Bit Torrent, Updating Linux

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Thu, Jul 09, 2009 at 04:28:49PM -0400, Rajinder Yadav wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Lennart
> Sorensen<lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 09, 2009 at 03:47:42PM -0400, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> >> So to download a 2MB package, you could request bytes 0-100k from server1,
> >> 100k-200k from server2, 200k-300k from server3, and when each chunk
> >> finishes start another.  That way you might get 10 pieces from server1,
> >> 6 from server2 and the last 4 from server3, depending on their speeds
> >> and loads.
> >>
> >> Look up 'http byte serving'.
> >
> > An example using the python-urlgrabber tool:
> >
> > urlgrabber --range=,10000 http://server1.org/package package.1
> > urlgrabber --range=10000,20000 http://server2.org/package package.2
> > urlgrabber --range=20000,30000 http://server3.org/package package.3
> > urlgrabber --range=30000, http://server4.org/package package.4
> >
> > cat package.* > package
> >
> > The 4 urlgrabbers could run in parallel, and when all done you have
> > the whole file.  Of course s smart download tool would do the byte
> > range requests itself and write it to one file directly using seeks
> > as appropriate.  The only requirement is that the http server support
> > byte range requests, which many do, since it is required to do resume
> > downloads.
> >
> > --
> > Len Sorensen
> 
> Glad I asked about BT, the http byte serving is a cool idea that I
> never heard about, nice to know it's already available. Now that I
> have a better understand about things I can see why BT is not a good
> idea, thank you for educating me!

Of course if you just get on some of the nice mirrors out there already
then plain http is plenty.  I have no problem saturating my 10Mbit link
at home when downloading debian updates.  Using multiple servers would
not help at all.  Would still be neat though.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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