I have installed Apt-Cacher NG to provide a cache of packages for several machines. I therefore see no point in having aptitude/apt-get keeping their own (second) cache in /var/cache/apt/archives. I realise I can empty this cache with sudo apt-get clean, but is there some way of configuring apt-get to automatically clean the cache when an install has completed?
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I'm trying to do the same thing as I use many LXC to experiment and to keep my personal computer clean. One of those LXC is my apt-cacher-ng, but now I would like to prevent all other instances (including the "real" one) to keep an archives chace. – jgomo3 Mar 30 '16 at 18:31
According to the documentation you can add a config file to /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/ named no-cache containing Dir::Cache ""; and Dir::Cache::archives ""; according to manual of apt.conf. There is a bug report raising issues with this method, and I don't recommend it.
There is one remaining method according to this tutorial:
echo 'DPkg::Post-Invoke {"/bin/rm -f /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb || true";};' | sudo tee /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/clean
This will carry out an rm command just before apt quits.
answered Nov 21 '11 at 4:24
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I found just setting the cache path to an empty path gave an error when running apt:
Archives directory archives/partial is missing. - Acquire (2: No such file or directory). The solution to this error was to also setDir::Cache::archivesto an empty path. I've updated your answer to include this (assuming somebody with higher rep approves the edit). – Blair Nov 21 '11 at 4:56 -
1Actually, setting these to blank paths doesn't work. I did so, and then installed and removed a package. Going to install it again I got
Need to get 0 B/21.9 MB of archivesindicating the presence of a cached version. Looking around it turns out they were cached in the root of the filesystem... not exactly what I wanted! Unless we're both reading the manpage for apt.conf wrong, either the manpage is wrong or there is a bug. I think I'll stick with the second method. – Blair Nov 21 '11 at 5:11 -
4I've reported the
Dir::Cache::Archive "";bug at bugs.launchpad.net/apt/+bug/937951. When you've set that, do not runapt-get cleanas it'll remove all files in the root directory (/). – Lekensteyn Feb 21 '12 at 17:25 -
2According to the bug,
Dir::Cache::Archiveis the wrong configuration var; this should beDir::Cache::{src,}pkgcache. – Jeremy Kerr Jul 4 '12 at 8:22 -
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I think that what you are looking for is:
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d$ cat 04autoclean
APT::Clean-Installed "true";
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d$
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2That command does not change anything--it just shows the contents of
04autoclean(when run in the/etc/apt/apt.conf.ddirectory). Are you saying Blair should change the contents of04autocleanso thatAPT::Clean-Installedis set to"true"? – Eliah Kagan Jul 4 '12 at 10:47 -
1This will only control how
apt-get autocleanbehaves. From apt-get(8): "The configuration option APT::Clean-Installed will prevent installed packages from being erased if it is set to off." – blueyed Jan 16 '15 at 22:56
