Proxy service for automatic downloads

[tdb]

I have several computers in my home network with Steam installed. Most of them dual-boot between Linux and Windows. I normally shut down the computers or put them to sleep at night, except for my home server which runs 24/7. The server has Linux installed and does not have a graphical environment. What I'd like to do is run a background service on the server to monitor which games I have installed on my computers and pre-download updates while I sleep. The other computers could then get the updates from the server over my gigabit LAN, saving time in situations where I haven't used a particular installation for a while.

[𝔗 𝔬 𝔟 𝔦 𝔞 𝔰]

so many pc's when all you need is actually just 1 pc

[tdb]

Yes, because one PC works so well when a friend visits and we want to play something together. And my laptop is just as powerful as my desktop and can run games at 60 fps with full detail. And Windows is an excellent server OS and never needs to be rebooted for updates. Yes, clearly one PC is enough.

</sarcasm>

[Rainwatcher]

As an added benefit, being able to host a local cache for one or more users on a local network would save a whole bunch of bandwidth or those that live in regions with slow internet and/or download caps.

I've seen this idea crop up more than a few times here, and have dug into it further in a previous, now dead, thread. (Which I'm mostly linking to point out to a mod/admin readin this that it might warrent actual consideration.)

http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/135509024341927781/

[cinedine]

It is (or was) already possible:
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamPipe

I always wonder if people even bother to look for themselves ... the linked articles can be easily found via google.

[tdb]

Based on the links in that article it's possible to set up a caching HTTP proxy and spoof Steam's DNS entries to make the client use the local proxy instead of the real servers. While that does help with downloading the same updates on multiple computers, it's lacking the component of automatically downloading updates when no Steam client is running in the network. Consider the following scenario which is quite common for me.

I normally use Linux but have Windows installed to play those games that don't have native Linux versions. This means that my Windows Steam client is not normally running even when I'm using the computer. When I want to play a game I reboot into Windows. If there is an update, Steam will download it at that point and I will have to wait for it to complete. Some games routinely have updates which require 1-2 GB downloads; my Internet connection is kinda slow so it can take 15-30 minutes to download such an update. This can be annoying if I intended to play with friends.