microsoft / microsoft/winget-cli

Alternate URLs are needed for packages too, not just winget sources

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#3,074 2 comments 5 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Area-Manifest Issue-Feature
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C++
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Description

Description of the new feature / enhancement

in pull request https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/pull/2970 support was added for alternate URLs for some of winget's sources, but we also need support for alternate URLs for packages too.

e.g. LibreOffice and issue https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs/issues/99420

  • the main download URLs should be on https://download.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/stable/ - this download repository is served via a CDN, but only contains the last 3 (or so) releases

  • winget seems to have decided to (ab)use the https://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/ repository because this one contains all the LibreOffice releases. The problem with this one is that the downloadarchive is NOT served via a full CDN, but most files are served directly by a single server at The Document Foundation. As a result, it is lately suffocated with download requests, to the point it has become very slow to use.

Proposed technical implementation details

It is needed some sort of "alternate url" to be able to specify for winget to use when downloading packages (LibreOffice in this sample case)

Also please add support to customize the retry counter, with a default of 3 retries.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing pull request #2970 to understand the existing alternate-URL support, then compare it with the LibreOffice example in winget-pkgs issue #99420. Define how package download URLs should fall back from the CDN to the archive after failed attempts, and how a configurable retry count with a default of three should behave.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
cli
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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