Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 13:23:12 +0100 From: Gareth McCaughan <gjm11@dpmms.cam.ac.uk> To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Subject: Automating use of FTP mirror sites Message-ID: <E0xGkHg-0002sc-00@g.pet.cam.ac.uk>
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When you `make install' a port and don't already have the tarball, bsd.port.mk tries each of the MASTER_SITES in the order given in the makefile. The trouble with this is that the order given in the makefile need not be a good order for the user; for instance, I'm in the UK and sites on the other side of the Atlantic tend to be, well, pretty unsatisfactory... So, I have a little Perl script that takes a list of ftp: URLs, consults a table of FTP mirroring relationships and another table of good and bad places to get files from, and spits out a list of ftp: URLs that (1) contains all the original places, (2) also contains all known mirror sites for them, and (3) arranges them in order of preference. I've hacked my bsd.port.mk so that instead of for site in ${MASTER_SITES}; do it says for site in $$(ftp-equiv ${MASTER_SITES}); do and likewise for PATCH_SITES. I think it would be good to have a facility of this sort in FreeBSD by default, although of course maintaining the list of useful mirrors and preferred places would probably have to be a matter for the individual user. If others agree, the FreeBSD project is welcome to use my script. Here's what the relevant files look like, which should give some idea of how the thing works. --------------------- equivalences file begins --------------------- # Firstly, aliases. ftp.uk.freebsd.org -> sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk ftp2.uk.freebsd.org -> unix.hensa.ac.uk ftp3.uk.freebsd.org -> ftp.demon.co.uk # FreeBSD. ftp.freebsd.org /pub/FreeBSD ftp.uk.freebsd.org /packages/FreeBSD ftp.freebsd.org /pub/FreeBSD ftp2.uk.freebsd.org /mirrors/FreeBSD ftp.freebsd.org /pub/FreeBSD ftp3.uk.freebsd.org /pub/mirrors/FreeBSD # GNU. prep.ai.mit.edu /pub/gnu sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk /gnu ---------------------- equivalences file ends ---------------------- ---------------------- preferences file begins ---------------------- # FTP preferences. .cam.ac.uk .ac.uk .co.uk .uk OTHERS .jp ----------------------- preferences file ends ----------------------- (Incidentally, I haven't actually checked whether Japanese sites are worse than random other sites. The .jp entry is a legacy from when I was checking that the script did the right thing.) Comments? I'm not a subscriber to -ports, so any mail should be sent to me as well as to the list if you want me to read it. -- Gareth McCaughan Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics, gjm11@dpmms.cam.ac.uk Cambridge University, England.
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