Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 11:57:56 -0400 (EDT) From: "Erik Gault" <e@gaultopia.org> To: "Ken Smith" <kensmith@cse.Buffalo.EDU> Cc: freebsd-hubs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Mirror Site Coordinator? Message-ID: <32351.152.163.190.1.1056729476.squirrel@www.gaultopia.org> In-Reply-To: <20030627121635.GA1606@electra.cse.Buffalo.EDU> References: <20030627121635.GA1606@electra.cse.Buffalo.EDU>
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I think having a Mirror Coordinator could be a great idea depending on what it is they do. My suggestion would be their duties go something like: 1) Keep familiar with the overall state of the mirrors, the list of official mirrors and basic data about them (location, connectivity, do they carry things besides freebsd), and maintain a list of contact information for all the mirror operators. Act as the contact point for any mirror related questions or problems. 2) Create and maintain web pages with mirror statistics. Providing some example scripts for collecting basic statistics (traffic levels, number of ftpd/cvsupd processes running, number of ISO downloads) and encouraging the mirror operators to use them and provide them at a standard url for collection could go a long way. I think this is very important. The releng people will be interested to get a better idea of distribution and numbers they can use in little marketing snippets, mirror operators will be able to see how they compare to other mirrors, and people considering starting a new mirror will be able to get a real feel for what they can expect in their region. See http://ftp2.freebsd.org/etc/ and http://cvsup2.freebsd.org/stats/ for simple examples of what I'm talking about. Doesn't need to be anything involving imaginary 17th-degree calculus, just some basic trend data that gives a clear picture of how busy the mirror is (I realize many mirrors offer lots of collections in addition to freebsd, but I don't think that's a difficult problem to get around as far as providing meaningful stats). 3) Approve/deny requests for new "official" mirrors. Most of the time people offering to become a new mirror send an email to hubs@ explaining their connectivity and server and ending with something along the lines of, "would this be useful?" The Mirror Coordinator would actually be able to give them an educated answer to that question: "yes, a new US mirror on that AS would be useful", or "no thank you, there are already several very lightly loaded mirrors in that same country and another one will probably serve little purpose". The dnsadm's for the various cc's will know that requests for names for new official mirrors will only come from the Mirror Coordinator already approved. 4) Maintain the handbook sections and any other official documentation pertaining to mirrors: list of official mirrors, how to become one, etc. I think this would be useful, easy to understand, doesn't complicate any existing processes, and doesn't step on anyone's toes. Erik Ken Smith said: > > I have suggested this in the past and it met with a variety of > opinions. I'm going to try it one more time to see if the recent > developments in the DNS chat have shifted opinions around. > > Having thought about it briefly all of the little "wrinkles" I > can dream up myself that would be caused by CC based hosts > existing in the FreeBSD.org namespace BUT do not run their own > delegated DNS infrastructure get handled very neatly and cleanly > if there is what I'll call a Mirror Site Coordinator. It also > would solve other new issues (e.g. who amongst all the mirror > sites should be in the TLD). > > I don't want to do an entire draft based on this idea before I > ask if anyone would strongly object to there being a Mirror Site > Coordinator. Exactly what that is (it could range anywhere from > one person to all of hubs@) we can discuss later after we decide > on the job description. > > If you are strongly against there being such a position speak now > please. If there nobody says anything or if there seems to be a > mix of opinions from the discussion that results I'll go ahead with > a small proposal based on this and post it Monday. It basically > addresses the issues that came up in the last two or three messages > sent to the list. > > -- > Ken Smith > - From there to here, from here to | kensmith@cse.buffalo.edu > there, funny things are everywhere. | > - Theodore Geisel | > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-hubs@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hubs > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hubs-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >
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