Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 17:25:48 -0500 From: Brian Poole <raj@cerias.purdue.edu> To: hubs@freebsd.org Subject: Re: We seriously need a cleanup on ftp-master Message-ID: <20010507172547.B27129@basm.cerias.purdue.edu> In-Reply-To: <20010507150006.C12252@dragon.nuxi.com>; from obrien@FreeBSD.ORG on Mon, May 07, 2001 at 03:00:06PM -0700 References: <20010507125604P.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> <20010507163119.H3246@casimir.physics.purdue.edu> <20010507144618.A12252@dragon.nuxi.com> <20010507164650.J3246@casimir.physics.purdue.edu> <20010507150006.C12252@dragon.nuxi.com>
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Quoting David O'Brien (obrien@FreeBSD.ORG) from 7 May 2001: > > Yes, but if you move the bits to FreeBSD-archive, they can just reset > > the prefix of their installs and/or use PACKAGESITE. > You have a lot of faith in our users. I don't participate in > questions@freebsd.org, so I do what I can to avoid having to send people > there. I don't care about moving say 4.1-R packages to somewhere very > hard to find as I don't have any 4.1-R hosts anymore, but I do know > people that do. I brought this up with the hopes that we will stop and > take a moment to thing about the ramifications. That's all. I'm going to try and stay out of this (deciding exactly what should be culled) because I am not one to have an informed opinion on what is needed, what is easily swapped in & out, etc. I will say this, I think the FreeBSD directory is too big and some things should be cut. I was one of the people whining for a long while about the archive being too big and I'm grateful the issue is finally being addressed. > > I simply think it's inconvenient for mirror operators to host bits that > > are not obtained even one-tenth of 1% of the time as the newest > > releases/packages. Not everyone has 50GB of disk space to dedicate > > to FreeBSD, and I don't see a reason to expect that. :) > > If it is truly just a disk space issue, we should investigate if we can > get subsidized disks for well-connected mirrors. > Heck, 50GB is a typical personal MP3 collection. There -is- a disk space issue in that there is a limited disk space X that any given FTP site has (whether it be 60G, 120G, 200G, whatever) and there are lots of things that can fill that space. By demanding 50G you are demanding a very large portion of the disk space available for all projects. That sucks. Please remember this is a volunteer effort. I have 120G on my archive and I do slowly expand it as permitted, but you have to realize that providing a free mirror is not going to be on the top 10 list to spend money on for most organizations. So, yes, perhaps it is only 300$ for a cheap 80G IDE drive, but that 300$ is going towards research, staff, etc. I feel it is very rude towards mirror operators to just assume that we all have unlimited cash flow and can continue buying drives so that a little bit of organizing and effort is not needed. We desperately need to decide where old bits should go, -when- they should go, etc and I think we need to do it soon as possible. If we don't, imagine a few more releases down the line, the directory will just keep expanding, becoming even more unmanageable and more of a burden to mirrors. This is no good. Another consideration on top of the 50G being unreasonable in terms of diskspace is how it is complicating the mirroring process. 50G is a TON of files, and having to actively sync all of that is pretty intensive on the machines involved. I don't have enough memory to be throwing at these rsync's all the time, so I don't particurally appreciate having 50Gs of files that need to be synced. > BW is really the issue, what is expensive, and what we lack. BW is -another- issue and just as important, but you must take the size of the archive into account (which it honestly feels like you are disregarding with the argument that disk space is cheap). Enough ranting for the moment, apologies if this comes out a bit offensive, but this has been a thorn in my side for a while. My ultimate goal is the same as everyone's, to make this whole mirror business better and easier. -b To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hubs" in the body of the message
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