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Asked: 2014-09-27 17:57:55 +0800 CST

List multiple repositories under sources.list.d?

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Can I add multiple alternative repositories to a *.list file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d, so that, for a specified package, if the first repository is unavailable, apt-get will try to download the same package from the next repository in the list?

For example, could I create a file called /etc/apt/sources.list.d/games.list with the following content?...

deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu trusty-getdeb apps
deb http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu trusty-getdeb games

...so that, if http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu is down, will apt-get automatically try http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu?

apt

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I believe I have answered my own question:

    The behavior of apt-get with sources.list.d is to retrieve packages from the first available repository listed in a given *.list file.

    The repository archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu was conveniently down today, so I was able to perform the following experiment to validate this:

    1. I created a file called /etc/apt/sources.list.d/games.list with the following content:

      deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu trusty-getdeb apps

    2. Then I resynchronized the package index files from the sources:

      $ sudo apt-get update | grep getdeb
Hit http://archive.getdeb.net trusty-getdeb InRelease
Hit http://archive.getdeb.net trusty-getdeb/apps amd64 Packages
Hit http://archive.getdeb.net trusty-getdeb/apps i386 Packages
Ign http://archive.getdeb.net trusty-getdeb/apps Translation-en_US
Ign http://archive.getdeb.net trusty-getdeb/apps Translation-en

      I noticed that apt-get warned that it was ignoring (Ign) the repository. This is because apt-get got a 404 message that the URL was not available.

    3. Attempting to simulate installation of a package from this repository showed that the repository was indeed not available.

      $ sudo apt-get -s install warsow
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package warsow

    4. Then I edited /etc/apt/sources.list.d/games.list, adding a mirror repository that contains the same packages:

      deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu trusty-getdeb apps
deb http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu trusty-getdeb games

    5. As before, I resynchronized the package index files from the sources:

      $ sudo apt-get update | grep getdeb
Get:1 http://mirrors.dotsrc.org trusty-getdeb InRelease [8,131 B]
Hit http://archive.getdeb.net trusty-getdeb InRelease
Get:2 http://mirrors.dotsrc.org trusty-getdeb/games amd64 Packages [69.8 kB]
Hit http://archive.getdeb.net trusty-getdeb/apps amd64 Packages
Hit http://archive.getdeb.net trusty-getdeb/apps i386 Packages
Get:3 http://mirrors.dotsrc.org trusty-getdeb/games i386 Packages [71.5 kB]
Ign http://archive.getdeb.net trusty-getdeb/apps Translation-en_US
Ign http://archive.getdeb.net trusty-getdeb/apps Translation-en
Ign http://mirrors.dotsrc.org trusty-getdeb/games Translation-en_US
Ign http://mirrors.dotsrc.org trusty-getdeb/games Translation-en

      Surprisingly, apt-get warned that it was ignoring both of the repositories!

      A little Internet research revealed that apt-get displays an Ign warning if a repository is not available or if a package translation is not available. In the case of mirrors.dotsrc.org, the repository was up, but apt-get was requesting a translation from English to English, which obviously does not exist. So the Ign message for the new repository was not an error after all.

    6. When I attempted to simulate installation of the same package as before, with both repositories in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/games.list, apt-get did find the package.

      $ sudo apt-get -s install warsow
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  warsow-data
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  warsow warsow-data
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 24 not upgraded.
Inst warsow-data (1.51-1~getdeb2 GetDeb:14.04/trusty-getdeb [all])
Inst warsow (1.51-1~getdeb1 GetDeb:14.04/trusty-getdeb [amd64])
Conf warsow-data (1.51-1~getdeb2 GetDeb:14.04/trusty-getdeb [all])
Conf warsow (1.51-1~getdeb1 GetDeb:14.04/trusty-getdeb [amd64])

    7. Therefore, the behavior of apt-get with sources.list.d is to retrieve packages from the first available repository listed in a given *.list file.

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