NETSELECT-APT(1)					      General Commands Manual						  NETSELECT-APT(1)

NAME

       netselect-apt - create sources.list for the fastest Debian mirrors

SYNOPSIS

       netselect-apt [OPTIONS] [stable|testing|unstable|experimental|release_codename|sid]

DESCRIPTION

       netselect-apt automatically creates a sources.list file for using with apt for the specified distribution by downloading the list of Debian
       mirrors using wget choosing the fastest servers using netselect, and testing the valid servers using curl (if available). The  output  file
       is written to OUTFILE.

       The list of fastest servers is determined by checking through netselect, which servers responder faster to ICMP queries. In order to deter-
       mine if the servers are valid a connectiong using the specificied protocol (HTTP or FTP) is done using curl.

       If netselect is not installed setuid, then netselect-apt needs to run as an administrator user (i.e. root). This is only  required  because
       the network probes done by netselect requires these permissions. No changes are done to the system.

       If  -i  INFILE is passed netselect-apt uses that rather than downloading another copy to a temporary file. The file will be downloaded from
       http://www.debian.org/mirror/mirrors_full

OPTIONS

       stable|testing|unstable|experimental|release_codename|sid
	      Specify which distribution of Debian to use.  By default stable is used.

       -a, --arch ARCH
	      Use mirrors containing ARCH. By default the architecture of the current machine is used as reported by dpkg

       -s, --sources
	      While generating OUTFILE include also deb-src lines to use with ``apt-get source'' to obtain Debian source packages.

       -i, --infile INFILE
	      Use INFILE instead of downloading the mirror list to a temporary file. The file must be in the same format as mirrors_full.

       -o, --outfile OUTFILE
	      Use OUTFILE instead of sources.list.

       -n, --nonfree
	      Include also non-free section while generating OUTFILE.

       -f, --ftp
	      Use FTP mirrors instead of HTTP and generate OUTFILE accordingly.

       -O OPTIONS
	      The OPTIONS provided are added, verbatim, to netselect when it is run. Here you can provide a (quoted) list of  options  for  netse-
	      lect.

       -t, --tests hosts
	      Make a short list with the number of hosts provided and use that list to test for mirror validity.  By default 10 hosts are tested.

       -c, --country COUNTRY
	      Only  test the sites found under the country COUNTRY (the value can either be an ISO-3166 value or the full name of the language, in
	      English).  When this value is set the mirror list or the INFILE will be filtered and only the sites that are listed under the  given
	      country  will be tested. Note that restricting the search might not give the best results, as the "fastest" mirror might not even be
	      in the same country as the system the program is running in.

ENVIRONMENT

       WANT_SOURCES
	      setting this to 1 is equivalent to --sources

       WANT_NONFREE
	      setting this to 1 is equivalent to --nonfree

LIMITATIONS

       netselect-apt is unable to work with restricted environments in which network filtering is implemented as it relies on netselect being able
       to find a suitable mirror. To do this, the system where the script is run needs to have network visibility of the mirrors, as it will probe
       them using ICMP probes.

       netselect-apt is also unable to work in environments where HTTP or FTP network connections have to be done through  a  proxy  host,  as	it
       relies on being able to test the validity of the remote mirrors doing direct network connections to them.

       netselect-apt  will not check if the mirror it suggests as the "fastest" mirror is either valid or up-to-date. It is recommended that users
       that use this tool also validate that the mirrors suggested are official mirrors and are also current.

SEE ALSO

       netselect(1), wget(1), curl(1), apt(8), sources.list(5).

       For Debian GNU/Linux it is recommended that users review the official mirror list at http://www.debian.org/mirror/official as well  as  the
       mirror checker tool at http://mirror.debian.org/status.html (which provides information on the up-to-dateness status of mirrors)

AUTHOR

       Avery Pennarun <apenwarr@gmail.com>

       This  manual  page  and	program  have  been  also  enhanced  by  Filippo  Giunchedi  <filippo@esaurito.net>  and Javier Fernandez-Sanguino
       <jfs@debian.org>

DEBIAN
								   March 6, 2008						  NETSELECT-APT(1)