[tex-live] Off topic: copying tlnet

[Robin Fairbairns]

Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd) <P.Taylor at Rhul.Ac.Uk> wrote:

> Robin Fairbairns wrote:
> 
> > [T]he largest proportion of users of
> > the cambridge node blindly use http -- total is>=10x the bandwidth of
> > ftp+rsync combined ... on a few occasions,>1 tbyte in a day).
> 
> Have you considered using a combination of packet shaping and
> pro-active user education to encourage migration to Rsynch ?

i've no way of contacting the user community in general.  (i can contact
small parts of it using comp.text.tex, but that's about it, i think.)

imo, it's good to have at least one core site whose traffic _isn't_
shaped.  both dante and tug have bandwidth restrictions (tug's is quite
draconian, since smcvt is a small college which is being *very* generous
as it is).  cambridge doesn't shape, since there's currently no need (we
could ship far more than we do, with 2gbit/s to the backbone).

what are the chances that your average ctan downloader would actually
notice that downloads are getting slower?  i would say pretty small: and
they would respond either by complaining, or simply by switching
mirrors.  on the off-chance that they complained somewhere appropriate
such as ctan at dante.de, we might be able to explain things, but...

in short, i doubt there's any future in education by shaping.  (after
all, a huge preponderance of uploads go to the least capable server,
with only a constant few using cam or dante.)

robin