Important changes to rsync mirroring from OpenWrt download server

[Baptiste Jonglez]

Hello,

Up to now, we have been offering an open rsync service to allow anybody to
mirror OpenWrt images and packages.  Due to the increasing number of
people using this rsync service, this is becoming unsustainable and starts
to affect more critical uses of the main OpenWrt download server.

As a first step, we have just disabled mirroring of snapshot builds
through rsync.  The existing target "rsync://rsync.openwrt.org/downloads"
now only offers release builds.

We believe snapshot builds are not very useful to mirror, and mirroring
them generates a lot of traffic since they are rebuilt continuously.
However, if you really have a good use-case for mirroring snapshot builds,
you can find them under the new target "rsync://rsync.openwrt.org/downloads-snapshots".
Please pull every 24 hours at most, or even only once a week if it fits
your use-case.  You can also selectively mirror only the targets you need.
If we notice too much traffic, we might close this new rsync target.


As a second step, we will soon introduce a mirror tiering system, and only
allow a few designated "tier 1" mirrors to pull from the main download
server.  All other mirrors will be considered "tier 2" and will be
required to sync through a tier-1 server.

Anybody can apply to become a tier-1 mirror, we are looking at good
geographical distribution throughout the world.  We are still working out
the details, here is a tentative list of requirements (open to discussion):

- good uptime track record
- good network connectivity (ideally 1 Gbit/s of dedicated capacity)
- IPv6 connectivity
- unlimited outgoing traffic volume
- commitment to host OpenWrt data for at least several years
- carry all releases (4 TB currently, provision 6 TB for future growth)
- serve OpenWrt content over HTTP, HTTPS, and public rsync
- monitoring to detect failed rsync runs or expired HTTPS certificate
- a responsive contact email

We will provide recommended rsync setup.

Optionally, we are also exploring the possibility to point our
downloads.openwrt.org CDN to use these new tier-1 mirrors as origin.
It would probably only be done in case of emergency. If you are open to
such a thing, please let us know.

To apply, you can post publicly on the openwrt-adm at lists.openwrt.org
mailing list or reply privately to me (my first name at bitsofnetworks.org).

Baptiste
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