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NAME

       acngfs - Virtual file system for use with apt-cacher-ng

SYNOPSIS

       acngfs BaseURL ProxyHost MountPoint [ -o FUSE Mount Options ]

DESCRIPTION

       acngfs  is  a FUSE based filesystem which represents files downloadable
       via HTTP as part of a local filesystem. It has been developed for  very
       specific  purposes  and  is  not  intended to be a general purpose HTTP
       filesystem.

       The main use case for acngfs is a situation where:

       +o      The files must not be stored on extra space on the user's system
              (e.g.  because  of  insufficient  disk space to make a temporary
              copy of downloaded files)

       +o      Local programs (e.g. apt, dpkg) need to read the packages from a
              local filesystem

       +o      When  reading,  certain  files  might  need  to  be  fetched  in
              background (or updated) and this process needs to  be  triggered
              somehow

       +o      Network  latency and speed are not relevant, e.g. accessing apt-
              cacher-ng   via   localhost   connection   (with   the   current
              implementation,  this  is  very  important  since  all  data  is
              transfered twice internally, for technical reasons).

       +o      The proxy service can work efficiently with  many  requests  for
              small data ranges (apt-cacher-ng, for example)

       +o      Pattern  matching on paths is sufficient to distinguish file and
              directory names

       Typical use may be to let apt/dpkg  use  package  file  like  they  are
       present  on  the local filesystem so there is no need to download them.
       In sources.list, the source appears as a file:/ type URL, like:

       deb file:/var/local/acngfs_debian unstable main contrib

       and the filesystem backend is prepared with a command like:

       /usr/lib/apt-cacher-ng/acngfs               http://ftp.uni-kl.de/debian
       localhost:3142 /var/local/acngfs_debian -o allow_root

OPTIONS

       The command-line options supported by acngfs are:

       BaseURL
              Remote    mirror    to    be   used   as   real   source,   like
              http://ftp2.de.debian.org/debian. NOTE: the mirror  subdirectory
              part  (like  debian) should be added either to BaseURL or to the
              path in sources.list, not to both.

       ProxyURL
              Complete or simplified host and port specification of the  proxy
              server, http://localhost:3142.

       mountpoint
              Directory representing the URL in the local filesytem.

       --help Print a help summary and additional FUSE application options

       FuseOptions
              Various  options  for  the  FUSE subsystem to control filesystem
              behaviour. See --help output and  FUSE  documentation  for  more
              details.

FILES

       /usr/lib/apt-cacher-ng/acngfs
              Executable binary documented in this manual page

NOTES

       Permissions of the files are important when using mounting when sharing
       data with other users (including root!). To mount as user and let  root
       use  the package management tools (apt, dpkg), one may need to use FUSE
       options like in the following example:

       acngfs http://ftp.uni-kl.de/debian http://localhost:3142  /mnt/misc  -o
       allow_root

       See   FUSE   documentation   for   details   about   file   permissions
       representation.

BUGS

       Software is still experimental, use at your own risk!

       There are natural limitations on capabilities of the FS:  no  directory
       reading   is  allowed  (only  descending),  permissions  of  files  are
       inherited from the mount point as  well  as  other  properties  of  the
       filesystem.

       Should  be  used with apt-cacher-ng version 0.2pre2 or newer; otherwise
       it will flood log files with many requests of small file chunks.

SEE ALSO

       apt-cacher-ng(8), fusermount(1)

       For more information on Apt-Cacher NG, read the User Manual  which  can
       be found either in the doc/pdf directory of the software source package
       or installed in the documentation directory of  apt-cacher-ng  by  your
       distribution.