Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] autoredirect for savannah downloads

[Karl Berry]

    I thought that some smart query is being made to determine which
    mirror is best?

No.  There is no way to send "queries".  All the information the server
has to go on is the requesting IP address and the mirmon data.

    I tried with http too before sending my previous message.  It should
    work with both protocols, as ftp.gnu.org works.

It cannot be implemented with ftp.  

    Yes, it works that way, but that's again incompatible.  
     
1) I never thought of this as "replacing" ftp.gnu.org, so the question
   of compatibility doesn't really arise.  It will be used when people
   explicitly write the new url, that's all.
   
2) Compared to switching names from "prep.ai.mit.edu" to "ftp.gnu.org",
   the incompatibility is pretty minor.

3) Anyway, fine, Randy can eliminate a "/gnu" from the request URL.  He
   does that for CTAN (eliminates "/tex-archive").

    Also, from my location it is much slower than the master.

So, then you won't use it.  But for most users, it will work ok.

I don't claim it's a panacea that will be perfect in all circumstances.
This is the Internet after all.  Just that it's a practical way to
actually use the mirrors, which, as we've discussed, would be nice.

karl