[LUGSB] Gentoo Mirror

[Richard Yao]

Jonathan told me earlier in the semester that mirroring Gentoo on mc
exarchbuntian would not be an issue if I could get the information for
setting up the mirror. I now have the information.

Gentoo Linux has two types of mirrors. One is for the portage tree
(subdivided into main rotation, community and private mirrors) and
another for the source files used by Gentoo. At the moment, they only
want two types of mirrors. One is a main rotation mirror for the
portage tree, which I do not think we can give them. The other type
would be a distfiles mirror with the source files used by Gentoo
Linux, which I think we can do

The Gentoo Linux Foundation has a guide setting up a distfiles mirror:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/source_mirrors.xml

I setup a virtual machine on my home network that functions as a
private mirror as a dry run for this, so I can summarize all of the
steps. Here are the steps for the source mirror:

1. Pick a folder for the files.
2. Run "rsync -av --delete ftp.ussg.iu.edu::gentoo-distfiles
/mirror/gentoo/full/" - this could take a few days, so run it in
screen and leave it alone for a while.
3. Put "rsync -av --delete ftp.ussg.iu.edu::gentoo-distfiles
/mirror/gentoo/full/" on a cron job that runs every 4 hours.
4. Make a symbolic link to the source mirror directory in the HTTP
server path, possibly named gentoo.

That is as far as I went on my virtual machine. The steps after this
are as follows:

5. File a bug report at the Gentoo Bug Tracker with information on how
to connect to the mirror. - I can do this.
6. Wait for about 2 weeks while the Gentoo Linux Infrastructure Team
evaluates the mirror to ensure that it is properly configured. - I can
do this.
7.  If it works, they will add it to the official rotation and send us
information on how to synchronize with their "private master distfile
mirror".
8. They will expect the server admin to register on the gentoo-mirrors
mailing list.

If I had a user account on the server, I could configure this on my
own, join the mailing list and act as the contact for the Gentoo Linux
Foundation. The only things I would need are a user account (with a
210GB quota, rsync and cron jobs) and a symbolic link in the server's
htdocs directory that points to directory in the user account so that
I could put the mirror there and have it be available to the internet.

Yours truly,
Richard Yao