[sclug] FTP Hosting

[Philip Hands]

On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 08:19:52PM +0100, Dickon Hood wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 18:24:46 +0100, Scott Rixon wrote:
> : Hey gang,
> 
> : I am in need of some FTP hosting for work. We currently hold a large
> : library of machine images for our contacts. These are then copied onto
> : CD/DVD and shipped around the world. Crazy!
> 
> : Most of the time it would sit idle.. But when a new image comes out then
> : about 50 people would need to download about 5gb each.
> 
> : Anyone have any bright ideas?
> 
> Depending on how much disc space you require, either a virtual machine
> from the likes of Bytemark[0], or host a cheap box somewhere (Jump,
> Bogons, RapidSwitch, etc.) and DIY.
> 
> [0] I'd've added 'or Blackcat', but Simon sold out...

Bytemark are proper people (they give discounts to Debian Developers
and possibly Free Software developers in general, I forget)

RapidSwitch's site is in Maidenhead, which may be be useful if you're
wanting to visit a co-lo machine. (Also, they host www.uk.debian.org
for free for me, so they too are proper people :-)

Have you thought of rsync?  If the rate of churn is not too great (i.e. if
many of the files on the images are the same between adjacent releases)
and as long as any compression is done in an rsync-friendly manner
(gzip has an option) then you'll end up only having to send the changes.

Even if you think the rate of churn is quite high, I'd expect you to be
pleasantly surprised at how well rsync does.

If the data on the disks is to some extent locally available at the
destination, then the tool we use for Debian ISO image creation (jigdo)
might be of interest, but it's not particularly easy to use either for
the creator, or consumer.

Cheers, Phil.
--
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
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