From owner-freebsd-hubs@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 1 06:50:26 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hubs@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CD0EC37B404 for ; Fri, 1 Aug 2003 06:50:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from lurza.secnetix.de (mail2.secnetix.de [195.143.231.20]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0635D43F85 for ; Fri, 1 Aug 2003 06:50:23 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from olli@lurza.secnetix.de) Received: from lurza.secnetix.de (naxydi@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lurza.secnetix.de (8.12.8p1/8.12.8) with ESMTP id h71DoJgC008434; Fri, 1 Aug 2003 15:50:19 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from oliver.fromme@secnetix.de) Received: (from olli@localhost) by lurza.secnetix.de (8.12.8p1/8.12.8/Submit) id h71DoGO5008432; Fri, 1 Aug 2003 15:50:16 +0200 (CEST) From: Oliver Fromme Message-Id: <200308011350.h71DoGO5008432@lurza.secnetix.de> To: dan@langille.org (Dan Langille) Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2003 15:50:16 +0200 (CEST) In-Reply-To: <3F283725.11219.7DFB7A87@localhost> from "Dan Langille" at Jul 30, 2003 09:22:45 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit cc: freebsd-hubs@freebsd.org cc: Garrett Wollman Subject: Re: Requirements Final Draft Attempt #2 :-/ X-BeenThere: freebsd-hubs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: FreeBSD Distributions Hubs: mail sup ftp List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2003 13:50:27 -0000 Dan Langille wrote: > On 30 Jul 2003 at 14:19, Garrett Wollman wrote: > > < said: > > > 5) Will be given a "ftpX.CC.freebsd.org" hostname and will be a candidate > > > for becoming a "ftpX.freebsd.org" hostname. > > > > > 3) Will be given a "ftpX.CC.freebsd.org" name. > > > > I think that this would be more helpful if sites were categorized > > along a different axis: architecture. It doesn't make sense to > > require every primary mirror site everywhere in the world to carry > > every architecture. Few people outside of Japan, for example, have > > need of PC98 releases. Other places may want to cut out Alpha or > > sparc64 bits if those distributions are very infrequently downloaded. Sounds very reasonable. > That can be done with additional DNS zones can't it? Categorize them > by what they carry. To be honest, I don't really like the idea of bloating the DNS name space. Maybe I misunderstood the suggestion, but I think that -- for example -- ftp3.fr.i386.freebsd.org is just too complicated. Our DNS structure is already complex enough as it is. And such distinction would not indicate which releases and package sets the site carries. Does it have -current packages? Does it have ISOs, or only the FTP install directories? etc... A few months ago someone mentioned another idea on this list, which I would like to repeat. An automated mechanism could contact every FTP server (say, once per day) and check which collections that server is carrying, i.e. which releases and architectures, whether they have ISOs and the FTP install directories, and which package sets are there. That information would be collected and converted into a "survey" of all FreeBSD mirror sites. This file should be easy to parse. That survey would be put on the master FTP server, and _every_ mirror would be required to sync that particular file often enough (say, once per day). It could be called /pub/FreeBSD/.mirror-info or whatever. That way, every mirror -- no matter whether primary or secondary (or not even an official one) -- would carry a file describing all official mirrors of FreeBSD. Sysinstall could be taught to get that file, once the user has selected a mirror site, and verify that the site really contains what the user needs. If it doesn't, it should warn the user and suggest a list of alternative sites. The survey could also be automatically converted to some HTML table and put on the web site. A "README" file on the FTP servers should point to that URL, so users can find out where to get the ISOs (or whatever) that they want, if they can't get them on the server they're on. All of that might sound complicated, but it really isn't that bad. The collector can be a small shell script using /usr/bin/fetch or automated ncftp. The extension to sysinstall shouldn't be too difficult either. I would be willing to work on the collector thing at least, and maybe also on the sysinstall part (if time permits). The advantage would be that there is no need to change the DNS structure, and mirror maintainers would not have to do anything special, except for syncing that mirror-info file once per day (unless they're syncing everything daily anyway). Once the collector mechanism is in place, no additional maintenance would be necessary. Comments? Regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co KG, Oettingenstr. 2, 80538 München Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way. Encrypting transactions on the Internet is the equivalent of arranging an armored car to deliver credit-card information from someone living in a cardboard box to someone living on a park bench. -- Eugene Spafford (computer scientist, Purdue Univ.)