[CentOS-mirror] DVD Access and why it is restricted

[William Dunn]

Johnny Hughes wrote:
> All,
> 
> We have added some servers for msync-dvd access, so it should be a bit
> better than before .. but I thought I would explain why access is
> restricted again for the record.
> 
> 1.  DVDs are > 2GB in size, so MOST web servers on Linux (except for
> apache > 2.2 or lighttpd) can not show them or provide them for download.
> 
> EXAMPLE: CentOS-5 can do > 2GB files with the included apache ...
> CentOS-3 and CentOS-4 can not.
> 
> 2.  The CentOS infrastructure only has a limited number of machines that
> can host the DVDs and all the other parts of the tree due to increased size.
> 
> 3.  Lots of extra bandwidth expended when we sync out the DVDs ...
> 
> 4.  Even though we ASK that only approved mirrors sync the DVDs, other
> people who are not public mirrors WILL decide that those rules do not
> apply to THEM, only OTHER people.  THEY will sync from our servers even
> though we ASK them not too.


Plenty of us who do sync from the CentOS official DVD mirror also 
provide rsync access, including DVD's.  You'll be several hours behind 
the official, but choosing a high-bandwidth tier-2 mirror should work 
pretty well.

see: http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=13

I'm not listed as providing rsync on that page, but I do: feel free to 
"rsync mirror.cs.vt.edu::" to see what I've got, and you're welcome to 
sync from me.

~Will


> 
> For all those reasons, we limit access to the rsync channel for DVDs.
> Especially since most mirrors can not give them out anyway (since they
> are > 2GB).
> 
> We still have a limited number of mirrors that pass out the DVDs in our
> infrastructure (though I just added 4 more) and it is still probably
> usually faster for you to get them from faster mirrors than ours anyway
> .. especially at CentOS point release time.
> 
> There are about 200 official public mirrors that want to get updates
> from us at release time, and if all of them get updates via the
> msync-dvd mirrors it is going to be a _VERY_LONG_ time before those get out.
> 
> Also understand that there is only 24 hours in a day and I am only one
> person ... and I have a real job :D ... so I can only manage CentOS
> infrastructure for 23 Hours and 59 Minutes a day !!!
> 
> Thanks,
> Johnny Hughes
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
William Dunn
Unix / Linux Administrator
Virginia Tech Computer Science Department
wdunn at cs.vt.edu / 540-231-3167