IITK Linux mirror

[Raju Mathur <raju@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ajay,

This is a great idea.  Considering that even Sri Lanka and Nepal have
kernel mirrors, I think it's high time India had one too :-) My
comments under...

>>>>> "Dwivedi" == Dwivedi Ajay kumar <ajayd@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

    Dwivedi> hi all, IIT kanpur may come up with a linux mirror. I
    Dwivedi> have to present a plan to CC Head at 3pm today, and I
    Dwivedi> need advice regarding the same.

    Dwivedi> 	Here are some questions in my mind, Kindly be prompt
    Dwivedi> with your suggestions. Also give as many as advices you
    Dwivedi> can regarding this.

    Dwivedi> 1. Should it be on http or ftp?  We want that there
    Dwivedi> should be no connection hijacking using multipart
    Dwivedi> downloads.

HTTP is as fast as FTP and can be used easily through firewalls, which
FTP requires tweaking for.  You may also like to consider an rsync
server on your system.

Apart from that, fewer security bugs have been reported in Apache in
the past 2 years than in any of the well-known FTPd's :)

    Dwivedi> 2. What all should we mirror?  We can't start with
    Dwivedi> mirroring everything. I have plans for RH, Mandrake,
    Dwivedi> kernel. Need suggestions regarding the others. Also
    Dwivedi> Suggest the approx amount of Diskspace needed for this.

At least:

   kernel.org
        .gz: 6GB,  .bz2: 5GB,  Total: 11GB
        rsync update preferred
        Info: http://www.kernel.org/mirrors/become.html

   debian.org (US and non-US)
         Will find ouy requirements and let you know.

    Dwivedi> 3. How do we restrict the bandwidth/no of users?  We have
    Dwivedi> 2 leased lines of 2mbps each. We would want to restrict
    Dwivedi> the max bandwidth so that the users in IITK are not
    Dwivedi> affected. Bandwidth issue is one of the main concerns
    Dwivedi> here.

Use a traffic shaper in front of the server?

/usr/src/linux/Documentation/networking/shaper.txt

    Dwivedi> 4. How often do we need to update the mirror?  I think we
    Dwivedi> would have to use rsync for updating. Any ideas?

Nightly (say 3-4am) would be a good idea to start the rsync.  And yes,
you need to rsync.  Debian permits that, will have to check about
kernel.org.

    Dwivedi> 5. Would it be really easy and fast for people to
    Dwivedi> download from iitk mirror rather than downloading from
    Dwivedi> US?

Depends on whom your connectivity is through and how/how well your
service provider is connected to other ISP's.  If you have a
connection to VSNL then most of India should get decent throughputs.
In fact, you could armtwist VSNL into giving you another 2mbps for the
mirror at highly reduced rates since your traffic will be within India
itself and not impacting their international bandwidth (except for the
mirror updates, which shouldn't exceed more than a 9.6Kb/s at the
outermost).

    Dwivedi> 	Waiting for your suggestions.  -Ajay --

Let me know if I can be any help.

Regards,

-- Raju

    Dwivedi> #!!! If anything can go wrong, _FIX_ it. (To hell with
    Dwivedi> MURPHY)
	
    Dwivedi> 						Ajay kumar
    Dwivedi> Dwivedi ajayd@xxxxxxxxxx

-- 
Raju Mathur          raju@xxxxxxxxxxxxx           http://kandalaya.org/