Re: preupgrade today: getting error: cannot download the kickstart file

[Matt Domsch <Matt_Domsch dell com>]

On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 09:18:42PM -0700, John Reiser wrote:
> Kevin Kofler wrote:
> > John Reiser wrote:
> 
> >> ... spring break on many academic calendars in the US, time for the final
> >> rounds of the US NCAA college basketball tournament, ...
> 
> > Try the European mirrors then. :-)
> 
> yum, preupgrade, and related FedoraProject software often does its best
> to hide such details from the user, and to make it inconvenient to choose
> anything other than the default round-robin by geo-IP.  [jigdo is an exception.]

The mirror choice algorithm is far more complicated than round-robin
by geo-IP.  Of course, it isn't perfect, but is a decent
approximation most of the time.

 
> For instance, by default yumdownloader generates no record of which mirror
> you get upon HTTP 302 [or 303] redirection from the master mirror.
> In practice you see the ultimate URL only if the connection [attempt]
> actually times out.

Patches or enhancement bugs filed suggesting ways in which the tools
you're interested would be more verbose are welcome.

> This enables the mirror administrator(s) to hide from users in most
> cases of poor service (missing file, stale file, slower than
> necessary, ...)

This, my friend, is just a pot shot.  We're _lucky_ to have so many
mirrors, and in most cases, mirrors with very responsive
administrators; not to mention the Infrastructure team that keeps it
all humming.  If you have genuine problems with particular mirrors,
feel free to let the folks in #fedora-admin know, or file a ticket in
the Fedora Infrastructure trac
(https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-infrastructure) with the details.

Thanks,
Matt
Fedora Mirror Wrangler, and proud of it! :-)

-- 
Matt Domsch
Linux Technology Strategist, Dell Office of the CTO
linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux