[Pulp-list] Question on 2.8 RepoManagerDistributor

[Partha Aji]

Katello has a need to mirror repositories quickly on a clone operation. To achieve this katello uses a custom distributor for some yum based repos. This distributor copies the metadata along with the content instead of regenerating the metadata from scratch as is the case with a typical pulp clone operation.  The code for this custom distributor is here -> https://github.com/Katello/pulp-katello-plugins/blob/master/pulp_katello/distributors/yum_clone_distributor/distributor.py

This works fine for pulp 2.6  but 2.8 has undergone a major revision in this functionality as far as I can see. I am getting basic errors for lines like 
https://github.com/Katello/pulp-katello-plugins/blob/master/pulp_katello/distributors/yum_clone_distributor/distributor.py#L21

"from pulp.server.managers.repo.distributor import RepoDistributorManager" 

I notice this file has been removed in https://github.com/pulp/pulp/commit/49ff77364d4f5ecdbe9369ebb8c666591b2aa09d with other changes. 

Anyway given the change in 2.8 functionality I have the following questions,

1) Do we even this metadata copying custom clone distributor functionality. Can we set something in pulp to automatically copy the metadata instead of regenerating from scratch when we clone huge repos (>7K packages). (this would be ideal really!)
2) If this is something katello needs to add. Is there updated documentation on writing/converting Distributors 
3) Can some one confirm if the main change I 'd need to do is something along https://github.com/parthaa/pulp-katello-plugins/commit/6e4a79d61a9704541455216c3d13644bf6f1a8a3 . (I am sure theres more work to do but just checking if its in the correct direction)

Partha