[Fedora-infrastructure-list] Mirror Management Specification/Requirement List

[Jason Hartley]

  David Means and I have been working on putting together a
specification/requirement list for what we need for the mirror
management task.  This is for two reasons.  One, we might not get all of
the Centos pieces in a timely matter, so we will move forward with our
own code.  Two, if we get all the pieces we need to make sure they are
going to work as needed.  In an effort to complete the list, I am asking
for some guidance in understanding the process as a whole.  Please look
over the list below and make any necessary comments.  Here is our
complied list:

* Cron job to check all of the mirrors for freshness. We got this piece
from Seth(Centos team - makemirrorlists2-now.pl), but it is going to need
some modifications.

* Database dictionary - What kind of data do we need to store for each
mirror.

* We will need to maintain a list of mirror sites and their state (ie
useable, stall, not reachable, disabled.)

* Some kind of front end to redirect clients to their best mirror match(ie
GeoIP.)

* Admin script to manage mirror list(additions, modifications, deletions,
etc.)

* Once a yum session starts, we will need to direct all of the requests
for that update session to the *same* mirror.  That way the updates will
be consistent, even if not to the most recent version.  If this is true
then this increases the complexity of the task, because we need to a.
notice when a new session begins, and record the IP source. b. check each
incoming request against the known table of ongoing sessions, and send
continuing requests on to the assigned mirror. c. clean up the sessions
table when the update session ends.

*  Handle sites that come back with a new IP, after being off the network.
 Has the site name been hijacked or just part of some network clean up
work?

David, if I missed anything, please correct me.  As for the rest of you,
please look over the list and reply with any amount of insight.

Thanks,
Jason Hartley