FTP timeouts while mirorring with debmirror

[Klaus Klein <k.klein@gmx.de>]

Hi all, 

I occasionally mirror either from 'ftp2.de.debian.org' or 'ftp.de.debian.org' with the following script: 

 #!/bin/bash
 set -o pipefail
 source="ftp2.de.debian.org"
 # source="ftp.de.debian.org"
 target="/srv/ftp"
 logdir=$target/log
 logfile=$logdir/deb_mir.log
 timeout=10
 method="ftp"
 if [ -n "${1}" ]; then
   method=${1};
 fi
 
 echo "Begin update of the DEBIAN Mirror" | tee -a $logfile
 ExitCode=1024
 while [ ${ExitCode} -gt 0 ]; do
   debmirror -v \
     -t $timeout \
     -a i386 \
     -h $source \
     -r debian \
     -s main,contrib,non-free,main/debian-installer \
     -d etch -d etch-proposed-updates -d lenny -d lenny-proposed-updates -d experimental \
     $target/debian \
     --method=$method \
     --pdiff=none \
     --ignore-release-gpg \
     --ignore-missing-release \
     --nosource \
     --progress 2>&1 | tee -a $logfile;
   ExitCode=${?};
 done
 echo "Done with the update of the DEBIAN Mirror" | tee -a $logfile

While this basic script worked for quite some month, I lately keep receiving FTP timeouts (without any modification to my environment). 

The first attempt, to end up with a synchronized mirror in the morning, was the addition of the while-done-loop to restart debmirror in the event of an error. 

I then realized that the timeout always occurs when debmirror starts to get a file ($ret = $ftp->get($file, $file);) but never while a file is retrieved. 

Before I start to dig my way further down into this (ftp?) problem, I would like to ask if someone else experiences the same problem or if this is my own personal 'bug'. :-)

Cheers, 
Klaus