r309 - /website/trunk/FAQ.mdwn

[camrdale-guest at users.alioth.debian.org]

Author: camrdale-guest
Date: Thu Nov  1 01:15:02 2007
New Revision: 309

URL: http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/debtorrent/?sc=1&rev=309
Log:
web commit by camrdale-guest: New FAQ entry about apt timeouts.

Modified:
    website/trunk/FAQ.mdwn

Modified: website/trunk/FAQ.mdwn
URL: http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/debtorrent/website/trunk/FAQ.mdwn?rev=309&op=diff
==============================================================================
--- website/trunk/FAQ.mdwn (original)
+++ website/trunk/FAQ.mdwn Thu Nov  1 01:15:02 2007
@@ -126,6 +126,37 @@
 DebTorrent. If the proper torrent's are running, then file a bug (see 
 [[BugReporting]])
 
+#### Installing a large package fails with the error "Connection Failed" or "Connection timed out"?
+
+This is a known problem, which results from the
+random order of BitTorrent downloads. Therefore, the file can't be
+started to be passed to aptitude/apt until the download is complete.
+In the case of large files or slow connections this delay may cause
+aptitude/apt to time out and think that the download is broken.
+
+Possible Workarounds:
+
+1. After apt times out, wait for the download to complete (monitor it
+at http://localhost:9988), then tell apt to try again since the file
+is now available locally.
+
+2. Install the [[apt-transport-debtorrent]] package and use debtorrent://
+type URLs in your sources.list file instead of http://. The debtorrent
+transport has longer timeouts (defaults to 300) and will pass files
+out of order in the case of multiple file downloads rather than
+waiting for that one large file to download.
+
+3. Increase the timeout by putting `Acquire::http::Timeout "600";` (or
+`Acquire::debtorrent::Timeout "600";` in the case of the debtorrent://
+transport) in your apt.conf file. Increase 600 (its in seconds)
+appropriately.
+
+Probably the best is to use (2) first, then (3) if you still have
+problems, all the while using (1) to get around the individual
+failures that occur. Long-term solutions are being [worked on][50].
+
+[50]: http://wiki.debian.org/DebTorrent/AptInteraction
+
 #### An apt-get update is stuck saying "Waiting for headers"?
 
 Wait a bit to make sure it's actually stuck. The DebTorrent downloads