[Yum] Yummy: the Yum repository manager

[Tomas Junnonen]

David Farning wrote:

>>- It can calculate an optimal mirror for Fedora Core users for the
>>   updates and base channels from among 130 sites. It doesn't take
>>   too long either.
> 
> Good start ;)  The hurdles that I am facing working on something
> similar.

I saw a screenshot of your channelSelector linked from a Yum bugzilla 
entry, looks interesting. The scopes of the programs are still different 
at the moment IMHO.

> What is an optimal mirror?

I measure a simple operation of getting some yum headers. Maybe the BBB 
would sue me for false advertisement, but in my tests this is at least a 
good try at ranking the mirrors.

> Server in same country as client?  Some user are billed more for out of
> country downloads?

The countries are known, but not currently used for any calculations. 
You can filter the search based on region.

> Current number of user on server? Is the server at it's max user limit?

Maxed out servers are excluded from the search.

> upToDateness(TM)?  How many hours is the server behind the primary
> server?

Good point, the solution to this would probably be quite complicated.

> Security?  Can we trust the mirror.

> I think that these issues need to be looked at carefully before
> releasing something like yummy on the world.  Most of the mirrors are
> mirroring out of generosity to open source movement.  We really don't
> want to take advantage of them by abusing their mirrors.

The mirror list is based on the "official" list of Fedora mirrors from 
fedora.redhat.com. I think the load definitely needs to shift from 
download.fedora.redhat.com to the mirrors, I don't see this as abuse. As 
one mirror gets more users its score is lowered and the tool moves users 
to the most responsive mirror.

Regards,
Tomas