With the imminent release of CentOS 4.3 , and then 3.7 ... we are looking for ways to improve the way we get CentOS to end users.
It is likely that shortly we will restrict access to msync.centos.org to officialy registered mirrors. This is to try to conserve the bandwidth that we have available to sync mirrors.
We will also be switching rsync access to mirror.centos.org off as that should not be used by external mirrors to sync. (mirrors should preferably use us-msync. and eu-msync. - but otherwise msync. )
That would mean that new mirrors would need an alternative method to sync and we will be requesting that they initially sync from another mirror. Then once synced and registered they would be given access to msync.centos.org if needed.
( It is assumed that any mirrors that provide rsync access will be happy for new mirrors to sync using them, but if not please speak up ... )
In order to scale up we may need for external mirrors to become hubs and act as sync masters for other mirrors. Alternatively we do need more geographically spread servers of our own - if anyone has any spare ....
It is also possible that we could provide the whole tree via bittorrent for new mirrors to use to sync - but thawould onyl be of benefit if mirrors were prepared to act as feeds for the torrent.
Also a proposal that has been made is to provide access to dvd.iso files on external mirrors and we are looking into doing that. At the moment dvd.iso files are only available by bittorrent and some people are forbidden from using that by companies regulations.
We also have a vault of older CentOS releases that we keep at vault.centos.org, (approx 115 GB - but will grow slightly once CentOS 4.2 is vaulted) that could benefit from being mirrored more widely.
So - if any mirrors have space and bandwidth to spare , then please answer the following questions.
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1. Would you be prepared to act as a hub for other (local) mirrors to sync from - either by providing us with a server to use, or setting up an apache virtual host that we can point to (would have to be standard CentOS mirror structure ) - and an rsync module.
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2. Would you be prepared to feed a bittorrent of the centos tree for new mirrors to use to sync ??
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3. Would you be prepared to mirror dvd.iso files , (bearing in mind the apache 2GB file size restriction may mean using a different http server)
We would provide these as a separate rsync repo - and they could (preferably) be initially downloaded via bitorrent.
Our iso redirect system would see which mirrors carried the dvd iso files and offer those mirrors to users for those files.
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4. Would you be prepared to mirror vault.centos.org
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Do you have any other suggestions ??
Regards Lance