[arch-general] 'Local mirror' page was removed from wiki

Fess killall_humans at lavabit.com
Wed Sep 15 00:20:11 EDT 2010


On 19:13 Tue 14 Sep , C Anthony Risinger wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Nathan Wayde <disposaboy at konnichi.com> wrote:
> > here's what I'd(and I imagine most others who know about sharing the cache)
> > use a local mirror for:
> >
> > to be able to sync all other systems from it. plain and simple. if my
> > systems don't have internet connection or something like that then i simply
> > get the packages from the master,
> > cache sharing doesn't and cannot solve that problem at all, that's a fact.
> 
> shared cache won't solve that sure... but there are better solutions:
> 
> ) if you can get it from master, then it sounds like you have a LAN
> connection; tunnel a connection thru master...
> ) if you have a LAN, what can't some machines have access anyway?
> ) if you don't have a LAN, you are manually moving packages?  you
> could do that without a local mirror
> ) if you have a LAN, but _cannot_ allow some access to the net, then
> use a different method like a caching proxy
> 
> local mirror = quick/easy crutch to avoid better utilization of
> local/peer resources
> 
> i use a homebrew proxy/cache solution for my home, works fine.  one
> machine pretends to be a repo, others look to it for packages... easy.
>  i'm not using this exact version now, but i implemented this (rather
> crappily) while first learning python:
> 
> "pacproxy (or something that vaguely resembles an apt-proxy clone)"
> https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=87115
> 
> > now to the bandwidth issue. it's obviously bogus, because:
> >
> > 1) they assume everyone/(lots of people) is going to create a local mirror.
> > 2) they assume that they're all going to sync from the same server.
> > 3) they assume this extra bandwidth waste actually causes a problem for all
> > the mirrors - i.e that there's only 1 mirror.
> >
> > now, if my assumptions are wrong thus leading to false conclusions then
> > please correct me, but so far all I've heard is whining about local mirror
> > causing problems for the mirrors but nothing about what these problems
> > actually are, in the meantime the original wiki was deemed bad with not much
> > of a valid reason and nothing being done to further educate us the users.
> 
> i don't think it's even about whether or not it _is_ causing a
> problem, and more a preemptive move to discourage naive
> implementations.  sure, if you have a heterogeneous environment of 200
> machines, then a local mirror probably isn't too bad an idea... but it
> still isn't needed, as faster/better/cheaper methods are available.
> 
> in my opinion, if you're not publicly seeding your mirror, then you
> don't need it; else you probably only want it due to an extreme case
> of laziness.  sure maybe mirror XYZ can handle constant sync's from
> everyone looking at it... but really, do them a favor, and don't; it
> might piss them off :-).
> 
> > You can probably tell that I'm annoyed by this and the simple fact is that
> > ARM sync script was based off the script on that wiki, it's not the same as
> > I changed a lot of options to cater to my own needs but as have been said
> > the script was bad, no-one is telling us what was bad about it and these
> > alternative methods are wholly inadequate at best.
> 
> yeah i don't really know the politics here, or have even seen the
> script.  in my own experience back in the day syncing ubuntu repos
> (for easy install at remote locations from large USB key when client
> requirements are unknown)... you likely flat out don't need it, and
> there are _very_ few legitimate use cases for it (the parenthesized
> use case above is about the best one i know).
> 
> all i'm suggesting is that just because you can and it's easy doesn't
> mean you should.  but hey, i don't run a mirror, and extreme leeching
> won't affect me, so ultimately i could care less; if i did though, i
> would monitor for this kind of crap... i mean, doesn't the official
> arch mirror impose similar restrictions?  just do you part to not be
> excessive.
> 
> does one check out the entire library on the possibility of reading 10 books?
> 
> C Anthony

I think, i know(and others, who use this method) better what i'm doing, and why i am doing it.
So, i tell you once more - community think, that this is useful.
People, who say "Hey, man! I have server, and rsync installed, add me please to the list of 3rd party mirrors" know what they do.
If they offer this service - they think it helps. If they would have 'tiny pipe'(or something else tiny) they wouldn't do it.
So, i still don't understand why opinion of community ignored.

-- 



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