Re: [website-dev] Metalink (XML for downloading, with mirrors, p2p, and checksums)

[Clytie Siddall]

On 01/12/2006, at 3:25 AM, Anthony Bryan wrote:

I would like people to know about something I've been working on, and to

integrate it more into OpenOffice.org if people are interested. It is

can take advantage of it.

Metalink is a system which improves the download process by increasing
availability and guaranteeing integrity. It can give your users a more

and by priority. The checksum verification process, usually manual and

language, file descriptions, mutliple files (to be added to a download

interesting things. It lets you have one download link for multiple
Operating Systems and languages, and downloaders will get the correct
version for their system.

OpenOffice.org Metalink downloads (2.0.3):
http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/magnet.html
OpenOffice.org Metalink downloads (All):
http://download.packages.ro/metalink/openoffice/

already on a P2P subpage. I'd like to be able to update that page so people reliable download by providing multiple links to the same file, which can be switched to if one server is down or fails during transmission. It can also make downloads faster by using multiple resources at once. Metalink lists mirrors with machine readable information on priority and location so their efficient use can be automated by download programs. It can list mirrors around the world, but will automatically default to mirrors closer to you arcane to most people, is automated with Metalink, so files are guaranteed to be an exact copy of the file you downloaded, free of errors. Metalinks can also contain publisher information, Operating System and architecture, queue) and so on. All this extra information allows download programs to do Metalink on the wiki: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/ Metalink

More details..."Downloading bliss with Metalink":
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/11/01/1641247

Partial example Metalink:

   <file name="OOo_2.0.4_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz">
    <os>Linux-x86</os>
    <size>126498407</size>
    <verification>
     <hash type="md5">736a546f2a2518e49c94f6c7995dc055</hash>
    </verification>
    <resources>
       <url type="bittorrent"
           preference="100">

http://borft.student.utwente.nl/openoffice/torrents/ OOo_2.0.4_LinuxIntel_ins

tall.tar.gz.torrent
      </url>
      <url type="ftp"
           location="au"
           preference="30">

ftp://mirror.pacific.net.au/OpenOffice/stable/2.0.4/ OOo_2.0.4_LinuxIntel_ins

tall.tar.gz
      </url>
      <url type="http"
           location="au"
           preference="30">

http://mirror.pacific.net.au/openoffice/stable/2.0.4/ OOo_2.0.4_LinuxIntel_in

stall.tar.gz
      </url>
      <url type="http"
           location="at"
           preference="30">

http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/office/openoffice/stable/2.0.4/ OOo_2.0.4_LinuxIntel_i

nstall.tar.gz
      </url>
    </resources>

(( Anthony Bryan
 )) Metalink [ http://www.metalinker.org ]

Please tell us how we can use Metalink. :)


http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN

Anthony, this would be a huge help for users living in third-world countries, and for other users with unreliable connections. In Vietnam, it will take you all day to download OpenOffice, if you're lucky. The connections are appalling, dropping out all the time, very low quality even when they're supposedly up. This would also mean we don't have to provide a list of alternative download links, and can avoid the progressive damage of file data you get in a low-quality network. Most of our users are new users: we need to simplify the process as much as we can. We're about to release our first supported version of OpenOffice (2.1), and the problem of facilitating download of such a huge file has been worrying us considerably. XML is enormously flexible. XLIFF, the localization implementation of XML, will revolutionize free-software translation, and is already the basis of some free-software localization tools. from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm Việt hóa phần mềm tự do)

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