up2date, mirror repositories, and performance

[seth vidal]

> You know...  It would be *really* nice if the mirror master could do
> it by itself, and issue redirects to mirrors known to be up to date,
> instead of having up2date do it by itself.
> 
> The problem with `mirror' entries in up2date sources file is that it
> tends to not save bandwidth when multiple boxes behind the same web
> caching proxy are about to install the same set of updates (not an
> unusual thing).  Due to the random selection of mirrors, each box ends
> up downloading the update from a different mirror.
> 
> If the redirects came from the server, however, they'd (presumably) be
> cached, and all clients would follow it and get a cache hit for the
> downloads.
> 

Here's my problem with that - it means that you end up with
'intelligent' servers. Those type of servers tend to be poorly
maintained and your central point of failure.

You'd need a cluster of them and multiple mirror points so if one mirror
redirector was down the others could pick up for it.

-sv