[Bug 310262] Re: APT::Acquire::Retries only applies to archives and source files

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** Changed in: apt (Debian)
       Status: New => Fix Released

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/310262

Title:
  APT::Acquire::Retries only applies to archives and source files

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in apt package in Debian:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: apt

  The APT::Acquire::Retries configuration directive for apt only applies
  to source and archive, not the various index files (Packages, Release
  and friends).  Intuitively, you would think that it should, but it
  does not.  As far as I can tell, there is no other equivalent
  directive that would restrict the number of time apt should try to
  fetch an index case before it give up.

  This can trigger a relatively rare problem where apt would try to
  download the same index file again and again, forever until stopped,
  if the download systematically fail abruptly midway.  See LP #291748
  for such an example.  If apt is being run automatically in the
  background, this could end consuming a lot of bandwidth and hammer the
  archive pretty badly before someone notice.

  According to long-standing upstream Debian bug #119544, fixing this
  bug would be a relatively trivial code change, but would break the
  ABI.  As such, I would be curious to know if there is an ABI bump on
  apt roadmap; if yes, would it be possible to nominate this bug for the
  next major release of apt?

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