[tahoe-dev] would the Volunteer Grid be an appropriate host for our dependencies?

Zooko O'Whielacronx zookog at gmail.com
Sat Dec 12 04:47:53 UTC 2009


Folks:

We used to host a bunch of open source packages on the Test Grid --
packages that Tahoe-LAFS depends on and needs to download in order to
build.  We eventually turned that off because the Test Grid was having
problems were some server on it would abruptly disconnect and so the
download would stall for minutes before timing out.  See ticket #287
(download: tolerate lost/missing servers).

So instead we copied all of those dependencies from the Test Grid onto
the linux server http://allmydata.org where they get served up by
apache.  I was sad about this because I think we should eat our own
dog food, but at the time the way we were doing it was causing too
many headaches for people trying to install Tahoe-LAFS.  See #566 for
the whole sad story including hyperlinks to the old (Test Grid) and
new (apache/linux) repositories.

Ticket #287 is still not fixed -- storage servers that abruptly lose
their internet connection or which have a kernel panic or which
otherwise lock up still cause downloads to stall.  But, perhaps the
set of servers that make up the Volunteer Grid are sufficiently
unlikely to do any of those things that the Volunteer Grid would be a
good host for the Tahoe-LAFS dependency repository.

What do you think?  This would mean that people who want to build
Tahoe-LAFS are relying on the Volunteer Grid to have the files and to
have responsive, reliable servers.  I guess it would mean that, until
#287 is fixed, I will stop using my laptop as a Volunteer Grid server.
 :-)

Hey if this works then we can start moving more of the Tahoe-LAFS
development infrastructure onto a Tahoe-LAFS grid, such as the apt
repositories and the trac backups and so on...  :-)  Yummy dog food!

Regards,

Zooko

http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/ticket/287# download: tolerate
lost/missing servers
http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe/ticket/566# host tahoe dependencies



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