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I want to understand what is a virtual repository in the context of Artifacts Repository Manager.

Before that, I referred the documentation. But, I didn't get the explanation as I was new to DevOps that time. Thanks.

A virtual repository is a collection of local, remote and other virtual repositories accessed through a single logical URL.

A virtual repository hides the access details of the underlying repositories letting users work with a single, well-known URL. The underlying participating repositories and their access rules may be changed without requiring any client-side changes.

Above is the documentation definition, my doubt is how virtual repositories are connected to either Local/Remote Repository.

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    What's up with the downvotes? It's a legit question. – JBaruch Jan 4 '19 at 0:04
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    This question doesn't show any research effort @JBaruch, there's not even a word from the OP showing they did read Artifactory documentation and find it unclear on some point. Proof being your answer is just quoting the documentation, this site is not here to rehash products documentation. – Tensibai Jan 4 '19 at 8:46
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Local repositories serve artifacts from your local storage. These are found in paths like this one:

http://<host>:<port>/artifactory/<local-repository-name>/<artifact-path>

Remote repositories act as proxies to remote locations which may e.g. be other Artifactory servers. They also provide caching. These are found in paths like this one:

http://<host>:<port>/artifactory/<remote-repository-name>/<artifact-path>

Virtual repositories provide a way to logically group many repositories under a common name. Example path is following:

http://<host>:<port>/artifactory/<virtual-repository-name>/<artifact-path>

There is a default virtual repository called repo which groups all local and remote repositories.

Please try this article from JFrog for more details. It covers local, remote and virtual repositories in a friendly way:

https://www.jfrog.com/confluence/display/RTF20/Understanding+Repositories

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    Hi there. Since links on the web may be ephemeral, could you please summarise the salient points of the article in the answer itself? Thanks! – Bruce Becker Nov 19 '19 at 8:43
  • Sure, post edited. – luki Nov 20 '19 at 15:44
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A virtual repository is a collection of local, remote and other virtual repositories accessed through a single logical URL.

A virtual repository hides the access details of the underlying repositories letting users work with a single, well-known URL. The underlying participating repositories and their access rules may be changed without requiring any client-side changes.

Quote from the JFrog Artifactory User Guide.

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  • :( not good enough of an explanation for me. a bit too abstrat and bland still. im currently trying to figure this out too. – dtc May 17 '19 at 23:50
  • @dtc what's unclear? You have a local repo, which is a storage for local files, you have a remote repo, which is a proxy for other repositories and you have virtual which gives access to any number of other repositories via a single URL. – JBaruch May 19 '19 at 21:01
  • Well, I understand it at this point. It's a mix of "I don't understand package managers that well" and "words go in one ear and out the other." In general for jfrog artifactory, I don't think there are enough visual examples and clear enough descriptions of use cases, context for beginners that are onboarding. – dtc May 21 '19 at 17:42
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Artifactory allows you to define a virtual repository which is a collection of local, remote and other virtual repositories accessed through a single logical URL.

A virtual repository hides the access details of the underlying repositories letting users work with a single, well-known URL. The underlying participating repositories and their access rules may be changed without requiring any client-side changes.

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