On Tue, 20 Jul 2004, Justyna Horwat wrote:
I placed one of the JSTL 1.1.1 release source bundles here:
/x1/www/www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/taglibs/standard/source jakarta-taglibs-standard-1.1.1-src.tar.gz
I then created symbolic links to the latest source and binary files:
/x1/www/www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/taglibs/standard
lrwxr-xr-x 1 horwat jakarta 48 Jul 20 09:16 jakarta-taglibs-standard-current-src.tar.gz -> source/jakarta-taglibs-standard-1.1.1-src.tar.gz
The following mirror threw a 403 and did not resolve the links properly:
http://mirrors.combose.com/apache/jakarta/taglibs/standard
That mirror is not following the recommendations listed here:
http://www.apache.org/info/how-to-mirror.html
I have copied the mirror contact on this message, so hopefully they will fix the problems.
But as an Apache project, you should be pointing your downloaders at the target of the symlink. You should do this not only because it eliminates this particular problem, but also because if you point a downloader at the most recent release, it is usually better to give them a 404 if the mirror is out of date, rather than giving them an old version. If you point them at the symlink, they will get whatever version is on the mirror, regardless of how out of date it is.
Now, it appears that jakarta-taglibs is simply dumping people in the taglibs/ directory and letting them browse to their desired software. I understand that makes things much simpler for you, but it is not the optimal method of using the mirrors. It is preferable to provide specific links from your binindex.cgi to the particular software distributions. This requires greater maintenance on your part, but is generally much clearer for downloaders and it avoids any problems with misconfigured mirrors. Plus it allows you to provide direct links to the php and md5 signatures on www.apache.org to ensure integrity.
We have not, in the past, kicked off mirrors for configuration problems such as this one. But since we have lots of US mirrors, I could be convinced to do so if people feel strongly about it.
Joshua.
