APT-SPY(8)						      System Manager's Manual							APT-SPY(8)

NAME

       apt-spy - program to generate a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/apt-spy.list file

SYNOPSIS

       apt-spy -d distribution	[ -a area ] [ -c config ] [ -e number ] [ -f file ] [ -i file ] [ -m mirror-list ] [ -o output-file ] [ -p proxy ]
       [ -s country-list ] [ -t time ] [ -u update-URL ] [ -w file ] [ -n number ] [ -h ] [ -v ] [ update ]

DESCRIPTION

       This manual page briefly documents the apt-spy command.

       apt-spy is a program that tests all  of	the  Debian  archive  mirrors  the  user  specifies  for  bandwith  and  writes,  by  default,	to
       /etc/apt/sources.list.d/apt-spy.list the fastest server.

       The user can select which of the many Debian sites to benchmark by geographical location.

       apt-spy	does  not  need  to be run by root if the user provides a configuration file, a place where to store the mirror list and an output
       file. See examples for more details.

OPTIONS

       -d distribution
	      Debian distribution to use. Sensible values would be `stable', `testing' or `unstable'. Distribution names can also be  used.   This
	      value is directly used in the generated sources.list, and is required unless updating.

       -a area
	      This  will  cause  only  servers	in  the specified area to be benchmarked.  By default, valid values for area are `Africa', `Asia',
	      `Europe', `North-America', `Oceania' and `South-America'.  It is very easy to define your own areas or subset of servers	to  bench-
	      mark.  For further details see apt-spy.conf(5).

       -c config
	      configuration file to use instead of /etc/apt-spy.conf.

       -e number
	      `early finish'.  Stop benchmarking after number of servers have been completed.  Act as if all servers were benchmarked upon comple-
	      tion.

       -f file
	      file to grab from the Debian servers.  By default apt-spy will test the servers by getting part of the `ls-lR' file in the  base	of
	      the Debian tree on the mirror.  This tells apt-spy to get file instead.  It is assumed that this file is also relative to the Debian
	      base directory.

       -i file
	      use file as input for apt-spy.  You should generate this input file using the -w option.

       -m mirror-list
	      where to load the mirrors list from or where to save it to.  The	default  location  is  /var/lib/apt-spy/mirrors.txt.   Using  this
	      option allows you to specify a different location.  When updating, this defines where the updated mirrors list will be saved.

       -o output-file
	      location for the new sources.list.  By default the new file is created as /etc/apt/sources.list.

       -p proxy
	      use proxy as a proxy server.  This should be specified as `hostname:port'.

       -s country-list
	      A comma-separated list of countries to benchmark. At the moment, this cannot be used with the "area" option.

       -t time
	      how  long (approximately) in seconds to download for.  By default time is 15 seconds.  How long the benchmark actually downloads for
	      varies due to the way libcurl works.  With the default 15 seconds, the benchmark generally takes beween 10  and  25  seconds.   Each
	      server  has  potentially two protocols (ftp and http) so roughly one minute per server would be a reasonable estimate of how long it
	      should take.  Be aware that this does vary considerably, and that benchmarking any more than a very few servers  takes  considerable
	      time (possibly several hours for `-a All').

       -u update-URL
	      specify custom URL to get an updated mirrors list from.  This can be http, ftp, file, or any other URL type supported by libcurl.

       -w file
	      write a number of top servers to file in a format suitable for use with the -i option. The number of servers to output can be speci-
	      fied with the -n option, and defaults to 5.

       -n number
	      the number of top servers to write with the -w option.

       update connect to http.us.debian.org and download the mirror list to /var/lib/apt-spy/mirrors.txt. The -u or -m	options  may  be  used	to
	      respectively specify a different URL for the mirrors list or a different location for the downloaded file.

       -v     output a version number.

       -h     print a short usage message.

EXAMPLES

       Non root usage:

       apt-spy -d stable -a Europe -m ./mirror.txt -o apt-spy.list -c apt-spy.conf

       Above  command tests European mirrors for stable Debian release saving http://http.us.debian.org/debian/README.mirrors.txt into mirror.txt,
       writing source file into apt-spy.list using configuration from apt-spy.conf. Note that not root users need to specified all  these  parame-
       ters.

       Updating mirror list file:

       apt-spy update

       Creating the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/apt-spy.list file:

       apt-spy -d stable

SEE ALSO

       sources.list(5), apt-spy.conf(5), apt(8).

AUTHOR

       apt-spy and this manual page was written by Steven Holmes <steg@bsdeviant.org> and updated by Stefano Canepa <sc@linux.it>.

       The original version of apt-spy was written by Danny Rodriguez <messiah@optonline.net>.

       This version is a total rewrite.

								17th December, 2011							APT-SPY(8)