Query about the usage of FreeBSD mirror sites for other projects

[Fabian Wenk]

Hello Oliver

On 21.02.2012 16:29, Oliver Fromme wrote:
> Ultimately, it would be cool to have a more flexible and
> dynamic system for distfiles.
>
> Clients wouldn't download directly from certain FTP mirrors
> anymore, but they would contact an "index server".  The index
> servers maintain a list of locations where each distfile can
> be found, similar to a very specialized search engine.  These
> locations can be FreeBSD mirrors or mirrors of other projects
> (Debian, Gentoo, whatever) or just random sites anywhere on
> the internet.  The "MASTER_SITES" information currently

I really like it, that I can download from a mirror which is near 
on the network, as it is much faster then from anywhere else on 
the internet. So random distribution will just generate more 
global network traffic, which is often more costly (for the ISPs) 
then local traffic with free peering between regional ISPs.

> I'm aware that such a system would require quite some work.
> It's just an idea that came to my mind, but maybe it's worth
> further investigation.  Maybe it should get an entry on
> FreeBSD's "project ideas" page.

Eventually doing something with regional reverse caching proxy, 
which is able to get missing files in the background from the 
master. Subsequent request will then be served from the local cache.


bye
Fabian