InstantMirror-0.2 Release

Warren Togami wtogami at redhat.com
Fri Dec 7 03:34:37 UTC 2007


Ed Swierk wrote:
> On 12/4/07, chasd <chasd at silveroaks.com> wrote:
>> If it was expected that InstantMirror was to be very popular, or
>> there was a large number of other packages that would make use of
>> <VirtualHost> directives, it might make sense to modify the default
>> apache configuration to be more "virtual host friendly." As it
>> stands, I think some prudent suggestions in the provided
>> InstantMirror.conf file ( and perhaps renaming it ) is the best plan.
> 
> Actually InstantMirror should work just fine in a simple
> non-VirtualHost configuration, so perhaps the default Apache
> configuration file can leave out the VirtualHost directives and we can
> bundle the fancier VirtualHost configuration as an example in the docs
> directory.

I personally dislike this idea.  It is already fully commented out in 
the default InstantMirror.conf.  Why don't we:
1) Keep the contents as-is.
2) Add a note to other examples the doc directory.
3) Rename the file to zz-InstantMirror.conf so it never goes first.

> 
>> If I could make one other suggestion about InstantMirror, it would be
>> to include a sample.repo file in /usr/share/doc/InstantMirror-x/ or
>> throw it into /etc/yum.repos.d/ with enabled=0.
> 
> Good idea.

I'm not sure about this.  I might be okay with keeping a sample.repo in 
docs, but not /etc/yum.respo.d/.  This is because anybody should be able 
to add their own mirror to MirrorManager itself and not need any 
per-client configuration.

Also /etc/yum.repos.d/ included in InstantMirror would mean that you 
need to install InstantMirror on each of your clients as well.  How much 
sense does this make? =)

> 
>> BTW, InstantMirror is much simpler, lighter weight and easier to use
>> than WSUS. Although WSUS has other abilities, InstantMirror has a
>> good 50% of the functionality of WSUS. This package may seem
>> innocuous, if you mentioned WSUS in the same breath as InstantMirror,
>> it might warrant a mention as a feature, at least targeted at some
>> new-to-Linux admins.
> 
> I have no idea what WSUS does but my guess is the 80/20 rule applies.
> Still, the fact that a useful admin tool can be implemented in less
> than 100 lines of Python demonstrates the excellent design of Apache,
> mod_python and Python.

Reportedly Debian has 3 implementations of a reverse proxy mirror, some 
even handle apt metadata in an intelligent way to expire the repository 
contents.  Might be worth looking into to get ideas for future 
improvement for InstantMirror.

Warren Togami
wtogami at redhat.com




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