MirrorBrain 2.6 is out...there are plans for OpenOffice.org and Samba to use it eventually.
there are also some new mailing lists: http://mirrorbrain.org/communication & a presentation & interview! http://tube.opensuse.org/fosdem09/fosdem09_day2_04-cdn.ogg http://mirrorbrain.org/interview From: Peter Poeml <poeml_at_cmdline.net> Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:37:43 +0100 [This release is nearly two weeks old -- I lag with the announcement.] Version 2.5 was released: it adds support for using the PostgreSQL database as backend, alternatively to MySQL. MySQL is still fully supported. However, PostgreSQL is recommended now, particularly for large installations with dozens of mirrors and more. PostgreSQL support is an important step to a next-generation mirror selection regime that is in the works. Migration is pretty easy; the mb tool can export data in a format the PostgreSQL can understand. The 2.5 release also sees major improvements in the mirror scanner. It now produces a much more readable output and error reporting. This makes it easier to see spot problems encountered on mirrors. Database operations done by the scanner are more efficient in this release. The installation instructions have undergone a rework to be more complete, and reflect the recent changes. More to come... From: Peter Poeml <poeml_at_cmdline.net> Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:08:50 +0100 [Finding the time to announce this...] For the purpose of implementing a finer grained mirror selection (than based on country and region as GeoIP database lookup), mod_asn was created. mod_asn is an Apache module that uses BGP routing data to look up the autonomous system (AS)[1], and the network prefix (subnet), which contains a given (clients) IP address. It is written with scalability in mind. To do lookups in high-speed, it uses the PostgreSQL ip4r datatype that is indexable with a Patricia Trie algorithm to store network prefixes. This is /the/ algorithm that can search through the ~250.000 existing prefixes in a breeze. It comes with script to create such a database (and keep it up to date) with snapshots from global routing data - from a router's "view of the world", so to speak. Apache-internally, the module sets the looked up data as env table variables, for perusal by other Apache modules. In addition, it can send it as response headers to the client. MirrorBrain actually uses this already. Announcement to follow. :-) The source code is available under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0. It is available under the link [3], which requires an openSUSE buildservice account, or [4] in source RPM form. (I'm currently considering a new source code hosting facility; not sure where to put it best.) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_system_(Internet) [2] http://pgfoundry.org/projects/ip4r/ [3] https://build.opensuse.org/package/show?project=Apache:Modules&package=apache2-mod_asn [4] http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Apache:/Modules/ from Peter Poeml <[email protected]> subject [mirrorbrain-announce] 2.6 Release: Network Topological Mirror Selection This is a long announcement. Online here [2]. MirrorBrain 2.6 has been released, with a major new feature. Through the Apache module mod_asn [2], it uses BGP routing data to introduce two additional mirror selection criteria: network prefix and autonomous system number (AS). This network-topological knowledge supplements the country-based mirror selection (which relies on the GeoIP database). They work on a pretty much lower level and don't replace the latter. The country lookup is still needed for many requests, because there are many more ASs than mirrors — but for a subpopulation of users the change has a significant impact. I owe a big "thank you" to Bjoern Metzdorf who approached me with this idea, nearly a year ago. Also, Christian Deckelmann, Simon Leinen and Marko Jung have provided very fruitful discussion, insight and support. The change has a number of important implications: - It increases the likelihood to select the fastest mirror for a client. (See below.) - Traffic from clients of, for instance, a large university network can be sent to *their* local mirror automatically, with full-featured fallback to external mirrors if the internal one doesn't have what's requested yet. Such a local mirror is highly likely to be the fastest one. This has the potential to save large amounts of needless traffic between organizations. Due to the further narrowing on subnet prefix, this works also for huge "hypertrophic" autonomous systems like the German AS680 which contains the majority of the universities. - This can be interesting for corporations / organizations which desire to run a mirror and have only their clients sent to it. The point is: the new criteria can effectively be used not only for mirror selection, but also to limit mirror selection to a certain client population, based on network topology. The option to set up a "private" mirror can spare the organization external traffic. - And this should be helpful for regions with thin or costly Internet bandwidth, enabling them to establish new mirrors. They *can* receive normal redirects from MirrorBrain, but have the requests restricted to those from clients in the vicinity of the mirror (same network). Thus, traffic to clients would primarily be local traffic, and the need for outgoing bandwidth would be small compared to what a "traditional" public mirror would have to expect. This might hopefully lower the bar to find mirrors in many countries. Please spread the word! The change is up and running on download.opensuse.org and also on the other MirrorBrain instances. [1] http://mirrorbrain.org/news_items/2.6_network_topological_mirror_selection [2] http://mirrorbrain.org/news_items/mod_asn_-_Apache_module_to_look_up_routing_data -- (( Anthony Bryan ... Metalink [ http://www.metalinker.org ] )) Easier, More Reliable, Self Healing Downloads --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Metalink Discussion" group. 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