Project:Infrastructure/Mirrors/Rsync

Rsync (Portage) mirrors distribute the main Gentoo ebuild repository to our users.

The Gentoo project operates the master mirror as well as the so-called main rotation mirrors in a few locations worldwide. Additionally, community members provide resources in form of community mirrors that help distribute the load and service locations that are not covered by any main rotation mirrors.

This document is intended for parties interested in providing a community rsync mirror.

Requirements

 * Bandwidth
 * You need to have a minimum of 5 MBit/s upstream capacity on a permanent connection. DSL, cable, or other dial-up connections are not suited for hosting a mirror.


 * Storage
 * Hosting a mirror requires a minimum of 2 GiB available disk space.


 * Transmission protocols
 * As the name indicates, your mirror needs to serve its contents via the rsync protocol. IPv6 connectivity is strongly encouraged.


 * Simultaneous connections
 * We ask that you support a minimum of 15 and preferably 30 or more concurrent user connections.


 * Update frequency
 * Your mirror needs to update every 30 minutes: Once between :00 and :10, and once between :30 and :40. Updates need to be exactly 30 minutes apart (for instance at :08 and at :38).


 * Contact and information policy
 * Your administrative contact must react to enquiries as soon as possible and resolve issues within two weeks. We expect to be notified in the event of any changes or prolonged outages.

Becoming a community mirror
If your hardware and connection fulfill the requirements stated above, we would love to have you as a community mirror.

Fetching data
First, you need to fetch the mirror data. The following example script illustrates the process:

Uncomment the appropriate SRC line depending on where your mirror is located. You will get access to masterportage.gentoo.org when your mirror is accepted as a community mirror.

Serving data
rsyncd needs to be configured to serve the repository via the  rsync module. Other things like the storage path are of course up to you.

This is a sample configuration:

Your should contain your IP address and other relevant information about your mirror, such as information about the host providing the Portage mirror and an administrative contact.

Requesting inclusion
When your mirror has completed fetching the data and your update cronjob is in place, please file a ticket to inform us about your new mirror: File ticket

You need to have an account on bugs.gentoo.org and be logged in to file the ticket. Please fill in all fields with the relevant information, and include whatever else you think may be important to let us know.

Inclusion process
When we are ready to process your request, your mirror is added to our mirror monitoring system for a period of at least 2 weeks. During this time, we will update you with any issues we find on the ticket you have filed.

Should the service quality of your mirror meet our standards, we will then add it to the community mirror listing and provide you with access to the master rsync mirror. Your host will also be aliased with a name of the form:.

If any issues remain after a certain period of time that would impact the service negatively, we may decline your request. In this case, you can re-request the inclusion of your mirror after a period of 6 months.

After the inclusion
First of all, thank you for contributing to the Gentoo project.

Please ensure that your administrative contact is subscribed to the low traffic gentoo-mirrors mailing list which is used to publish announcements for all mirror admins. You can do so by sending an empty message to [mailto:gentoo-mirrors+subscribe@lists.gentoo.org gentoo-mirrors+subscribe@lists.gentoo.org].

When anything changes (be it that you're physically moving, or need to change the IP addresses, or have a new admin contact), please be sure to let us know immediately. You can reach us via email at [mailto:mirror-admin@gentoo.org mirror-admin@gentoo.org], or you can file a ticket on bugs.gentoo.org in the Mirrors product.