16

Debian users have a kind of "wayback machine": snapshot.debian.org , which is really great.

There are regressions sometimes, and if I don't have local deb package with old version, I'm getting sad sometimes. Having a wayback machine like this is very helpful.

I can't find analogue of it for Ubuntu. Have I missed it?

Braiam
  • 67,791
  • 32
  • 179
  • 269
Dmitry Frank
  • 411
  • 4
  • 17

3 Answers3

7

To use the snapshot service, users must append the desired snapshot date to the repository URL as a parameter when making a query. For instance, adding lines like:

deb https://snapshot.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/20230401T000000Z lunar main in /etc/apt/sources.list will retrieve a snapshot of the Ubuntu archive for the indicated timestamp.

Rajan Patel
  • 96
  • As of 2024-03-18 I'm not sure that snapshot.ubuntu.com is being updated properly; I don't see recent snapshots there. – rfay Mar 18 '24 at 14:26
6

Update: there is a new service that provides exactly this! See @Rajan Patel's answer.

Unfortunately there is no current exact equivalent. However, Launchpad does keep all the historical data required, and you can access this directly.

For example, for the package hello:

  • Go to the Launchpad package page: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hello
  • From here, you can View full publishing history.
  • From this page you can work out exactly what version was published for a given release at a particular time you're interested in.
  • Click on the version string. This gives you the information Launchpad holds relating to that particular version.
  • You can download the sources for this particular version from this page.
  • From here, click on your architecture in the Builds section on the right. The release stated here relates to the release the build was performed on, not necessarily the release the version was published in, so won't worry about the release stated.
  • You can get download the debs from the "Built files" section at the bottom, and even see the build log.
Robie Basak
  • 15,670
  • I've been using this way to track the "unpublished" releases for a long time, the only pity is it consistently removes old binary packages. – YumeYao Oct 25 '22 at 06:34
  • snapshot.ubuntu.com now exists as a new service! See (and please upvote) the other answer! – Robie Basak Jan 06 '24 at 00:54
0

StableBuild (disclaimer: I'm involved in the company) has daily snapshots of the full Ubuntu (versions 18.04 and up) package repositories (and some popular PPAs) starting 6 September 2023. Docs and snapshot list - works exactly the same as the Debian snapshots - but note that this is a paid service.

Alternatively, here's a tutorial on setting up your own snapshot server using zfs and apt-mirror - that's what we used to run at my company before.

Jan Jongboom
  • 121