# Correct use of apt proxy

## post by andy2 on Sep 22, 2022

When creating an apt proxy, we are asked for the “distribution”. So I went ahead and created two apt proxies for bionic and focal called `bionic` and `focal`.

I then configured the apt repos on my hosts like so:

```cpp
deb http://my.nexus.com/repository/<distro> <distro> main restricted universe multiverse
```

which works perfectly well.

However, we discovered that when upgrading a bionic host to focal using `do-release-upgrade`, the process switches the second instance of `<distro>` to the new distro name. So

```cpp
deb http://my.nexus.com/repository/bionic bionic main restricted universe multiverse
```

became

```cpp
deb http://my.nexus.com/repository/bionic focal main restricted universe multiverse
```

and to my amusement, the bionic repository began happily proxying and caching packages from the focal distro!

Which brings me to my question: if an apt proxy is agnostic of distribution, why bother with the distribution at all?

I tested this by creating a new apt proxy, called `ubuntu`, and for the distribution I put in `ubuntu`. This seems to work completely fine, reduces configuration complexity, and avoids the `do-release-upgrade` issue described above, as my apt sources now look like:

```cpp
deb http://my.nexus.com/repository/ubuntu <distro> main restricted universe multiverse
```

Is there a gotcha I’m missing here? I’m aware of [this issue](https://issues.sonatype.org/browse/NEXUS-21383) to support multiple distributions in the same repository, but it seems to me that we already have this support?

## post by jtom on Oct 10, 2022

Hello,

I believe [NEXUS-23790 APT proxies: "distribution" field is required but should not be - Sonatype JIRA](https://issues.sonatype.org/browse/NEXUS-23790) speaks to what you found. From that ticket, it looks like it’s not needed for proxy but presumably needed for hosted in the current implementation. I am not clear if the bug is that it should be needed for proxy or that it shouldn’t show as a (required) field for proxy. But hope that helps.

-Joe

## post by ralph on Sep 14, 2023

Hi Joe Tom,

I can’t access the JIRA site. What ist the result of the ticket. Is it possible to configure an agnostic ubuntu repo as Andy did it?

regards

## post by mpiggott on Sep 14, 2023

We moved to JIRA cloud and for licensing reasons its not available publicly.

You can file issues at [Issues · sonatype/nexus-public · GitHub](https://github.com/sonatype/nexus-public/issues)