June 15, 2005
Local Linux Mirrors
Does anybody know how much bandwidth is wasted every day because people are downloading the same files from the same external mirrors? One of the large culprits of the problem is Linux distributions. The problem could easily be solved by setting up an internal mirror for the popular distros and educating users on how to use them (sounds like a job for the Case Wiki).
For a while, ftp://chod.cwru.edu was a Gentoo distfiles mirror. It was wicked fast. Now, it is offline. Supposedly there is a Debian mirror floating around somewhere. Does anyone have a clue where? Does anyone know of any other linux mirrors on campus?
Being the enterprising individual that I am, I've gone ahead and set up my own internal ftp server at ftp://zorro.case.edu. Currently, it is just a FreshRPMs mirror, but I'll expand it, depending on how much disk space I have. SigUNIX will probably be setting up a more permanent server in the fall. Since I am part of that group, I guess I'll start grabbing all the files off the net before the freshmen show up and use our precious bandwidth.
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Comments
For Debian apt-get mirrors, the following entries in your sources.list file work wonders:
deb ftp://cwrulug.cwru.edu/debian/ stable main non-free contrib
deb-src ftp://cwrulug.cwru.edu/debian/ stable main non-free contrib
Oh wait, this should go on the Wiki somewhere...
The CWRULUG mirror isn't running anymore. Do an nmap of cwrulug.cwru.edu and you will see it is only listening on ports 22,80,139, and 445.