How to increase timeout for apt update

Question

I live in the boondocks, where internet connection can be...well...let's just say "not so good." While trying to keep my system (Buster) up to date, using 'apt update,' the reported download rates regularly vary between tens of kB/s to hundreds of B/s, to dead stop. Not surprisingly, apt eventually gives up and terminates with "...some index files failed to download." Also, usually, with "Undetermined Error" or "Connection timed out" followed by an IP address.

Is there a way to get apt to try again, without re-issuing the command in the terminal?

Answer 1

This question looks like it's a better fit for Superuser, but you should be able to do

until command
do
sleep 1
done

which will repeat command until it succeeds.

Answer 2

Create a new file ex. /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99timeouts

Add the rows:

Acquire::http::timeout "240";
Acquire::https::timeout "240";

where "240" is a timeout in seconds.