Using apt on Etch connecting to an apt-proxy on Sarge causes trouble with .diff files

openlogo-nd-50.pngSay you have an installation of apt-proxy running on a Debian Sarge machine to serve files for apt on your other machines, then you will receive errors like this when issuing an apt-get update on an Etch machine: Error reading from server. Remote end closed connection.The reason is that Etch tries to download a file called Packages.diff which Sarge’s apt-proxy doesn’t know how to serve.

apt-proxy therefore log notes the following:

2007/02/09 10:10 CET [Channel,129,213.203.200.122] [debug] Request: GET /debian/dists/etch/main/binary-amd64/Packages.diff/Index
2007/02/09 10:10 CET [Channel,129,213.203.200.122] [debug] abort - unknown extension

Adding the following line to /etc/apt/apt.conf on your Etch machines will tell them not to download those files:

Acquire::PDiffs “false”;

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