walkthrough

Apt-Cacher-NG

Introduction

Install apt-cache-ng to cache packages for Debian’s apt-tool (Ubuntu too).

Steps

Preparations

Install the required software

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apt-cacher-ng

Operations

Server Machine

Setup a static IP address on server machine; in this guide I will use 192.168.1.100.

If you want you can use my minimal acng.conf file

sudo cp ./cfg/acng.conf /etc/apt-cacher-ng/acng.conf

You’d like to custom the settings below:

CacheDir: where packages will be stored
Port: the port on which the cacher will listen

In case you will change path settings like CacheDir, remember to change the ownership and permissions

sudo chown -R apt-cacher-ng:apt-cacher-ng /path/to/folder
sudo chmod -R 2755 /path/to/folder

To add a login to the acng-report’s functions, edit /etc/apt-cacher-ng/security.conf

sudo chmod 666 /etc/apt-cacher-ng/security.conf
sudo echo "AdminAuth: Username:Password" >> /etc/apt-cacher-ng/security.conf
sudo chmod 640 /etc/apt-cacher-ng/security.conf

Once everything is done, check that apt-cacher-ng is configured to start up on boot

sudo systemctl is-enabled apt-cacher-ng

If it is not

sudo systemctl enable apt-cacher-ng

And restart it

sudo systemctl restart apt-cacher-ng

Client Machine

Based on your apt-cache-ng network configurations:

Edit line 23 in detect-http-proxy: set yours apt-proxies’ IPs and ports in the format IP:PORT;
Edit line 3-4 in 00aptproxy: set yours apt-proxies’ IPs and ports in the format IP:PORT (even if they are commented);

I used the Server Machine’s IP with the default apt-cacher-ng’s port: 192.168.1.100:3142.

Copy scripts from cfg/ folder to the apt’s folder

sudo cp ./cfg/detect-http-proxy /etc/apt/detect-http-proxy
sudo chmod 755 /etc/apt/detect-http-proxy
sudo cp ./cfg/00aptproxy /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00aptproxy
sudo chmod 755 /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00aptproxy

Now when you’ll run the apt-get update or apt update commands, you will see

...
Proxy that will be used: http://192.168.1.100:3142
...

or in case of issues contacting the apt proxy server

...
No proxy will be used
...