[Centos] Issues/thoughts re CentOS-4

[Dag Wieers]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, donavan nelson wrote:

> Max Beerli wrote:
> 
> > > > There is talk about a system like the ClamAV project which redirects
> > > > you to the closest mirror to you automatically, there is 1 common
> > > > domain and DNS handles the redirection.  In which case everyone would
> > > > have the same yum.conf file.
> > > 
> > > That sounds really complicated. How about a "mirror-select" script
> > > that's run when you run yum  update for the first time?
> > 
> > This is really good idea!
> 
> This is a really BAD idea.  Mirrors come and go, mirrors stop rsyncing, but
> have outdated data. 
> I'd rather have a centralized authority hand out a "best guess" mirror than
> have someone pick a mirror at setup and thing they are covered.

The ClamAV project maintains DNS and is responsible for making sure all 
mirrors are current and running. Each record is using a round-robin 
scheme.

	# database.clamav.net is a round-robin record which points to our most 
	# reliable mirrors. It's used as a fall back in case db.XY.clamav.net is 
	# not working. DO NOT TOUCH the following line unless you know what you
	# are doing.
	DatabaseMirror db.be.clamav.net
	DatabaseMirror db.local.clamav.net

The package rewrites the freshclam.conf to include a mirror based on the 
country you live in (this information is taken from /etc/sysconfig/clock 
and matched with the zoneinfo information).

Of course, users have the freedom to change the config file and tweak what 
they like, the default will just result in a more balanced setup that 
gives control into the hands who owns the DNS and proper usage will boil 
down to proper management of mirrors and DNS.

They even have a split-brain setup for db.local.clamav.net that takes into 
account in what netblock you're in. In my case db.local.clamav.net (or 
database.clamav.net and even db.be.clamav.net) points to the reliable 
europian mirrors.

There's no burden on the users (unless they want to manage it themselves), 
it gives flexibility and control to the foundation and the only 
requirement is the responsibility of managing the mirrors correctly, which 
you would want to do otherwise anyway.

--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]