Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

ozar · 2007-04-06 17:56:30

Hey guys, note that I've searched for this but couldn't find anything...

Are there any kind of standards that must be met to become an "official mirror" for Arch Linux?

I'm not wanting to mirror Arch, but just wondering about it because all the US mirrors seem really lousy, at least for the time being. If there are some kind of standards that must be met, are these official mirrors meeting them?

If there are no standards, shouldn't there be?

I don't know much about mirroring, so the whole idea might be totally preposterous. It just seems that Arch would want any official mirror to be up to par for it's role in representing the Arch Linux Community.

Thanks for any information regarding the subject.

raymano · 2007-04-06 18:02:23

Here here. I agree with you.

goldfish2 · 2007-04-06 19:27:21

Conversation between a mirror service and arch linux:
[mirror] Hi, we're interested in the work you're doing on Archlinux, we'd like to offer you some of our server bandwidth to mirror your distro.
[Arch] That sounds great, we'd really appreciate that!
[mirror] Ok, we'll set aside a little of our valuable bandwidth for you.
[Arch] Hang on a minute, your mirror isn't fast enough, you suck!
[ex mirror] well bye bye then.

raymano · 2007-04-06 19:30:43

goldfish2 wrote:

Conversation between a mirror service and arch linux:
[mirror] Hi, we're interested in the work you're doing on Archlinux, we'd like to offer you some of our server bandwidth to mirror your distro.
[Arch] That sounds great, we'd really appreciate that!
[mirror] Ok, we'll set aside a little of our valuable bandwidth for you.
[Arch] Hang on a minute, your mirror isn't fast enough, you suck!
[ex mirror] well bye bye then.

If the mirror is going to suck, the conversation might as well go as you suggest.

Last edited by raymano (2007-04-06 19:30:58)

ozar · 2007-04-06 19:30:50

Like I said above, I have no idea what it would encompass, but if it's a mirror that's slow as molasses and they want to sync the mirror only once a year, maybe Arch should be the one saying good bye.

neotuli · 2007-04-06 19:30:57

I don't agree with OP and raymano at all. I'm just happy anyone is willing to mirror our repos and donate that kind of bandwidth. Also, you have to realize that most of our mirrors have enormous capacity, I mean we're talking almost 6TB a month kind of capacity (to use what ftp.archlinux.org used to burn up as a rough example).

I'm just happy ANYONE is willing to donate that kinds of resources in the first place. Aren't you? If not, then why don't you make your own standards for mirrors, it's really easy to implement. Simply go through your pacman configuration, choose which mirrors fit your "approved" critera, and delete the rest. Then you'll be happy and the rest of us won't have to listen to you scream about how free isn't good enough.

raymano · 2007-04-06 19:33:35

neotuli wrote:

I don't agree with OP and raymano at all. I'm just happy anyone is willing to mirror our repos and donate that kind of bandwidth. Also, you have to realize that most of our mirrors have enormous capacity, I mean we're talking almost 6TB a month kind of capacity (to use what ftp.archlinux.org used to burn up as a rough example).
I'm just happy ANYONE is willing to donate that kinds of resources in the first place. Aren't you? If not, then why don't you make your own standards for mirrors, it's really easy to implement. Simply go through your pacman configuration, choose which mirrors fit your "approved" critera, and delete the rest. Then you'll be happy and the rest of us won't have to listen to you scream about how free isn't good enough.

That's like saying giving rotten, rancid food to someone that's hungry is a good thing.

skottish · 2007-04-06 19:34:47

neotuli wrote:

I'm just happy anyone is willing to mirror our repos and donate that kind of bandwidth.

Agreed. And the American mirror thing seems to be an anomaly. This is the first time since I've used Arch that this has come up.

raymano · 2007-04-06 19:40:25

skottish wrote:

neotuli wrote:
I'm just happy anyone is willing to mirror our repos and donate that kind of bandwidth.
Agreed. And the American mirror thing seems to be an anomaly. This is the first time since I've used Arch that this has come up.

Don't you think it is the first time it has come up because everyone in US was using the main arch ftp site and the US mirrors have always sucked?

I had tried to use them before and it was the same. I just didn't care because the main arch ftp site was blazing fast and very reliable.

Last edited by raymano (2007-04-06 19:42:11)

goldfish2 · 2007-04-06 19:44:36

actually, I agree with ozar, raymano and skottish, if the mirror doesn't meet our needs then it should be abandoned for mutual benefit.

The community needs to make sure that the mirrors we do have are being used appropriately.

ozar · 2007-04-06 19:58:17

neotuli wrote:

Then you'll be happy and the rest of us won't have to listen to you scream about how free isn't good enough.

neotuli, what gave you the idea I was "screaming"? I didn't post in all caps, or bold print. I merely asked a legitimate question. You know, I scan these forums 30 to 40 times a day, but rarely post because someone is always so quick to flame.

yankees26 · 2007-04-06 20:20:03

The US servers are fine: Mirror page on the wiki All 3 are very fast for me.

raymano · 2007-04-06 20:22:06

I have some free used toilet paper. Any takers?

raymano · 2007-04-06 20:24:03

yankees26 wrote:

The US servers are fine: Mirror page on the wiki All 3 are very fast for me.

Have you tried them lately? The only working one is ibiblio. And what do you mean by fast?

Last edited by raymano (2007-04-06 20:27:26)

Borosai · 2007-04-06 20:26:32

The US mirrors aren't great, but they are doing the arch community a huge favor after all. Apparently, there are only a handful of them, so imagine the load placed on each one. On top of that, they serve as mirrors for other distributions and probably a few other things. Anyway, there really isn't anything that can be done unless more mirrors pop up. You can't eliminate the ones we have now, since that would leave us without any.

Just find the one that works best for you.

raymano · 2007-04-06 20:30:12

There is another option. A BitTorrent based repo. I don't mean for ISOs. I mean the repos themselves. Of cource that means pacman has to be rewritten and the architecture of the repos have to change.

Last edited by raymano (2007-04-06 20:31:38)

codemac · 2007-04-06 20:31:08

Define "working".

If mirror.cs.vt.edu is not working for you, you need to let me know. We're maxing out our bandwidth right now 24/7 so you may not get the best dl speed, but I regularly get >300 KBps, which should be fine for archlinux packages. Every now and again I get 3MB/s, but I live close to the school.

raymano · 2007-04-06 20:48:29

codemac wrote:

Define "working".
If mirror.cs.vt.edu is not working for you, you need to let me know. We're maxing out our bandwidth right now 24/7 so you may not get the best dl speed, but I regularly get >300 KBps, which should be fine for archlinux packages. Every now and again I get 3MB/s, but I live close to the school.

Not working as in:

$ rankmirrors -u ftp://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/ArchLinux/current/os/i686

ftp://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/ArchLinux/current/os/i686 : unreachable

I just did that now.

scarecrow · 2007-04-06 21:13:50

Sounds silly to me. Greek Archlinux users are very well served by the National Technical University (ntua.gr) mirror, which is (for us, at least) smoking fast, and synced twice a day (I think). So, it's hard to believe that US residents do not have a single decent mirror...

buddabrod · 2007-04-06 23:46:50

Here in germany no problems with that.. i get always fullspeed (1.2MiB/s) and the mirror is always up to date.

cascat · 2007-04-07 00:10:26

I am a long time user of Arch Linux and have only used archlinux.org only a couple of times in a pinch. The US mirrors have always been flaky-no connections, not up to date, or very slow. During one period several months ago the mirrors were so poor that I started using European mirrors for awhile. Ibiblio has been the only dependable mirror in the U.S. for me. It usually updates around midnight central time in the U.S.

shen · 2007-04-07 00:30:22

Arch devs need to contact osuosl.org about being a US mirror. They are fast and reliable and very much opensource friendly.

Borosai · 2007-04-07 01:09:24

At the moment, I am using the Nethat repo. Although it has a noticeable delay when first connecting, the download speeds aren't bad. I tried ibiblio, but the connection was constantly dropped during downloads (had the same problem with them during an ftp install). As far as the vt.edu and gatech.edu repos, I can't even connect to them from the Get Arch page...it's as if they are down.

By the way, I just checked out a repo in the Netherlands, and the connection was faster than any connection to the US servers. So clearly, there is an issue, but all you can do is look around for another server.

ozar · 2007-04-07 02:40:26

raymano wrote:

That's like saying giving rotten, rancid food to someone that's hungry is a good thing.

I have to agree completely raymano... just because something is free doesn't mean it's worthy of being an "official" Arch mirror. I have a television set that I'm willing to give away to the first person that gets here to pick it up. The remote is lost, there's no picture, and the sound doesn't work, but hey, it's free.

Mr.Elendig · 2007-04-07 03:54:18

And you would rather prefer to have no mirror at all?

If you are so disappointed about the mirrors, how about you try to raise some new/better ones?
That shouldn't give you any problems at all, you should be able to do in in a day or two.........

Last edited by Mr.Elendig (2007-04-07 03:54:48)

Arch Linux

#1 2007-04-06 17:56:30

Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

#2 2007-04-06 18:02:23

Re: Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

#3 2007-04-06 19:27:21

Re: Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

#4 2007-04-06 19:30:43

Re: Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

#5 2007-04-06 19:30:50

Re: Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

#6 2007-04-06 19:30:57

Re: Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

#7 2007-04-06 19:33:35

Re: Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

#8 2007-04-06 19:34:47

Re: Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

#9 2007-04-06 19:40:25

Re: Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

#10 2007-04-06 19:44:36

Re: Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

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Re: Arch Linux Official Mirror Standards

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