Default mirror preference?

[Ads Administrator <ad...@zentek-international.com>]

Hi,

We are one of the official mirrors in Hong Kong. We were wondering if
there are default "preferences" given to particular mirror sites? For
example, if a particular site has higher bandwidth than another, is
perference given to the higher bandwidth site (eg. the higher bandwidth
mirror is selected as the default more times than the lower bandwidth
mirror sites)?

If this isn't done... would it be a good idea? This information could be
based on the information the mirrors give when they sign up (or could be
submitted separately if required). What do you think?

Sincerely,
Ads Administrator
ads@zentek-international.com
Zentek International Co. Ltd.
http://www.zentek-international.com

Re: Default mirror preference?

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

On Sat, 26 Apr 2003, Ads Administrator wrote:

> Hi,
>
> We are one of the official mirrors in Hong Kong. We were wondering if
> there are default "preferences" given to particular mirror sites? For
> example, if a particular site has higher bandwidth than another, is
> perference given to the higher bandwidth site (eg. the higher bandwidth
> mirror is selected as the default more times than the lower bandwidth
> mirror sites)?

At the moment, the preference system is binary.  It works like this: If
the mirror was reachable during our last test and the mirror has been
updated in the last 48 hours, then the mirror is available for preferred
status, otherwise it isn't.

>
> If this isn't done... would it be a good idea? This information could be
> based on the information the mirrors give when they sign up (or could be
> submitted separately if required). What do you think?

Certainly it is a possibility.  The issues I see are as follows:

1. Is there a problem here to solve?  ie, are people getting badly
performing mirrors because of the current system?  If so, should we just
remove the poor mirrors rather than use a more complex system?
Unfortunately, I don't see any way to gather statistics to answer this
question.

2. We don't have very good communication with a large chunk of our mirror
sites.  Not everyone is on this mailing list, so it might be difficult to
get data on mirror capacities.

We are always, of course, open to suggestions and further discussion.

Joshua.