[arch-general] Syncing the mirrors

[Benoit Favre]

On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 12:02 AM, Damjan Georgievski <gdamjan at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's also the problem that some mirrors (most of the ones I've
> tried) sync the package database before syncing all the packages.

Actually, syncing the db last is not going to improve things: if some
packages get deleted, they won't be found when updating against the
old db.

The only way to have always running mirrors is to either make the
operation atomic by for instance switching to a directory with the new
files (but what if the switch occurs while you are downloading files
according to the old db), or to have an incremental layout where
nothing gets deleted. I don't see a way of keeping mirrors consistent
while keeping the whole procedure simple.

In any case, there should be more communication towards users about
what's really going on.

Benoit.