DebTorrent

Debtorrent is exactly what it sounds like, a torrent method of retrieving deb packages.

Benefits

As the Nexenta user base grows, the demands for the central server as well as for more mirrors increase. With each user providing their own mirror of recently downloaded packages to other hosts around them, they only mirror what is used and mirroring is completely automatic.

Setting Up Debtorrent

make sure you have the nexenta contrib repository in /etc/apt/sources.list so you can install apt-transport-debtorrent:

/etc/apt/sources.list 

deb http:///apt.nexenta.org/ hardy-unstable main contrib

now install (using aptitude) the apt-transport-debtorrent package: 

# aptitude update
# aptitude install apt-transport-debtorrent

You may want to modify /etc/debtorrent/debtorrent-client.conf to suit your tastes but the defaults work just fine. For example, enabling IPv6 can be done here.

Now you have to modify your sources.list to use the debtorrent protocol. Simply replace instances of http:// with debtorrent://localhost:9988 or copy/paste the sources.list below:

/etc/apt/sources.list 

deb debtorrent://localhost:9988/apt.nexenta.org/ hardy-unstable main contrib non-free
deb-src debtorrent://localhost:9988/apt.nexenta.org/ hardy-unstable main contrib non-free

run update, and you are ready to grab packages via debtorrent! 

# aptitude update

Advanced Configuration

Imagine you have 20 Nexenta hosts (zones or otherwise) and you want to download/install packages quickly. Many of the packages are exactly the same so you decide to setup a single zone running the debtorrent client (as seen above). I will call this zone as "mystorr."

For all of your other clients, install apt-transport-debtorrent as usual but in the end, change the sources.list to reference mystorr instead of localhost:

/etc/apt/sources.list 

deb debtorrent://mystorr:9988/apt.nexenta.org/ hardy-unstable main contrib non-free
deb-src debtorrent://mystorr:9988/apt.nexenta.org/ hardy-unstable main contrib non-free

Now, all of your nodes will ask mystorr if it has the needed file. mystorr will retrieve the file if necessary and distribute it.

FAQ

  • How do I become a seed?
    • This is done automatically because you seed what you download.