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#105 Choose an sf mirror for upgrades
It would be nice to be able to specify the sf.net mirror in
the configuration, so that Webmin first tries that one
before trying a random server. The reason is that some
mirrors are quite worse in downloading while others are
just fine. I just had a mirror dieing on me when checking
updates and sometimes mirrors are *really* slow. I
would also like for obvious reasons to retrieve from a
mirror in Germany instead of from random ones around
the world.
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For germany you could try http://webmin.mamemu.de/ for
updates, which is the primary mirror of mirrors.
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Martin, thanks for the quick comment, but I don't see how
this could help. I'm talking about the downloading of the
update file when I go into "upgrade webmin" and do an
upgrade from "www.webmin.com". This redirects to sf.net
and chooses a random mirror. It would be nice being able to
set a specific mirror, so that not a random mirror gets
chosen. Now that I think about it I realize it may not be
possible because this redirection is probably in the sole
discretion of sf.net.
But it should be possible to use a preconfigured complete
download string for a certain mirror and just change the
filename I think. If I could set this in Webmin this would be
much more convenient than saving this path somewhere in
my notes program and paste it each time I do an upgrade.
Do you understand what I mean?
I understand that this will fail if sf.net changes it's default URL
paths, but, well, I then just need to change it and am back in
business.
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Thanks for the explanation ...
You are correct about the URLs with sf.net. But even if your
are able to select a pre-defined sf.net-mirror (as you can
on sf.net directly) this particular mirror will fail once
that mirror is outdated or deleted for some reason.
I personally upgrade my Webmin-Installations directly from
the mirror server with the full http-path to the tar.gz
using the cluster-webmin module and concerning the updates
between the stable versions I use the webmin-update cron-job
dragging down the files directly from webmin.com. Works well
for me :-)
Maybe this could be an option for you as there are only few
upgrades against theoretical updates from webmin.com?
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I hit the problem again today. New version (1.250) is out
and there's also a security warning. So, everybody rushes
to upgrade. There is no chance to get webmin via default
upgrade option.
There are actually *two* bottlenecks when upgrading "from
webmin.com". First, it's of course webmin.com itself which
uses a cgi to redirect to a mirror. And second, it seems
it does *not* choose a random mirror but directs all
requests to osdn.dl.sf.net which, of course, is plain dead
at least for me. Some of the upgrade requests time out at
the redirection stage and once they get over that part and
start downloading from osdn it takes ages, something like
1% progress every 5 minutes. I tried on various machines
and they all get redirected to osdn which looks pretty
stupid to me.
I had to go to sf.net and look up the URL for the mirror I
know is near my servers and should work. And, indeed,
downloading took about *two seconds*. Apparently, "nobody"
uses it because all traffic goes to osdn. Interestingly,
that osdn server doesn't show up at all in the mirror list
if you want to download webmin-1.250.tar.gz from sf.net.
Probably for a good reason,
e.g. it can't take much load.
With the widespread use of Webmin this situation is not
going to get better. Providing a means to enter and *save*
an sf.net mirror is a functionality which is urgently
needed. Best option would probably be to include a
dropdown list of mirrors, so users can choose the nearest
from it. It doesn't really make sense to get all my bits
from Santa Clara if I can get them from within Germany in
a few seconds.
I don't see a problem with this at all. This functionality
has *only* advantages. In case of the (rare) occasion that
a mirror is down or drops off the list it should be fairly
easy to add a bit of code that tries webmin.com after the
default mirror fails.
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I add this as an extra comment since I have a question
about that "cluster-webmin" thing. I removed all the
cluster modules from my setup since none of servers are
clustered and I assume they need to be running cluster
software (heartbeat etc.). Your suggestion sounds
that "cluster-webmin" is not the same. Do I need to run
clustered servers to make use of it or is it actually a
module I can use to run the same webmin commands on
several servers which are connected via UDP broadcast as
per the Webmin Servers module in configuration?