Bug#550444: apt: Option to send "Pragma: no-cache" when downloading package index files and binary packages

[David Kalnischkies <kalnischkies+debian@gmail.com>]

Hi Nelson A. de Oliveira,

first of all: thanks for your report! :)

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 08:30, Nelson A. de Oliveira <naoliv@debian.org> wrote:
> Is it possible to add an option to send "Pragma: no-cache" when retrieving
> index files and binary packages (like wget's --no-cache), please?
I can't test it currently but the apt methods http and https include code
for generating a no-cache-header. The description is hidden in apt.conf
(only a very short sentence, so you need to know what you search for)
Snippet from apt.conf (in the Acquire-group, subsection http):
[...]
> Three settings are provided for cache control with HTTP/1.1 compliant
> proxy caches. No-Cache tells the proxy to not use its cached response under
> any circumstances, Max-Age is sent only for index files and tells the cache
> to refresh its object if it is older than the given number of seconds.
[...]

The option you need to set in a config file therefore should be:
Acquire::http::No-Cache "true";
// also the next one if you have https-archives
Acquire::https::No-Cache "true";

But try also the Max-Age option as this would be a more friendly option.

It would be great if you could test these options and report back
(+ closing the bug) if it works (and of course also if not).


Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

David "DonKult" Kalnischkies