Changes/DNFConditionalFilelists

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DNF: Do not download filelists by default

This is a proposed Change for Fedora Linux.
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.

Summary

Change the DNF behavior to not download filelists by default. These metadata, which describe all the files contained within each package, are unnecessary in the majority of use cases. Additionally, these metadata files can be large in size, leading to a significant slowdown in the user experience.

Owner

• Name: Jan Kolarik
• Email: jkolarik@redhat.com

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora Linux 40
• Last updated: 2023-10-20
• [<will be assigned by the Wrangler> devel thread]
• FESCo issue: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
• Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
• Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>

Detailed Description

Until now, filelists were always downloaded together with other metadata. This was hardcoded and unable to change from the outside of DNF.

With these changes, we are proposing to not download the filelists metadata by default. This can be changed through the new DNF configuration option filelists which is False by default. If it is set to True, filelists will be downloaded during the standard metadata synchronization procedure. Additionally, specific commands can override this behavior during the runtime using the existing demands object in the DNF and so explicitly request loading the filelists metadata. This is used when a filename spec (other than rpm package filename) is passed as the command-line parameter.

Scope

• Proposal owners:

• Other developers:

• Release engineering: #Releng issue number

• Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)

• Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

• Alignment with Community Initiatives:

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: (What to do? Who will do it?) N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Blocks release? N/A (not a System Wide Change), Yes/No

Documentation

N/A (not a System Wide Change)