and administorator accounts, e.g. when they contain
           passwords or other sensitive data.

        2. URL lists and remote repository list files. The file names
           are arbitrary, no special suffix is required. They are read
           and included during processing of configuration files and can
           contain data in one of the following formats:

            -  simple text files with one URL per line (the URL should
               point to the base directory of the repository, e.g.
               "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/"). A URL must start with
               http:// and should end with a slash

            -  an RFC822-like format, with lines like 'Site: <hostname>'
               and 'Archive-http: /base/directory/of/repository/'. Optional
               fields are also used in this remapping descriptions to add
               more possible variants (Alias, Aliases, X-Archive-http:) of
               the URLs to the lookup list

        3. Various support files used for the configuration web interface,
           named like *.css and *.html.

        4. *.default files are used in some rare cases as replacement for
           list files having the same name without .default suffix.

        5. *.hooks files specify custom actions which can be executed upon
           connection/disconnection (see section 4.3.2 for details).

       Except from .conf files, most files listed above can be moved to
       another "support" directory and the daemon will look for them
       therein if they are not present in the primary configuration
       directory. This feature is intended to help keeping pure
       configuration data and mostly static data in different locations.
       The directory path is specified at build time and can be overriden
       with the  SupportDir  directive (and if used, this should be set as
       early as possible).

   4.3 Repositories and URL mapping

       With the most simple configuration, apt-cacher-ng will act almost
       like an ordinary HTTP proxy with improved caching behaviour. When
       files are requested, they are downloaded from a remote location
       specified in client's request and are stored in a unique way.

       However, for some use cases it can be beneficial to specify
       additional rules to achieve further improvements, e.g. in order to
       detect and prevent avoidable downloads, to reduce space requirements
       for the cache directory or simply hide real download locations from
       the APT clients.

       These modifications are generally achieved by two strategies,
       `Merging' and `Redirection', which are configured in a context of a
       specified cache `Repository'. The configuration for them is created
       using one or multiple Remap-... configuration directives (see
       below).

        Merging: 

       "Merging" of incoming requests can be done if some subdirectories of
       different remote servers are considered equal where the last part of
       the remote file path leads to the same file content. When specified,
       the internal cache content is shared and the live download stream
       is shared. The configuration work consists of setting an "equality
       list" containing a set of URLs representing the base directories
       (like `http://ftp.debian.org/debian' and `http://ftp.uni-
       kl.de/pub/linux/debian').

        Redirection: 

       With redirection, client requests cause a download from a remote
       location which is different from what clients requested and believe
       to receive from. Redirection is an optional feature; if used, it's
       configured by one or multiple URL(s) pointing to target servers. The
       URL(s) must include a directory spec which matches the directory
       level of the URLs in the `Merging' URL(s), for example all ending
       with /ubuntu/ for usual Ubuntu mirror URLs. If redirection is not
       used (i.e. the target URL list is empty) the original URL from
       client's request is used to get the data.

        Repository: 

       A (cache) repository is the internal identifier which declares the
       scope in which `Merging/Redirection' specs are applied. It also
       represents the name of an internal cache subdirectory.

 4.3.1 Writing Remap-... configuration

       When use cases for merging/redirection are identified and a
       repository name is chosen, these components are written into
       configuration directives starting with Remap- which follow the
       simple syntax:

       Remap-`RepositoryName': `MergingURLs' ; `TargetURLs' ;
       `OptionalFlags'

       The repository name is a symbolic name which should be chosen
       carefully and should not be changed afterwards, otherwise the
       data might become inaccessible for clients until the files are
       extracted and reimported semi-manually. Internally, this string
       shares the namespace with host names and/or top directory names
       of other URLs. Name collisions can cause nasty side effects and
       should be avoided. Recommended names are made up from alphanumeric
       or URL-friendly characters. Also, a repository name should not be
       associated to a real hostname. Examples for good names: `archlinux-
       repo', `debianlocal'. Examples for bad names: `fedora.example.com',
       `_very&weird'.

       The `TargetURLs' part is optional (see `Redirection' description
       above). If multiple targets are specified, the order of servers here
       defines their order of preference (see also the `NetworkTimeout'
       option and additional notes below).

       Both URL lists simply contain URLs separated by spaces. The
       strings must be properly URL-encoded. Since all URLs are assumed
       to belong to http:// protocol and point to a remote directory, the
       `http://' protocol prefix and trailing slashes are optional. There
       is no hard limit to the number of URLs. However, for readability
       reasons it's recommended to put them into separate list files (see
       section 4.2) and specify the particular list files with tags like
       `file:urlsDebian.list' instead of writing them into a single line.
       Raw URLs and `file:...' lists can be mixed.

       Fully configured Remap lines can look like:

        Example I: 

       Remap-
       debrep: ftp.de.debian.org/debian http://ftp.at.debian.org/debian

       for the use case: small home network, clients have de... or at...
       servers in their sources.list files and use acng as HTTP proxy. Now
       the files are still downloaded from at... or de... mirrors depending
       on the user request, but already cached data is served to both,
       at... and de... users.

        Example II: 

       Remap-
       ubuntu: file:ubumir.lst ; 192.168.17.23/pu ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu

       for the use case: small home network, clients have various Ubuntu
       mirrors (which are listed in ubumir.lst) in their sources.list files
       and use acng as HTTP proxy. All requests are redirected to a mirror
       in the /pu directory of some local machine. When that machine is
       down, Canadian public server is used instead.

 4.3.2 Special tricks and additional notes

       There are some implementation details (partially explained above)
       and some configuration options related to repository settings which
       should be mentioned explicitly.

       The internal cache directory tree follows the URL requests from
       the clients unless modified by Remapping rules. For proxy-
       style configuration on the user side, it is always the hostname
       of the requested URL. But if clients access the apt-cacher-
       ng server like a regular mirror (not using APT's proxy config)
       then it's just passed as regular directory name. And at this
       point, it's possible to use Remapping constructs to access
       random remote locations while the client assumes to download
       from a subdirectory of apt-cacher-ng (as http server). This is
       configured by simply using /some/directory/string/ instead of
       URLs in the `Merging' list to let your clients download from
       http://acngserver/some/directory/string/... paths.

       If multiple Remap- lines for the same `Repository' are specified,
       the contents of both URL lists are merged.

       On some restricted networks, it may be needed to enforce the use
       of predefined mirrors. If the `ForceManaged' option is set, only
       requests to URL matched in some Remap-... config is allowed.

       Sometimes, it may be needed to execute a system command before
       connection to certain machines is established. This is possible by
       associating commands with a repository declaration, i.e. by storing
       a file named like `repositoryname'.hooks in the main configuration
       directory. It can contain PreUp, Down and DownTimeout settings.
       PreUp/Down are executed by the system shell and it's up to the
       administrator to make sure that no malicious code is contained there
       and that the execution of these commands does not cause significant
       delays for other apt-cacher-ng users. See package documentation for
       an exemplary hooks file.

       If the Redirection part contains multiple URLs, the server prefers
       to use them in the order of appearance. On success, the first
       target is used all the time, and so this should be the preferred
       mirror (note: "success" means getting a started download or a non-
       critical failure in this context. A "404 File not found" status
       is not considered critical since client's apt can expect and use
       it to check the existence of remote files and then change its own
       behaviour accordingly).

       And finally, there is an optional third field in the `Remap'
       directives which can contain extra flags to modify downloading
       behavior in the scope of that particular cache repository.

        -  `keyfile=...' The meaning of this setting is: if any real
           download error (status code 400 and higher) happens on a file
           which path ends with the specified string then the target server
           is blacklisted (considered faulty) immediately and this download
           (and subsequent ones requested by this client connection) are
           retried from other servers (see `TargetURLs' description above).
           Can be used multiple times to define a list. See below for
           documented example.

        -  `deltasrc=URL' Configures the base URL used to download
           .debdelta files. The path hierarchy below this URL should
           correspond to the source URLs and file paths in the cache. Only
           one URL can be specified at the moment. It is used for explicit
           mirroring operations, see section 8.13 for details.

        -  `proxy=proxyspec' Configures an alternative proxy URL which
           overrides the global proxy setting in the context of this
           repository. Can be set empty to disable proxy usage.

       Config example:

         Remap-debrep: file:deb_mirror*.gz ; file:backends_debian ;
            keyfile=Release keyfile=.deb

       If the first mirror from backends_debian goes wild and returns 404
       responses for everything then the next candidate will be used.
       However, while this feature can improve redundancy for certain
       installations it needs to be used with care! Some file types are
       allowed to be missing and apt interprets their absence to change its
       behavior as needed. keyfile= should only match files which have an
       essential role and which disappearance is undoubtful indication of a
       broken server.

Chapter 5: Security
-------------------

       Like many data storing daemons with predictable filenames, apt-
       cacher-ng is vulnerable to symlink attacks and similar malicious
       actions. Therefore, the user must make sure that the cache and log
       directories are writable only to the user account under which apt-
       cacher-ng is running.

       General network access control can be established with operating
       system's facilities in kernel space (see below) or in user space
       (e.g. with inetd, see section 5.3). There is also experimental
       built-in access filter feature which uses the TCP Wrapper library
       for filtering (i.e. uses the same mechanism as tcpd). See section
       5.2 for details.

       As to the program's internal security, apt-cacher-ng has been
       developed with concern about a certain grade of attacks from
       internal users as well as from malicious external hosts. However,
       no guarantees can be made about the security of the program. It is
       recommended to run apt-cacher-ng under a dedicated system account
       which has no write access to any files outside of the cache and log
       directories. Refer to the manuals of the administration utilities
       of the system distribution (like start-stop-daemon) to create the
       required configuration.

       If relaxed permissions are required, e.g. to make files group-
       writeable, this can be established through the appropriate use
       of umask command in the startup scripts of apt-cacher-ng (see
       `/etc/default/apt-cacher-ng', for example) and the sticky bit on the
       cache directories (see `chmod(1)' manpage for details). However,
       write permissions should be assigned very carefully because that
       may make the server vulnerable to symlink attacks and like-minded
       activities.

       The management web interface which allows execution of certain
       operations can be protected by HTTP credentials (username/password).
       The trust levels for most actions depend on their purpose. Those
       which should never be able to destroy important local files can be
       triggered by anyone if no password is set. And on the other hand,
       some operations are considered dangerous and can only be accessed
       when the admin password is configured and was entered correctly.

   5.1 Access control by IP interface

       A simple control method for incoming connections is listening only
       to network interfaces which are inside a secure perimeter, e.g.
       belong to the local network. See section 8.10 for details on this
       configuration parameter. The default setting is listening to all
       interfaces.

   5.2 Access control with libwrap

       If the access control with operating system's ip filters is not
       possible, the embedded filtering might be using instead. It is
       turned on if the feature is included at build time and the `UseWrap'
       option is set to non-zero. If `UseWrap' is not set at all, it might
       be enabled implicitly if the hosts.allow or hosts.deny files have
       rules for apt-cacher-ng.

       For more information about host access list creation, refer to
       hosts_access(5) manual page (or manual pages for hosts.allow and
       hosts.deny).

       The libwrap filtering method has a little drawback compared to
       alternatives. The host checks are called in single-threaded context
       and can add some lag for other incoming connections.

   5.3 Access control with inetd

       In some situations, access filtering by client IP/hostname might
       be not supported directly or there are other reasons to use inetd
       to wrap access to apt-cacher inetd. For this case, an inetd daemon
       is shipped with the package which makes the use of tcpd possible.
       Installation is done in following steps:

       1. compile the inetd bridge tool "in.acng", if not already done
       (check `/usr/lib/apt-cacher-ng').

       2. Edit apt-cacher-ng's configuration (acng.conf, for example), and
       set a path for a new file in a writable directory, like this:

       `SocketPath:/var/run/apt-cacher-ng/socket'

       3. Edit /etc/inetd.conf and add following line with appropriate path
       names and TCP port:

         3143  stream  tcp nowait  user /usr/sbin/tcpd 
                 /usr/local/sbin/in.acng /var/run/apt-cacher-ng/socket

       4. Edit hosts.allow and other files to configure ACLs for port 3143.
       See tcpd(8) and related manpages for further details.

       5. Configure clients to use the alternative port (3143 in the
       example above).

   5.4 Access control with iptables

       Looking at performance, the most efficient way to estables access
       control by source IP is the use of system's native mechanisms. For
       the Linux kernel, it can be created with iptables rules like in the
       following example, usually stored in system's firewall setup script
       (or any init script like `/etc/rc.local'):

         iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3142 --source 127.0.0.0/8 -j ACCEPT
         iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3142 --source 192.168.0.0.0/16 -j ACCEPT
         iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3142  -j REJECT --reject-with tcp-reset

   5.5 Target port filter

       In the default configuration,  apt-cacher-ng  restricts the choice
       of the target port on the remote mirror to the default HTTP port
       (80). This is intended to prevent creation of HTTP tunnels and
       similar malicious user activities.

       Cache administrator can define an own list of allowed ports by
       setting them as (space separated) list with the AllowUserPorts
       configuration directive.

       Alternatively, access to custom TCP ports can be established through
       custom remapping specification.

Chapter 6: Distribution specific instructions
---------------------------------------------

   6.1 Debian and Ubuntu

       Use as is. Report bugs using reportbug (Debian) or to Launchpad
       (Ubuntu).

   6.2 OpenSUSE

       Server can be used as is with limited expiration (see below, and see
       `INSTALL' file for compilation hints). The merging mode (multiple
       servers mapped into the same repository) is not preconfigured in the
       example configuration. This is object to research, competent support
       is required.

       Clients can configure apt-cacher-ng as central proxy in Yast
       ("Network devices"/"Proxy" tab). If this is not desirable then each
       sofware source can be edited to be redirected through the server.
       This can be done in the Software Installer view of Yast2, see menu
       Configuration/Repositories. To edit them quickly, switch to URL
       editing mode and insert `host:port/' (of the apt-cacher-ng server)
       between `http://' and the source server name.

   6.3 Fedora Core

       Attempts to add apt-cacher-ng support ended up in pain and the
       author lost any motivation in further research on this subject.

   6.4 Arch Linux

       Mostly usable. The mirror structure design has been identified by
       trial-and-error and the regular expressions might need some tuning
       by experts.

       The installer seems to have no way to specify a dedicated proxy but
       it's possible to edit the source URL and insert the `host:port/'
       part into it. The pacman mirror list can be modified the same way.

       Expiration code should work in the basic mode (index data is
       extracted from *.db.tar.gz files). File checksum checking mode
       might also work (untested). The example configuration contains a
       preconfigured list of mirrors which can be rebuilt with the Makefile
       if needed. The preferred backend server can be specified like with
       other distributions (see above for details).

   6.5 Sourceforge mirror network

       Not a Linux distro but commonly used by those to download certain
       files. Therefore most mirrors can get unified access cache sharing
       the files in the same cache repository. Some .exe files there are
       never expired.

   6.6 Cygwin mirrors

       While not being a pure Linux distro it's mostly GNU and has a nice
       mirror setup. Proxy server can be used as is with limited expiration
       (see below). Apt-cacher-ng can also be compiled and used on Windows
       machines in Cygwin environment (see `INSTALL' file for details).

       Clients need to specify the server as HTTP proxy in the setup.exe
       wizard, only HTTP mirrors should be selected in the mirror list.

   6.7 Limited expiration

       The expiration code for Non-Debian/Ubuntu repositories is quite
       limited due to lack of man-power or know-how. For some distros,
       the support is limited to checks of the filename and no further
       validation is supported. Therefore, the extra validation of path
       location or file contents should NOT be turned on when running
       expiration with data from that distros in the cache, because good
       data may be deleted in this case.

Chapter 7: Maintenance
----------------------

       There are few optional tasks that need to be executed by the
       administrator from time to time or during the initial configuration.

   7.1 Cache cleanup

       If a package is no longer downloadable by APT clients then its
       files are also not referenced in any index file and can be
       removed. This rule also applies to most volatile files from the
       distribution metadata. For example, Debian's Release file references
       some Packages and Sources files or Diff-Index file, and those do
       reference most other non-volatile files (binary packages, source
       packages, index diffs, ...).

 7.1.1 Manual expiration

       To run the cleanup action manually visit the report page in a
       browser and trigger the `Expiration' operation there.

       There are different flags configuring the parameters of this
       tracking described below. Usually just the filename is sufficient
       to consider a file in the cache as a valid (downloadable) file.
       This is ok in most cases but sometimes leads to false positives,
       i.e. when another repository in the cache refers to a file with the
       same name but the reference to the original location is gone. On
       the other hand there can be cases where the assignment to different
       repositories happened by mistake and administrator would like to
       merge repositories later on.

       For most files the checksum values are also provided in the index
       files and so the file contents can be validated as well. This
       requires reading of the whole cache archive to generate local
       checksums. It should also not be done when apt-cacher-ng is being
       used (file locking is not used here).

       Usually it's necessary to bring various index files
       (Release,Sources,Packages,Index) in sync with the repository. This
       is necessary because apt works around the whole file download by
       fetching small patches for the original file, and this mode of
       operation is not supported yet by apt-cacher-ng (and might still
       be unreliable). When this synchronization fails, the index files
       might be incomplete or obsolete or damaged, and they might no longer
       contain references to some files in the cache. Abortion of the
       cleanup process is advisable in this case.

       There is also a precaution mechanism designed to prevent the
       destruction of cache contents when some volatile index files have
       been lost temporarily. The results of cache examination are stored
       in a list with the date when the particular files became orphaned.
       The removals are only executed after few days (configurable, see
       configuration file) unless they are removed from this list in the
       meantime.

       Parameters of `Expiration':

        Skip header checks 

           By default, header description file of every package is opened
           and checked for bad data and for obvious inconsistencies (like
           local file being larger than specified by server). Which means
           opening reading a few kilobytes from disk for almost every file
           in the cache, and slightly degrades performance of the process.
           This option skips that basic checks.

        Stop cleanup on errors during index update step 

           Index files update is done first, on errors the expiration will
           be interrupted.

        Validate by file name AND file directory 

           This option can be used to remove distribution stages. Example:
           to remove "oldstable" one just needs to delete the "Release"
           files in the cache and run  Expiration  with this option two
           times. There are some issues with this mode operation, see above
           for details.

        Validate by file name AND file contents (through checksum) 

           Checking file size and contents where possible against the
           metadata in the index files. Note: future calls of Expiration
           process without this option will discard the results of this
           check and forget about corrupted files. Therefore, an action
           on this files needs to be done ASAP, like truncating them (see
           below) or removing via the removal operation (using the checkbox
           and the Delete button, see process output) or via the "Delete
           all unreferenced files" operation on the main control page.

        Force the download of index files 

           Sometimes it may be needed to redownload all index files,
           explicitly replacing the cached versions. This flag enables this
           behaviour.

        Purge unreferenced files after scan 

           Avoid the use of the orphan list and delete files instead.
           This option is dangerous and should not be used unless when
           absolutely no mistakes/problems can happen. Instead, it's
           possible to view the orphan list later and delete then (see
           control web interface).

        Truncate damaged files immediately 

           If a file has been identified as damaged, it will be truncated
           (file size reset to 0). Setting this option is a good compromise
           for debugging purposes compared to the simple deletion since it
           will keep the header files on the disk, for further analysis of
           the problem's cause.

        More verbosity 

           Shows more information, e.g. each scanned file when used with
           some of the other options. This might result in a very large
           HTML page, making the watching HTML browser very slow.

       In additional to the default scan run, there are some "Direct
       Action" buttons in the Web frontend. It's possible to see the
       temporary list of files that have been identified as orphaned
       (unreferenced), and it's possible to delete all files from that list
       immediately. To be used carefully!

 7.1.2 Automated cache cleanup

       A script called `expire-caller.pl' is shipped with the package. This
       script effectively implements a HTTP client which operates like a
       human would do when running the expiration manually (see above). It
       can also extract the operator password and unix socket file path
       from the local configuration file. On Debian installations it is
       called by the file `/etc/cron.daily/apt-cacher-ng' so it should
       run automatically as daily `cron' task. The results are usually
       not reported unless an error occurs, in which case some hints are
       written to the standard error output (i.e. sent in cron mails).

       The operator script can take some options from the environment,
       see below. The default operation mode is calling the expiration
       operation with default parameters and with credentials from local
       system's apt-cacher-ng installation. However, this can be changed
       with `ACNGREQ' variable.

       `DEBUG=1'

           If set to non-empty and not 0, the temporary HTML output is
           reported to the console. For debugging purposes only.

       `ACNGIP=10.0.1.3'

           The network address for remote connection may be guessed
           incorrectly by the operator script. This variable can specify
           an explicit target to connect to, e.g. the same IP as the one
           used by the clients (unless this network connection is somehow
           restricted in the local setup).

       `HOSTNAME=localOrPublicName'

           When an error occurs, the operator script most likely adds an
           URL to be opened for further investigation. The host name of
           in this URL can be customized, i.e. can be set to a public
           domain name representing the server as accessible from the
           administrator's machine.

       `ACNGREQ=cgiparameters'

           Override the auto-detected command parameters with a custom set.
           This is the part of a command URL from the management interface
           after the ? sign.

 7.1.3 Keeping latest versions of expired package files

       Sometimes it makes sense to keep a couple of versions of (Debian)
       packages even after they have been removed from remote source. It
       is possible to set an exceptional rule for package files which
       follow the naming and versioning scheme of .deb-packages. This extra
       handling is configured by the `KeepExtraVersions' options which
       tells how many of the top-latest versions shall be kept. The cache
       system needs the dpkg program and sufficient CPU power (depending on
       the option value).

   7.2 Removal of distribution releases

       Sometimes it's needed to remove all files from a distribution, i.e.
       when a new release became Stable and older package files are still
       lying around. In perfect conditions the reference tracking described
       above should take care of it and remove them soon.

       However, this solution will fail if the release files are still
       available on the server AND apt-cacher-ng learned their real
       location (i.e. the code name instead of not the release state name)
       and so they are refreshed during regular expiration.

       After all, if the old release is no longer used by local cache users
       then the extra disk usage becomes a problem. This problem will
       go away after many months when the old release files are finally
       deleted on the servers, then the package expiration will start
       complaining for some days (the expiration delay) and only then the
       finally unreferenced files will be removed.

       To speed up this process, the local administrator can remove the
       traces of the old distribution release from the archive. Either
       the top-level "Release" files, or even the whole index file trees
       relevant for certain releases.

       To make this task easier, a "brutal" script called distkill.pl is
       shipped with apt-cacher-ng. It runs interactively, it scans the
       package directory and presents an overview of index file trees
       assumed to represent distro releases. Then it provides a command
       promt to remove some immediately. The script should be used with
       extreme care! See section 8.2 for example of its output.

Chapter 8: HOWTOs and FAQ
-------------------------

   8.1 Package import

       Already existing packages can be imported into apt-cacher-ng's cache
       pool instead of downloading them. There are some restrictions:

        1. Don't try to import incomplete files. They will be refused since
           their contents cannot be checked against the archive metadata.

        2. If possible, don't import symbolic links. Even if doing so,
           they should not point to other files inside of the cache and
           especially not to other files under the `_import' directory.

       HOWTO:

        1. Make sure that apt-cacher-ng has valid index files in the cache.
           This is the tricky part. To get them right, a client needs to
           download them through apt-cacher-ng once. Therefore:

            1. Configure the server and one client before doing the import.
               See above for instructions.

            2. Run "apt-get update" on client(s) once to teach ACNG about
               remote locations of (volatile) index files. In some cases
               this is not sufficient. See the note on APT below for a
               workaround.

        2. Store copies of your .debs, .orig.tar.gz, ... somewhere in the
           `_import' subdirectory in the cache, ie. in `/var/cache/apt-
           cacher/_import/'. The files may be links or symlinks, does not
           matter. When done, apt-cacher will move those files to its own
           internal locations. Example:

             cd /var/cache
             mkdir apt-cacher-ng/_import
             cp -laf apt-proxy apt-cacher /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/_import
             chown -R apt-cacher-ng apt-cacher-ng/_import

        3. Visit the report page and trigger the import action there. Check
           the results, look for (red) error messages.

        4. Check the `_import' directory again. All files that could be
           identified as referenced by archive metadata should no longer
           be there if they have been successfully moved. If some files
           have been left behind, check whether the client can use them,
           i.e. with "apt-cache policy ..." and/or checking checksums
           with md5sum/sha1sum tools. Probably they are no longer needed
           by anyone and therefore apt-cacher-ng just left them behind.
           If no, follow the instructions in 1 or do similar things for
           your distribution and retry the import operation. Setting the
           verbosity flag (see checkbox on the command-and-control page)
           can also help to discover the reason for the refusal to import
           the particular files.

       NOTE: APT is pretty efficient on avoiding unneccessary downloads
       which can make a proxy blind to some relevant files. ACNG makes some
       attempts to guess the remote locations of missed (not downloaded)
       files but these heuristics may fail, especially on non-Debian
       systems. When some files are permanently ignored, check the process
       output for messages about the update of Packages/Sources files. When
       some relevant package sources are missing there, there is a brute-
       force method for Debian/Ubuntu users to force their download to the
       client side. To do that, run:

         rm /var/cache/apt/*cache.bin
         rm /var/lib/apt/lists/*Packages 
         rm /var/lib/apt/lists/*Sources

       on the client to purge APT's internal cache, and then rerun "apt-get
       update" there.

   8.2 Cache overview

       To get a basic overview of the cache contents, the distkill.pl
       script may be used. See section 7.2 for details and warnings.

         # /usr/lib/apt-cacher-ng/distkill.pl
         Scanning /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng, please wait...
         Found distributions:
         	1. testing (6 index files)
         	2. sid (63 index files)
         	3. etch-unikl (30 index files)
         	4. etch (30 index files)
         	5. experimental (505 index files)
         	6. lenny (57 index files)
         	7. unstable (918 index files)
         	8. stable (10 index files)
         
         WARNING: The removal action would wipe out whole directories containing
                  index files. Select d to see detailed list.
         
         Which distribution to remove? (Number, 0 to exit, d for details): d
         
         Directories to remove:
          1. testing: 
           /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/debrep/dists/testing 
          2. sid: 
           /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/localstuff/dists/sid 
           /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/debrep/dists/sid 
          4. etch: 
           /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/ftp.debian-unofficial.org/debian/dists/etch 
          5. experimental: 
           /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/debrep/dists/experimental 
          6. lenny: 
           /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/security.debian.org/dists/lenny 
           /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/debrep/dists/lenny 
          7. unstable: 
           /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/debrep/dists/unstable 
           /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/localstuff/debian/dists/unstable 
          8. stable: 
           /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/debrep/dists/stable 
         Found distributions:
         
         WARNING: The removal action would wipe out whole directories containing
                  index files. Select d to see detailed list.
         

   8.3 JIGDO usage

       It's possible to use apt-cacher-ng source with the jigdo-lite
       utility. There are some limitations, though:

        -  since many mirrors do not distribute the jigdo files (or even
           nothing from cdimage.debian.org at all), there is a high chance
           to be redirected to a such mirror when using the backend-mapped
           configuration. I.e. when user follows the official documentation
           and edits wgetOpts in the jigdo configuration, it will fail in
           many cases.

        -  apt-cacher-ng does not support .template files properly. They
           might be cached but will be expired (removed from cache), sooner
           or later.

       But it's possible to feed jigdo-lite with the package contents from
       your mirror. To do that, first start jigdo-lite as usual, something
       like:

       `jigdo-lite http://cdimage.debian.org/.../...-DVD-1.jigdo'

       When asked about Debian mirror, enter something like:

       `http://proxy.host:3142/ftp.de.debian.org/debian/'

       i.e. construct the same URL as present in usual apt-cacher-ng's
       user's sources.list.

       That's all, jigdo-lite will fetch the package files using apt-
       cacher-ng proxy.

   8.4 Avoid use of apt-cacher-ng for certain hosts

       Sometimes clients might need to access some remote side directly
       to do some non-file-transfer oriented work but still passing the
       data through configured apt-cacher-ng proxy. Such remote hosts
       can be marked for direct access in apt configuration, e.g. in
       `/etc/apt/apt.conf':

         Acquire::HTTP::Proxy::archive.example.org "DIRECT";
         //or Acquire::HTTP::Proxy::archive.example.org  "other.proxy:port"

   8.5 Avoid caching for certain domains or certain file types

       Sometimes clients to download through apt-cacher-ng but the data
       shall not be stored on the harddisk of the server. To get it, use
       the DontCache directive (see examples for details) to define such
       files.

   8.6 How to make big download series faster

       Symptom: A common situation is a periodic download of hundreds of
       files through apt-cacher-ng where just a half is present in the
       cache. Although caching works fine, there are visible delays on some
       files during the download.

       Possible cause and relief: the download from the real mirror gets
       interrupted while apt-cacher-ng delivers a set of files from the
       internal cache. While the connection is suspended, it times out and
       needs to be recreated when a miss occurs, i.e. apt-cacher-ng has to
       fetch more from the remote mirror. A workaround to this behaviour
       is simple, provided that the remote mirror can handle long request
       queues: set the pipelining depth to a very high value in apt.conf
       file or one of its replacement files in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/. With
       something like:

       `Acquire::http { Pipeline-Depth "200"; } '

       there is a higher chance to get the server connection "preheated"
       before a stall occurs.

   8.7 How to import DVDs or ISO images

       First, it should be clear what is needed to be done. In order to
       integrate the packages from a DVD or ISO image, read on in section
       8.8.

       The situation with ISO files import is complicated. They are not
       supported by the cache and there is also no expiration mode for
       them. The feature might be considered for addition in some future
       release of apt-cacher-ng.

       What is possible now is publishing a directory with ISO files using
       its web server mode, see `LocalDirs' config option for details.

   8.8 How to integrate DVDs or ISO image data

       Integrating package files from DVD or ISO images is not much
       different to the usual import operation, see above for instructions.

       One possible way to get files into the `_import' directory is simply
       mounting it there:

          mount -o loop /dev/cdrom /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng/_import

       After running the import operation, the disk can be umounted and
       removed.

       A possible variation is import via symlinks. This can make sense
       when the space consumption must be reduced and the ISO image should
       stay on the server for a long time. To achive this, the image should
       be mounted at some mount point outside of the `_import' directory,
       the state should be set permanently via an /etc/fstab entry (don't
       forget the loop option), then a symlink tree pointing to the
       mountpoint location should be created in the `_import' directory
       (something like `cp -as /mnt/image_sarge_01/pool /var/cache/apt-
       cacher-ng/_import'). The subsequent "import" operation should pick
       up the symlinks and keep them symlinks instead of making file
       copies.

   8.9 How to execute commands before and after going online?

       It is possible to configure custom commands which are executed
       before the internet connection attempt and after a certain period
       after closing the connection. The commands are bound to a remapping
       configuration and the config file is named after the name of that
       remapping config, like `debrep.hooks' for `Remap-debrep'. See
       section 4.3.2, `conf/*.hooks' and `/usr/share/doc/apt-cacher-
       ng/examples/*.hooks' files for details.

  8.10 Listen to only specific interfaces or IP protocols

       Unless configured explicitely, the server listens to any interface
       with IPv4 or IPv6 protocol. To disable some of this, use the
       `BindAddress' option. It should contain a list of IP adresseses
       associated with particular network interfaces, separated by space.
       When option is set then the server won't listen to addresses or
       protocols not included there.

       To limit to specific IP protocol, the address should only be present
       in the protocol specific syntax (like 192.0.43.10) will limit the
       use to the specific protocol.

       The usual wildcard addresses can also be used to match all
       interfaces configured for the specific protocol, like 0.0.0.0 for
       IPv4.

  8.11 How to avoid use of IPv4 (or IPv6) where possible?

       Usually, outgoing hosts are accessed by the protocol and with the
       target IP reported as the first candidate by operating system
       facilities (getaddrinfo). It is possible to change this behavior,
       i.e. to skip IPv6 or IPv4 versions or try IPv6 connection first
       and then use IPv4 as alternative (or vice versa). See option
        ConnectProto  in configuration examples.

  8.12 Use the proxy without storing all data twice

       There is a general use case where the data storing behavior of APT
       is not so fortunate. Imagine an old laptop with a slow and small
       harddisk but a modern network connection (i.e. Cardbus-attached WLAN
       card). But there is not enough space for APT to store the downloaded
       packages on the local disk, or not enough to perform the upgrade
       afterwards.

       A plausible workaround in this case are moving contents of
       /var/cache/apt/archives directory to a mounted NFS share and
       replacing the original directory with a symlink (or bind-mount to
       the mentioned share). However, this solution would transfer all data
       at least three times over network. Another plausible workaround
       might be the use of curlftpfs which would embedd a remote FTP share
       which then can be specified as file:// URL in sources.list. However,
       this solution won't work with a local HTTP proxy like apt-cacher-
       ng (and httpfs http://sourceforge.net/projects/httpfs/ is not an
       alternative because it works only with a single file per mount).

       As real alternative, apt-cacher-ng comes with an own implementation
       of a http file system called `acngfs'. It makes some assumptions of
       proxy's behaviour in order to emulate a real directory structure.
       Directories can be entered but not browsed (i.e. content listing
       is disallowed because of HTTP protocol limitations). Anyhow, this
       solution is good enough for APT. When it's checking the contents of
       the data source located on acngfs share, it reads the file contents
       of just the files required for the update which makes the apt-
       cacher-ng server download them on-the-fly.

       And finally, angfs usage can be optimized for local access. This
       works best if the proxy daemons runs on the same machine as acngfs
       and there are hundreds of packages to update while filesystem access
       costs are negligible. Here the cache directory can be specified in
       acngfs parameters, and then it gets files directly from the cache if
       they are completely downloaded and don't have volatile contents.

  8.13 Partial Mirroring

       It is possible to create a partial local mirror of a remote package
       repository. The method to do this is usually known as pre-caching. A
       such mirror would contain all files available to apt through `apt-
       cacher-ng', making the cache server suitable for pure off-line use.

       The config uses index files in the local cache in order to declare
       which remote files shall be mirrored. Choice of relevant files
       decides which branch, which architecture or which source tree is to
       be mirrored. For convenience, it's possible to use glob expressions
       to create semi-dynamic list. The format is shell-like and relative
       to cache directory, a shell running in the cache directory can be
       helpful to verify the correctness.

        Example: 

       PrecacheFor: debrep/dists/unstable/*/binary-amd64/Packages*

       PrecacheFor: emacs.naquadah.org/unstable/*

       Assuming that debrep repository is configured with proper remapping
       setup (see above), this would download all Debian packages listed
       for amd64 architecture in the unstable branch.

       There is also support for faster file update using deltas, see
       Debdelta for details. The delta_uri URL mentioned there needs to be
       added as deltasrc option, see section 4.3.2 for details.

       The operation is triggered using the web interface, various options
       or estimation mode can also be configured there. The CGI URL
       generated by the browser can be called with other clients to repeat
       this job, for example in a daily executed script. Another possible
       command line client can be the `expire-caller.pl' script shipped
       with this package (replacing the CGI parameters through environment,
       see section 7.1.2). For regular tools like wget or curl, remember
       the need of quotation and secrecy of user/password data - command
       calls might expose them to local users.

Chapter 9: Troubleshooting
--------------------------

   9.1 Debugging

       Preliminary meanings of Debug option settings are:

        -  0: No debug printing

        -  1: Log file buffers are flushed faster

        -  2: Some additional information appears within usual
           transfer/error logs

        -  4: extra debug information is written to apt-cacher.err (also
           enables lots of additional trace points when apt-cacher-ng
           binary is built with debug configuration, see section 9.5 for
           details)

       To combine that settings, add them (i.e. 7 enables all messages and
       log flushing)

       Getting HTTP headers from apt-get works like this:

         apt-get update -o Debug::Acquire::Http=true

   9.2 Problem: keeps delivering damaged files

       Even in this millennium, sometimes damaged files are downloaded from
       the server and are stored in the cache. Sometimes lazy maintainers
       of 3rd party archives replace package files with the same name
       but different contents. Sometimes the server's file system gets
       corrupted without detection by the OS.

       Anyhow, there might be cases where cached data becomes invalid.
       Volatile files might be replaced by fixed version on some future
       download but static package files are never changed upon completion
       and even incomplete downloads are resumed and keep bad data
       downloaded before.

       Usually the damage is only discovered by the client later. The
       particular file can be located in the cache and replaced manually.
       And if there are many of them, a mass file check might be needed to
       clean the mess. Fortunately, there are helpers in cache maintenance
       interface to automate this process.

       To start, visit the web control interface and check the options of
        Expiration  task. Enable the check for explicit paths and the check
       of data contents, then start the expiration. With this parameters,
       complete files with incorrect checksum are detected. The default
       action for such files is adding them to a list of damage files.
       After that, the "Delete damaged files" button in the main web page
       can be used to remove them (or the Show button to display them
       first). Alternatively, the checkboxes appearing aside of each damage
       detection can be used together with the control buttons which appear
       at the end of the report. And another way of dealing with them is
       truncating (setting to zero size). This can be done on-the-fly and
       is enabled by the expiration parameters, or with the appropriate
       command button in the web interface.

       NOTE: several index files and related support files can create false
       positives, i.e. as incomplete or bad files. This usually happens
       because their volatile contents has changed but the file was not
       downloaded for a while and another version of it was used instead
       (like bzip2-compressed instead of gzip-compressed or uncompressed).
       The default code attempts to detect files with good reasons to stay
       in the cache and does not mark them as damaged.

   9.3 Problem: regular expiration action reproducibly aborts

       A quick investigation of action logs should help identifying the
       problem. A typical one is a mirror listed somewhere which is not
       reachable when expiration runs.

       Unfortunately there is no simple and safe way to solve this. One
       method is setting the ExAbortOnProblems configuration variable, but
       this can destroy the whole cache if a bigger problem with index
       file occurs and this state remains unnoticed for many days until
       ExTreshold period (see configuration) is over.

       Another way is listing the index files of the faulty mirrors to
       a special file. It needs to be stored as "ignore_list" in the
       configuration directory and store one path name per line with paths
       relative to the cache directory, as seen in the error messages.

   9.4 Problem: download fails with 503 ... status message

       Code 503 usually represents an internal failure which could not be
       described correctly by other HTTP status codes. In the most cases
       it's caused by file system errors or incorrect cache directory
       setup, like files or directories with incorrect owner, missing
       write/read permissions for the effective user account or other
       system related exceptions like running out of disk space.

       The log file `apt-cacher.err' located in the `LogDir' directory
       should document more details. In case it doesn't, setting the
       `Debug' config option to a higher value might reveal more
       information.

       Fixing permission problems shouldn't be a real challenge for system
       administrators. Usually, a command set like this should do the trick
       on Debian/Ubuntu systems, assuming that all group users should
       receive write access to the cache files:

          chown -R apt-cacher-ng:apt-cacher-ng /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng
          chmod -R a+rX,g+rw,u+rw /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng

   9.5 Problem: `apt-get' freezes when downloading files

       Solution: First, check:

        -  Free disk space and inode usage (`df', `df -i')

        -  Internet connection to the remote sites (browse them via HTTP,
           e.g. visiting http://ftp.your.mirror)

       If nothing helps then you may have hit a spooky problem which
       is hard to track down. If you like, help the author on problem
       identification. To do that, do:

           su -
           # enter root password
           cd /tmp
           apt-get source apt-cacher-ng
           apt-get build-dep apt-cacher-ng
           cd apt-cacher-ng-*
           make distclean all DEBUG=1
           /etc/init.d/apt-cacher-ng stop
           ./apt-cacher-ng -c /etc/apt-cacher-ng logdir=/tmp foreground=1 debug=7
           # (let apt-get run now, on timeouts just wait >> 20 seconds)
           # stop the daemon with Ctrl-C
           /etc/init.d/apt-cacher-ng start
           # compress /tmp/apt-cacher.err and send it to author
           chown -R apt-cacher-ng:apt-cacher-ng /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng

       The value of debug can be varied to have different verbosity (see
       section 9.1 for more information about Debug levels).

   9.6 `apt-get' reports corrupted bzip2 data

       Symptoms: apt-get fails to run through "update" no matter what you
       do. And you may have get a message like this one.

         99% [6 Packages bzip2 0] [Waiting for headers] [Waiting for headers]
         bzip2: Data integrity error when decompressing.
                 Input file = (stdin), output file = (stdout)
         
         It is possible that the compressed file(s) have become corrupted.
         You can use the -tvv option to test integrity of such files.
         
         You can use the `bzip2recover' program to attempt to recover
         data from undamaged sections of corrupted files.
         
         Err http://debian.netcologne.de unstable/main Packages              
           Sub-process bzip2 returned an error code (2)

        -  This might be one of Apt's problem with insufficient handling
           of errors, i.e. passing incomplete files to bzip2 on premature
           connection termination. Retry the update and it might work.

        -  Another issue is more severe: old versions of apt-cacher-ng had
           a bug which could cause data corruption while resuming downloads
           however this problem appears only in unusual conditions. To
           make sure there are no broken files in your repository, run the
           Expiration task with content verification enabled, and also
           "immediate deletion" (or delete later after checking the list).
           See section 7.1.1 for details.

   9.7 Problem: `apt-cacher-ng' refuses to start with "Address already in
       use"

       Another service is already listening on the port which apt-cacher-ng
       is configured to use. This might be the apt-cacher daemon which used
       the same port number by default. To identify the daemon behind that
       process, use the fuser utility, executing it as root for IPv4 and
       IPv6 protocol versions. Example:

         fuser -4 -v -n tcp 3142
         fuser -6 -v -n tcp 3142
                             USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
         3142/tcp:           xwwwfsd   17914 F....  xwwwfsd

       (where 3142 is the port number from the apt-cacher-ng configuration
       file). To resolve the collision, reconfigure the other daemon or
       apt-cacher-ng to use another free port (and reconfigure the clients
       to use the new apt-cacher-ng port accordingly).

Chapter 10: Known Bugs and Limitations
--------------------------------------

        -  Versions between 0.2.6 and 0.3.3 created broken X-Original-
           Source URLs in the .head files. The effects should be
           negligible.

        -  Only the "Basic" type of HTTP proxy authentication is supported
           at the moment

        -  Only HTTP HEAD and GET commands are supported properly. POST
           support is limited to the calls made by apt-listbugs and might
           garble some requests.

        -  Transparent proxy mode not implemented yet

        -  The metadata update in maintenance jobs (like expiration task)
           attempts to guess the best source of update based on original
           source information and current backend configuration. In case of
           failure, run a "forced" download of index files through the web
           interface.

        -  See TODO file in apt-cacher-ng source for various other notes

Chapter 11: Contact
-------------------

       The planned features are listed in the file TODO. Don't hesitate to
       contact the author if you really need something not found there and
       you can explain the severity of your request.

       There is also a public mailing list and request trackers available
       on the Alioth project page.

       And last, but not least: feel free to express your gratitude by
       donating a small amount of money via PayPal (to edi@gmx.de).

[Eduard Bloch, Sat, 08 Oct 2011 23:18:17 +0200]
