Increasing the size limit for /var/cache/apt/archives

Question

I have 2 systems running Debian at home and I am trying to minimize the bandwidth use while upgrading the packages. How can I increase the size limit of the cache, so that I could just copy the packages over LAN? (currently they get removed too quickly)

Answer 1

To set the cache size for apt, you need to edit apt.conf. You can get information on how to configure it in man apt.conf. If it is not already present create it in /etc/apt/apt.conf or you may need to edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/70debconf file, please refer specific version's documentation.

Debian provides Cache-Limit option in APT Group in apt.conf. You can experiment with it.

man apt.conf says,

Cache-Limit
              APT  uses  a  fixed  size  memory mapped cache file to store the
              'available' information. This sets the size of that cache. 

So you need to put following line in apt.conf.

APT::Cache-Limit "cache_size" Put appropriate cache size in place.

Answer 2

You should consider using a separate caching proxy for your apt instances. apt-proxy is one tool you could try. Let that do the caching and prune the individual apt archives more aggressively.