The Gentoo Linux rsync Mirrors Policy page contains all the information needed to start a portage rsync mirror. However, it does not mention that a ebuild exists to automate much of the process. I didn't find out about this ebuild until I experienced a problem with the process and searched the Gentoo forums. The ebuild worked perfectly, it would have been nice to know about before I began manual configuration. The portage rsync page should suggest using the ebuild prominently. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce:
I would also add that there are three or four different ways to start and setup the rsync server depending on your starting point. This makes it very confusing to set up either an official or local rsync server. 1. net-misc/rsync ebuild init.d script doesn't use the start-stop-daemon - should it? 2. app-admin/gentoo-rsync-mirror is outdated compared to the http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/rsync.xml Official doc. The ebuild still uses the insecure chroot=no (asking for another compromise?), no start-stop-daemon and different rsync options etc. 3. Looking at the differences, I believe the official docs at http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/rsync.xml are the most current. It uses the start-stop-daemon, simple, secure options, chroot=yes, etc. 4. There are a couple of posts in the forum talking about setting up an rsync server. They are outdated. What I would recommend is to: 1. Sync up all the ebuilds for net-misc/rsync and app-admin/gentoo-rsync-mirror with respect to the init.d script and maybe the rsync.conf. Consider an uncomment this section for local rsync and this section for official mirror etc. That way the gentoo-mirror ebuild would only depend on the rsync ebuild and add the special scripts to manage an official mirror. Wouldn't this make keeping the ebuilds in sync easier? 2. Add local rsync mirror options to the Official docs and gentoo-rsync-mirror ebuilds. It seems many people are setting up a local rsync server using the offical doc's and syncing every 30 min and other bloopers because the docs said it was important.
I added my comments before I noticed this bug was already assigned to the docs team only. I submitted another bug so the ebuild errors get corrected. I still believe the docs team should add a section on setting up a local rsync mirror to keep users from following the offical mirror verbatim.
Anyone care to write up a "local rsync mirror" guide? Or a combo rsync/distfiles? Something that SMB's and small networks could benefit from.
Such a doc could quickly become tricky and generate lots of bugs here. You'd have to explain all sorts of networking stuff. In a nutshell: + On server /etc/conf.d/rsyncd : (empty or all comments): # Copyright 1999-2004 Gentoo Technologies, Inc. # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 # $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/net-misc/rsync/files/rsyncd.conf.d,v 1.2 2004/05/02 22:45:02 mholzer Exp $ # Config file for /etc/init.d/rsyncd # see man pages for rsync or run `rsync --help` # for valid cmdline options #RSYNC_OPTS="" /etc/rsync/rsyncd.conf : [portage] path=/usr/portage comment=Gentoo Portage uid=nobody gid=nobody exclude=distfiles packages # rc-update add rsyncd default + On clients /etc/make.conf : SYNC="rsync://servername/portage" Sharing the distfiles, e.g. using NFS which I do, is more tricky because you can't download sources for same package at the same time from two machines without borking your files. FWIW, I use a variant of the above. I have my own local distfiles mirror served with vsftpd, I rsync the portage tree to /mirrors/portage which is rsync'ed from by all machines including server and I share /usr/portage/distfiles with NFS. To document all that including everything that can go wrong would be like a dns+dhcp+ftp+rsync+nfs guide. Anyone out there who'd like to write it all? Maybe adding an extra section with something like my rsync in a nutshell from above in /doc/en/rsync.xml would do?
Would be fine for me.
OK. I'll add the aforementioned basic way to set up a local rsync against /usr/portage in the rsync.xml guide
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/rsync.xml now contains an extra chapter to help users set up their own local rsync mirror.
Shouldn't the docs mention the gentoo-rsync-mirror ebuild now that it is fixed? (See bug 52666) I still see no mention of the package, I found it very helpful. If there still are reasons why it shouldn't be used, shouldn't they be mentioned in the official mirror doc?
Added. Thanks.
