Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 13:43:03 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com> To: Josef Karthauser <joe@FreeBSD.org> Cc: Scott Long <scott_long@btc.adaptec.com>, Sean Chittenden <sean@chittenden.org>, hubs@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Statement regarding FreeBSD release ISO images Message-ID: <200301302143.h0ULh3wp090056@apollo.backplane.com> References: <3E2E58E8.7020903@btc.adaptec.com> <20030122191836.GC12075@perrin.int.nxad.com> <3E2EF005.9010107@btc.adaptec.com> <20030130155948.GL41512@genius.tao.org.uk> <200301302050.h0UKoHUD089619@apollo.backplane.com> <20030130211450.GA43978@genius.tao.org.uk>
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:> sysinstall (etc) could then use the master list to provide selections :> to the user. :>=20 :> This would give sites far more flexibility. For example, a site might :> hold both the alpha and ia64 mirrors, and instead of having to pull= :=20 :> CNAME tricks with someone else's DNS the administrator would need onl= :y=20 :> edit a single file (/pub/FreeBSD.resources) on his site. :>=20 : :Now that I like... :File format anyone? : :Of course it would be possible for a savy script to do a survey of known :ftp sites and generate the list automatically..... : :Joe :--=20 :Josef Karthauser (joe@tao.org.uk) http://www.josef-k.net/ :FreeBSD (cvs meister, admin and hacker) http://www.uk.FreeBSD.org/ Well, the primary mover for sysinstall is its options. We have Release Name (e.g. "4.7-STABLE"), and internally we have the architecture MACHINE, which is usually "i386" or "pc98" and so forth. We also need to know what is being retrieved... i.e. is it an ISO or a SNAPshot/release for sysinstall, etc. Maybe: class,release,machine,path so, for example: SNAPSHOT,5-LATEST,i386,ftp://current.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/i386/5-LATEST ISODISK1,RELENG4,i386,ftp://current.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/i386/ISO-IMAGES/releng4.iso Where 'class' would represent some primary purpose. So ISODISK1 would mean that the path represents an ISO image disk #1 for the specified release and machine. This leaves the question as to whether a site wishes to store an entire snapshot or just, say, "base" or "boot" or something like that. I'm not sure how beneficial further breaking down the class would be but it could be supported by extending the specification: class[:list],release,machine,path SNAPSHOT:floppies:base:boot,5-LATEST,i386,ftp://my.local.machine/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/i386/5-LATEST And simple wildcarding "*" and "?" could also supported. This is just a brainstorm. I'm trying to think of this from sysinstall's viewpoint. Sysinstall will know the release and the hardware and it will also know which subdirectories it is going to need access to when the user selects the distribution set to install. Combine that with the above format and sysinstall would be able to find a list of sites (or even a combination of sites) that support the request, possibly also including local repositories. In fact, it would be pretty cool if we could have some pseudo locators that an administrator would be able to program into his local DNS server to allow floppy installs within an office to automatically pull off the office's server. Something like adding 'freebsd.localhost.' to the servers list. I suppose sysinstall could figure all this out by going to the site directly, instead of us requiring a resources file, but I think the programming would be easier and the network traffic would be reduced with a resources file present. Another alternative would be to use DNS TXT records instead of a resources file. This would greatly reduce potential network traffic and make install-time scanning of potential download sites trivial, at the cost of a greater administrative effort. -Matt Matthew Dillon <dillon@backplane.com> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hubs" in the body of the message
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