Re: Service names for Debian mirrors in cloud infrastructure
Hi Brian
On Fri, Jan 08, 2016 at 11:40:23AM -0500, Brian Gupta wrote:
> I have a slightly different view. (As a user.) If I see something like
> azure.cloud.mirror.debian.org, or amazon.cloud.mirror.debian.org, I
> would assume that these mirrors are blessed by Debian, and is
> build/run using Debian best practices, whatever those may be. I
> wouldn't necessarily assume that they would be reachable from outside
> of those clouds. (Although there is still is the issue of geolocality
> of said mirrors, since most public clouds are globally distributed.)
Thank you for showing the user side of it. There is also a technical
side of it, which I'll try to make more clear.
The currently used name is the internal DNS name. If you want another
name you point a CNAME at it. And I think you usually want to do that.
This internal name may not be permanent. I simply don't know what
happens in the future, as Azure is currently working on a switch to a
complete new management infrastructure. We may be forced to change
internal names, which we can't if it used by all running systems out
there. So, yes, there is need for another name.
Where can we get a more permanent name for this? There are basically
three options: Use our own, ask Microsoft for some or put it under some
existing domain, mainly debian.org or debian.net.
We could use our own domain. This would work. However we would have
another piece of infrastructure to manage. If the domain gets lost for
whatever reason, we have the same problem as using the internal name.
We could ask Microsoft for a name. But where would it go? Would it
provide as any benefit? Do they have a place to put it that is manually
controlled? I don't know.
We use an existing domain. The obvious choice for that would be
debian.org. We have the typical advantages, including that the name is
controlled by the project.
Someone brought it up that vendors usually have mirrors within there own
domain. This is okay as you either explicitely choose that mirror and
the availability of the name is directly coupled with that vendor.
Okay, often the vendor pre-selects the mirror. However, this is not the
case for Debian on Azure.
If you choose Debian on Azure, you get Debian. The copyright team
decided that this images will be considered a product of Debian. So
everything that breaks will fall back onto the project. Even if the
project can't do anything about it.
So a stable name for the mirrors within Azure somewhere within
debian.org will reassure users they really got Debian. Also it is
possible to make this name point somewhere else, should it be
neccessary.
Regards,
Bastian
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