Linux Mirror

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Linux Mirror

chriswiggins

413 posts

Ultimate Geek

#24638 29-Jul-2008 19:19

Hi Guys,

I want to set up an NZ mirror here for everyone to use.

What I want to know is how I should do it and whether or not I can do it cheaply (excluding the hardware, just the connection)

I was thinking that ADSL upload will be too slow so what are the other options?

Cheers
Chris

foobar

186 posts

Master Geek

#152601 30-Jul-2008 08:33

I guess I'm not quite understanding what kind of mirror you want to set up. What content do you want to mirror? What do you mean with "for everyone to use"?

barf

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

#152607 30-Jul-2008 08:57

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/mirror

Sniffing the glue holding the Internet together

chriswiggins

413 posts

Ultimate Geek

#152619 30-Jul-2008 09:44

foobar: I guess I'm not quite understanding what kind of mirror you want to set up. What content do you want to mirror? What do you mean with "for everyone to use"?

I want to just have a general mirror hosting ubuntu and debian (and then possibly more) but I want to know how I can connect the mirror to the internet so that it is quick for users...

Cheers

foobar

186 posts

Master Geek

#152624 30-Jul-2008 09:58

chrisjunkie: I want to just have a general mirror hosting ubuntu and debian (and then possibly more) but I want to know how I can connect the mirror to the internet so that it is quick for users...

I see. That is a very noble undertaking.

But wouldn't the bandwidth prices charged by ISPs here in New Zealand be prohibitive? I pay around $1 per GB, which I think is quite normal here. Considering that a Ubuntu ISO clocks in at more than 600 MB, it just takes a couple of people downloading an ISO for you to be out of some serious amount of money.

It might be cheaper to have a VPS somewhere, with some better deal on bandwidth than what you'd get as a home user from an ISP. But I don't know what's available for this here in New Zealand.

wazzageek

1093 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#152625 30-Jul-2008 10:02

Off the cuff, I would say that you will need to have:

1. a decent server
2. co hosted environment ideally in a decently peered location
3. someone to maintain it (hack attempts / hardware failures / os issues / patching, etc)

The expense will depend on how you end up doing it...

Remember that some of your traffic will be international (pulling down the packages) and given that you've specified a NZ mirror, you will want a decently peered cohosted environment so that NZ'ers are downloading via NZ routes, rather than international.

The server will be a one off cost (not counting maintenance)

there will be ongoing costs involved with the traffic.

If you can get someone to "sponsor" you, then potentially you could get someone else to pick up the bills (although you will need to justify it all to them)

IIRC, the ftp.nz.debian.org mirror was managed in a similar way (at least it was mentioned to me some years ago.

kobiak

1615 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#153343 1-Aug-2008 15:17

It should not be a very expensive for IT company to run Linux mirror server ... or for linux charity here in NZ...

year ago, I made an enquiry to ORCON collocation manager and here is the answer :)

To host your 1U server in our data center there is an installation fee of $100. The monthly cost is $100 for the space with unlimited national traffic. International traffic is charged at $50 for 10GB, $100 for 20GB etc.

I dont know what is uplink but should not be less then 100mbit... guess it would be 1gbit.

So serverl cost + $100 install fee + $1200 yr and forget about international traffic :)

helping others at evgenyk.nz

Detruire

1773 posts

Uber Geek

#153366 1-Aug-2008 16:20

kobiak: forget about international traffic :)

Where's the content going to come from in the first place?

rm *

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

kobiak

1615 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#153436 1-Aug-2008 20:58

>Where's the content going to come from in the first place?

well, u can get it for a dollar or dl from home pc and then upload to nz server for free :)

helping others at evgenyk.nz

Detruire

1773 posts

Uber Geek

#153446 1-Aug-2008 21:32

kobiak: well, u can get it for a dollar or dl from home pc and then upload to nz server for free :)

I don't think you realize how much content there is on a proper mirror.

Everything that you can apt-get, is on there. That's hundreds of GB.

rm *

kobiak

1615 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#153451 1-Aug-2008 21:45

I do know how easy it could get upto hundreds of Gbs. e.g full ubuntu mirror is about 390Gb :) that's includes old reliases and blah blah blah... that's to complicated and few people use old releases... just keep 1-3 recent releases which would give you maybe 10gb of data + have rsync for online installution... another 10gb... well, that's probably it for recent releases... dl from home with a night, burn to DVD's or external hdd, bring to collocation and you're sweet...

I might be wrong... but that's how i see it... or u even could get ubuntu send to u for free :) just upload CDs and DVDs to ur server and u'r alright again :) IMHO

helping others at evgenyk.nz