---
name: "approx.conf"
section: "5"
platform: "linux"
package: "approx"
version: "5.13-1+b5"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/approx.conf"
---

# approx.conf(5)

configuration file for approx proxy server

## NAME

approx.conf - configuration file for approx proxy server

## SYNOPSIS

/etc/approx/approx.conf

## DESCRIPTION

Each non-blank line of the configuration file should contain a name/value pair, separated by white space. Comments start with a "#" character and continue to the end of the line.

Names that begin with the "$" character are reserved for use as configuration parameters.  The following parameters are currently defined:

- $cache

  Specifies the location of the approx cache directory (default: */var/cache/approx*). It and all its subdirectories must be owned by the approx server (see also the $user and $group parameters, below.)

- $interval

  Specifies the time in minutes after which a cached file will be considered too old to deliver without first checking with the remote repository for a newer version (default: 60)

- $max\_rate

  Specifies the maximum download rate from remote repositories, in bytes per second (default: unlimited). The value may be suffixed with "K", "M", or "G" to indicate kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes per second, respectively.

- $max\_redirects

  Specifies the maximum number of HTTP redirections that will be followed when downloading a remote file (default: 5)

- $user, $group

  Specifies the user and group that owns the files in the approx cache (default: approx)

- $syslog

  Specifies the [**syslog**(3)](/syslog/3.md) facility to use when logging (default: daemon)

- $pdiffs

  Specifies whether to support IndexFile diffs (default: **true**)

- $offline

  Specifies whether to deliver (possibly out-of-date) cached files when they cannot be downloaded from remote repositories (default: **false**)

- $max\_wait

  Specifies how many seconds an [**approx**(8)](/approx/8.md) process will wait for a concurrent download of a file to complete, before attempting to download the file itself (default: 10)

- $curl\_path

  Specifies the path to the curl binary (default: */usr/bin/curl*)

- $verbose

  Specifies whether informational messages should be printed in the log (default: **false**)

- $debug

  Specifies whether debugging messages should be printed in the log (default: **false**)

The other name/value pairs  are used to map distribution names to remote repositories.  For example,

-

  debian          http://ftp.debian.org/debian\
   debian-security http://security.debian.org/debian-security

## TCP PORT NUMBER

The port on which [**approx**(8)](/approx/8.md) listens is not specified in this file, but in */etc/inetd.conf*. The default value is 9999, for compatibility with [**apt-proxy**(8)](/apt-proxy/8.md), but it may be changed by running the command

-

  dpkg-reconfigure approx

## SEE ALSO

[**approx**(8)](/approx/8.md), [**inetd**(8)](/inetd/8.md)

## AUTHOR

Eric Cooper \<ecc@cmu.edu\>