[Yum] ftp repo login/logout

[Paul Pianta]

Michael Stenner wrote:

>On Wed, Aug 11, 2004 at 12:01:09PM -0400, Paul Pianta wrote:
>  
>
>>I ran a 'tail -f /var/log/messages' on the server while running a yum 
>>update on one of the clients. Everything goes well but rather slowly. 
>>The tail shows me that the ftp client is logging in - downloading 
>>something (ie. header or package) then logging out, then it does this 
>>all again for the next header/package. All of this logging in and out 
>>obviously slows down the whole business.
>>
>>I am wondering if this is a natural yum behaviour or it is due to my ftp 
>>client and authentication stuff.
>>    
>>
>
>Here's the deal.  Yum uses urlgrabber, a python module for handling
>urls (duh), which in turn uses urllib2, a built-in python url-handling
>module, which in turn uses things like ftplib and httplib.  Now, what
>you're describing is the way ftplib handles things.  It's not really
>optimized for multiple downloads.  There is such a thing as a caching
>ftp opener (which supposedly reuses connections), but we haven't
>explored it very much.  Most people tend to use http and it's a bit
>easier for us to work with, so that gets most of our attention.
>
>My point is: this isn't exactly a bug.  It's known current behavior.
>It's not really desired, but we haven't done a lot to address it.
>If anybody out there does try to pursue this, they should chat with us
>(me and Ryan) on the yum-devel list because there are some fairly
>subtle interaction issues that need to be considered.
>
>Note: this problem doesn't exist with an http server that supports
>keepalive; those connections are reused.
>  
>
Thanks Michael

Well I guess I will just have to live with it being slow - no big ... 
unless someone has already implemented something similar using http?

I need a system that will authenticate clients against a custom 
repository. Depending on their key - they can access (or not) a base 
repo, and several other 'optional' repos - ie. packages that they have 
the right to download on top of the base packages. I thought about 
blocking access to repos with .htaccess but it would be painful to 
maintain the .htaccess files for many clients (and anyway I think yum 
would exit on authentication failure).

I am just throwing the idea out there incase I am missing some really 
simple solution with http. If you have a complicated http solution - 
thanks but I already have a working complicated ftp setup :) - it's just 
that it's a bit slow.

Thanks again

pantz

-- 
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes ...
That way when you do criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes!