Debian estrena servicio de archivos snapshot

El proyecto Debian puso a disposicion de la comunidad el servicio de snapshot (instantáneas) el cual funciona como una maquina del tiempo para su enorme archivo de paquetes de software.
Con este servicio los usuarios tendran la posibilidad de acceder a los viejos paquetes segun su fecha o version, este nuevo servicio contiene casi todos los paquetes del archivo de main y security publicados desde el 2005.
De esta manera, los creadores de snapshot.debian.org esperan tener un mejor control sobre los recursos para rastraer regresiones, reconstruir entornos y facilitar a los adminsitradores la actualizacion para sus servidores.

Nota original
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April 12th, 2010

The Debian project is proud to announce a new service, available at http://snapshot.debian.org/, a wayback machine that allows access to old packages based on dates and version numbers.

The ability to install packages and view source code from any given date can be very helpful to developers and users alike. It provides a valuable resource for tracking down when regressions were introduced, or for providing a specific environment that a particular application may require to run. The snapshot archive is accessible like any normal apt repository, allowing it to be easily used by all.

The snapshot service also enables administrators to install a predictable, tested set of packages by using a view of the archive on a given date. This feature allows administrators to test an upgrade path in a staging environment and then repeat the procedure in their production environment with assurance that they are performing exactly the tested upgrade. As the snapshot covers the entire archive and all suites this can be applied to environments that wish to track testing in a controlled manner as well as those with more stringent change control who wish to fully audit all stable updates before rolling them out.

The archive currently holds almost all[1] packages from the main and security archives since March 2005, as well as selected additional archives like debian-volatile, debian-ports and backports.org. This new service currently holds about 6.5 terabytes of data and will grow constantly.

Hosting of the snapshot service is provided by the Electrical and Computer Engineering department of the University of British Columbia and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Additional needed hardware was provided by Nordic Gaming. Initial data was provided by the Debian ftp-master team as well as Fumitoshi Ukai.