repeated download of packages while running multiple updates

In order to save time and broad band (on both sides) while doing updates, I symlinked /var/cache/zypp/packages on all my machines to a directory on my fileserver, so I would download packages only once. It worked perfectly with 11.1. However 11.2 creates everytime a new directory with a random name, so that after running an update on 4 machines I end up with 4 directories (http-download.opensuse.org- followed by a 1 byte Hex value), all containing the same files. I might have overlooked the advantages of that method (provided there were any), but for now I only experience the inconvenients (and so do the openSUSE servers and consequently all of you). Other repos packages still land in their own directory (which doesn’t change).

I wish you all a happy new year full of penguins love and success !

please try again wrote:
> In order to save time and broad band (on both sides) while doing
> updates, I symlinked /var/cache/zypp/packages on all my machines to a
> directory on my fileserver, so I would download packages only once. It
> worked perfectly with 11.1. However 11.2 creates everytime a new
> directory with a random name, so that after running an update on 4
> machines I end up with 4 directories (http-download.opensuse.org-
> followed by a 1 byte Hex value), all containing the same files. I might
> have overlooked the advantages of that method (provided there were any),
> but for now I only experience the inconvenients (and so do the openSUSE
> servers and consequently all of you). Other repos packages still land in
> their own directory (which doesn’t change).

Does zypp use port 80 (html)? If so, maybe you could set up a squid
proxy server which would cache the updates, and serve them locally to
your hosts which could then name them anything they want…


Kevin Miller
Juneau, Alaska
http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
In a recent poll, seven out of ten hard drives preferred Linux.