Re: FTP site organization

[Brian White <bcwhite@verisim.com>]

> > > It changes constantly
> >
> > It hasn't changed since hamm was released.

I assume you mean since "Bo" was released.  Actually, I believe it has.
I don't recall the "dists/" directory being there at that time, though
I could have missed it.


> > > ftp/pub/debian/
> > >     stable -> dists/stable
> > >     frozen -> dists/frozen
> > >     unstable -> dists/unstable
> > >     dists/stable            (symlink to current stable distribution)
> > >     dists/frozen            (symlink to current frozen distribution)
> > >     dists/unstable          (symlink to current development distribution)
> > >     dists/<dist>/           (actual location of distribution files)
> > >             main/           (main distribution files)
> > >             non-free/       (non free distribution files [1])
> > >             non-US/         (non US distribution files [2])
> >
> > This is almost identical to what I'm doing now except for two things.
> > First, there is no non-US placeholder.  Second, the toplevel symlink
> > of unstable doesn't exist as it's redundant and appears to be
> > backward-compatible but actually isn't.
>
> If there is an empty non-US directory at the dist level, isn't this going
> to cause problem for sites that mirror that distribution and actually have
> a non-US directory that contains something? Wouldn't the mirror try to
> empty that directory to make it look like the master site?
> I don't see how having this "empty" directory helps dselect get its act
> together.

We do that here and it's pretty easy.  It's the same problem as "local".
You just add one line when mirroring ftp.debian.org:

	local_ignore+|^(local|non-US)($|/)

You have to do this whether "non-US" exists on the original site or not.
Without it, mirror will delete the whole directory.

Having the empty directory doesn't help dselect except that it can expect
that if somebody does put local/non-US/whatever stuff in the distribution
it is looking at, then it can expect it in a common location.  It provides
a "tip" for sysadmins as to where to mount the added files without having
to read through documentation (which sysadmin loath to do).

                                          Brian
                                 ( bcwhite@verisim.com )

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In theory, theory and practice are the same.  In practice, they're not.



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