Anthony L. Bryan wrote: > Hi, > > Still seeing if you'd like to use metalinks for your ISO downloads. > > Metalinks contain mirror and p2p locations along with checksums and other > metadata for faster and easier downloads. Downloads are distributed between > mirrors and checksums are automatically verified when it finishes. Here's a > good description: > > 'Metalink makes complex download pages obsolete by replacing long lists of > download mirrors and BitTorrent trackers with a single .metalink file. As > you might have already guessed, a .metalink file is a file that tells a > download manager all the different ways it can download a file. The file > itself takes the form of an open XML standard that can list an unlimited > number of HTTP and FTP sources as well as BitTorrent trackers and ed2k and > magnet links.' > (http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/08/28/metalinks-integrated-bittorrent-htt > p-and-ftp-downloads/) > > There's a metalink for CentOS at > http://www.metalinker.org/samples/CentOS-4.4-i386-LiveCD.iso.metalink if > anyone wants to try it out. Here's what part of it looks like: > > <file name="CentOS-4.4-i386-LiveCD.iso"> > <version>4.4</version> > <verification> > <hash type="md5">747c9e33a10fdbf5919d9fd188ab7d23</hash> > </verification> > <resources> > <url type="http" > preference="100">http://altruistic.lbl.gov/mirrors/centos/4.4/isos/i386/Cent > OS-4.4-i386-LiveCD.iso</url> > <url type="http" > preference="100">http://centos.mirror.nac.net/4.4/isos/i386/CentOS-4.4-i386- > LiveCD.iso</url> > <url type="http" > preference="100">http://dist1.800hosting.com/centos/4.4/isos/i386/CentOS-4.4 > -i386-LiveCD.iso</url> > <url type="http" location="us" > preference="100">http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/centos/4.4/isos/i386/CentOS-4.4-i > 386-LiveCD.iso</url> > </resources> > > Download clients are available for Unix, Mac, & Windows. aria2 RPMs for Red > Hat Enterprise Linux 4 are at > http://dries.ulyssis.org/rpm/packages/aria2/info.html > > OpenOffice.org and many Linux/BSD distributions are using metalink. Here's a > few places: > > http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/magnet.html > http://en.opensuse.org/Released_Version#Metalink > http://desktopbsd.net/index.php?id=73 > http://www.pcbsd.org/?p=download > http://www.archlinux.org/download/ > http://www.redwall-firewall.com/content/view/14/33/ > http://yui.mine.nu/berry/edownload.php > http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppy210 > We spoke about this earlier, and I also asked for comments - we didnt get too many here on this list. But, it would still be a good idea to get this somehow integrated into the CentOS release process. Making it easier and adding more options to spread loads is always a good idea IMHO. -- Karanbir Singh : http://www.karan.org/ : 2522219 at icq