Streaming Package Installation
Mentor: Simon Richter
Summary: Implementing a streaming installation of packages
Required skills:
- C or C++
Description: Currently, packages need to be fully downloaded into (usually) /var/cache/apt/archives before they can be installed via dpkg/APT. Furthermore, frequently a multitude of packages is needed to be downloaded for an APT installation operation to succeed. Using a streaming download method which directly parses and pipes the data.tar.gz content to disk and subsequently verifies the integrity could lead to vast space savings not only on embedded systems. Security implications have to be taken into account, e.g. making sure current data is not overwritten by a rogue, non-verfying archive.
Applications:
Please contact mbanck@debian.org in case of any question.