[Gllug] local debian mirror?

[Chris Bell]

Hello,
   I have had a local partial Debian mirror running on apt-proxy for several
years. New installations alwys appeared to ignore the apt-proxy until after
the first re-boot, but it was useful for local updates, and building CD ISO
images using Jigdo. Then it started saving the Release and Release-gpg files
in its cache, but attempted to read the files held in /var/cache/apt without
the correct access permission, and failed repeatedly. There is a long list
of bug reports.
   I transferred all the files to apt-cacher, and I was then able to do a
fresh installation and any updates using the local cache as a proxy, as long

as apt-cacher has some kind of connection to the internet so that it can
check the Release and Release-gpg files and collect any later versions. If I
remove the internet connection it stops working, so I have been unable to
use it off-line. This may be a configuration error, but I have not seen any
option that might to affect this.
   I would like to be able to take a computer and ethernet mini-hub to a
site, plug in to local mains, and install on to some computers without
current access to a local internet connection. I usually need to install on
to ix86 series computers, but may need to install on IA64 or AMD64 (and
possibly other) architectures.
   I am not worried that updates may have been released within the last few
hours while my box was off line, although I may need files which have not
been accessed recently, it is just faster and more convenient than using
multiple DVDs or CDs, and more likely to have the latest files. Both
apt-proxy and apt-cacher automatically search for later files as they are
requested and update the cache from any server in a preference ordered list,
and there are other packages which claim to build a partial mirror, such as
apt-mirror, debmirror, and deb-partial, but is any recommended? Thanks for
any suggestions.

-- 
Chris Bell

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