On 2009-04-01 we launched the new SourceForge.net mirror redirector (this is being announced on the following day given yesterday’s date). This new redirector does the following:
- MaxMind GeoIP data is used to find the user’s latitude/longitude (New York City, New York, USA used if no value found)
- Autonomous System Number (ASN) data is used to identify the network that the user is on for comparison. This data is provided by the University of Oregon Route Views Project. This process was expedited by reusing some of the work from the MirrorBrain project.
- Mirror selection is made by prioritizing mirrors according to their calculated distance (by GeoIP data) with the top priority given to a mirror that has a matching ASN with the client.
We expect this will give users a much better initial mirror than the old system. Users may still change mirrors to another in the list. The list is sorted using the same priority as described above.
Since launch we have run into a few issues, and worked through them expediently. Should you run into a download issue, please let us know immediately.