powerpill

2023-05-10 21:51 UTC
  • Xyne

Metadata

Description: Pacman wrapper for faster downloads.
Latest Version: 2021.11
Source Code: src/
Architecture:
  • any
Dependencies:
Optional Dependencies:
Arch Repositories:
  • [xyne-any]
  • [xyne-i686]
  • [xyne-x86_64]
AUR Page: powerpill
Arch Forum Thread: 153818
Tags:

About

Powerpill is a Pacman wrapper that uses parallel and segmented downloading through Aria2 and Reflector to try to speed up downloads for Pacman.

Powerpill can also use Rsync for official mirrors that support it. This can be efficient for users who already use full bandwidth when downloading from a single mirror.

Pacserve is also supported via the configuration file and will be used before downloading from external mirrors.

Configuration

The powerpill configuration file is located at /etc/pacboy/config-powerpill.json by default. Refer to the powerpill.json man page for details.

The official Pacman repos do not provide database signature files. To avoid download errors, set the SigLevel setting of each offical repo to PackageRequired, e.g.

[core]
SigLevel = PackageRequired

History

Powerpill goes back to the beginning of my time with Arch Linux. The original version was a very simple Perl script that I posted on the forum shortly after signing up. Over time it acquired features and became a full Pacman wrapper, eventually duplicating a lot of ALPM’s functionality and spawning a collection of Perl libraries that I used in several applications. It was the monolithic hackjob of a programming noob using Perl. The codebase was an ugly mess but it worked.

It was, however, not to be. When Pacman finally switched to locally tarred databases the Perl libraries were abandoned. Like an aging movie star in Hollywood who’s already had too much plastic surgery, it was time to accept that the days of glory were past and gracefully bow out.

Reflector was salvaged from that tangled abyss of Perl, but Powerpill was left to be forgotten in its depths, intricately tied to its very core. The idea of Powerpill nevertheless lived on and as if by a haunting compulsion I gradually laid the groundwork for a spiritual successor. First came pacman2aria2, which was then refined into pm2ml. The latter included some simple wrapper scripts but they never caught on.

Building on pm2ml I eventually wrote a script named Parisync to test the efficiency of using Rsync for Pacman downloads. It worked and I wrote wrapper scripts for it that I happily used for several months. Again, it never caught on.

And so we arrive here. The current implementation of Powerpill builds directly on Parisync. Powerpill is reborn as a full yet superficial Pacman wrapper.

Wacka wacka, bitches!

POWERPILL.JSON(1)

Name

powerpill.json - Powerpill configuration file

Description

The Powerpill configuration file is a plain JSON file. By default it is located at /etc/powerpill/powerpill.json. The main object is a dictionary that holds multiple dictionaries. The latter are considered sections of the configuration file and contain options related to different parts of Powerpill.

Sections

Note that all fields, including section names, are in lower case in the file. Upper case may appear in the man page during automatic conversion of the markdown file. For example, the first section is “aria2”, not “ARIA2”.

aria2

Options for configuring Aria2.

args
The list of arguments to pass to the Aria2 binary. See Aria2’s man page for details. By default Aria2 will also load $HOME/.aria2/aria2.conf. When run with sudo, this will refer to root’s home directory. To disable this, use the --no-conf option. To use a powerpill-specific Aria2 configuration file, use the --conf-path option, for example --conf-path=/etc/powerpill/aria2.conf.
path

The path to the Aria2 executable.

Default: /usr/bin/aria2c

pacman

Options for configuring Pacman.

config
The path to the configuration file.
path

The path to the Pacman executable.

Default: /usr/bin/pacman

pacserve

Options for enabling Pacserve support. When enabled, Powerpill will preferentially download files from the Pacserve server to save bandwidth.

server

The URI of the Pacserve server. If null then Pacserve support is disabled. If set, this should only contain the protocol, the host and the port, e.g.

"server" : "http://localhost:15678"

powerpill

Options that control Powerpill behavior.

select
Present a package selection dialogue when downloading package groups.
reflect databases
Use Reflector when retrieving databases. This may lead to mismatches between databases and their signatures if the retrieved mirrors are not synchronized.

reflector

Options for configuring Reflector support. Reflector can retrieve the current list of mirrors from the Arch Linux server’s web API and use them for parallel downloads.

args
The list of arguments to pass to Reflector. See reflector --help for details. The default configuration file includes an entry named “args.unused” as a starting point. Change this to “args” to enable the default arguments.

rsync

Options for configuring Rsync.

args

The list of arguments to pass to Rsync. In general, the only options that should be passed are those that affect console output during the operation, but not the operation itself. E.g. --no-motd, ’–verbose`.

Sometimes Rsync will attempt to redownload a file if the modification time of the server file is newer than the local file. To prevent this the “–checksum” option may be used, but not all Rsync servers allow this option due to the additional overhead of computing the checksum.

db only
If true, Rsync will only be used to download the databases and all package downloads will be handled by Aria2.
path

The path to the Rsync executable.

Default: /usr/bin/rsync

servers

A list of Rsync-enabled Pacman mirrors, double-quoted and separated with commas. You can find them with reflector -p rsync. Each entry should include the full server URL starting with rsync:// and ending with $repo/os/$arch. Leave this list empty or remove it from the file to disable Rsync support. Syntax example:

“servers”: [ “rsync://example.com/archlinux/repo/os/arch”, “rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/repo/os/arch”]

Download Progress

By default Powerpill will display output from Aria2 and Rsync during the download. To disable Aria2 output, add the --quiet option to the Aria2 arguments list. To disable output from Rsync, remove --progress and --verbose from the Rsync arguments list.

Help Message

$ powerpill --help

USAGE
  powerpill [powerpill options] [pacman args]

OPTIONS
  Powerpill should accept the same arguments as Pacman, e.g.

      powerpill -Syu

  See "pacman --help" for further help.

  The following additional arguments are supported:

    --powerpill-config <path>
        The path to a Powerpill configuration file.
        Default: /etc/powerpill/powerpill.json

    --powerpill-clean
        Clean up leftover .aria2 files from an unrecoverable download. Use this
        option to resolve aria2c length mismatch errors.

CHANGELOG

2016-01-15

  • Updated pm2ml argument handling.
  • Added quiet option to configure_logging.
  • Optionally ignore ignored packages (i.e. include them) for system upgrade calculations (necessary for pacman -Qu emulation).

2015-11-21

  • Changed “ask” option to “select” to avoid overlap with unrelated “–ask” option in pacman.

2014-08-17

  • Added --remote-time=true to the default Aria2 arguments in powerpill.json.

2014-08-12

  • use metalink preferences to enforce user mirror preferences when downloading databases.

2014-08-11

  • correction handle -Sl and -Ss when no list or search arguments are given.

2013-05-10

  • updated for Pacserve compatibility

2013-05-09

  • recognize Pacman’s –color option

2013-03-13

  • pass through Pacman binary return codes

2013-01-31

  • added new powerpill/reflect databases to powerpill.json

2012-12-12

  • rsync/server has been renamed rsync/servers and converted to a list in powerpill.json. Powerpill will try each server in the list until the download succeeds or the list is exhausted. In the latter case, Powerpill will attempt to use Aria2 instead for official packages.
  • added powerpill/ask option to control behavior of package selection dialogue for package groups

2012-12-07

  • Ariac and Rsync output are now displayed by default: see the powerpill.json manual page for instructions to disable this output

2012-12-02

  • added bash-completion file

2012-11-29

  • refactored code
  • added more robust option parsing
  • replaced powerpill.conf with powerpill.json for more versatile configuration
  • added powerpill.json man page
  • removed aria2.conf (should now be configured via Aria2 arguments in powerpill.json.

TODO

TODO

  • add signal handlers and propagate signals to subprocesses
  • add group selection dialogue (optionally based on curses/dialog checklist)
Contact
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