On 26/01/2010 15:42, Tim Cutts wrote: > > On 26 Jan 2010, at 2:25 pm, Mark Burgess wrote: > >> >> This seems reasonable. I am spoiled using zypper which does this >> automatically. > > It's arguable that apt's separation of the two functions is sensible. I > have more than 2000 machines; and have already once been blacklisted by > one apt repository site for hammering their repository - this despite > the fact that I was going through a web proxy, but this site didn't like > even a couple of dozen checks a day from the web proxy! > > By having the functionality separate, you can have the update much less > frequent than you actually check whether the machine's packages are up > to date. That way, I limit the machines to getting update package lists > to only once a day, by using ifelapsed, but they can still use apt any > number of other times in the day without bothering the upstream sites > unnecessarily.
Agreed: the two functions should be kept separate, in my opinion. Interesting discussion :-) It is nice to be able to limit the frequency of updates (ie, via ifelapsed, if one has a separate promise in a "commands" section). I think it would also be nice to make the apt package_method from the standard library "self-sufficient", so that a simple call to it to upgrade packages will do aptitude update automatically. Of course, this feature, if added, must be able to be configured (to a maximum frequency, ie 3600 seconds) or disabled (for folks to use their own promise in "commands" section. Maybe two new parameters : package_list_update_command => "/usr/bin/aptitude update" package_list_update_ifelapsed => 60 ? Jonathan -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Clarke - jonat...@phillipoux.net -------------------------------------------------------------- Ldap Synchronization Connector (LSC) - http://lsc-project.org -------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Help-cfengine mailing list Help-cfengine@cfengine.org https://cfengine.org/mailman/listinfo/help-cfengine
