Disconnected Update
Written 10 Mar 2004
Here is what I want: a way to use a single machine to keep several disconnected Debian machines updated. Due to a change in circumstances we had to kill our Internet account. Unfortunately (for me), I'm a big fan of Debian, using it on half a dozen machines scattered among my house and several businesses. At home I have two workstations and a sever, all using the Unstable branch. Now I'm trying to devise a way to keep each updated
Each computer shares common software, and has unique software. For example, the server has PHP4 installed while two workstations have KDE 3.2 installed. I have access to one machine connected to the Internet: at work, menaing anything I download needs transferred to CD and brought home. What I want to do is use this single machine to automatically download the newest versions of the software, but keep it separate from what is installed on that machine.
Already I use cron-apt to keep this machine updated. If possible I want to use cron-apt to do the downloads. What I thought of doing is setting up either a CHROOT or UML "partition" to manage all of this. Trouble is I'm not quite certain where to start, apt-wise, once the partition is in place.
Searching the mailing lists finds recommendations for apt-proxy, but that doesn't seem to cover the case I want. If I have to write/devise my own method I will, but I'm hoping to find something that already exists.