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#1 2012-09-06 15:34:45

hozza
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2012-07-06
Posts: 24

Mass Scalability System Update Idea

The current Arch system update structure, funded mirrors in different physical locations to improve speeds. Various protocols, FTP, HTTP etc.

There are many benefits to this (update server [mirrors]) structure which I don't intend to go into in this thread.

However is it technically viable to use some kind of torrent P2P (tracker or no tracker) structure for system updates?
Does anyone know of this idea (or similar) being implemented before (be that Linux or not)?
And could it be a good solution for if Arch were ever used on such a scale that paying for mirrors becomes impractical, or in areas where a mirror is not posible but P2P is (legal reasons, not wishing to go into possible scenarios or legal covos)?

As this is an idea, nothing more.

How do you think it could be done from a technical point of view? Perhaps, we could scrabble together a POC.

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#2 2012-09-06 18:02:09

kaszak696
Member
Registered: 2009-05-26
Posts: 543

Re: Mass Scalability System Update Idea

Haven't heard about any package managers utilizing this, but the updater for World of Warcraft uses webseeded BitTorrent to distribute game updates.

Last edited by kaszak696 (2012-09-06 18:14:58)


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#3 2012-09-06 18:21:32

alphaniner
Member
From: Ancapistan
Registered: 2010-07-12
Posts: 2,810

Re: Mass Scalability System Update Idea

Might not be so great for anyone who uses Arch behind a fw they don't control (s/a myself at work).


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#4 2012-09-06 19:13:59

Cdh
Member
Registered: 2009-02-03
Posts: 1,098

Re: Mass Scalability System Update Idea

hozza wrote:

Does anyone know of this idea (or similar) being implemented before (be that Linux or not)?

I believe several pacman wrappers / alpm clients have experimented with this. Also, it came up several times in the forums:
https://www.google.com/search?q=+site:b … an+torrent (yay, a thread from 2005 asking that question smile)

hozza wrote:

And could it be a good solution for if Arch were ever used on such a scale that paying for mirrors becomes impractical

Well, I use a mirror that is directly connected to my university network and if your internet connection is fast enough and you are close enough you'll get 80+MB/s from it.
I believe there are enough universities all over the world that you should find one in your area that is willing to host some stuff.

hozza wrote:

How do you think it could be done from a technical point of view? Perhaps, we could scrabble together a POC.

Well, the main problem is: There are too many little updates and it's not feasible having thousands of little torrents. Maybe you could put together "typical usage" torrents like a torrent for all of kde.
You could also make a rule that you want packages from torrents that are bigger than 50 MB and the rest from default http/ftp mirrors.

edit: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pactor

Last edited by Cdh (2012-09-06 19:18:17)


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#5 2012-09-06 21:31:43

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Mass Scalability System Update Idea

There already were a couple such ideas e.g. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=90970

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#6 2012-09-07 01:05:31

hozza
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2012-07-06
Posts: 24

Re: Mass Scalability System Update Idea

I was thinking it was strange that no one had thought of this before. I genially did use the forum search but to no avail, didn't use Google though. Would a mod like to /dev/null this thread (if you don't think anymore useful info will come from it)

Interesting reads though, cheers Archers.

Last edited by hozza (2012-09-07 11:43:43)

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#7 2012-09-07 01:13:25

hozza
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2012-07-06
Posts: 24

Re: Mass Scalability System Update Idea

Such a shame that Pactor seems dead! D:

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