mirror method should with with file location

[Jesse Pretorius]

It'd be really great if the mirror method could be configured to use a local file for the mirror list.

eg in /etc/apt/source.list.d/mysoftware.list
deb mirror://file://apt/mirrors/mysoftware.txt trusty main

Instead of pulling the file via http (as per current behaviour) and choosing a mirror from that list, apt should read the local file and choose from the list in the same way.

Description: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
Release: 14.04

apt:
  Installed: 1.0.1ubuntu2.6
  Candidate: 1.0.1ubuntu2.6
  Version table:
 *** 1.0.1ubuntu2.6 0
        500 http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1.0.1ubuntu2.5 0
        500 http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ trusty-security/main amd64 Packages
     1.0.1ubuntu2 0
        500 http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

Where is the advantage? It's easy enough to host a file these days and without a net connection the whole update business isn't going to work. Not sure if this would be a lot of work to implement. But before anybody goes ahead and thinks about doing that let's make sure this is worth the effort. Please make your case.

[Jesse Pretorius (jesse-pretorius)]

@r0lf Agreed that it is easy enough to workaround, so I wouldn't call it an urgent requirement - however, having to stand up a web server to host a file in the environment is an overhead which could be avoided if using a file was an option. When using configuration management tooling like ansible, chef, puppet, etc the placement and changing of a local file is useful and carries very little overhead.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

So, you are saying it would be convenient. Maybe that is the case. But it's not what I was asking for. I was asking for arguments why this is necessary and why the current solution is insufficient. Coding this up is going to tie up developper resources, so there better be a use case for this (on-going!) cost. I don't see it. This works well as it is. Sorry.