I think it would be very useful to let the user specify several rsync mirrors in the SYNC option of make.conf. This would allow syncing several times a day without overloading any one particular mirror. I know there are hosts like rsync.{fr,de,uk}.gentoo.org, but it would be nice to allow an even greater pool of servers to choose from for even fairer distribution of load.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 56485 ***
er... I'm sorry, but I'm not sure you get what I mean. I should have given an example: I was thinking it would be good to be able to say something like this: SYNC="rsync://rsync.de.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage \ rsync://ftp.belnet.be/gentoo-portage \ rsync://rsync.uk.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage \ rsync://rsync.fr.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" And on each rsync, a random one from the list is chosen. The duplicate bug you indicated is saying having multiple portage overlays/trees - I'm saying that multiple servers for the same tree is supplied, and a random server chosen each time.
Not sure about this. SYNC isn't limited to rsync and other specifications may contain spaces in their syntax (though I can't think of any real example right now). Also you listed "syncing several times per day" as your motivation in comment #1, and while your idea might distribute the load such behavior would still increase the total load on the whole server pool, so if this is implemented it still wouldn't change the policy of syncs per day.
I suppose it would.... oh well, may as well close this ticket, was just an idea.
