Reviving this old thread.
* When a release is underway, the repository breaks because syncing
packages takes hours. The operation is not atomic.
Couldn't they be almost atomic?
I believe both "yum" and "apt" would only consider rpms/debs if they are listed in the repo index files*, so you should be able to copy out rpms and debs and at the final step "mv" the index files into place, making the packages visible in a super short time?
*) .xml.gz for rpms, db/ files for debs.
Obviously this is a very small part of the list of problems, but I think anyone mirroring huge sets of rpms/debs would have faced and solved this particular nit by now?
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May the most significant bit of your life be positive.