Re: Bug#71722: apt: If connection to a host times out, don't try to fetch anything else from that host

["KORN Andras" <korn@chardonnay.math.bme.hu>]

On Fri, Sep 15, 2000 at 11:45:34AM -0600, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:

> > apt currently ignores unreachable hosts and tries to fetch various files
> > from them. I beleive it would be better if hosts that time out during an apt
> > session weren't retried for at least half an hour, or for the rest of the
> > apt session (could be customizable).
> Erm, it does always retry. Depending on how the host is down you will find
> that it retries in parallel with the downloading from the good host.

My specific problem was this: I have a fairly large sources.list file that
lists many Debian mirrors close to me, some of which, unfortunately, tend to
be down some of the time. An apt-get update takes _ages_ because apt will
try to download about twelve Packages files (debian main non-free contrib,
debian-non-US main non-free contrib, and the same for sources) from each
host, and each of these requests has to time out separately.

I suggest that apt remember which hosts were down and don't try to fetch
anything from them again for a specified amount of time or the rest of the
session. If this were implemented, I could refrain from manually commenting
out downed hosts from my sources.list file each time I run apt. :)

Andrew

-- 
            Andrew Korn (Korn Andras) <korn@chardonnay.math.bme.hu>
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