Problem with one of the mirrors

[Justyna Horwat <Ju...@Sun.COM>]

I placed one of the JSTL 1.1.1 release source bundles here:

/x1/www/www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/taglibs/standard/source
   jakarta-taglibs-standard-1.1.1-src.tar.gz

I then created symbolic links to the latest source and binary files:

/x1/www/www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/taglibs/standard
   lrwxr-xr-x  1 horwat   jakarta    48 Jul 20 09:16 
jakarta-taglibs-standard-current-src.tar.gz -> 
source/jakarta-taglibs-standard-1.1.1-src.tar.gz

The following mirror threw a 403 and did not resolve the links properly:

http://mirrors.combose.com/apache/jakarta/taglibs/standard


I checked the bundles on the following mirrors and they resolve the link 
properly:

http://nagoya.apache.org/mirror/jakarta/taglibs/standard/
http://apache.mirrors.hoobly.com/jakarta/taglibs/standard/
http://apache.cs.utah.edu/jakarta/taglibs/standard/
http://apache.oc1.mirrors.redwire.net/jakarta/taglibs/standard/
http://apache.intissite.com/jakarta/taglibs/standard/
http://www.signal42.com/mirrors/apache/jakarta/taglibs/standard/
http://mirrors.xtria.com/apache/jakarta/taglibs/standard/
http://www.tux.org/pub/net/apache/dist/jakarta/taglibs/standard/


Thanks,

Justyna

Re: Problem with one of the mirrors

[Joshua Slive <jo...@slive.ca>]

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004, Justyna Horwat wrote:

> I placed one of the JSTL 1.1.1 release source bundles here:
>
> /x1/www/www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/taglibs/standard/source
>  jakarta-taglibs-standard-1.1.1-src.tar.gz
>
> I then created symbolic links to the latest source and binary files:
>
> /x1/www/www.apache.org/dist/jakarta/taglibs/standard
>  lrwxr-xr-x  1 horwat   jakarta    48 Jul 20 09:16 
> jakarta-taglibs-standard-current-src.tar.gz -> 
> source/jakarta-taglibs-standard-1.1.1-src.tar.gz
>
> The following mirror threw a 403 and did not resolve the links properly:
>
> http://mirrors.combose.com/apache/jakarta/taglibs/standard

That mirror is not following the recommendations listed here:
http://www.apache.org/info/how-to-mirror.html
I have copied the mirror contact on this message, so hopefully they will 
fix the problems.

But as an Apache project, you should be pointing your downloaders at the 
target of the symlink.  You should do this not only because it eliminates 
this particular problem, but also because if you point a downloader at the 
most recent release, it is usually better to give them a 404 if the mirror 
is out of date, rather than giving them an old version.  If you point them 
at the symlink, they will get whatever version is on the mirror, 
regardless of how out of date it is.

Now, it appears that jakarta-taglibs is simply dumping people in the 
taglibs/ directory and letting them browse to their desired software.  I 
understand that makes things much simpler for you, but it is not the 
optimal method of using the mirrors.  It is preferable to provide specific 
links from your binindex.cgi to the particular software distributions. 
This requires greater maintenance on your part, but is generally much 
clearer for downloaders and it avoids any problems with misconfigured 
mirrors.  Plus it allows you to provide direct links to the php and md5 
signatures on www.apache.org to ensure integrity.

We have not, in the past, kicked off mirrors for configuration problems 
such as this one.  But since we have lots of US mirrors, I could be 
convinced to do so if people feel strongly about it.

Joshua.