How to use rsync protocol with apt?

[Karl Auer]

On Sat, 2020-10-24 at 15:45 +0300, Lyubomir Parvanov wrote:
> Hello, I tried changing http:// to rsync://, as my mirror supports
> that protocol. However, running apt update errors with "The method
> driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/rsync could not be found. Is the package
> apt-transport-rsync installed?". I have installed "rsync" package,
> but there is no "apt-transport-rsync" package in Ubuntu's repos.

There is one executable per actual real method in
/usr/lib/apt/methods.If you stick any random string "blah" in front of
your URIs, you will get an error about "apt-transport-blah" error.

There is no rsync transport method for apt by default. Read man
sources.list(5) to get the lowdown on available transport methods.

People have written other transports. Maybe someone has written an
rsync transport already, but a quick google didn't find one.

This blog discusses an S3 transport, and also talks about how it works.
It has enough info to get you started (including a fully working Python
implementation) if you want to implement your own transport:

https://www.lucidchart.com/techblog/2016/06/13/apt-transport-for-s3/

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer

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