I think the last post will resolve the local space issues by setting synaptic package manager to purge the local cache after installing. Back this up for command line by placing the "clean" file in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/ along with the "01proxy" file to direct apt to the apt-cacher on each client machine.
So these solve much of what was being discussed. However the 'nice to have' would be something to un-cache packages that are over X (years, months) old. For example I still have one machine (the apt-cacher server as a matter of fact) that is Xubunt v8.04 so it still has packages from May of 2008 that exist in my /mnt/netshare2/apt-cacher/packages/ directory. A couple v8.10 machines still exist but the majority are now v9.04 or later. So, some of these older packages will never be accessed by any machine (eg. boinc-client_5.10.45-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb). The 'wish' would be an apt-cacher.conf option where I could say... purge anything in the cache that's, for example, over 2 years old. Since my apt-cache is out on a SAMBA'd 'netshare' software RAID mirrored drive I don't foresee it filling up in my lifetime and HDD space is dirt cheap nowdays... But still, it would be nice to free up the XXXMB of space those old packages are taking up in the cache for other things. What I would see it as would be something like: # Optional purging of packages from the cache by date, specified in either months OR years. # This should NOT be any short period of time or you are defeating the purpose of apt cacher. A purge time of 2 years might be typical / reasonable. #purge_months=240 #purge_years=2 Mark, Does this make any sense?
