[Soc-coordination] DebTorrent: Interim Period Report

[Daniel Burrows]

On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 11:15:09PM -0700, Cameron Dale <camrdale at gmail.com> was heard to say:
> Now I am working on what will probably be the hardest task to complete before
> the midterm evaluation: integration with APT. Unlike my work so far, this will
> require all new code, as there is of course nothing in BitTorrent for this.
> Also, APT is probably my weakest area of understanding for this project, as I am
> very familiar with the BitTorrent end of things. Still, I am confident I can
> have it ready on schedule.

  I've worked with apt's download code in the past, and while my memory is a
little fuzzy, feel free to quiz me if you'd like pointers on how things fit
together.  Michael Vogt <mvo at debian.org> is also familiar with the apt
download code, and I'm sure he'd be excited to help out.


     Here's the sort of overview I'd want before I dove into this:

  The core apt code to handle downloads is in apt-pkg/acquire* in the apt
source tree.  apt farms out downloads to subprocesses called "methods",
which are logically enough in methods/.  Communication with methods takes
place through a line-based protocol.

  As a start, you could look at how the existing methods work and duplicate
them.  If you create, e.g., a "bittorrent" method, then ideally you should
just be able to write URLs like "bittorrent://some/host/and/file.torrent".
Getting apt to run multiple bittorrent downloads at once for a single host
will require some changes in the core code, but shouldn't be too hairy once
you find where to make the changes.

  Daniel