Japt-Proxy 1.3

Japt-Proxy is a JAVA based Caching Proxy for Debians APT-System. Japt-Proxy is very reliable and lightning fast. Japt-Proxy is usually used in environments where several Debian systems have to be kept up-to-date without downloading the same files over and over again from the debian mirrors. Mostly these environments are data centers, Linux-powered companies, schools, public authorities and so on.
Often Japt-Proxy is used because of small sized internet connections but it is also useful to install complete debian systems over the net (read: over the proxy). Even with high volume internet connections Japt-Proxy can dramatically reduce the time to install or update Debian on many machines.
Why Java?
I know there are people out there thinking "Hey? Why Java?". There are a bunch of reasons why people asking those questions. I have a simple answer to all those questions. The answer is, that Java enabled me to easily develop the fastest and most reliable APT-Proxy. Java and the Apache Software Foundation provides such good libraries for this job, that it wasnt very hard to bring up this tool.
If you dont trust, test it - the installation takes less than five minutes!
Doesnt a general proxy server supersede an APT-Proxy?
No, it doesnt. Japt-Proxy knows the characteristics of a Debian archive and their files. It knows, for example, that .deb files wont change, because newer files would have a new name (the version is always part of the filename), hence it wont recheck if there is a newer version of this specific file.
Furthermore you can configure the Japt-Proxy to delete old versions of a package in its cache directory - a general proxy cache would simple delete files that havent been requested for some time.
So, a general caching proxy like Squid is a perfect tool for caching "normal" internet traffic. If you need a proxy for faster APT access - Japt-Proxy is the right tool for you.
Main features:
- Caching of all apt requests from Debian archives
- Multi-threaded architecture which increases the download speed enormously when several machines are requesting packages
- Builds up a partial mirror directory automatically, with exactly the same directory structure and filenames as the original mirror
- Automatic and configurable cache cleanup (purging packages in cache if newer versions exists)
- Makes sources.list configuration easier for multiple machines - if you change your internet backend server you only have to make the change once in Japt-Proxy, instead of on all Debian machines
- Works with multiple architectures
- Backend support for HTTP and FTP
- existing .debs can be copied into the Japt-Proxy cache directory (from a CD or DVD for example) and will be used by the Proxy automatically