Re: BitTorrent based update mechanism

Elliott,

Thanks for the feedback.

The problem with a single large download file is twofold;

1) You loose the ability to have different sources for different patch sets.

2) (As you've mentioned) it's not universally supported by all BT clients.

I followed the discussions relating got multi-tracker capabilities and Bram
(The author of the offical client) was very anti-it, so again it's unlikley
it'll be supported by all clients.

I'll definatley put a note in for v2 of the paper though.

Regards,

AL.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Elliott Wilcoxon" <[email protected]>
To: "Discussions about configuration tool development"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 10:50 PM
Subject: Re: BitTorrent based update mechanism


> Nice job, it's like you read my mind.  However, I suggest that instead
> of a million small .torrent files sent as part of the update summary,
> one large one be sent.  The large one would have the meta-info for a
> completely updated system.  The End User's client then just downloads
> the specific updates that the user wants (several clients support
> downloading selected files in a torrent, instead of the whole thing).
> Unless, of course, the size of the larger .torrent is prohibitive; I'm
> unaware of how .torrent filesize scales with the number of files that
> the .torrent contains information for.  There could be other issues with
> one large torrent and/or many small torrents, something you might want
> to research for v2 of the paper?
>
> Also, to prevent the whole thing coming down should the tracker become
> unavailable, I suggest that the multi-tracker spec be used (
> http://home.elp.rr.com/tur/multitracker-spec.txt ).  AFAIK, the most
> recent official Bittorrent client doesn't support it, but many
> unofficial open source clients support it, so I don't forsee its
> inclusion as a huge problem.
>
> Elliott Wilcoxon
>
> [email protected] wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > I've written a short paper on how BitTorrent could be used in an update
mechanism (i.e. a method that coule be integrated into up2date). This should
help those who have bandwidth problems with the amount of downloads they
get(such as the Fedora Legacy project).
> >
> > I've put the paper online at
http://www.argosytelcrest.co.uk/papers/btupdate.html and I'd appreciate any
comments anyone has on the ideas.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Al.
> >
> >
>
>
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>


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